Cormac Mac Art [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert E. Howard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

Cormac Mac Art: Warrior, renegade, pirate, and outcast; a Celtic barbarian hero, facing the monarchs and monsters of an age dark with ancient evil. Epic fantasy by the creator of Conan.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Linda Howard is an award-winning author whose New York Times bestsellers include Open Season, All the Queen?s Men, Mr. Perfect, Kill and Tell, and Son of the Morning. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two golden retrievers.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Baen; All 1st Printings edition (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671876511
• ISBN-13: 978-0671876517
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,510,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

(1906-1936) Robert Erwin Howard was born and rasied in rural Texas, where he lived all his life. The son of a pioneer physician, he began writing professionally at the age of fifteen. Howard killed himself in June 1936 when he learned that his beloved mother had fallen into a coma.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Baen lot, January 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Cormac Mac Art (Mass Market Paperback)

I recently purchased several REH books published by Baen - Kull, Solomon Kane, Cormac Mac Art and Bran mak Morn. I am reading Bran at the moment, and enjoying it, - so this review may be a bit premature, but I enjoyed Cormac the best.

Cormac is definitely in the mold of Conan et al, and the stories are immensely readable. There is a tangible excitement expressed here for a life of danger, plunder, and guile. For those moments that you are reading, you too are living a life of adventure!

For rovers, these characters show a bit of chivalry and compassion. I enjoyed the repartee between Wulfhere and Cormac. Their relationship breathes a bit of life into what might otherwise be flat, mechanical characters. (Not that most readers of this genre expect character development.)

I highly recommend the REH stories. The 4 stars are for the book overall - DD's story at the beginning suffers from violent, irrational, cardboard characters. It was a mistake on Baen's part to put his pastiche first...

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beware the Drake!, August 28, 2003

By 

Malcolm Robinson (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cormac Mac Art (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read a lot of Robert E. Howard (the entire Conan series and some of the BAEN series) and Cormac Mac Art, an Irish pirate, is probably one of his best characters, although many of his stories are incomplete. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough complete material to fill this book, so David Drake (another fantasy author) took it upon himself to write a full length story in the style of Howard, as well as completing one of Howard's unfinished stories. I usually don't mind when outside authors try to finish, edit, or emulate Howard's work (as was done successfully by Carter and DeCamp with the Conan series) but in this case, the results were unsatisfactory and very un-Howard. It's almost as if the characters of an existing (and rather boring) fantasy story were re-named as "Cormac" and "Wulfhere". Even less fortunate is the fact the Drake's story is the first in this volume, and without reading the introduction one might believe that it is actually Robert E. Howard's work, and thus throw away the book before getting to the good stuff.

Contrary to what some of the other reviewers have said, there are TWO complete stories by Howard in this book. What remains is either incomplete, or created by Drake. Here's a summary which should clear up any confusion regarding this issue.

1.) THE LAND TOWARD THE SUNSET (David Drake)
2.) TIGERS OF THE SEA (Robert E. Howard, completed by David Drake)
3.) SWORDS OF THE NORTHERN SEA (Robert E. Howard, Complete)
4.) THE NIGHT OF THE WOLF (Robert E. Howard, Complete)
5.) THE TEMPLE OF ABOMINATION (Robert E. Howard, Fragment)

I strongly suggest that you SKIP THE FIRST STORY if you want to experience the real Cormac Mac Art, unadulterated by foreign pens.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Little of this is Howard, the rest is Drake; buyer beware, July 2, 2005

By 

P. McKenzie "civet5285" (Ashburn, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cormac Mac Art (Mass Market Paperback)

there are only two complete Howard stories in this volume, with one complete Drake story, one uncompleted Howard story completed by Drake, and an unfinished Howard story with completed synopsis. I've got nothing particular against Drake, but in this genre he is an inferior writer, and there is nothing in the information given about this book by Amazon to make clear how little of it is Howard. Unless you read the intro, and a small blurb in the front cover itself, you won't know how little of this is Howard. The book should have been listed as written by David Drake, Robert E Howard, and edited by Glenn Lord. Yes, it's not expensive, but here you get what you pay for. Buyer beware, and shame on Baen for whoring on Howard's work without disclosing the true content of a volume.