Originally published as The Lost Valley of Iskander in 1974

This story was rewritten as a Conan comic book in the late 1970s.

Reading from El Borak and Other Desert Adventures by Del Rey, 2010

A Review from September 2012, updated 4/20/15. Rewritten 4/25/16

I originally read this as part of the 1974 paperback. At that age I loved ‘lost world’ stories and actually preferred Edgar Rice Burroughs to Howard. The lead character for these western-style adventures set in the Middle East is Francis Xavier Gordon, a Texan, like Howard, whose last name echoes ‘Chinese’ Gordon, the famous British colonial adventurer who commanded the Ever Victorious Army during the Taiping Rebellion in China and died fighting to the last man against the Islamic Mahdi fanatics of the Sudan at the siege of Khartoum.

As with much of the 'lost world' genre, whose chief advocate in fiction was Edgar Rice Burroughs, this story features a lost valley, this one situated in rugged Afghanistan, where a no doubt hopelessly inbred tribe of blonde men, who are descendants of one of Alexander the Great's army garrisons, have maintained an ancient Hellenic society in their tiny canyon enclave. Early and mid 20th Century literature of this kind—however implausible the premise—was very popular. Indeed, once the critical reader manages to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the tale, it becomes obvious that the story of an isolated outpost of a lost civilization appeals both to our sense of ancestry, and our sense of alienation, in the form of such fantastical xenophobic yarns. Rather than exploring the racial memory question that underlines much of his horror fiction, Howard, in writing The Lost Valley of Iskander, basically cashes in on the appeal of racial alienation as a story-telling device and cranks out a marketable adventure.

Some of the premise for this story is a little hard to swallow, and it lacks the creepy nuances and subtexts of his fantasy and horror, but the pace is fast. The action is written metaphorically, not bio-mechanically, and he manages, even at this great distance, to pull it off and keep you reading to the bloody end. I found the Hungarian soldier of fortune character to be an excellent villain for such a tale. Despite the flaws in the story—in term of current standards of realism in fiction—Swords of the Hills does not use template villains and heroes, and finds room for many moments of camaraderie among fighting men. The dialogue, though a little stilted, is touching in many places, as if Howard, writing out of his cultural element, has come to the subject with a deeper sympathy for the characters that people his tale:

"...a wild surge of desperation rose in Gordon's soul..."

"...I must go to my own people..."

"...to smite the Moslem dogs..."

"I do not come in anger..."

"A man who can fight as you have fought is neither wizard, thief nor murderer."

There is something about Gordon, the character, that, as a youthful reader, earned my strongest admiration for one of Howard's many heroes. Reading then I assumed it was his dynamic deeds. Rereading him as an older man, I understand that Gordon was Howard's most willful and driven character other than Bran Mak Morn, both men seemingly driven by some upwelling racial imperative to strike out at the world and leave his mark and also return to his people before he was done.