

Cairn begins to enjoy this new, simpler and truer existence, and his strength and fighting prowess earn him the nickname Ironhand. They live in great fortified cities and wage endless wars against each other, carbine and sword being their weapons of choice. Eventually he stumbles upon the native people of Almuric, the Guras, who are hairy, ape-like men with a violent but pragmatic way of life. Lone and naked, Cairn must gather and hunt his food and battle various bizarre animals. Realizing there is no future for him on the planet Earth, Cairn asks help from a scientist friend, who teleports him to the recently discovered alien planet of Almuric, a savage but habitable world in another universe. When a crooked politician tricks him into complicity, Cairn is overcome with blind rage and thrashes the politician to death. Its hero is Esau Cairn, an old-fashioned boxer hopelessly incompatible with the modern American society. The novel shares similar elements with the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.Įsau is the name of a Biblical character who is depicted as a wild, restless hunter – thus a fitting name for Howard's character.Īlmuric is a planetary romance penned in the Burroughsian style. Cairn becomes known as Iron Hand due to his powerful punches and boxing skills. There he finds a life to which he is more fitted, encountering both frightening monsters as well as beautiful women.

A sympathetic scientist helps him get through space to a world known as Almuric, by unspecified scientific methods. Exploited by a corrupt political boss whom he finally kills with his bare hands, Cairn must flee. The novel features a muscular hero known on earth as Esau Cairn, a complete misfit in modern America who "belongs in a simpler age". The novel was first published in book form in 1964 by Ace Books.

It was originally serialized in three parts in the magazine Weird Tales beginning in May 1939. Almuric was serialized in Weird Tales, beginning in the May 1939 issue.Īlmuric is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert E.
