I read this novel in the 1970s and remember preferring it to the ‘science-fantasy’ adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I liked a lot. Somehow this thing has been overlooked by the Conan Properties people and is in open domain, which is kind of crazy when you consider it is one of the few novels written by one of the most enduring short fiction authors. This is one of those age specific opportunities us old readers get to compare our youthful impressions with our age-worn worldview.

Howard did not finish writing Almuric because he felt he was treading too closely on Edgar Rice Burroughs' creative heels. That is a shame because, although Howard was basically writing the same story that ERB had already written a dozen times, he struck the alienation chord that ERB only hit upon with Tarzan, and did so with deep dark passion. If you are a reader of Conan that has been enjoying the rediscovery of those lost tales of masculine adventure than you should read Almuric, a fantastic world of Conans visited by Depression Era America's most manly man; an outcast from backstabbing sissy modernity sent back to the beginning of mythic time.