Solomon Kane - The Hound of God

Jonathan Mayberry has earned five Bram Stoker awards during his long and prolific writing career. His books include series titles like Joe Ledger, Rot & Ruin, Dead of Night, and Kagan the Damned. The San Diego author joined Titan's round table of authors in 2023 to write fiction based on characters created by Robert E. Howard. Mayberry's contribution is the ebook Solomon Kane: The Hound of God. 

This 39-page short-story is set in Livonia in 1598. Puritan swashbuckling hero Kane has discovered a village literally torn apart. Pieces of bodies are seemingly everywhere as if a pack of wild animals mauled every villager. The scene is so appalling that Kane stops, with tears running down his face, to ask, “God in heaven, have hell's doors opened?”

Kane finds large animal prints mixed with at least as many as twenty bootprints. How could creature and human exist together in one party? Surely this much destruction brought to a village wouldn't bother to spare the lives of a few Cossacks. Kane learns the answer when he is faced with a werewolf and a creature known as The Benandanti.

Overall this was an enjoyable short story that possessed the imagery and feel of a Robert E. Howard Kane entry. It seems that Mayberry is a Solomon Kane fan and his admiration for the character showed in the writing. Solomon Kane stories are easy to read as “monster of the week” episodes and this one was no different. Recommended. Get it HERE.