The Iron Man
by Robert E. Howard 
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This early work by Robert E. Howard was originally published in 1930 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Iron Man' is one of Howard's short stories about the sport of boxing. Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard - a bookish and somewhat introverted child - was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South. At fifteen Howard began to read show more the pulp magazines of the day, and to write more seriously. The December 1922 issue of his high school newspaper featured two of his stories, 'Golden Hope Christmas' and 'West is West'. In 1924 he sold his first piece - a short caveman tale titled 'Spear and Fang' - for $16 to the not-yet-famous Weird Tales magazine. Howard's most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, was a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago. Conan featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936 which is why Howard is now regarded as having spawned the 'sword and sorcery' genre. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
“The Iron Man” is one of the longer short stories by the Great Robert E. Howard. I was thinking this would be another Steve Costigan tale, but instead it’s narrated by a boxing trainer, called Steve, and one of the featured boxers’ surname is Costigan.
Anyway, this is quite different to the other fight tales I’ve read. It’s a more rounded story, as opposed to featuring bits here and there added to an epic punch-up.
Mike Brennon is the man dubbed as “The Iron Man”, owing to his ability to withstand a barrage of punches from the best of fighters. Yet he has no real boxing style – he’s more like a street fighter, but this and his ability to battle through anything brings him fame and money.
Part of the mystery is why show more Iron Mike (wonder if Mike Tyson’s read this) goes through such pain after making plenty of money, plus why is he so secretive about how he spends it? He never appears in public like a man of quality.
On the whole this is pretty good. show less
Anyway, this is quite different to the other fight tales I’ve read. It’s a more rounded story, as opposed to featuring bits here and there added to an epic punch-up.
Mike Brennon is the man dubbed as “The Iron Man”, owing to his ability to withstand a barrage of punches from the best of fighters. Yet he has no real boxing style – he’s more like a street fighter, but this and his ability to battle through anything brings him fame and money.
Part of the mystery is why show more Iron Mike (wonder if Mike Tyson’s read this) goes through such pain after making plenty of money, plus why is he so secretive about how he spends it? He never appears in public like a man of quality.
On the whole this is pretty good. show less
Three easy-reading stories, not merely in the boxing-genre ("fistics") but of a specific kind - the boxer who survives on endurance alone, the man who can take a beating, the precursors to "Rocky".
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Author Information
1,891+ Works 32,150 Members
Robert E. Howard was born in Peaster, Texas on January 22, 1906. At the beginning of his writing career, he primarily wrote pulp fiction and had numerous stories published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales including Spear and Fang, The Hyena, Wolfshead, Red Shadows, and The Shadow Kingdom. He created the character of Conan the Barbarian in the show more pages of Weird Tales. By 1936, almost all of his fiction writing was in the western genre and his first novel, A Gent from Bear Creek, was about to be published. He committed suicide on June 11, 1936 at the age of 30. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Robert E. Howard has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- The iron man
- Original publication date
- 1976
- People/Characters
- Mike Brennon; Jack Maloney; Kirby Karnes
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 146
- Popularity
- 223,501
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.65)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 10
