Customer Reviews

Almuric (Vintage Ace SF, 01750)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Almuric is one of the best fantasy stories ever written by Robert E. Howard. It is also one of the few full length fantasy novels he wrote, most of his stories were shorts for pulp magazines of his time.

The story is set on a distant world, Almuric, where a human from earth takes refuge. He braves the hardships of this new world and has many dealings with its peoples and races.

At around 250 pages, I recommend all lovers of fantasy to pick this one up!

Robert E. Howard remains one of my favorite authors and it remains one of the great tragedies in literature that he killed himself at such a young age. I've read the bulk of his work and love most of it, but even REH can produce a stinker or two. He also occasionally could be highly derivative and average, particularly when he was writing outside the area of fantasy.

Unfortunately, "Almuric" is one of those derivative, average works, even though it is essentially a sci fi-fantasy tale. It also holds the distinction of being his only true novel, even though he did produce a few other novel length works, notably "The Hour of the Dragon" (a/k/a "Conan the Conqueror").

Now, I realize I'm in the minority on this opinion, and I think if you check my other reviews of REH's work you'll find I'm definitely not a Howard-hater. I truly love most of the man's work. Heck, as a kid he inspired nearly everything I wrote and, yes, as a kid I ripped him off a lot!

But throughout this work I kept thinking of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars" series and found this book to be a rehash of a lot of Burroughs' work. To it's credit, the novel is still entertaining and interesting. And, hey, on his worst day REH was still a superior writer to 90 percent of other writers, particularly the hacks who haunt the fantasy and science fiction shelves these days.

So I do recommend it, just be forewarned that if you've read any of the "John Carter" books, there may be a slight sense of déjà vu.

My sediments are same as Joe R. Lansdale-award-winning author of "Conan and the Songs of the Dead"; "A few pages in and I was as hooked as bass on a handmade fly, right through the gills."

The person that said this story was derivative, meaning not original, is pure conjecture and inference. As far as being average I don't agree. It was outstanding! I took one break to read the 155 pages of Almuric. Joe Lansdale's introduction is fascinating with some surprises. "When Howard was writing Almuric, or the bulk of his tales, I don't doubt that he entered into a kind of trance that put him right where he was writing about. Made those worlds so real to him that they became real to us." I believe this, too. REH was a genius and his writings are etched forever endless in time accumulating vast new readers and fans each and every day.

Highly recommend The Last of the Trunk by Paul Herman of REH Foundation that published the remaining writings of REH. The Last of the trunk transcripts were furnished by Glenn Lord. A few of these untitled stories and manuscripts tell about a man going back in time and one going ahead in time to the year 2000. It's an awesome book and a must have to learn more about REH.

Recommend the following: Blood & Thunder, The Life & Art of REH by Mark Finn, One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price who was REH's girlfriend, The Barbaric Triumph and The Dark Barbarian by Don Herron, Two-Gun Bob, Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, Kull, Steve Costigan, The Black Stranger and other american tales which has the scariest story ever called Pigeons From Hell, Dark Horse Conan comics, Marvel 60's Mag of Conan, Weird Tales and Works of REH, Lord of Samarcand, Crimson Shadows Best of REH 1 & 2, and The Star Rover by Jack London which had a huge influence on REH.

Each year around the time REH passed Jun 13 & 14 is REH days at Cross Plains, TX. REH Foundation has more info on the net. Tell others about REH and if you've never read his stories before you're in for a real treat. A few of my favorites are Rogues in the House, Red Nails, Pigeons From Hell, The People of the Black Circle, and Beyond The Black River which would be an awesome movie that I envision Mel Gibson directing. Check out the REH Foundation and Forum!

After many years of neglecting my decades old pulp addiction, Almuric arrived on my doorstep. I was halfway through a different book, but I put it down to read this one in two days. What a refreshment! Howard's visions are just a blast to read. Mighty thews, lopping of the heads of your depraved enemies while seducing the ivory skinned fair maidens of an alien planet....this book is just plain FUN!

A sword and planet adventure in the Burroughs tradition. If you like that sort of thing I am pretty sure you will like this one.

Of the protagonist:

"Esau Cairn was, in short, a freak--a
man whose physical body and mental bent leaned back to the primordial.

Born in the Southwest, of old frontier stock, he came of a race
whose characteristics were inclined toward violence, and whose
traditions were of war and feud and battle against man and nature. The
mountain country in which he spent his boyhood carried out the
tradition. Contest--physical contest--was the breath of life to him.
Without it he was unstable and uncertain. Because of his peculiar
physical make-up, full enjoyment in a legitimate way, in the ring or
on the football field was denied him. His career as a football player
was marked by crippling injuries received by men playing against him,
and he was branded as an unnecessarily brutal man, who fought to maim
his opponents rather than win games. This was unfair. The injuries
were simply resultant from the use of his great strength, always so
far superior to that of the men opposed to him. Cairn was not a great
sluggish lethargic giant as so many powerful men are; he was vibrant
with fierce life, ablaze with dynamic energy. Carried away by the lust
of combat, he forgot to control his powers, and the result was broken
limbs or fractured skulls for his opponents."

Desperate for a place to fit in he gets himself transported to another world by a man who now recounts his story.

And a dangerous place it is to arrive with nothing.

Needless to say, he gets over that, and soon swords, warriors, winged she-devils, evil queens and more are all over the place as he gets into trouble and doing some good that Conan himself would certainly be happy to have been involved in.

There are bad, violent, torturing things to be overthrown, and Esau Cairn is the man to lead the army to do it.


3.5 out of 5

The action starts early and about a third of the way through ramps to a fevered pace that never lets up as the hero is thrust into one bone-crushing, head splitting adventure after another. Almuric is a pageturner chock full of well crafted action, which alone makes it worthwhile, but what makes it memorable is the rich detail of the strange world and the powerful themes of life and living. At 155 pages it's a quick read and one you'll find hard to put down. A shame REH didn't live to write more stories from this great universe.

Almuric is the ultimate he-man pulp from Robert Howard in a tale so laden with testosterone that you don't read the story as much as it jumps off the page and gnaws on your leg for awhile.

Esau Cairn is a man who makes Conan the Barbarian look like a pantywaist. Escaping from a charge of murder, Esau finds a scientist who sends him on a one-way trip to a far-flung and primitive planet.

Much blood, gore, and grunting ensues.

Esau Cairn is a man born in the wrong age. His freakish strength, athletic prowess, and berserker tendencies only make him an outcast in modern society, where he eventually ends up on the wrong side of the law. So when a scientist who is a sympathetic friend offers him an escape to another planet, it seems like a good alternative to going down fighting.

Once on Almuric, Esau soon regresses to a savage state in order to survive the wild and untamed land. Before long, he runs across a barbaric race of Neanderthal-like men and fair women. Esau's fighting skills and untamable spirit win him a place among a clan and put him on the path to becoming a warrior-hero. Once Almuric gets rolling, it's chock-full of the raw action that nobody can do like Howard.

Almuric is a typical Robert E. Howard story, and is also typical of the time in which it was written. A he-man hero wins glory and saves the damsel in distress. The world of Almuric is populated by brutish cave-men, but somehow the females evolved to be no less than beautiful. The story is told in the first person by Esau, who is near-invulnerable and by no means modest.

Despite the lack of depth, Almuric appealed to me like most all of the late-great Bob Howard's stories. There is always a high level of entertainment value in a Howard yarn (even if it's in a guilty-pleasure, popcorn kind of way) and he should be acknowledged as one of the pioneers of fantasy. He greatly influenced the genre, both directly and indirectly.

Howard's work romanticizes barbarianism and by-gone ancient ages in which "men were men," so to speak. Almuric touches the core of his fascinations and is also autobiographical in a way. Esau Cairn was born in the wrong time, and Howard was known to say the same about himself. I got the sense that Almuric was like a personal daydream of Howard's.

I'll be the first to admit that maybe I read just a little too much into Howard's stuff, but for some reason I always feel like I just "get" what he was trying to say.

Robert E. Howard dabbled in just about every pulp literary genre there was, from horror to dark fantasy to western to hunting stories and boxing yarns. But I've come across very little science fiction produced by Howard over the years. And then I found Almuric.

Almuric follows the story of Esau Cairn, a human who, after killing a man, is transported by a mad scientist to the mysterious planet Almuric (don't ask how). There, Cairn's natural ferocity and instinct is tested in the wilds of this desperate land before he meets the barbaric inhabitants of the planet, who adopt him into their tribe after he is initiated in a savage battle-rite. From there, Cairn explores crumbling, abominable ruins, fights a cannibalistic race of bird-men, and faces 'weird' Lovecraftian perils.

I enjoyed Almuric because it is, essentially, unadulterated Howard, dwelling on his favorite topic, the virtues of barbarism vs. the decadence of civilization. This is, basically, action, romance and adventure, and would have made a terrific movie.

However, fans of the science-fantasy genre will note that this book is, essentially, a pastiche of Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars (Penguin Classics) (which, if you haven't read it, you must); additionally, the first chapter or so is essentially an abbreviated Tarzan of the Apes (Modern Library Classics). However, despite the great debt that Howard owes Burroughs, Almuric remains a fun, quick, exciting read that will thrill both the Howard fan as well as the devotee of sci-fi literature. Enjoy!

Other reviews have touched on the plot and setting, so I'll just skip to:

The Good
Almuric was the most-fun read I've had in a while. There was no epic backstory, no epic world details, no epic character development, and no epic waste of my time. Having slogged through some 300+ page novels recently (see some of my other reviews), the Planet Stories line has been a breath of fresh air. Almuric doesn't take itself too seriously, and the protagonist, while a bit over-the-top (OK, more than a little bit), was not very complex, and contributed to an excellent story that had continuous action, crazy monsters, an impossible enemy, and a little bit of heart.

The Bad
Not too much, really. The novel is what it is, so if you're looking for deep insight into the human condition - forget it. It's pure escapist fantasy.

4.25 stars!