He will be missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Kate.
This is one of the shorter Conan pieces. It was probably the third Conan story Howard wrote and one of the few rejected by Farnsworth Wright when he submitted it to Weird Tales. It wouldn’t see publication until years after Howard’s death.
This story has always been one of my favorite Conan tales. It’s unique in that it’s at heart a police procedural, and a rather good one, even if it does have some stereotypical good cop-bad cop interplay. It’s also something of a locked room mystery.
Conan has broken into a museum of sorts, having been commissioned to steal a particular artifact. Instead he finds the night watchman bending over the corpse of the building’s owner. Conan thinks the man is another thief. He realizes his mistake when the watchman pulls a cord, which rings a bell summoning the city watch.
The prefect in charge of the watch thinks Conan is the killer and wants to beat a confession out of him. Accompanying the watch on their rounds this particular night is Demetrios, chief of he Inquisitorial Council. He understands just how foolish such a course of action will be.
Instead of beating Conan, Demetrios interrogates him. Conan freely admits he’s in the building to steal, but steadfastly denies killing the owner, whose name is Kallian Publico. It’s a shame Howard didn’t write more of this sort of thing, because he seems to have had a knack for this type of dialogue. I think this story has examples of some of Howard’s crispest, best dialogue in any of his works. Other suspects are eventually brought in, including Kallian Publico’s chief clerk, Promero. When the prefect orders a particularly sadistic guard to beat Promero for information, Demetrios does nothing to stop it. In fact, Howard’s entire portrayal of Promero is one of disdain. Conan at one point calls him a weakling and a fool.
The contrast between how the police treat Conan and how they treat Promero is intriguing. Demetrios tends to believe Conan’s story that he didn’t kill Kallian Publico, while the prefect insists he did and on the basis of little evidence. Demetrios respects Conan’s courage and strength while Promero’s weakness attracts only bullying. It would be easy to dismiss the actions of the police here as entirely stereotypical of crime fiction of the day, but I think that would be a mistake. While there is some stereotyping going on in the way the police behave, I think Howard was using that to make a point about strength and weakness. Weakness attracts abuse. Demetrios respects Conan’s strength too much to challenge him. He knows he’s likely to lose.
The other thing of interest is what is implied by the sarcophagus that everything centers around. It seems Kallian Publico had acquired a bowl shaped sarcophagus from Stygia earlier in the day. It had been sent as a gift from Thoth-amon (who appeared in “The Phoenix on the Sword“), priest of Set, to Kalanthes, priest of Ibis. Ibis and Set don’t get along, so why Thoth-amon would send Kalanthes a gift is something of a mystery at first. Kallian Publico acquired the sarcophagus from the leader of the caravan transporting it. The caravan leader didn’t want to go out of his way to deliver it, and so left it with Kallian Publico to deliver. Of course, Kallian Publico had no intention of delivering the sarcophagus. Instead he opened it…and received what was intended for Kalanthes.
“The God in the Bowl” seems (to me at least) to be considered a minor Conan story. It’s certainly not one of the ones I’ve heard talked much about at gatherings of Howard fans. I think that’s a shame. Howard was stretching himself as a writer with this story. By adding the mystery/police procedural element, he was trying something new. A careful examination of Howard’s oeuvre reveals he did this frequently when he wanted to branch into a new genre. That fact that not all of his attempts were successful is less important than the fact that he tried and wasn’t afraid to experiment. We would have been poorer, and Howard’s work less moving, if he hadn’t tried at all.
I did want to point out something to you, though. Earlier today, Passive Guy posted a notice about a group of different nonprofits in California urging a boycott of Amazon. They’re upset about taxes. Seems Amazon, which is not based in California, refuses to pay California’s state sales tax. Good for Amazon I say. Anyway, these people say we should boycott Amazon until they do. And did I mention that this is a group of nonprofits, who don’t pay taxes in the first place?
Yeah, like the title says, stupid. Passive Guy, who is a lawyer by training, gives a good breakdown as to why this is a dumb argument from a legal perspective. There are a number of insightful comments about how this strategy, if it were to succeed, would hurt they people it’s supposed to help.
It’s an interesting post, to say the least. Go read it. In the meantime, I’m compiling a list of things I’m going to buy from Amazon.
That’s only three sentences. Yet Howard managed to pack more description in those three sentences, more atmosphere and sense of place, than most writers do in three paragraphs. He does more than paint a word picture. He places the reader in the middle of the scene.
It’s into this scene that a young man named Conan comes.
The plot is pretty straight forward. Conan overhears a kidnapper bragging in a tavern. The man mentions a tower known as the Elephant’s Tower. He questions the man, who tells him that somewhere in the tower, guarded by more than human guards, is a priceless jewel known as the Elephant’s Heart. The tower is the domain of the sorcerer Yara.
When Conan says that courage is what is keeping the local thieves from stealing the jewel, the man attacks him. Conan kills him, then decides to rob the tower himself. While doing so, he encounters another thief named Taurus, who has been planning the heist for months. They decide to team up.
Taurus is killed by one of the guardians of the tower, and Conan proceeds alone. Normally in these posts about Conan, I would have stopped summarizing by this point, but I’m going to make an exception here. It’s what happens when Conan finds the jewel that makes “The Tower of the Elephant” stand out among Howard’s work and among works of twentieth-century fantasy.
Conan discovers the chamber containing the Elephant’s Heart is occupied by a creature with the body of a man, green in color, and the head of an elephant, with the head being disproportionately large for the body. The creature is blind. He’s also been tortured for centuries by Yara.
At first Conan is horrified, then as he realizes the creature, who we learn is named Yogah or alternatively Yag-kosha, is no threat he feels a great sense of pity for him. Yogah explains how he came to be trapped there (mentioning Valusia and Kull’s world, although not specifically naming Kull), then asks Conan to aid him in his revenge against Yara. Conan does as he’s asks. He kills Yogah, then squeezes his heart out on the jewel he’d come to steal. The blood soaks into the jewel as if it were a sponge. Conan takes the jewel to a lower level in the chamber, where Yara is in a trance. He awakens Yara and gives him the jewel along with a verbal message from Yogah. He then makes his escape from the tower.
What? You think I’m going to tell you all the details of Yara’s demise? You’ll have to read the story for that. It’s short, and more than worth your time.
It’s Conan’s reaction to Yogah, even more than Howard’s prose, that lifts this story above most others. Howard did a lot with the Conan stories to establish the trope of the thief stealing an ensorcelled item, yet in one of the earliest Conan stories he breaks the very stereotype he’s establishing by adding a layer of depth and feeling and having the thief willingly give up the item he’s come to steal.
The popular misconception of Conan is that he’s a ruthless killer with little or no empathy for the pain of others. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, there are stories in which Conan’s bloodthirsty streak is the characteristic that is displayed most prominently. But Conan is a three dimensional character. The compassion he shows here, while harsh, is still compassion. He acts out of mercy, not bloodlust. Only by killing Yogah can Conan free him from the torment he’s suffered and allow him to take revenge on Yara. Conan genuinely feels compassion for Yogah.
It’s easy to see why “The Tower of the Elephant” is considered a masterpiece. If you haven’t read it, or read it recently, you owe it to yourself to do so. Then compare the storytelling you find here with what you’ll see in the movie when it comes out this week. See if there’s a difference. We’ll talk more about that when I review the move.
“The People of the Black Circle” is one of Robert E. Howard’s best Conan tales, a masterpiece of action, adventure, and all around creepiness. It was one of only four Conan tales included in the two volume The Best of Robert E. Howard published a few years ago by Del Rey. It appears in The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows
It’s one of the longer Conan tales. The story opens, as do many of the best of Howard’s work featuring Conan, with characters other than the Cimmerian, something we’ve discussed in other posts in this series. In this case it’s the king of Vendhya, who is dying from some sort of supernatural afflication. At his side are various slave girls (who seem to serve no other function than to cringe), a priest, and his sister Yasmina. Waiting in another part of the city for the king to die are the nobleman Kerim Shah, who is working for the king of Turan to destablize the country, and a man name Khemsa. He’s an acolyte the Black Seers of Yimsha, who are behind the supernatural assault on the king. Before he dies, the king manages to tell Yasmina who is responsible for his death.
Conan appears later, when Yasmina has assumed the throne and vowed vengeance on the Black Seers.
The scene now shifts to a citadel outside a town on the border where seven raiders are being held prisoner. Their captain, a foreigner named Conan, has demanded their release. The deadline he has given is the next morning. The commander of the citadel is writing a letter to the queen, telling her of the situation, when he has an unexpected visitor, the Queen herself. She’s arrived secretly with a plan to use the prisoners as leverage to force Conan to destroy the Black Seers. She tells the commander all this and retires to her chambers for the night. Shortly afterwards, Conan climbs through the window of the commander’s chamber and demands the release of the prisoners. It’s something of a face-off until Yasmina walks in unexpectedly. She had seen Kerim Shah in the city, and suspicious of his presence, wanted to warn the commander about him. Instead, she’s taken hostage by Conan, who flees out the window and into the night with her. His intention is to use her to force the release of his men
And that’s when things take off. Conan flees with Yasmina. Khemsa, who is in love with Yasmina’s maid, allows himself to be talked into betraying his masters, the Black Seers, and try to make a power grab himself. To do this, they magically kill the prisoners Conan came to free. And Kerim Shah strikes out on his own to accomplish his mission. And this is where you have to go and read the story for yourself if you haven’t already.
There are some truly creepy passages when Conan is in the citadel of the Black Circle. By this time, Yasmina is their prisoner, and he’s trying to get her back. If snakes give you the creeps, then this portion of the story will make your skin crawl. Some of Howard’s best writing, in any of his work, is here inside the citadel, where Conan and his companions fight the members of the Black Circle.
In the end all of the political subplots are tied up nicely. Conan wants Yasmina to go with him and share a life of robbery. This in my opinion was one of the time Howard handled a female character with depth and subtly.
Rusty Burke said the purpose of The Best of Robert E. Howard was to give readers, particularly readers who weren’t familiar with the breadth and depth of Howard’s work, a chance to see just how versatile a writer he was. Because of that, there were limits on how many stories could feature series characters, such as Kull, Conan, and Solomon Kane. It’s easy to see why “The People of the Black Circle” made the cut.
If you haven’t read the first volume in this series, The Crown of the Blood, I’m giving you fair warning that I’m going to have at least one major spoiler in this review.
When I reviewed The Crown of the Blood, I really enjoyed it but had a few quibbles about a couple of things. Overall, though, I thought it was a good book. The Crown of the Conqueror, on the other hand is a very good book. The gripes I had about the first book, which I considered to be relatively minor, aren’t present in this one. The pace moves at what feels like a breakneck speed, which is an impressive trick for Mr. Thorpe to pull off, considering 3 1/2 years pass from the first page to the last.
The first book ended with a real cliffhanger (this one does, too), and in the opening chapter things pick up right where they left off. Here’s the spoiler, which is included in the sample at the end of the review. At the end of The Crown of the Blood, when Ullsaard put the crown on his head, he hear a voice. Askh, founder of the empire and dead for two centuries. It seems that every king since Askh has really been…Askh. When the new king puts on the crown, Askh takes over and the original inhabitant of the body ceases to be in control or even be aware of what’s happened. By interrupting the line of succession, Ullsaard has messed up that process so that while he can hear Askh and carry on a conversation with him, he’s still in control. Askh is along for the ride, experiencing everything Ullsaard does but unable to influence events. This leads to some complications of Ullsaard’s love life.
Ullsaard soon learns that taking the crown and wearing it are two different things, and one is much harder than the other. He has to deal with fighting a war without a lot a support from the nobles unless they can gain a political or financial advantage. He has to fight more than one war at once. And he has to deal with betrayal and revenge.
The supporting characters that gave The Crown of the Blood so much of its depth are back, although some of them don’t survive until the end of the book. In fact, that adds to the suspense. Once I realized Thorpe would kill characters who were playing a major role in some of the subplots, the book became a lot less predictable. To me this added to the realism, since most things in life are not resolved in a quick and easy manner. They’re messy with lots of false starts and missed opportunities. Something the landship owner Anglhan finds out. The descent of his character, to me, was one of the most fascinating parts of the story. Anglhan’s story is unresolved, something that aggravates me to no end. That’s a compliment, not a criticism. A good writer makes the reader want more, and I want to find out what happens to Anglhan. Hopefully it will involve flaying and impaling.
One of the criticisms of second books in trilogies is that they are often fillers between the setup in the first book and the finale in the third. Gav Thorpe avoids that here, something he writes about on his blog. Others may disagree with me on this point (it’s a free country and they have a right to be wrong), but I think he succeeded admirably. We learn more about the history of this world, and about the Brotherhood in particular. We also learn about Askh and how he came to found the empire. I was reminded of some of the themes of H. P. Lovecraft here, and that’s a good thing because this gives a whole new light on the events of the first two books. I won’t spoil any of the details, but this part of the story should become more dominant in the next book, The Crown of the Usurper.
Unfortunately that book isn’t due out for another year. It’s going to be a long wait. If you like stories of empire and conquest, particularly those modeled on the Roman Empire, then this series will probably be your cup of tea.
For your convenience, I’ve included the publisher’s sample below. (With permission of course.)
