The Solomon Kane Companion by Fred Blosser (Pulp Hero Press, June 17, 2025)

If you’re familiar with Robert E. Howard Fandom, you already know who Fred Blosser is. I first encountered his work back in the early 1970s, when he was writing articles and reviews for Marvel Comics’ Savage Sword of Conan magazine.

For SSoC, Blosser authored well-researched articles about topics such as the Picts in Howard’s fiction, REH Fanzines, Howard’s Kozaks, and a history of Howard’s puritan adventurer, Solomon Kane.

Now Blosser has taken that last one much farther, producing a book called The Solomon Kane Companion, published by Pulp Hero Press, who kindly sent me a review copy. As I mentioned, Kane is a puritan, and his adventures take place in the Elizabethan era. He was created by Robert E. Howard while Howard was still in high school, and his first published appearance was in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales, in the story “Red Shadows.”

[Click the images for companion versions.]

Weird Tales , August 1928, containing “Red Shadows” by Robert E. Howard. Cover by C. C. Senf

The Companion is a truly exhaustive look at Kane, giving a history of the character’s published adventures and a ton of fascinating information, including sections about Kane’s foes, both human and supernatural, the various lost cities Kane encounters, and a look at the influence of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos on REH and Solomon Kane.

There’s a chronology of the Kane stories, a concordance of names used in the series, a guide to further reading, and the full text of Solomon Kane’s debut adventure, Red Shadows.

An area of particular interest to me is covered in Appendix A: Solomon Kane in the Comic Books. Since I originally discovered both Conan and Kane in the comics, I really enjoyed this section. Blosser lists the writers and artists and goes into quite a bit of detail about the REH adaptations and original stories.

As you can probably tell, I’m very impressed with this book. I’ve only got one quibble, and that has nothing to do with Blosser. The cover appears to be AI generated, and while Solomon Kane is described in the stories as tall and lean, on the cover he appears rather short and squat, and his head is out of proportion to his body.

Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars and The Hills of the Dead by Robert E. Howard
(Bantam Books, December 1978 and March 1979). Covers: uncredited, and Bob Larkin

But ignore that. What’s inside is well worth your time. In a section called Why I wrote this Book, Blosser talks about his affection for the character and the importance Solomon Kane has, not only in Howard’s fiction, but in the history of the sword & sorcery as a genre.

Fans of Robert E. Howard and Solomon Kane owe Fred Blosser a round of applause, for all his years of REH scholarship, and for this awesome book about Solomon Kane.

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Charles R. Rutledge is the author of Dracula’s Return. He has appeared in Weird Tales, and sometimes writes sword & sorcery. His last article for us was a review of Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring by Patrick Zircher.