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.
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.
“By This Axe” isn’t a bad story, but it isn’t a particularly good one, certainly not be the standards Howard had set in some of the other Kull installments. There are two main aspects to the plot. First, a group of dissatisfied men, two noblemen, a guard captain, and a poet, have recruited a former diplomat turned bandit, Ascalante, to help them overthrow Kull. This portion of the story is the better half.
The second portion of the plot concerns a young nobleman who wishes to marry a young slave girl who happens to be owned by one of the conspirators. This type of situation seems to be a recurrent theme in the Kull series, mostly in stories not published in Howard’s lifetime. Kull’s Councilor Tu insists that for a nobleman to marry a slave is simply not done; it would violate a centuries old law.
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
or Bran Mak Morn: The Last King
Robert E. Howard
Del Rey
This is the next to last post about Kull and the first about Bran Mak Morn. They’re together because they appear in the same story. This is essentially a Bran Mak Morn story in which Kull has a supporting role, although many elements of the Kull series can be seen. Let’s take a quick look at it.
Howard uses the trick of telling his tale from the point of view of a supporting character, albeit a crucial one. This is a device he’s used before, especially in some of the Conan stories. The advantage to this approach is that we get to see how other characters view the hero. This allows the reader to gain a fresh perspective of the hero and is particularly useful with a series character whose identity has been well established. The viewpoint character here is Cormac na Connacht, “a prince of the isle of Erin.”
The story is divided into three parts. In the first, the Picts and their allies are awaiting a battle with an invading Roman legion the following morning. With the Celts and Picts are a group of Northmen. The northmen were defeated by Bran when they tried to invade. Their king swore and oath that he would aid Bran against the Romans in one battle, and in return Bran would build him ships for the survivors to get home. The problem is that the king was killed in a skirmish with Roman scouts, and his remaining men say his death released them from the oath. Unless Bran finds them a king to fight under, “a king neither Pict, Gael, or Briton”, they will desert to the Romans.
The ancient Druid priest Gonar promises help. Preceded by a lengthy speech about time being an illusion, he brings Kull forward in time to help with the battle, with Kull appearing to walk out of the rising sun. At first Kull thinks Bran is his friend Brule. Bran is descended from Brule and resembles him strongly. He also wears a gem in his crown that was given to Brule by Kull in a ring, and from Kull’s perspective, that happened the previous night. Kull thinks the whole things is a detailed dream. Always eager for a good fight, he agrees to lead the Northmen.
First he has to defeat the new leader of the Northmen, Wulfhere, who is resistant to Kull taking charge. An extended scene of single combat takes up the rest of the second part. It’s pure Howard. The prose is lean, exciting, and pulls you in. Of course Kull is victorious, but he’s not unscathed. This helps convince the Northmen he’s not a ghost.
The third part of the story is the battle. Bran puts Kull, who still thinks he’s dreaming, at the head of the Norsemen at the end of a gorge. They are the bait in a trap. None of the rest of Bran’s army is disciplined enough to stand and wait for the Romans to enter the gorge. Once they do, the Gaelic cavalry and the chariots of the Britons, accompanied by the Picts, will sweep in from the sides trapping them.
It’s an effective and bloody plan. Most of the Northmen die, as do most of the Romans, their camp followers, and many Picts, Gaels, and Britons. Cormac sees Kull standing on the ridge, outnumbered, the sole survivor of the bait. Just as one of the Romans is about to deliver a killing blow, the sun begins to set, and Kull is transported back to Valusia.
Appalled at the carnage, Cormac threatens to kill Bran in retribution for not springing the trap sooner. Bran replies ” ‘Strike if you will. I am sick of slaughter. It is a cold mead, this kinging it…A king belongs to his people, and can not let either his own feelings or the lives of men influence him. Now my peole are saved; but my heart is cold in my breast.”
Heavy stuff. Even in victory there is bleakness. This is one of Howard’s best. A lesser writer would have taken the easy way out at the end of the story and had the victors celebrate. Instead they mourn the loss of their friends and allies, including the Northmen, and prepare for the next battle with the Romans who will follow after those who have fallen.
This could have been a simple adventure story. Instead, Howard infused it with some of his favorite themes. There’s much discussion about the nature of time and reality. Is Kull dreaming being with Bran, or was his former life a dream from which he had just awakened. Then there’s the weight of the crown and responsibility, often fulfilled in blood, of those who wear it. Finally, throughout the story, Howard makes references to the rise and fall of the Picts in particular and how much science has been lost since Kull’s time. Kull’s armor and weapons are superior to any other in the battle, on either side.
The strands of melancholy and philosophy make this one of Howard’s better tales. It’s one I’ll return to again in the future, for it’s well worth multiple readings.
The Kull series of posts is about at an end. The only one remaining is for “By This Axe I Rule!” which was rewritten into “The Phoenix on the Sword”, the first of the Conan tales. I’ll be comparing the two in the final Kull post. That post will launch a series of posts looking at selected Conan stories. This post launches a series of posts about Bran Mak Morn. Bran, Kull, and Conan are Howard’s three warrior kings, and Kull is the common link between them. I’ll have more to say about that as we look at Bran and Conan over the next few months.
Dreams in the Fire: Stories and Poetry Inspired by Robert E. Howard
Mark Finn and Chris Gruber, ed.
cover art by Jim and Ruth Keegan
Monkeyhaus Publishing
available from Lulu (use above link), $20, 278 p.
Ever since I interviewed Mark Finn back in February (posted here and here) and he told me about this book, I’ve had high expectations for it. It did not meet my expectations.
This book exceeded my expectations, and in spades.
All the contributors are either current or former member of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association. The anthology is a fund raiser, and I’ll talk more about that at the end of the review.
The book contains stories and fiction, along with an introduction by Rusty Burke. Several professional writers are included, but not all of the names will be familiar. My understanding is that some of the contents are the first published fiction of some of the contributors. I can only ask: What took you people so long? There’s not a dog in the book, and the quality of many of the stories surpasses a lot of what’s in professional short fiction markets these days. Howard wrote in a variety of genres, so not all of the entries are fantasy, although most are.
I’ll not discuss the poetry, since some of the pieces are only a few lines. I don’t want my commentary to be longer than what I’m commenting on. I restrict myself to saying the following people have one or more poems in the book: Barbara Barrett (3), Frank Coffman (2), Danny Street, Amy Kerr, and Don Herron.
The backbone of the anthology is the fiction, and that’s what I want to discuss here.
Charles Gromlich opens the book with a deadly tale of family and gender politics in “A Gathering of Ravens”; this one annoyed me because I wanted to know more about the relationship between Trajan Vittus and Jedess than Gromlich chose to show. That’s a sign of good writing. Veteran professional James Reasoner examines the relationship between the pen and the sword in “The Rhymester of Ulm”, while “The Word”, by Rob Roehm, is the only western tale. Robert Weinberg lightens the mood with “CSI: Kimmeria”. Christopher Fulbright gives us a pirate yarn set on the “Bloody Isle of the Kiyah-rahi”, and Jimmy Cheung’s “Avatar” is a twisty tale of betrayal.
The second longest story and one of my favorites, “Now With Serpents He Wars” by Patrick R. Burger, ventures into territory not much explored by Howard, the Arthurian legends. I found this one to be fresh and original, with compelling writing and believable characters. I’m hoping this one will be on one or more award ballots next year. Oh, and if you don’t like snakes, this one will probably get under your skin.
Angeline Hawkes’ series character, the Barbarian Kabar of El-Hazzar, puts in an appearance in “Two Dragons Blazing”. Co-editor Mark Finn gives us a something of a boxing tale with “Sailor Tom Sharkey and the Phantom of the Gentleman Farmer’s Commune.” David A. Hardy descends into madness with his “I am a Martian Galley Slave”; or does he? Co-editor Chris Gruber, with the longest of the selections and another personal favorite, tells the story of an Indian massacre and its aftermath on the Illinois frontier during the War of 1812, with a dash of horror thrown in for good measure in “Dead River Revenge”. Gary Romeo tells of a swordsman who has “No Other Gods”, and Morgan Holmes rounds out the volume with “A Meeting in the Bush”, a vignette in which several familiar characters meet up for a brief encounter.
Some of the contributors are shown in the picture below at the signing for the book held at Howard Days last month. I’ve tried to identify everyone I can in the picture. If I’ve left anyone out, I apologize.
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| Signing at Howard Days 2011 – (l. to r.) Amy Kerr, Mark Finn, Angeline Hawkes, Chris Fulbright, Gary Romeo (purple shirt), and Rob Roehm (black shirt, far right) |
I expected to the stories to be well written. Amateur press associations tend to attract intelligent, articulate people. What I didn’t expect was the level of professionalism and craftsmanship in the writing. Like I said earlier, some of these stories are better than most of what you find in professional anthologies and periodicals, and none of them fall below that standard. Not quite what I would have expected for a group of writers who, to a large extent, are not pros and/or write mostly nonfiction. This was the second original anthology without a bunch of A-list names I’ve read in the last month that has surprised me with the high quality of the stories. (Here’s my review of the other one.) If other small press anthologies of this type are this good, I’m going to need to read a lot more of them (and so should you).
If I have any complaint at all, and that’s stretching the definition of the world “complaint” almost to the breaking point, it would be that only one story is a nonfantasy. That being Rob Roehm’s, which is a grim western. (Chris Gruber’s comes close to being a straight historical, but does contain a fantastic climax. Mark Finn’s is a definite fantasy, even though it’s about a boxer.) Now I discovered Howard through his fantasy work, primarily Conan, so I’m not really trying to cast stones here. My point is Howard wrote a great deal more than just fantasy. There were the westerns, both humorous and serious, the boxing stories, and the historical adventures. I was expecting more entries in those veins, seeing how the focus was about Howard’s inspiration of these writers. Maybe in the next volume guys?
Finally, one last thing. This book costs $20. You might be thinking that’s high for a trade paperback, and under other circumstances I would be inclined to agree. But this is a fund raiser for Project Pride, the community organization that maintains the Howard House, puts on Howard Days, and has done work above and beyond the call of duty to maintain Robert E. Howard’s legacy. If you’ve been to Howard Days, you understand what that means first hand. If you haven’t, Project Pride maintains the House and grounds. Provides meals for Howard Days attendees for free (although registration and a donation are requested to defray the cost of the evening meals and to get an accurate count, I don’t think anyone has ever been turned away). Maintains copies of a number of original manuscripts. And makes Howard fans not only feel welcome but like part of the family. When you buy this book (and you should), your money will be going to a good cause.
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Robert E. Howard
Del Rey, 317 p. $17
There are three stories left in the Kull series, and they are “By This Axe I Rule!”, “Swords of the Purple Kingdom”, and “Kings of the Night”. I’m going to skip “By This Axe I Rule!” for reasons I’ll explain at the end of the post. Instead, let’s turn our attention to “Swords of the Purple Kingdom”, shall we?
In his afterward to this volume, “Hyborian Genesis”, Patrice Louinet says that this story was probably written sometime around June of 1929. That makes perfect sense, considering the opening paragraph. Here are a few lines describing conditions in the city of Valusia:
“The heat waves danced from roof to shining roof and shimmered against the smooth marble walls. The purple towers and golden spires were softened in the faint haze. No ringing hoofs on the wide paved streets broke the frowsy silence and the few pedestrians who appeared walking, did what they had to do hastily and vanished indoors again.”
I don’t know how many of you have ever dealt with a Texas summer, but that’s a pretty good description of what it’s like. A high pressure dome typically forms over the state, what winds happen to blow are hot, and the air is hazy. This passage strikes me as Howard incorporating what he knew (and may have been living at the time) into his fiction. The description is perfect.
The city is a powder keg waiting to explode. The people have prospered under Kull’s rule, and consequently they have forgotten how they suffered under the tyranny of his predecessor and how they welcomed him when he took the throne.
Add to this, our old friend Delcartes is still around pestering Kull to command her father the Count to allow her to marry the commoner of her choice. (It’s a different person than in the earlier story. Young love is so fickle.) Kull of course refuses, in part because he doesn’t want to interfere in a family matter on general principles, but also because Delcartes’ father is one of Kull’s closest friends and strongest supporters.
There’s a conspiracy against Kull, of course. Betrayals and intrigues. And an intense combat scene where Kull defends Delcartes against a small company of soldiers at the top a stair in an abandoned ruin.
One thing the story doesn’t have, that many of the other Kull tales do, is a lot of existential philosophy. Not that Howard didn’t include some philosophizing. He does, but it deals more with the weight of the crown Kull wears. In the opening scene, before Delcartes enters the audience chamber, Kull and Brule are talking. Kull laments the fickleness of the people he rules. Here we see Howard’s fascination with the cycles of empire, where the established empire becomes soft and weak, only to be overthrown by the barbarians, and the cycle starts over again.
Consider Kull’s words to Brule: “The empire was worse under Borna, a native Valusian and a direct heir of the old dynasty, than it has been under me. That is the price a nation must pay for decaying – the strong young people come in and take possession, one way or another.”
Later after Delcarrtes leaves (not before her father arrives), Kull shows extreme sensitivity to the man, who is expecting Kull to order him to allow the marriage. “Not for half my kingdom would I interfere with your family affairs, nor force you into a course unpleasant to you.”
Two things I want to comment on. First, we can see Howard’s philosophy of individual freedom at work here. Kull sympathizes with Delcartes, and if it were up to him, he would allow her to marry. He believes a person should be free to marry whomever he or she wishes. The point is made in more than one story. However, if Kull were to interfere and order the Count to allow his daughter to marry the man she loves, he would be in greater violation of this principle than her father in that he would deny the Count the freedom to manage his household as he wished without interference.
Second, Howard’s detractors often accuse him of writing hack-and-slash fantasy without any depth to his characters. They need to read Howard more closely. In “Swords of the Purple Kingdom”, Howard shows Kull having more depth and sensitivity to his subjects needs and positions than he does in any of the stories we’ve considered to date. (I’m exempting “By This Axe I Rule!” and “Kings of the Night” since we haven’t looked at them yet.) He does this again with Brule at the end of the tale, when Kull and Brule decide not to tell one of the recurring characters in the series that a relative of his has turned traitor because of what the news will do the man.
Lest you think this story is a touchy-feel-good piece of fluff, there’s plenty of action later in the tale. Howard was stretching himself as a writer with this particular piece by developing the characters and their backgrounds. By 1929 he was hitting his stride as a writer. While the Kull series may contain a number of fragments and false starts, they represent an important phase in his development.
Now, as to why I skipped “By This Axe I Rule!” There are two stories left in the Del Rey edition. Both of them are significant, albeit in different ways. “By This Axe I Rule!” was unpublished in Howard’s lifetime. He would rewrite it a few years later as “The Phoenix on the Sword”, the story that introduced the world to his most famous character, Conan of Cimmeria.
The other story, “Kings of the Night” is really a Bran Mak Morn story in which Kull has a guest appearance. That story will be the launching point for a series of posts about Bran, and it will be the next post in this series.
I’m also going to do the same thing with Conan. The final Kull post will be a comparison of “By This Axe I Rule!” and “Kings of the Night”. That will launch a series of posts looking at selected Conan stories. The reason I’m doing this is because of the Conan movie that will be released in August. The movie will generate some, hopefully a great deal of, interest in Conan. My desire is that people doing a search for Conan will find these posts, read them, and then go read the original stories rather than the pastiches. (If they want to read the pastiches later, that’s fine with me, so long as they understand that Conan has Howard wrote him isn’t the same Conan as others wrote him.)
I’m not gong to do the Conan stories in order, or even look at all of them. I’ve already discussed “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” at length and see no need to repeat myself on that one. What I’m going to do is pick and choose among my favorites (which will be most of them), although I don’t know if I’ll look at Hour of the Dragon simply because of its length. I’ll start the posts sometime in July, when interest in the movie should be picking up and do a post every two weeks or so, shifting to at least a post once a week near the movie’s release, and continuing until I burn out, interest in the movie drops off, or I cover all of the Conan stories.
The Bran Mak Morn posts should start up by the first of July. They’ll run concurrently with the Conan series, although not as frequently.
And that’s why I skipped “By This Axe I Rule!”