Pigeons from Hell

This one took me longer to get through, simply because, though it was recognizably REH, it was not a great representation of his best work.

You'll only find one Conan story in here, and a mention of Bran Mak Morn, and other than that, it's various other stories he wrote. Now, personally, I don't care who he's writing about, I tend to enjoy his stuff.

But this collection...

There's a fair amount of racism here. And that on its own, while deplorable, was also very much of the times. I'm not saying that gives it a pass, and hey, he was tight with Lovecraft. So, it's there. Along with almost every black man trying to kill a white guy, there's also a fair share of other races doing the same. From Orientals to Native Americans, ain't no one as show more good as, or as tough as a good old white man. Howard is imminently better when he's writing about purely imagined races.

There is also the usual women there primarily to be an object of sexual desire, but also to feed the hero that one piece of information he needs to overcome. Or, you know, they're out to destroy the hero. Women come in two flavours in Howard's stories...sexy or bitchy.

But the things that I found got to me in this collection was the repetitive nature of some of the stories (at least three are more modern men who dream about events that happened deep in the past when they were bigger and meaner). The names John and James and Conrad and Kirby come up more often than they should in various stories that are not interrelated. And there's a hell of a lot of spelling/grammatical errors here as well.

Overall, if this collection is picked up, it's probably best to space reading the stories out over a longer period of time, so the repetitiveness doesn't clog your brain. show less

Typical Robert E, Howard fare, by which I mean excellent story-telling and in a straight-forward, no-nonsense style!

The title story of this collection is a very effective "haunted house" horror story - very creepy. Funnily enough, I was listening to the Pretenders' song, Back on the Chain Gang last night and realised that this story is most likely the source of a lyric that has always puzzled me: Got in the house like a pigeon from Hell: surely that phrase couldn't have occurred to two people independently! I'm still not sure how it relates to the rest of the song, though.

Anyway, the rest of the stories are a mixture of historical adventures, atavistic throw-backs, Cthulhu Mythos and Western horrors. He uses the motif of a modern man show more haunted by the memories of an ancient ancestor several times in this collection, which is probably a reflection of the time pressures he was under to create stories to meet deadlines for his magazine publisher. However, the stories themselves are sufficiently different that the reuse of this plot device can be forgiven.

I was really looking forward to reading the story that featured the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Pterosaur which grace the cover of my edition, but they don't make an appearance within - what a gyp!

I've got a number of other REH books which I've had shelved To Read for the last 15-20 years or so. This year may well be the year when I make some headway into them! show less

A collection of Howard's pulp stories - no Conan or Cormac here, just the stuff he eked out a living with. Dripping with racism, too, but in the pulp fiction of the 1920's and 30's that's not uncommon. Most of the stories are just so-so - lot's of cardboard characters and purple prose, but most have a certain charm. And it's interesting to see the flirtation with Lovecraft's Elder Gods, Arkham University and even the Necronomicon. Worth a read if you're interested in Howard, Lovecraft or pulps.

Note: There are no dinosaurs in this book. But you'll never hear me complain about a Jeff Jones cover.

This is a collection of horror and sword & sorcery, along with a couple western tales with a Serling-esque twist. But the particular selection of stories does not give the reader a feeling of variety.

I'll start with the good. The title story is a classic. Two travelers take refuge in an abandoned house, but find that they aren't alone. I'd read an excellent [b:graphic adaptation|863754|Pigeons from Hell|Scott Hampton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1241520364s/863754.jpg|60636888] of this story a while back but this is the first time I've read the original prose, and it's still quite creepy.

The other story I really liked was "The show more Thing on the Roof", a perhaps familiar tale of a man who has taken something that doesn't belong to him from an ancient tomb. Familiar, but well-told in this case. This one was a nice surprise, as it was somehow omitted from the table of contents. (This edition is riddled with typographical errors.)

In "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth", two bitter enemies are forced to hold a truce when they are shipwrecked alone on an island of savages.

There are no less than three stories in which a modern man enters a fugue state and dreams that he is a powerful warrior from a distant time (one of which is Conan), with confusion about which is the real life and which is the dream. I don't know why the editor would have chosen so many examples of this device (and placed two of them consecutively), but it gives the impression that the author recycles ideas often. Anyway, Lovecraft did this much better over a decade earlier in "Polaris".

Speaking of Lovecraft, Howard borrows freely from his style in a number of these pieces, even using similar names. But he's not as good.

Despite my lukewarm reaction to this collection, I do plan to explore more of Howard's work, while hoping for more of the caliber of "Pigeons From Hell." show less

Pigeons From Hell by Robert E. Howard This short story was a blast! It's been recommended to me many times and I've always been too busy to work it in. Being on the front edge of a reading slump, and usually having good luck with short stories to get me out of it, I decided to finally read this classic.  It's short, sweet and scary. What more could you want?
 

"He began to feel that he would go mad if he did not leap to his feet, screaming, and burst frenziedly out of that accursed house-not even the fear of the gallows could keep him lying there in the darkness any longer..."
 

What could possibly scare a grown man so? You'll have to read this and find out.
 
Highly recommended!
 
Edited to add: Here's a link to get the story free and show more legally: 
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1793/pigeons-from-hell show less

Review from Badelynge
First published in 1938 not long after R.E.Howard's suicide, Pigeons from Hell is a Gothic Horror tale set in the deep south of the USA. Two friends decide to spend the night in an abandoned old plantation house. The story eschews the more traditional slow build of atmosphere and tension, choosing instead to scare the pants off you in the first few pages. It certainly succeeds. The rest of the story's fear is generated by apprehension about returning to the old deserted house that has already demonstrated its terrors. It is superbly told and very creepy. It also features one of Howard's recurring characters Kirby Buckner. If I was assembling a reading list to use for developing a horror writing style I'd certainly show more think about including this one. show less

Wow! One of the best pulp/horror stories I have EVER read. Nice twisty ending. I'm going to pick up Howard's entire horror collection.

ps. I picked this up as a free e-book on the internet. Dinosaurs have nothing to with the story as the illustration above implies. Just axe hatchets, snakes, wolves, staircases, whistling entities, voodoo and Pigeons (from hell)!