and the theories of Helena Blavatsky and William Scott-Elliot, who described lost civilizations, ancient wisdom, races, magic and sunken continents and the lands of Lemuria, Atlantis and Hyperborea, and also influenced other writers of weird fiction. Howard influenced and inspired later writers including Samuel R. Delany, David Gemmell, Michael Moorcock, Matthew Woodring Stover, Charles R. Saunders, Karl Edward Wagner, Paul Kearney, Steven Erikson, Joe R. Lansdale, and William King. He also has an influence on the field of fantasy fiction rivaled only by J. R. R. Tolkien and Tolkien's similarly inspired creation of the modern genre of high fantasy. Criticism Criticism of Robert E. Howard and his work often turns towards biographical details and "backhanded Some imply that Howard was an uneducated idiot savant and that his success was due more to luck than skill. The first professional critic to comment on Howard's work was Hoffman Reynolds Hays, reviewing the Arkham House collection Skull-Face and Others in The New York Times Book Review. Under the title "Superman on a Psychotic Bender", Hays wrote, "Howard used a good deal of the Lovecraft cosmogony and demonology, but his own contribution was a sadistic conqueror who, when cracking heads did not solve his difficulties, had recourse to magic and the aid of Lovecraft's Elder Gods. The stories are written on a competent pulp level (a higher level, by the way, than that of some best sellers) and are allied to the Superman genre which pours forth in countless comic books and radio serials." Hays then moved on to Howard himself and the genre in which he wrote: In a review of Michel Houellebecq's essay "H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" published in the Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2005, Stephen King implies that Howard did not work at his craft and was merely pastiching Lovecraft. King described his disapproval of the sword and sorcery genre, and superheroes, in his book on writing Danse Macabre: "[It] is not fantasy at its lowest, but it still has a pretty tacky feel. ... Sword and sorcery novels and stories are tales of power for the powerless. The fellow who is afraid of being rousted by those young punks who hang around his bus stop can go home at night and imagine himself wielding a sword, his potbelly miraculously gone, his slack muscles magically transmuted into those "iron thews" which have been sung and storied