‘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.

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