Skull-Face

"Skull-Face"
Author	Robert E. Howard
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Adventure
Published in	Weird Tales
Publication type	Pulp magazine
Publication date	Oct–Dec 1929

Skull-Face was reprinted as the cover story of the December 1952 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries

Skull-Face is a novella written by Robert E. Howard, which appeared as a serial in Weird Tales magazine, beginning in October 1929, and ending in December, 1929.^[1] The story stars a character called Steve Costigan but this is not Howard's recurring character, Sailor Steve Costigan. The story is clearly influenced by Sax Rohmer's opus Fu Manchu but substitutes the main Asian villain with a resuscitated Atlantean necromancer (very similar to Kull's arch-foe Thulsa Doom) sitting at the center of a web of crime and intrigue meant to end White/Western world domination with the help of Asian/semite/African peoples and to re-instate surviving Atlanteans (said to lie dormant in submerged sarcophagi) as the new ruling elite.

Plot

The story begins with Steve Costigan wearily waking in Yu Shantu's Temple of Dreams, a hashish den in the city of London, England. He has recurring dreams of something he calls "Skull Face", and is puzzled about their meaning. He is broke, and in need of more hashish, the drug he is desperately addicted to, leaving Costigan barely able to survive. When confronted by the doorman, Hassim, Costigan informs him of his lack of funds. Hassim promptly throws him out through the front door of the den. Bruised and bleeding, Costigan is helped to his feet by a young woman, Zulieka.

References

↑ The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, pages 194–320. Cosmos Books, July 2007

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Skull-Face

Skull-Face at Faded Page (Canada)

Works by Robert E. Howard

Adventure

El Borak	"Blood of the Gods" "The Coming of El Borak" "The Country of the Knife" "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" "Hawk of the Hills" "The Lost Valley of Iskander" "North of Khyber" "Son of the White Wolf" "Three-Bladed Doom"

Fantasy

Conan	"Beyond the Black River" "Black Colossus" "The Black Stranger" "Cimmeria" "The Devil in Iron" "Drums of Tombalku" "The Frost Giant's Daughter" "The God in the Bowl" "The Hall of the Dead" "The Hand of Nergal" "The Hour of the Dragon" "Iron Shadows in the Moon" "Jewels of Gwahlur" "The People of the Black Circle" "The Phoenix on the Sword" "The Pool of the Black One" "Queen of the Black Coast" "Red Nails" "Rogues in the House" "The Scarlet Citadel" "Shadows in Zamboula" "The Snout in the Dark" "The Tower of the Elephant" "The Vale of Lost Women" "A Witch Shall be Born" "Wolves Beyond the Border" "Xuthal of the Dusk"
Solomon Kane	"The Right Hand of Doom"
Kull	"By This Axe, I Rule" "Exile of Atlantis" "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune"
Bran Mak Morn	"The Children of the Night" "Worms of the Earth"

Comedy

Sailor Steve Costigan

Breckinridge Elkins

"A Gent from Bear Creek"

Horror

John Kirowan	"The Children of the Night" "The Haunter of the Ring" "The Black Stone"

Other

Other stories	"Almuric" "Black Canaan" "Pigeons from Hell" "Post Oaks & Sand Roughs" "The Shadow of the Vulture" "Skull-Face" "The Sowers of the Thunder" "The Twilight of the Grey Gods"
Other characters	Cormac Fitzgeoffrey James Allison Red Sonya Dark Agnes de Chastillon Steve Harrison Turlogh Dubh O'Brien Kirby O'Donnell The Sonora Kid
Poetry	Echoes from an Iron Harp (1972)
See also	List of works by Robert E. Howard List of poems by Robert E. Howard "The Hyborian Age"

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