The Slithering Shadow
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"The Slithering Shadow" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales magazine. "The Slithering Shadow" is the original title, but the story is also known as "Xuthal of the Dusk" in further publications. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan finding a lost city in a remote desert and encountering therein a Lovecraftian-esque demon known as Thog.
Robert E Howard
Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was born and raised in rural Texas, the son of a pioneer physician. He began writing professionally at the age of fifteen and turned out dozens of tales of heroic and supernatural fantasy, featuring many memorable creations - including the character he is best remembered for: Conan of Cimmeria. These stories, mostly published in Weird Tales, won him a huge audience across the world and influenced a whole generation of writers, from Robert Jordan to Raymond E. Feist. Sadly, Howard killed himself in June 1936 when he learned that his beloved mother had fallen into a coma.
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