PseudoPod

by Robert E. Howard

“The Horror From The Mound” was first published in WEIRD TALES, May 1932.

Most famous for inventing the modern sword & sorcery tale with his Conan stories, ROBERT E. HOWARD (1906-1936) often introduced horror elements as a threat in his short fiction but the evocation of supernatural dread is only incidental in most of his tales; the chronicling of titanic adventure is the primary purpose. When Howard later switched from fantasy to westerns, he made the transition with this story. Howard’s major horror genre reputation rests with three stories (sadly, all of which are a bit too long for the podcast): “Black Canaan” (Weird Tales, 1936) was praised by Lovecraft for its “genuine, regional background and its compelling picture of the horror that stalks through the moss-hung, shadow-cursed, serpent-ridden swamps of the American far south”; “Pigeons from Hell” (Weird Tales, 1938) was praised by Stephen King as “one of the finest horror stories of our century” and “Worms of the Earth” (Weird Tales, 1932) is thought by many Howard fans to be his best story. The Del Rey series of Howard’s collected fiction includes Horror, Historical Adventures and Desert Adventures, in addition to his better known Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane tales. Please see this site. More info on Howard can be found at the REH Foundation and Project Pride, the caretakers of the REH House and Museum in Cross Plains, TX.

Your reader – Anson Mount – should need no introduction, but just in case we hope you’ve been watching him on AMC’s HELL ON WHEELS. He was last heard on Pseudopod in the Artemis Rising episode Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by Kelly Link.

Anson’s audio producer is the impeccable Branan Edgans (whom you last heard reading on Pseudopod in The Influence Of Thomas Glittio. Dan Powell is a podcast producer, audio engineer and sound designer. He is one half of Dead Signals, the production team between found-footage horror podcast Archive 81 and their more recent sci-fi adventure story, The Deep Vault. He can be tweeted @stereophobe.

And we would also like to thank Chris and Rob at BrickShop Audio in Industry City, Brooklyn for the recording help!

The CAST OF WONDERS Flash Fiction Contest info can be accessed at the link.

Info on Anders Manga’s album can be found here.

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“Steve Brill did not believe in ghosts or demons. Juan Lopez did. But neither the caution 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.”