[Genesis]

additional info reposted with embedded urls removed

Almuric is an unusual Robert E Howard story in several ways. For one thing,
along with the Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon, the El Borak novel, Three-
bladed Doom, and the Breckinridge Elkins novel, A Gent from Bear Creek, it is
one of only four novels REH wrote (and with some we are really stretching the
definition!). Then, it was really Howard's only foray into the genre of
"planetary romance", showing obviously Edgar Rice Burroughsian influences. And
finally, there is even some debate as to whether it was written by Howard
himself, or by his agent Otis Adelbert Kline.

Not much seems to be known about the origin of Almuric. The manuscript
apparently just sort of turned up in the office of Otis Adelbert Kline shortly
after Howard's death, whereupon Kline submitted it to Weird Tales. It was
published in that magazine in three instalments in May, June-July, and August in
1939, fully three years after its author's death. All sources I have consulted
claim it was written in 1936, and was left as only a first draft, waiting to be
rewritten when Howard died. But what evidence there is for any of this, or
whether it is just speculation, I don't know.

Certainly, science fiction author, David Drake (who edited Baen's Robert E.
Howard Library) was only speculating when he suggested that he believed Almuric
was really written by Howard's agent Kline. His argument has some merit,
though, since Otis Adelbert Kline was himself a well-known author who was
considered the only author to write Burroughs imitations that were nearly as
good as Burroughs himself. Kline had close ties to Weird Tales, helping with
the editing chores in the early days, seeing many of his own stories appear in
its pages, and later acting as agent for several of its writers.

- Jeffrey Blair Latta in Pulp and Dagger


addtionally , others have noted a very strong change of style about 1/2 way through the book, the second 1/2 being very OAK-like. - Amontoth