Tuesday, September 07, 2010

REVIEW: ECHOES OF VALOR III

Edited by Karl Edward Wagner

This is a set of fantasy and adventure tales by various pulp authors. The lead tale is "Shadow of the Vulture" by Robert E Howard. It is one of his best historical adventure tales and feature Sonya of Rogatino, the Cossack sword-woman who was the precursor of Red Sonja of the comics. It’s a ripping story set at the siege of Vienna in 1529.

There is a marvelous Jack Williamson yarn, "Wolves of Darkness", with a brilliant mix of science-fiction a horror that pre-figures the novel Darker than You Think.

While there are some decent tales by Manly Wade Wellman and Henry Kuttner, the real discovery here is Nictzin Dyalhis. Now nearly forgotten, Dyalhis was a regular contributor to Weird Tales. His work has a true sense of wonder with stories that could almost be fairy tales, gentle and dark at the same time.

Echoes of Valor III is definitely worth adding to one’s collection.
-Dave Hardy

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I agree, Dyalhis's work really stood out in this collection.

Dave Hardy said...

The Sam Moskowitz piece got me interested enough to track Dyalhis via the census. That was the basis for one of my REHupa 'zines.