Category Archives: Weird Tales

2012 in Retrospect: Short Fiction

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This past year was a good year overall for short fiction.  And some of the most exciting short fiction was published online with or without the option of subscribing.  There were also the usual print venues, both periodicals and anthologies.  In this post, I’m going to try to provide an admittedly incomplete overview of the short fiction field in 2012, emphasizing online venues.  I didn’t read thoroughly enough in the print periodicals (Asimov’s, Analog, Hitchcock’s, Ellery Queen, or F&SF) to have a feel for them.  And there were enough original anthologies that flew past my radar that I’m not even going to try to discuss any of them.

And as for the electronic magazines, with one exception, I’m only going to mention the ones I read at least once this year.  I’m not going to discuss individual stories; I don’t have that kind of time.  Rather, I’m going to try to give a general idea of what the magazine was like.  Links and subcription information (where applicable) will be provided.

The year didn’t start off all that well.  The electronic magazine Something Wicked ceased publication.  I’m not sure how well known this title was in the States.  I’m not certain, but I think it was out of South Aftrica.  It started as a print magazine before moving to electronic only.  With a focus on science fiction and horror, it published three short stories and one novella plus some nonfiction each issue.  I had a subscription and got a few issues before it was canceled.  I hated to see it go, because it was different than what was being published here in the States, and I enjoyed what I read.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies was probably the go-to place online for high quality fantasy, with an issue every two weeks.  BCS had a great year, publishing their 100th issue.  They’re still going strong and required reading for anyone wanting to keep up with the field.  Subscription info here.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is your next best bet for great adventure fiction, especially if your tastes run to sword and sorcery.  It’s also the strongest competition BCS had at the first of the year; with Black Gate publishing fiction once a week, that’s changing.  I found the quality of work at HFQ to be on par with BCS and Black Gate.  If you aren’t reading this one, you should be.  It’s free and updates every three months, just like a quarterly should, not that all publications that call themselves that do.

In October, Black Gate, which had stopped publishing in print format, began posting a new piece of fiction every Sunday.  They’ve published a mix of new stories, reprints from the print incarnation, and excerpts from novels.  So far the quality has been high, which is what I would expect from BG. 

In my opinion, these were the best markets for sword and sorcery and adventure fiction, and are the top venues in the field.  They weren’t only markets for S&S, nor were they the only markets for great fiction of a fantastic nature.

Lightspeed is probably the main online source for fantastic fiction.  In January, it combined with Fantasy.  This is the publication I had the most trouble fitting into my schedule this year, managing to read only one or two stories.  Edited by John Joseph Adams, it’s going strong, publishing the top names in both science fiction and fantasy.  Subscription info here.  I promise I’ll do a better job of reading this one in 2013.

Clarkesworld published some solid science fiction this year, although most of what I read was more literary than than action orieinted.  I don’t recall seeing any fantasy, but I wasn’t able to read each issue.  Subscription info here.

Apex publishes stuff on the darker side of the fantastic.  Lynn Thomas took over as editor from Cathrynne Valente near the beginning of the year.  It’s another one I intend to read more of next year.  What little I managed to fit in was good stuff. Subscription info here. 

Subterranean had another great year.  This is a quarterly publication.  They went from publishing their content over a period of weeks to putting it all online at once.  There is no subscription option like there is for some of the titles listed above, but I wish there were.  I’d rather read on an ereader than a screen. 

Combine these publications with the traditional print ones, and it’s hard not to conclude the short fiction market is healthy.  There were several new publications that started up this year as well. 

First there was Swords and Sorcery Magazine, an online-only publication that premiered in February.  Publishing two stories per issue, it met its publication schedule, something that new publications don’t always do.  It’s not a professional paying market at the moment, although I hope it can achieve that status soon.  As a result, the quality of the fiction wasn’t up to what you find in BCS or HFQ.  In spite of that, the issues I read were quite readable, and I enjoyed the fiction I found there.  It was certainly the most promising debut as far as S&S is concerned.  In spite of the fact that it can’t yet pay professional rates, there’s nothing unprofessional about the editorial tone.  This is one worth supporting.

Another new publication was Nightmare Magazine.  Edited by John Joseph When-Does-the-Man-Sleep? Adams, this magazine was crowdfunded by Kickstarter and has taken off.  It’s one of the best, if not the best, publications devoted solely to horror fiction out there.  I’ve been very impressed by what I’ve found.  Subscription info here.

Another Kickstarter magazine was Fireside.  This quarterly hasn’t taken off like Nightmare, and I hope it does.  It doesn’t limit itself to any particular genre, which is both a strength and a weakness.  A strength because it can publish those cool stories that defy classification, and a weakness because it will probably take a little longer to find its core readership that a genre publication would.  Subscription info here. 

Another high profile debut, which publishes both fantasy and science fiction, is Eclipse Online.  Edited by Jonathan Strahan, it’s a continuation of the critically acclaimed anthology series of the same title.  It publishes fiction twice a month and is worth checking out.

In many ways the most anticipated debut, and certainly the most controversial, was the relaunch of Weird Tales with Marvin Kaye as the editor.  Kaye wanted to return the magazine to its roots, something that didn’t sit well in certain circles.  The first issue was IMO a success.  Here’s hoping the best days of the publication are ahead of it.  Subscription info here.

In the interest of being balanced, I’m going to mention Shimmer, even though I haven’t read it yet.  As part of the reaction to Marvin Kaye replacing Ann Vandermeer as editor of Weird Tales, Mary Robinette Kowal underwrote the magazine so that it can pay professional rates.  The idea is that this will attract writers who would have submitted to Vandermeer had she continued to edit WT.  In other words, what we have here is a literary smackdown.  Like WT, Shimmer is a quarterly publication.  I’m going to review this one, probably after the next issue is published.   I want to evaluate it on the basis of what it publishes after paying pro rates.  Subscription info here.

These weren’t all of the fiction outlets, but with the exception of Shimmer, these were the ones I at least attempted to read.  Other major venues included, but weren’t limited to, Tor.com and Strange Horizons.  These two are also on the list to read next year.

So anyway, that’s a (very) lopsided look at the electronic world of fantastic fiction in the year 2012.  There was a great deal of good stuff published.  I’m going to try to do more reading at short lengths in 2013.  For one thing, I like short fiction.  It fits my time contraints better than doorstopper novels.  Also, with my new gig at Amazing Stories (TM), I’m not going to have as much time to read novels for my personal blogs.

 

Happy Birthday, Conan.

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I’m a little late getting this post up, but this month marks the 80th anniversary of the first appearance of Conan, the man from Cimmeria.  Conan first appeared in “The Phoenix on the Sword”, a rewrite of an unsold Kull story, “By This Axe I Rule!”  I blogged about both pieces here.  That’s the cover of the issue, December 1932, there on the right.  And, no, Conan wasn’t featured on the cover.  But he soon would be.

It’s been a while since I last wrote a piece dedicated solely to Conan.  No, don’t go looking it up; all you’ll do is embarrass people, namely me.  I’m going to look at three more Conan stories, maybe more.  The stories I’ll definitely look at are “Rogues in the House”, “Queen of the Black Coast”, and “Red Nails.”  There are a few other Conan tales I will try to get to, but those three are, in my mind at least, major stories that every Howard fan should read.

Howard wrote that Conan seemed to spring into his mind as a fully fleshed character.  There’s good evidence that wasn’t literally the case.  Still, Conan is arguably the most fully fleshed out character Howard put to paper.  The world he inhabits is by far the most complex and detailed of any Howard created.  Mark Finn argues in his biography, Blood and Thunder (reviewed here), that Conan was the most commercial of Howard’s Weird Tales creations.  He makes a good case.  Whether or not Finn is correct, it was Conan and the classic tales in which he appeared that gave us those gorgeous Margaret Brundage covers.

Conan was the first Howard I read.  As a result, he holds a special place in my heart.  I was a freshman in college when I started reading Conan, in the Ace reprints of the de Camp and Carter edited Lancers.  I soaked it all in.  When I think of sword and sorcery, Conan is usually what comes to mind.  A loner who lives by his own code in an exotic world filled with danger, monsters, and magic.  Along with a few scantily clad females.

A lot of the appeal for me of the Conan stories are the fact that they are stand-alones.  Yes, there are some that obviously take place later in Conan’s life, but for the most part they can be read in any order.  Whether you read a whole volume at once or only a single tale, these stories still take me to a land of adventure. 

This is the mental template I have for a sword and sorcery character or series.  Self contained adventures full of the exotic and wonderful with a dash of horror, where the swords are fast, the magic is dark, and the heroes are both larger than life and flawed.  And anything is possible.

These are the qualities I look for in sword and sorcery.  Fortunately those qualities are still around.  So happy 80th, Conan.  Here’s wishing you many more.

In Defense of Marvin Kaye: A Review of Weird Tales # 360

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Weird Tales # 360
print $7.95, various ebook formats $2.99 available here
edited by Marvin Kaye

There was a great deal of bitchin’ and moanin’ wailing and gnashing of teeth last year when it was announced that Marvin Kaye was buying Weird Tales and replacing editor Ann Vandermeer with himself.  The way some people carried on, you would have thought Sauron had managed to get his claws on the One Ring. 

When Kaye announced, and later retracted, his plans to publish an excerpt of the science fiction novel Save the Pearls, a book many considered to be racist, I expected to see reports of mobs marching on Kaye’s location with torches and pitchforks.  Haivng read a number of Kaye’s anthologies for the SFBC, and portions of others, I have great respect for him as an editor, but I have to say this was not one of his better choices.  Nor was his essay defending that choice well conceived.  I didn’t bother to give this particular novel much attention; the descriptions of it, even if they were only half accurate, made it clear to me the novel was not a good thing to serialize in the magazine.

Outrage was so great that Mary Robinette Kowal subsidized Shimmer magazine so that publication would be able to pay pro rates.  Editor-in-Chief Beth Wodzinski stated on the magazine’s blog that she wanted to continue in the vein Ann Vandermeer.

Why am I going into this bit of recent history?  Because the situation as I see it is this:  Expectations on Kaye to succeed are extremely high, so high that it can be argued he’ll never be able to meet those expectations.  Furthermore, there are those who are waiting with sharpened knives for him to stumble, or if you prefer, stumble again after the Save the Pearls debacle. 

Well, now the first issue edited by Kaye is out, and it has the theme of The Elder Gods.  Kaye is taking the magazine back to its roots.  This was part of what caused the controversy when he replaced Vandermeer as edtior.  Many saw this as a step backwards.  It’s become fashionable in some circles to bash Lovecraft for a variety of reasons, and a number of those reasons showed up in the vitriol that followed the announcement.

So, let’s look at the stories, and then I’ll attempt to answer the question of whether or not Kaye succeeding in getting his incarnation of The Unique Magazine off the ground. 

“The Eyrie” is the first item past the ToC.  In his introductory essay Kaye assures readers he is open to all types of genre fiction, from the type that made the magazine’s reputation to new and innovative types of storytelling.  He lists a number of established authors who have expressed interest in appearing in the magazine, and if he gets stories from all of them, he will succeed in taking the publication to new heights.

There follows some reviews of Lovecraft themed anthologies and a poem by Jill Bauman.

After that, comes Brian Lumley‘s novella “The Long Last Night”.  This was a slow building, disturbing story.  While the general ending was pretty obvious to me, the details were original and disturbing.  Next, another poem, “In Shadowy Innsmouth” by Darrell Schweitzer.  We return to fiction with “Momma Durt” from Michael Shea, about the goings-on at an allegedly abandoned mine shaft that is being used to illegally dump toxic waste.  Michael Reyes introduces us to the drug induced “Darkness at Table Rock Road”, and Darrell Schwietzer returns with a fiction piece, “The Runners Beyond the Wall”, in which a young man finds himself with a very deadly guardian after being orphaned.  “The Country of Fear” by Russell Brickey is another poem.  Matthew Jackson’s “Drain” is an effective lesson in why you should clean your drain frequently, teaching us that no good deed goes unpunished.  “The Thing in the Cellar” by William Blake-Smith is a tongue-in-cheek tale about a teenager who’s read a little too much Lovecraft.  It’s a delightful change from the dark and grim tales preceding it and easily my favorite in the issue.

The Weird Tales website lists “Found in a Bus Shelter at 3:00 a.m., Under a Mostly Empty Sky” by Stephen Garcia.  I’m not sure if this is an error or not.  This piece isn’t included in the electronic version of the magazine, at least not the epub format.

After this are four unthemed stories:  “To be a Star” by Parke Godwin, “The Empty City” by Jessica Amanda Salmanson, “The Abbey at the Edge of the Earth” by Collin B. Greenwood, and “Alien Abduction” by M. E. Brine.  Except for the Greenwood piece, I found all of these to be slight, hackneyed even, and not very interesting.  Certainly not up to the quality of the Lovecraft inspired selections.

After this was another Lovecraft piece, an essay by Kenneth Hite entitled “Lost in Lovecraft”.

Finally, there is a Ray Bradbury tribute with its own cover.  To an extent, I wish this had been saved for the next issue, simply because I wanted more and the tribute was added just before the magazine went to press.  While not one of the authors who first comes to mind when one thinks of WT, Bradbury had some important work appear here over the years.  The tribute is fitting, and the second cover is a nice touch.  I just wish it had been included in the electronic edition.

The Bradbury pieces are the original version of “The Exiles” (there’s a Lovecraft connection), Bradbury’s ending of the film version of Rosemary’s Baby, a poem, a remembrance by Marvin Kaye, and a review of Shadow Show:  Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury edited by James Aquilone.

So how does the first issue of WT Kaye has edited hold up?  While the unthemed stories are mostly disappointing, overall this is a good issue.  The Elder Gods section has some strong work, including what will probably come to be regarded as a major novella by Brian Lumley.  There’s quite a bit of variety and diversity in these stories.  And like I said, it was good to have a Bradbury tribute.

I think Kaye has a good format for success.  Each issue will contain themed and unthemed stories.  Next issue’s theme will be fairy tales.  If he can find some stronger stories for the unthemed section, and I have no doubt he can, then this incarnation of Weird Tales will be a success.  It won’t please some, even most, of its detractors, but that’s to be expected.  The direction Kaye is taking is too different from Ann Vandermeer’s. 

I only read one or two issues of Vandermeer’s WT, and what I read didn’t really knock my socks off.  In fact, none of the stories have stuck with me.  I recall not caring much for what I did read, so I for one welcome the changes Marvin Kaye has brought to the magazine.   While I’m sorry her departure from the magazine was painful to her, as well has her many fans and friends, I’m glad Kaye is keeping a strong focus on the magazine’s past while being open to new voices. 

I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will disagree with my assessment of this issue, and Kaye’s editorship in general, who will lament that he isn’t pursuing the same direction Vandermeer did.  That’s fine.  As I mentioned at the top of this post, Shimmer is going to attempt to fill that niche.  I think that’s a good thing, and I wish Beth Wodzinski all success.  I intend to take a look at that publication at some point.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the next issue of Weird Tales. 

Vampires of the Carribean

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Cast in Dark Waters
Ed Gorman and Tom Piccirilli
various ebook formats, $2.99
Kindle  Nook Smashwords

In spite of the fact that this is a fairly short piece of fiction (less than 19,000 words), Cast in Dark Waters is one of the best weird pirate stories I’ve ever read.  The characters, particularly the protagonist, Crimson, seemed to almost walk off the page, they came across so real.

Crimson is a lady pirate, widowed, who is the toughest, most dangerous buccaneer in the Carribean.  The plot is straightforward.  An Englishman, having taken up the life of a Virginia tobacco farmer, has found out that his daughter has run away from finishing school in England with a notorious pirate.  He and his wife have come seeking Crimson’s help in finding her.  The pair of lovers are rumored to be staying on an island with a dark reputation.  Supposedly the undead also inhabit the island.

And Crimson’s former husband may be among them.

That’s all I’ll say about the plot.  This story could have come from Weird Tales, a collaboration of Henry S.Whitehead and Robert E. Howard.  There are elements of both in this tale.  The creepiness factor is about an 11.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.  There’s plenty of swordplay, and if you listen carefully, you can almost hear the mast creaking in the breeze and smell the spray of the ocean as it breaks over the fo’c’sle.

Crimson is a wonderfully wounded heroine, and it’s amazing how much depth Gorman and Piccirilli bring to what would be a stock character in the hands of lesser writers, a woman buccaneer who’s as tough as a man.  That’s almost become as much of a cliche in some circles as the maiden needing rescue.  And they do it in far fewer pages than most writers would use.

All of the characters are well drawn.  Their relationships are real, and they defy expectations.  In fact, the whole thing defies expectations.  You think you know what is going to happen once they reach the island, but Gorman and Piccirilli sidestep the obvious approach and go for the unexpected.

I rushed through this one in a single sitting.  Gorman has long been a favorite of mine, but this is AFAIK the first work I’ve read by Piccirilli.  I’ll need to read more of his stuff.  I hope they write a sequel; I want to read more about  Crimson.

Cast in Dark Waters, for all its grimness, was some of the most fun I’ve had in a great while.  I highly recommend it.

Report on Howard Days 2012

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The Robert E. Howard House

This had to be the best Howard Days I’ve attended, and from what others said, the best ever as far as the weather went.  Because of the recent rain, Friday I don’t think the temperature got out of the low 80s, and I’m not sure it got that high.  It felt more like April than June.  Saturday I think the high was in the low 90s, which is still April temperatures for this part of the world.  Today I came home to triple digits.  Welcome back to summer.

The theme this year was Conan’s 80th birthday.  Like many people, Conan was my gateway drug to Howard.  While I like all aspects of Howard’s work, Conan is still my favorite.  My wife had been sick the day before with the stomach bug from Mordor, so I waited until I was sure she was back on her feet before I took off Friday morning, running a few errands for her and going to the store.  I didn’t get there until after lunch, so I missed the tours and the morning panel, which was a tribute to the late Glenn Lord.  Here’s my take on what I was there for.

The first panel of Friday afternoon was Guest of Honor Charles Hoffman’s presentation of Conan the Existentialist.  This was followed by Paul Sammon, Al Harron, and Mark Finn discussing Conan’s Birthday.  When the panels were over, I hit the post office and picked up some postcards with this year’s cancellation.  Afterwards, I went back to the pavillion and hung out, visiting with friends until time for the dinner and silent auction.  There were fewer people in attendance this year.  Some of the regulars had various life issues, most of a medical nature, that prevented them from attending.  They were missed.  On the other hand, there were a number of new faces who will hopefully be returning.  The general attitude was it was an up year for that reason alone. 
l to r, Jeff Shanks, Mark Finn, Indy Cavalier, Al Harron trying to get out of the picture, Jay ?

Dinner was catered by The Staghorn Cafe, which makes some of the best chicken fried steak on the planet.  Amazingly, I won most of the items I bid on in the silent auction.  They were all low ticket items, cash being tight this year, but I still walked out with ten books, a comic, and a DVD for less than $30.  I stepped into the parking lot after dinner, got caught in a conversation, and missed some of the Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards. For that reason, I’ll not discuss them in depth.

An item that has become one of the most popular panels is “Fists at the Ice House”.  Started by Mark Finn and Chris Gruber, this year the panel was held after the awards.  The ice house was just what it sounds like, an ice house.  This was how ice was kept in the early twentieth century, and delivery carts went around every day.  You could buy ice and put it in your ice box, where the ice would keep perishable food cold.  Some older folks (your grandparents and great grandparents) may still refer to the refrigerator as the ice box, and that’s where the term comes from.  Ice houses also sold cold beverages, alcoholic and otherwise.  In Cross Plains, there was one ice house in the 1920s where young men would meet for beer and boxing.

Fists at the Ice House:  (l to r) Shanks, Finn, Gruber

Robert E. Howard was one of those men.  Mark Finn makes an excellent point:  If you want to understand Robert E. Howard the man, you need to understand his relationship with boxing.  Some of the first and last stories he sold were boxing stories, and he wrote them throughout his entire career.  Mark, Jeff, and Chris discussed this and read from Howard’s boxing works.  It was rather late when this panel broke up.  As much as I would have like to hung around, I had an hour drive to where I was staying, so I took off.

After buying a thank-you gift ofr my wife for letting me attend, I toured the house the next morning.  There are some new additions.  For one thing, a number of books from Howard’s personal library are on permanent loan from Howard Payne University.  Several of them are inscribed to Howard from his friends, including one from Edmund Hamilton.  I’ll put pictures at the end of this post.

The morning panels (held at the library) consisted of Shanks, Hoffman, and Finn discussing efforts to get academia to take Howard seriously and laying out a strategy for this to happen, and afternoon panels featured Paul Sammon giving a slide show on The Illustrated Conan.  As well as being a writer, Paul works in Hollywood, having been a key person on a number of movies such as Conan, Blade Runner, and Starship Troopers.  If you ever meet him, talk to him. He seems to know or have known everybody and tells some wonderful stories.  The final panel was What’s Happening with REH?, and discussed mostly forthcoming books (lots of boxing stories) and some information about movies (nothing major, at least that can be announced).  Then I viewed the collection of books, manuscripts, and pulps, many Weird Tales with Margaret Brundage covers.

Look what’s coming to dinner.

This year I got to go to the Legacy Circle members lunch hosted by the REH Foundation.  We nearly took over the Mexican restaurant.  The food was excellent.  So was the barbeque out at Caddo Peak Ranch that evening.  We did have a couple of uninvited guests, or as Paul McNamee called them in response to my tweeting, Set cultists everywhere.  I’m referring, of course, to the snakes.  The first was a copperhead which was only a few meters from the tables.  The other was a rattlesnake the coiled up beside the trail on the hike down from Caddo Peak.  I got a picture of both, but the rattler is hard to see in the picture.  It was coiled, about three feet long, and they can strike two thirds of their body length away.  My telephoto on the camera only does so much, and I wasn’t getting any closer.  Here’s the copperhead, though.

After eating delicious meal and watching the sunset, I went back to the pavilion.  Barabara Barrett organized an impromptu poetry reading on the steps of the house.  We took turns reading from the poetry books we had.  No one had the complete poems, so I didn’t get to read “A Song of the Naked Lands”, my favorite.  Dave Hardy had some homemade mead again, which was good, as always.  I visited a while, then hit the road, later than the night before.  It was one of the most enjoyable Howard Days I’ve been to.

What follows are photos I took this year, some with captions.  I’ll try to identify everyone I know; if I leave someone’s name off or get it wrong, I apologize.  No slight is intended.

Jeff Shanks with award
Bob’s Room (window view is painting; additional room to right was added later)

Bob’s Room (Mrs. Howard’s window is on left)
Volumes from Bob’s library
The library’s collection of original manuscripts

I love Margaret Brundage covers
View of East Caddo Peak from West Caddo Peak
More Margaret Brundage

A portion of the dinner party

Current and former REHupans
Sunset
Bill “Indy” Cavalier reading poetry

Marvin Kaye Buys Weird Tales, Replaces Ann Vandermeer as Editor

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This was announced earlier today, so many, if not most, of you have probably seen it, but I wanted to post it anyway.  (It’s been one of those days.  Power was out over most of the campus for most of the day and classes start tomorrow.)  Marvin Kaye has bought Weird Tales from publisher John Betancourt.  He is replacing the entire editorial staff, including editor Ann Vandermeer.  Vandermeer’s final issue will be #359, which will be published next February.  (The current issue, #358 is shown at right.)  Kaye, who has edited anthologies related to Weird Tales and the now defunct H. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, intends to edit the magazine himself.  His first issue, #360, will be a special Cthulhu themed issue.  Stories bought by Vandermeer that aren’t included in #359 will be published in future issues.  Further details can be found in Ann Vandermeer’s farewell post.  Black Gate editor John O’Neill has written a commentary here.

Blogging Conan: The God in the Bowl

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Coming of ConanThis 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.

Blogging Conan: The People of the Black Circle

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“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 Shadowsalong with “Beyond the Black River”.  The other two stories, “The Tower of the Elephant” and “Red Nails” are in The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 2: Grim Lands.  We’ll look at all of them before this series is over.

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.

Blogging Conan: A Witch Shall be Born

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It’s been hectic the last few weeks.  I just finished two back to back conferences at which I made presentations and will fly home tomorrow.  As a result, I’ve not posted much other than a review at Futures Past and Present of a Jack Vance novel I read on the plane.  Things should start to pick back up.

“A Witch Shall be Born”, although not without flaws,  inspired the Margaret Brundage cover seen on the left.  This is one of my favorite Conan stories, even with the flaws.  Some of the strongest imagery in the whole series can be found in this story.  Also some of the most unbelievable protrayals of women.
The story opens as Taramis, the queen of the small city state Khauran, is awakened during the night.  She had a twin sister at birth, Salome, who was left to die in the desert.  A curse lies on the royal family of Khauran, so that every century a child is born with a cresecent shaped birthmark on her chest.  The child will become a witch and do much damage to the kingdom.  When Taramis and Salome were born, Salome had the mirthmark and was left in the desert to die.  Found by an eastern sorcerer returning home from a visit to Stygia, she was raised to become a powerful sorceress.  Now she’s come back to take what she claims is her birthright. 

How she can speak the language without any accent is never addressed, which was something of a stumbling block for me.
With Salome is a mercenary captain named Constantius.  He had entered the city a few days ahead of Salome and had publicly proposed marriage to Taramis.  She of course rejected his proposal.  Constantius joins Salome.  After a brief discussion, in which Salome reveals that she intends to take Taramis’ place, she goes to declare herself queen, leaving Taramis to be raped by Constantius.
She orders all the soldiers to assemble in the city’s central square unarmed.  They all do, except for the Queen’s guard, who are led by a certain Cimmerian.  They show up armed.  Conan doesn’t fall for the trap.  Instead he declares Salome an imposter.  The Queen’s guard are butchered, and Conan is crucified by Constantius outside the city gates.
One of the guard escapes, a young man named Valerius, whose devotion to the queen comes across as though he’s in love with her.  His lover Ivga tolerates this.  Why, I don’t know.  He clearly cares more for the queen than he does for her.  Ivga comes across as child-like, the way Muriela did in “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”.  This was the other portrayal I thought was unrealistic.
Still, this is a better than average story.  One of the things that Howard does is to tell the story from the viewpoints of Taramis, Salome, and Valerius as much as from Conan’s viewpoint, if not more.  In fact, we don’t actually get a passage from Conan’s viewpoint until the crucifixion scene.  A variation of this scene, by the way, was in Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.  While this approach does lend itself to some infodumps, it has the advantage of defining Conan’s character through the eyes of others.  One thing I thought interesting was how Conan treated Taramis.  I’ll not elaborate on that, at least not in this post, since I’m trying not to give too many spoilers away.
There’s plenty of action and intrigue, with touches of the civilization vs. barbarism theme Howard included in many of the Conan works.  The crucifixions are especially well done, and the images I Howard’s words formed in my mind the first time I read this story are still with me, a quarter of a century later.  This one is worth checking out.

Blogging Conan: Jewels of Gwahlur/The Servants of Bit-Yakin

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This was one of the last Conan stories Howard wrote.  Only four more would follow, but those four contain two of his greatest masterpieces, “Beyond the Black River” and “Red Nails.”  Howard’s title was “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”, but Farnsworth Wright changed the title to “Jewels of Gwahlur” when he published it in Weird Tales.  That’s the title it was known by until the Wndering Star/Del Rey editions, which restored the original title.  However, there are some collections in print which are using the Weird Tales versions of Howard’s stories, so you might find it under either title.  Unlike some of Howard’s work, there’s no difference between his preferred version and the version that appeared in Weird Tales.

This isn’t one of the better Conan stories.  The plot requires swallowing a pretty large pill, namely that a treasure as valuable as the Teeth of Gwahlur (as they’re called in the story) could remain unmolested in a lost jungle city for so long.  Also, the heroine is way too hysterical.  She’s certainly no Belit.
The basic setup involves Conan working as a mercenary in the Black Kingdoms.  He’s there because he’s heard rumors of a great treasure in a lost city, Alkmeenon, and is waiting around to find out the details.  When an old enemy, the STygian Thutmekri, shows up and bribes some of the priests to take him to Alkmeenon, Conan is able to find out where it is.  Knowing Thutmekri is working for the kingdom of Zembabwei and the whole thing is a set-up for an invasion, Conan leaves ahead of them.
Alkmeenon is hidden in a natural amphitheater surrounded by sheer cliffs.  Not knowing the location of the secret entrance to the valley, Conan climbs the cliffs.  Near the top he encoutners a small cave in which he finds a mummy holding a tube containing a parchment.  Of course he takes it.  This was one of the more powerful images in the story for me.  Conan is hundreds of feet above the ground and comes face to face with a corpse.
I’m a sucker for lost city stories, particularly those that take place in jungles.  The thing that makes this one unique is that so much of it is set in a series of caves and underground passages beneath the city.  We know that Howard was inspired by a visit to Carlsbad Caverns when he wrote this one. 
Another powerful scene, occurring about halfway through the story, is when Conan is attempting to sneak up on one of the people who have not followed but preceded him to the valley.  Knowing the location of the secret entrance has its advantages.  It’s dusk, and Conan sees the white of his face contrasted against the darkness of the forest.  When he approaches the man, Conan discovers its only the man’s head he sees, tied to a branch by the hair.  The valley is supposed to be deserted…
“TheServants of Bit-Yakin” (or “Jewels of Gwahlur” if you prefer) isn’t the best Conan story, but it isn’t the worst either.  It’s simply an adventure story, and a better than average one at that.  While there are some problems with the characterization and some of the plot details, it still has its moments.  In my opinion, it’s worth reading.