‘The Thing On The Roof’ – Robert E. Howard


Page Count: Ten and a bit pages.

Work tried to swamp me yesterday… I say ‘tried’, sometimes the best thing you can do when you’re in danger of being overwhelmed is to take a step back and say, ‘nope, there’s nothing here that can’t wait until tomorrow’. Or in my case, Monday ;o)

So that’s why you didn’t hear from me yesterday. I did make time for a little reading though; I’m still trying to read stuff by Robert E. Howard that isn’t ‘Conan’ (there are some big gaps in my ‘Conan’ reading but that’s one for another time) and some poring over my bookshelves led me to ‘The Thing On The Roof’.

‘The Thing On The Roof’ was originally published in ‘Weird Tales’ back in February 1932. I found it in my copy of ‘The Dark Man Omnibus Volume 2’ but it’s also in ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard’ (amongst other collections, I’m sure). If you’re more about e-reading, there is a copy available on Project Gutenberg. With all that said then, lets have a little chat about ‘The Thing On The Roof’.

Von Junzt’s ‘Nameless Cults’ hints at treasure to be found in the Temple of the Toad. For those who read on a little further though, the book carries a dire warning about something else lurking in the temple. Tussman was so eager to find the treasure that he didn’t read on. By the end of the evening though, he will have cause to wish that he did…

Cursed treasure and a painful end for a thoughtless tomb robber… Where have I heard that before? It’s fair to say that Howard isn’t really doing anything new here with ‘The Thing On The Roof’ but what he does do is done very well and that’s the whole point. You may know what’s coming but Howard’s little nods to a wider world outside our view, a far darker and more dangerous world (that will kill the meddler and the unwary, really flesh out the background and build an atmosphere of dread. You may know what’s coming… But there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Nowhere is that more evident than in the way that Howard masterfully hides Tussman’s nemesis practically in plain sight, with our narrator hearing it and believing it to be something else entirely. It’s coming and the tension continues to grow, making the Tussman’s end all the more powerful.

‘The Thing On The Roof’ is worth searching out if you can. It’ll take you all of ten minutes to read and it’s definitely time well spent.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘The Long and Hungry Road’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Black Library)

Image
After not finishing ‘Witchbringer’ (not the book’s fault, I still think it could be worth your time), I thought I’d change pace a little and go for a short, sharp burst of something instead. Something that would blow a few cobwebs away and wake me up a bit :o) Now in my experience, there’s nothing shorter and sharper than a Warhammer short story so that was the direction of my reading taken care of. And as far as the focus went… I’ve read a few Warhammer tales, in my time, but I’ve never read a tale that looks at the events of the 41st Millennium through the eyes of the rapacious Tyranids. So when I saw ‘The Long and Hungry Road’ on Amazon, it pretty much chose itself. To face a Tyranid invasion is a waking nightmare. The skies darken with spores, your mind echoes with alien screeches, and countless weapon-organisms descend upon you with razor teeth and claws. How much greater would your horror be, to realise that the hive ship above thinks nothing of your fate – that it crushes you
Read more

'Mad God' (2021)

Image
It's that time again where Youtube throws me a 'Shudder' advert and I think to myself, 'I'm paying five quid a month for this, I really should watch something, lets give it a go...'   This time round, 'It' was the film 'Mad God' and the trailer was this mad batshit crazy shot of stop-motion horror that was over before I'd had a chance to get my head round it; leaving me pretty unsettled but with no clear idea just why that was... That's all I need sometimes, I was in... It's almost an hour later and, damn, that was grim, bleak and... What the hell just happened? A corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city and the Assassin emerges from it to explore a labyrinth of bizarre landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens. That is about all I can tell you about 'Mad God' and that's only because I had a quick look on IMDB and that was all IMDB could tell me... 'Mad God' is any number of things but it's not
Read more

‘Worms of the Earth’ – Robert E. Howard.

Image
Page Count: 27 Pages I have a copy of this on my shelf and the plan was to pick it up for a read on the way into work this morning. Well, that was the plan but I was half asleep, leaving the house, and totally forgot… No matter though, that’s what the Kindle app is for (although if I’d been a little more awake, I’d have read it off Project Gutenberg instead, you can find ‘Worms of the Earth’ Here ). 99p later and my ‘commute reading’ was secured 😉 I always seem to fall into the trap of just reading ‘Conan’ stuff whenever I fancy reading a little Howard. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that there’s a lot of his other stories out there that are more than worth your time when you come across them. ‘Worms of the Earth’ is very much one of those tales but you knew that already, didn’t you? You didn’t? You should do something about that, take it from me… After witnessing one of his subjects die at the hands of Roman governor Titus Sulla, Bran Mak Morn vows vengeance on Sulla but at w
Read more