‘The Haunter of the Ring’ – Robert E. Howard

 


Page Count: 12 Pages

‘It turns out that if I’d actually read ‘The Haunter of the Ring’, I’d know that we’re looking at three REH adaptations in one ongoing ‘Scourge of the Serpent’ tale. I really need to read ‘The Haunter of the Ring’ now…’

That’s what I said, at the end of last year, when I realised that there was yet another gap in my ‘REH Reading’. Well; it took me a little longer than planned to get round to addressing that but last night, ‘got round to it’ I finally did ;o) I’m reading a lot of ‘Warhammer 40K’, at the moment, and while that’s not a bad thing, I do need to vary things a little bit. ‘The Haunter of the Ring’ popped into my head at just the right time.

If you’re looking to read ‘The Haunter of the Ring’ yourself (and no surprises but I think you really should), you can find it in ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard’ (Del Rey) or if you like your eBooks, on Project Gutenberg. I found it in the ‘Necronomicon’ collection (which I’d been meaning to pick up anyway) and that’s what I settled down with last night.

O’Donnel is called to the home of John Kirowan where he finds another friend of his already there. James Gordon, happily married to Evelyn until now. This last week, Evelyn has tried to kill her husband three times but cannot remember any of them. Could it have something to do with the strange ring that she was given as a belated wedding present…?

It’s no spoiler to say that yes, it has everything to do with the ring; the title is a pretty big giveaway ;o) The real fun here though, lies in Howard’s framing of the mystery and how he leads us to the final showdown. Poor James Gordon has no idea why Evelyn keeps trying to kill him, only that it can happen at any time without warning. Poor Evelyn doesn’t even know that much, all she knows is that she returns to her senses to find James injured. It’s a real mystery then and Howard presents it in such a way that I was hooked right away. No-one knows what’s going on and Gordon fears for his life. It takes some shrewd detective work (and the kind of happy luck you get in a good pulp tale), from Kirowan, to swiftly disprove Gordon’s notions (of being punished for sins committed in a past life) and move on to the final confrontation with the villain of the piece.

At only 12 pages long, you don’t really have time to do anything but believe that Kirowan knows his stuff and is able to defeat the villain with little more than some quick wits. Luckily, with REH at the helm, it’s very easy to get behind Kirowan and cheer him on, especially with the little hints of his past that we are given. I’d certainly read more of his tales. Howard’s sense of timing and pacing is just impeccable, the plot flows very smoothly and is given fresh impetus exactly when it is needed. What I really got a lot out of though was that sense of cosmic horror but also how it all ties in to an over arching narrative that stretches back literally thousands of years. I love the fact that I could pick up an REH tale that I’ve never read and see how it fits in to something a lot larger in scope.

Definitely worth a look then, more proof that Robert E. Howard was a master storyteller and we’re
lucky to have had him for the time that we did.

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