Robert E. Howard 2 hr 11 min read

The horror first takes form amid the most unconcrete of things, a hashish dream, as something reaches across the unknown voids, tearing at the curtains of illusion to intrude upon the visions.

Robert E. Howard's 1929 Weird Tales serial is an atmospheric fantasy-horror thriller of a sinister mastermind. Vivid, feverish, superbly told. Read it for pulp Howard in full cry, a Fu-Manchu-flavored tale of a dread ancient villain, told through opium haze and mounting terror.

In its time

Published in 1929, during the 1920s, the pulp era proper.

Reading it

2 hr 11 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Hugh Rankin