‘The Black Stone’ – Robert E. Howard

I found ‘The Black Stone’ in the ‘Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos’ collection but it can also be found here and there online as well, Project Gutenberg is a good place to look. You’re welcome 😉 It was originally published in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales.

I’m in that place, once more, where I’ve got two or three books on the go but am nowhere near finishing any of them; one day I’ll learn to settle on just one book at a time but today (well, this week…) is not that time. I wanted to keep things ticking along though (feels like ages since I’ve made it through a whole week of posting) so I figured it was time for another short story to have its moment on the blog 😊  I always mean to read more of Robert E. Howard’s horror stories so when I saw ‘The Black Stone’ in ‘Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos’, my mind was made up for me…

Not content with having one of the few remaining copies of Friedrich von Junzt’s ‘Nameless Cults’, our narrator decides on a trip to Hungary, and the village of Stregoicavar, in order to establish the truth behind tales of a mysterious black stone that can drive men mad, or even to their death…

What he finds in the hills will alter his view of the world, forever…

If there’s one thing that the ‘Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos’ collection has taught me, it’s that while horror owes Lovecraft a mighty debt for his coining of ‘Cosmic Horror’, there are a number of authors who may be playing in Lovecraft’s sandbox but are coming up with stories that, for my money, are a lot better. I’m adding Robert E. Howard to that list. Howard was partial to a little cosmic horror in his ‘Conan’ stories and ‘The Black Stone’ sees him really cut loose and present the reader with a tale that is very much Lovecraft, and ‘Lovecraftian’, but is also very much Robert E. Howard at the same time.

I know that sounds a bit silly but I guess what I’m trying to get at is what Howard brings to the mythos and this story in particular. ‘The Black Stone’ gets to the point and with a language that I personally find more engaging. No messing about here, we may not be able to understand what lurks beneath the Earth but Howard knows that we can fully appreciate the more graphic nature of cosmic evil’s intrusion into our world… and he gives it to us with scenes that readers with children should approach with a little caution. I find Lovecraft to be a particularly dry writer, Howard is anything but and gives us a tale full of evil, and people battling evil, with a real sense of vigour that I found particularly refreshing in this setting.

The one thing I didn’t appreciate, or fully ‘get’, was that while Howard was great at setting the scene and delivering a tale to match, he seemed to let his narrator off the hook a little too easily for my liking. The least you’ll get from being around the Black Stone are nightmares for the rest of your life, the worst you’ll get is dying a hideous death. Not our narrator though who seems to come away with nothing more than a healthy fear of what might be living beneath the Earth and doesn’t seem to be recounting his tale either from an asylum or at the point of suicide. I get that Howard needed his narrator in a good place, to be able to tell his tale, but I think he got away with it to be honest. Maybe Howard isn’t quite in tune with the literary conventions of the Mythos? I don’t know… It’s a relatively minor quibble though as the rest of the story is very readable and easy to get immersed in.

Howard doesn’t quite stick the landing then but when ‘The Black Stone’ is in full flow, it’s a real sight to behold and I still think the delivery is better than Lovecraft’s. If you see this story, give it a read, it’s a good ‘lunch break’ read that you’ll get a lot out of.