- Gates of Empire presents eight of Robert E. Howard's classic
adventure stories, all of which are set during the Crusades. "Red Blades of
Black Cathay" finds a 12th Century Norman Crusader on the Eastern frontiers of
the world as it was known to his European contemporaries, rallying a rich but
militarily weak splinter kingdom against the invading hordes of Genghis Khan.
"Hawks of Outremer" and "Blood of Belshazzar" feature a hard-bitten knight, the
half-Irish Cormac FitzGeoffrey, during the time of the Third Crusade. "The
Sowers of the Thunder" pits two evenly matched characters against one another:
Red Cahal is an exiled Irish prince who has been cheated out of kingship. The
red-haired Baibars the Panther is a former slave who will one day seize a
throne. Figuratively, one man will be the death of the other, and in a sense
this is Howard's version of Poe's classic :William Wilson," played out against
the turbulent background of the 13th Century. In "The Lion of Tiberias," two
storylines diverge and then converge. In one, a gigantic British Dane named John
Norwald is sent to the galleys by the warlord Zenghi, there to toil for more
than twenty years as a cold, hard core of hate keeps him alive. The other
storyline concerns Miles Du Courcey, a Crusader who invades Zenghi's stronghold
to rescue his kidnapped sweetheart. "The Shadow of the Vulture" and "Gates of
Empire" reveal a lighter side of Howard; yet here too, darkness lurks underneath
the light. Although "The Shadow of the Vulture" is best known as the story in
which Howard introduced Red Sonya of Rogatino, the prototype for Roy Thomas' Red
Sonja of the comics and Sam Raimi's "Xena, Warrior Princess," the male
protagonist is Gottfried Von Kalmbach, a dauntless but somewhat oblivious German
knight.
- ISBN10 0809556545
- ISBN13 9780809556540
- Publish Date 10 April 2007 (first published 8 May 2006)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Wildside Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 248
- Language English