Grab ’em while they’re hot, my gentle readers.

On Saturday, Terry Allen, REH fan extraordinaire (and honcho of the REH Comics Group) posted on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum regarding Howard’s placement in Amazon’s Top Five Fantasy Bestsellers. Learning this, I felt a rush of righteous exultation.

 For a while, I refrained from using the link Terry provided, since I didn’t figure there was much more to be learned by actually going to Amazon’s website. Eventually, however, I noticed something odd about the title of the Howard volume in question. I couldn’t recall ever seeing this title in print: The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: The Shadow Kingdom.

Using Terry’s link took me to this page. Terry had definitely gotten the title right. Clicking on that link took me to this page for Robert E. Howard’s Weird Works Volume 1: Shadow Kingdoms. I was quite familiar with that Wildside publication, but what was going on? Why was this five years-old book suddenly in Amazon’s Top Five?

Going back to the Forum, I posted a request for someone to check into the mystery, since I was short on time at that moment. An answer from a stalwart member of the Forum, Dave Rushforth, promptly followed. What Amazon is calling “Best Of” is actually the Kindle version of The Best of Robert E. Howard: Crimson Shadows. The best news? It’s all for free. No wonder downloads are going through the roof. As Pete Roncoli just noted an hour ago, Kindle also works on iPod and Ipod Touch as well. In addition, he reports that all stories and illustrations are included in this Kindle version.

The Amazon page you want to go to is this one.

Like I said, grab ’em while they’re hot.