Matthew Woodring Stover started a blog a few months ago. Recently (it would seem), he stumbled upon a web log entry written by the late Steve Tompkins. Stover’s post can be found here.

I remember the situation that precipitated Tompk’s post vividly. On the Official REH Forum, a newly-minted member by the name of “Baphomet” had spewn forth the supposition that Robert E. Howard had only influenced, at best, two or three authors in the last eighty years. Steve Tompkins made note of Baphomet’s contrarian idiocy and took action.  For my part, I did the same, creating a “Quotes in Praise of Robert E. Howard” topic to demonstrate the far-reaching impact of REH’s work. Destruction of an enemy is all well and good, but construction of a shieldwall as a bulwark against future silly attacks has its place as well. The “chants of old heroes” that REH spun out of his singular imagination are still ringing in the ears of authors today; make no mistake.

It’s a damned shame that we’ll see no more installments from Tompk in his (occasional) series: “REH Alive & Well As a Ghost in the Pop Culture Machine.” We’re doing our best here at TC to carry forward the banner, fear not.

Mr. Stover is working on a new “Caine” novel entitled His Father’s Fist.