I obtained a new work on Solomon Kane by Fred Blosser: The Solomon Kane Companion.
It’s a new addition to his “Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard” series from Pulp Hero Press. This brings this series to six volumes.
I wish that I had this when I was doing my reading of the Solomon Kane series recently. This work is a little over 200 pages.
This work is also illustrated, and I believe both the cover and interior art are AI-generated. My only complaint is that I like seeing Kane with his mystical staff, which is absent.
We get several chapters that delve into Solomon Kane and his world. We start off with a brief chapter on his creation and then one on his swordsmanship. Next up are four chapters that break up the Kane stories into a series of phases. Then we get chapters on the women in the stories, on the supernatural foes Kane faced, and then the human foes he faced. Next are his friends. We then get into some of the locations of the stories, more precisely, the “haunted places” and lost cities.
There are a couple of associated stories connected to the Kane series, and we learn about those, as well as the untold stories. The adventures and events are hinted at in the published stories.
The connections between Solomon Kane and Atlantis are covered in another chapter. For me, I’ve never felt that the Atlantis presented in Kane is the same one as in Kull. Another chapter gets into the eldritch horrors that Kane dealt with. A more speculative chapter examines who Kane could have met.
Finally, we look at another Robert E. Howard character that seems inspired by Solomon Kane, Hernando de Guzman, who appeared in only one story, “Nekht Semerkeht,” written shortly before Howard’s death.
There are also several appendices. One goes into the comicbook series from Marvel and Dark Horse. As these series included both adaptations of Howard’s stories as well as pastiches, only the adaptations are delved into.
We also get both a concordance and a chronology of Kane. A listing of the essential volumes containing Kane is provided, as well as other works to delve into on this character. Finally, we get a reprint of “Red Shadow,” the first Kane story from Weird Tales.
This is another great volume on REH’s creations. My only complaint is that the page numbering on the table of contents is messed up. But that doesn’t prevent this from being a good work. Pulp Hero Press has also finally gotten a proper website that lists all of its current offerings. If you want to see what else they have published, check it out.
Your comments