‘The Horror from the Mound’ – Robert E. Howard

Page Count: 32 Pages

I never really got the hang of RSS readers, and all that, so the other day, I just did what I normally do, grabbed a whole load of posts from the blogroll of ‘We Learn By Writing’ (a favourite blog of mine) and read through them over breakfast. I really wish that I could remember which of those blogs featured a post on ‘The Horror from the Mound’ now… I’m trying to read more of Howard’s short stories, that aren’t Conan, and figured that I’d give ‘The Horror from the Mound’ a go. One Kindle purchase later...  I really enjoyed it but have no idea who to thank for the recommendation… Oh well, I’m here now so why don’t I tell you about it anyway ;o) Quick thoughts are once again the order of the day, ‘The Horror from the Mound’ is only thirty two pages long and as ever, I’ve got a stack of work to catch up with in the morning…

‘Steve Brill did not believe in ghosts or demons, Juan Lopez did. But neither the caution of of the one nor the sturdy skepticism of the other was shield against the horror that fell upon them – the horror forgotten by men for more than three hundred years – a screaming fear monstrously resurrected from the black lost ages.’

I’d normally post a little blurb but wanted to share that opening passage with you guys because, well… just read it again. The sense of inevitability is palpable; it doesn’t matter whether Steve didn’t believe in ghosts while Juan did, something was coming for them, a ‘screaming fear’ nonetheless, and there was nothing they can do. I’ll be honest, just reading that opening paragraph makes me want to read the story all over again, that’s how good Howard is here.

And the rest of this tale is just as good. I was always going to read the whole thing but the deeper into ‘The Horror’ I got, the more I realised that I didn’t have much of a choice. With two pretty big questions being asked (what is in the mound and could Brill and Lopez fight it off…?), there’s a lot to hook the reader, I had to keep going.

And fair play to Howard for taking what looks like a fairly straightforward piece and throwing in a couple of surprises along the way. I couldn’t help but try and fill in what I thought were some gaps, only to find out we were being taken in another direction entirely. And there’s one moment where Steve Brill and I had the same reaction to a very sudden jump scare, damn that caught me out…

A rich vein of horror runs through ‘The Horror from the Mound’ then and Howard works it like a master; which he was, lets be fair. I’ve got a couple of other collections of Howard’s horror work, that still need to be unpacked, and I’m going to have to go looking for them now. ‘The Horror from the Mound’ is definitely worth a read if you happen to come across it. Actually, you can read it over Here (the Kindle version was ok but had a couple of typos). You're welcome ;o)