El Borak and Other Desert Adventures

Zusatztext “Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”—Stephen King “Howard had a gritty! vibrant style—broadsword writing that cut its way to the heart! with heroes who are truly larger than life.”—David Gemmell  “For stark! living fear . . . what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?”—H. P. Lovecraft Informationen zum Autor Robert E. Howard was born January 22, 1906, southwest of Fort Worth. His father, a country physician, moved the family around Texas before settling in the small town of Cross Plains in 1919. While in high school, Howard began submitting stories to magazines, and Weird Tales magazine accepted Spear and Fang . Solomon Kane was the first of his continuing characters to see print; others included King Kull and Bran Mak Morn. Howard tried detective fiction, horror, and Paul Bunyanesque tales, then in 1933, Weird Tales introduced Conan the Cimmerian. In 1935 his mother was admitted to the King's Daughters Hospital. Told she would never recover, he committed suicide in 1936. Klappentext Illustrated throughout by Eisner Award nominee Bradstreet and by Jim and Ruth Keegan! this complete collection of Howard's desert adventures features the wily El Borak! one of Howard's very first creations. Swords of the Hills Chapter One It was the stealthy clink of steel on stone that wakened Gordon. In the dim starlight a shadowy bulk loomed over him and something glinted in the lifted hand. Gordon went into action like a steel spring uncoiling. His left hand checked the descending wrist with its curved knife, and simultaneously he heaved upward and locked his right hand savagely on a hairy throat. A gurgling gasp was strangled in that throat and Gordon, resisting the other’s terrific plunges, hooked a leg about his knee and heaved him over and underneath. There was no sound except the rasp and thud of straining bodies. Gordon fought, as always, in grim silence, and no sound came from the straining lips of the man beneath. His right hand writhed in Gordon’s grip; his left tore futilely at the wrist whose iron fingers drove deeper and deeper into the throat they grasped. That wrist felt like a mass of woven steel wires to the weakening fingers that clawed at it. Grimly Gordon maintained his position, driving all the power of his compact shoulders and corded arms into his throttling fingers. He knew it was his life or that of the man who had crept up to stab him in the dark. In that unmapped corner of the Afghan mountains all fights were to the death. The tearing fingers relaxed. A convulsive shudder ran through the great body straining beneath the American; then it went limp. Gordon slid off the corpse, in the deeper shadow of the great rocks among which he had been sleeping. Instinctively he felt under his arm to see if the precious package for which he had staked his life was still safe. Yes, it was there, that flat bundle of papers wrapped in oiled silk, that meant life or death to thousands. He listened. No sound broke the stillness. About him the slopes with their ledges and boulders rose gaunt and black in the starlight. It was the darkness before the dawn. But he knew that men moved about him, out there among the rocks. His ears, whetted by years in wild places, caught stealthy sounds – the soft rasp of cloth over stones, the faint shuffle of sandalled feet. He could not see them, and he knew they could not see him, among the clustered boulders he had chosen for his sleeping site. His left hand groped for his rifle, and he drew his revolver with his right. That short, deadly fight had made no more noise than the silent knifing of a sleeping man might have made. Doubtless his stalkers out yonder were awaiting some signal from the man they had sent in to murder their victim. Gordon knew who these men were. He knew th...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Robert E. Howard
• Editore: Del Rey
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 09.02.2010
• EAN: 9780345505453
• ISBN: 978-0-345-50545-3
• Pagine: 592
• Dimensioni: 158 mm x 234 mm x 30 mm
• Categoria: Narrativa > Science Fiction, Fantasy