Robert E. Howard 43 min read

The fisherman loosens his knife on the ruined isle of Xapur, though what he fears is nothing a blade can slay, and among the broken columns of a vanished state, an ancient evil stirs.

Robert E. Howard's 1934 story is a vivid, atmospheric Conan sword-and-sorcery adventure. Savage, eerie, superbly told. Read it for prime Conan, the Cimmerian drawn to a haunted island where a demon out of the dawn of time has been roused, and a beautiful captive awaits, from the master of heroic fantasy.

In its time

Published in 1934, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

43 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).