By Howard Jones.
I stumbled onto Harold Lamb's work after reading his biography of Hannibal while researching a high school history paper. I enjoyed the book so much I decided to see what else Lamb had written -- hopefully something else about the famous Carthaginian. I found a small assortment of books resting on an out-of-the-way library shelf, among them a tome titled The Curved Saber. A cursory glance showed me that it was a collection of nine stories about a Cossack named Khlit. Clearly Hannibal wasn't involved, but I decided to give it a chance anyway.
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Posted by ds at January 15, 2003 05:19 PM
I've read most of Lamb's novels, and I'm really sorry I never read Adventure Magazine. I enjoyed his work so much I'm really sorry I missed those stories. You're obviously a guy and therefore not taken with the wonderful adventure/romance, Kirdy. In my library it was in the "intermediate" section (teen section). I had never before read what might be considered a love story, and Kirdy and his Nada along with his horse and wolfhound (like most teenage girls of my era I loved horses and dogs) were the stuff dreams were made of. There was a lot of real history even there--cultural not biographical. In old Russian times they seemed to actually have young men who went out to search for adventure and they actually also had young women who did the same. There was a special term for those women. I only found out about that a few years back and have not been able to find Kirdy to see if Lamb actually used the term. And sorry about my antique brain, but I can't think of the Russian word I found. Loved your article.
Prudence L. Kuhn
Posted by: Prudence Kuhn at October 14, 2003 08:57 AM
