One book, one comic, and two short stories this month.
Robert E. Howard Changed My Life: Personal Essays about an Extraordinary Legacy, edited by Jason M. Walz. (Rogue Blades Foundation, 2021)
I picked this up during Robert E. Howard Days 2026. It was my first time making the pilgrimage to Cross Plains, Texas, and I had a fantastic time. I have a blog post that I’m working on about my experiences there but it’s taking longer than expected to finish it. Hopefully soon.
This is a collection of over thirty essays about how people discovered Howard and how he inspired them. It includes essays by Robert E. Howard Days founders Rusty Burke and Bill “Indy” Cavalier as well as from authors such as Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Oden, Nancy Collins, Roy Thomas, Howard Andrew Jones, Charles R. Saunders, and Michael Moorcock. Although a lot of the essays are written by authors, there are essays by those in other professions as. While I enjoyed some essays more than others, I got something out of all of them. As a Howard fan, I found it quite interesting reading how everyone first encountered him, the variety of characters that they were drawn to, and the different ways Howard’s work made an impact on them. In a way, it was an extension of the experience I had at Robert E. Howard Days 2026.
Rating: 5/5
Comics
I broke down and bought another single issue…
Conan and Dragonero #2. Written by Luca Enoch and Stefano Veitti, art by Lorenzo Nuti. (Titan Comics, July 2026)
This is the second issue of the Conan and Italian fantasy character Dragonero crossover. After escaping from the cell he was put in last issue, Conan joins Dragonero on a flying ship only for them to run into a new threat. This issue definitely feels more epic fantasy than sword and sorcery. I liked the art and the issue did a good job of moving the story forward, but as it was such a quick read I’m thinking of sticking to my usual plan of reading the trade.
Rating: 3/5
Short Stories
After a friend recently recommended “The Word of Unbinding” by Ursula Le Guin to me, I decided to read it as Le Guin is one of my favorite authors but I still haven’t read much of her work. I wound up reading it and another story as they are the first stories Le Guin wrote set in her Earthsea world. The stories are available in a collection titled The Wind’s Twelve Quarters.
“The Word of Unbinding”
A wizard awakes to find that he has been imprisoned by another wizard. After his attempts to escape keep ending in failure, he realizes that he will need to do something quite drastic in order to escape. Quite original and very moving. It’s amazing what Le Guin accomplished in a short story.
Rating: 4/5
“The Rule of Names”
A mysterious man shows up on an island with a local wizard that isn’t very good at his job. We soon learn that all is not as it seems and things get complicated. I was blown away by the ending.
Rating: 5/5
Le Guin introduced a lot of concepts in these two stories that she would later flesh out in her Earthsea novels. I read the first one a few years ago and really liked it but I never continued with the other books. I may have to jump back in soon.
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