Category Archives: Robert E. Howard

Blogging Conan: A Witch Shall be Born

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.

Blogging Kull and Conan: Of Axes and Swords

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And so we reach the end of our look at the Kull stories (almost; I’ll have some general comments in a separate post) and the first of the Conan posts. I’m looking at both of these because the first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword”, is a rewrite of an unsold Kull story, “By This Axe I Rule!”.

“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 sneaks out of the palace to wander the woods for a few hours. He feels like a slave himself. There’s a great deal of discussion on Kull’s part at various places in the story about how holding a throne is much more difficult than taking it. During his walk in the woods, he encounters a young girl weeping. Not recognizing him, she tells him that she’s a slave in love with a nobleman, who went to the king to request permission to marry. Kull is sympathetic, but argues the king has to abide by the laws himself.

The rest of the story concerns the conspiracy attempting to assassinate Kull and failing. In the end, he uses his axe to smash the stone tablet on which is written the law forbidding slaves and nobility to marry. He declares that he is the law.

It’s easy to see why Farnsworth Wright rejected this story when Howard submitted it to Weird Tales. The whole romance subplot basically ruins the story. The slave girl comes across as both childish and childlike. She speaks of being spanked as punishment by her master at one point. She’s weepy and clingy. And her dialogue reminds me of early Shirley Temple movies or child characters in Victorian novels, all sweetness and earnestness. There’s was no way I was buying that this girl and the nobleman were madly in love. That whole aspect of the story had an almost pedaeophilic tone to it. I’m sure Howard didn’t intend anything of the sort. It’s just a combination of his still developing skill as a writer and my twenty-first century cultural concerns coming together. Still, the whole thing gave me the creeps.

One thing did make me wonder just what Howard was dealing with in his own life when he wrote this story. At one point the girl deeclares: “Why should laws not change? Time never stands still! Why should people today be shackled by laws which were made for our barbarian ancestors thousands of years ago-” It sounds like Howard may have been feeling a little bit shackled and enslaved by the culture he was living in. I know from first-hand experience that small towns in that part of Texas can be extremely conformist in their outlook, and in the 1920s I’m sure it was much worse. Howard was in his early 20s when he wrote this, and I suspect was still feeling some of the natural rebellion of youth that questions why things have to be the same as they were. This is entirely speculation on my part, but it fits with what I know about Howard and my experiences in similar environments.

“The Phoenix on the Sword”, while not one of Howard’s best stories, and certainly not the best of the Conan tales, is clearly the work of a more mature writer. Howard drops the whole romance subplot, and instead introduces a villain whose hand would be felt in a couple of other stories, the Stygian sorceror Thoth-amon. He’s a slave to the bandit as the tale opens, having lost a ring by which he maintains his power. Of course he finds it, and uses it to wreack his revenge by sending a creature from the Outer Darkness against the bandit. This is the only thing that saves Conan. The creature attacks during the assassination attempt. In the Kull story, it’s the nobleman who saves the day.

There’s also a new scene in which Conan in a cream meets a wise man who died fifteen hundred years earlier. This man tells Conan that his fate and that of Aquilonia, the kingdom Conan rules, are entertwined. He places a phoenix emblem on Conan’s sword, which is what allows Conan to kill the supernatural creature.

The scenes retained from “By This Axe”, portions of the conspiracy, Conan complaining about the duties of ruling, and the assassination scence are to a large extent unchanged except for some of the names. Only when Howard made significant changes to the plot, such as the addition of the creature in the fianl fight, does he engage in any extensive rewriting. Since the parts he retained were by far the better passages, this doesn’t hurt the story any.

Unlike the Kull series, the Conan stories weren’t written in any kind of chronological order, but jumpmed about throughout the character’s life. Also, Kull has no interest in women. Conan has plenty. Even a casual reading of the two series will reveal that, while there are similarities, Kull isn’t simply Conan-lite.

So, we’ve looked at all the Kull stories mostly in the order they appear in the current edition from Del Rey. I’ll be jumping around more with the Conan stories, looking at whichever one I’m in the mood to read at a given time. I’ll also be giving fewer spoilers in the Conan posts. With the movie less than a month away, I suspect I’ll pick up one or two new readers. I don’t want to spoil any of the fun for those who haven’t read the originals.

New Post at Home of Heroics

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I’m in the middle of trying to put together presentations for back-to-back conferences next week, so I’m a little late in mentioning this. (Plus Blogger and Firefox don’t seem to be on good terms lately, forcing me to use a idfferent browser; what’s up with that?) The latest installment of my column Dispatches From the Lone Star Front is up at Home of Heroics. It deals with Robert E. Howard’s legacy, so if you’re a Howard fan (if not, why not?), check it out.

Blogging Kull and Bran Mak Morn: Kings of the Night

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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.

A Review of Dreams in the Fire

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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.

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.

Blogging Kull: Swords of the Purple Kingdom

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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!”

Report on Howard Days 2011, Day Two

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The second day of Howard Days was pretty laid back for me. I arrived at the Pavilion about 9:00 or so. One of the anniversaries being celebrated this year is the 50th year since Glenn Lord’s zine The Howard Collector first appeared. At the banquet the previous night, one of the announcements was of a new issue. The issue went on sale at the Pavilion Saturday morning. I, of course, bought one. It contains the the original version of “Black Canaan” as Howard wrote it, an untitled poem that wasn’t included in the collected poetry, an untitled Breckenridge Elkins fragment, and a drawing by Howard. If I heard correctly, there are only 200 copies. I don’t have information about purchasing, so if someone reading does have that information, I would appreciate it if you could put it in a comment.

The Barbarian Festival was moved from downtown to Treadway Park just down the road from the house. I intended to swing by but never made it. I got to talking to several folks, including Paul Herman of the Foundation, Willie Siros and Scott Cupp of Adventures in Crime and Space Books, and author James Reasoner. Dave Hardy joined in the conversation shortly before we adjourned to The Staghorn Cafe for lunch and more conversation. If you’ve been to Cross Plains and not stopped in for their chicken fired steak, you’ve missed out. The Staghorn was named an honorable mention in Texas Monthly‘s list of the 40 Best Small Town Cafes in Texas. If you think about how many small towns there are in Texas, you’ll realize that’s no small accomplishment.

I don’t have many pictures for two reasons. One is that people sitting around talking generally don’t make for exciting photos. The other is that my camera had gotten turned on and by the time I discovered it, the battery was dead. I do have a couple of pictures from my phone of the signing and the ascent of Caddo Peak.

After lunch Scott and I decided to take in the new art museum. One of the ladies in town has taken the old Methodist church building and converted it into a museum. It exceeded my expectations, containing some very nice pieces. I bought my wife a bracelet, just to say “Thank You” for allowing me to abandon her at my parents’ house while I went off and had fun.

While there we ran into Mark Finn (interviewed here and here). Mark and I agreed that you should always have some money tucked away for emergencies and that a new issue of The Howard Collector you weren’t expecting constituted an emergency.

We went back to the Pavilion and sat around talking for a bit. I got the contributors who were there to sign my copy of Dreams in the Fire, the new anthology of original fiction by current and former REHupans. Look for a review here in the next week to ten days.

I was having such an enjoyable time visiting with friends that I never made it to the library and the panels held there. Those included Paul Sammon on Conan Movie History, Howard Fandom with Damon and Dennis, and REH Historical Poetry with Barbara Barrett, Alan Birkelbach, and Frank Coffman.

Book signing at the Pavilion

The last panel of the day was held at the Pavilion. Rusty Burke, Fred Malmberg, and Paul Herman discussed what’s happening with REH. Some of the upcoming projects include a new Kull movie, a new edition of the collected poetry that will include all of the poems discovered since the last volume (now out of print) was published, Mark Finn’s biography, Howard’s biographical writings which will include Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, a collection of Howard’s spicy stories in their original form (racier than the published versions), and a collection of all of Howard’s science fiction. Lots of good stuff to look forward to.

There was a brief signing of Dreams in the Fire, then everyone headed out to the barbeque. The picture above is of the signing. The people at the table in front are, from left to right, Amy Kerr, Mark Finn, Angeline Hawkes, Christopher Fulbright, Gary Romeo (in the purple shirt). The gentleman on the right side of the picture in the black T-shirt and tan shorts facing to the left is Rob Roehm. If you look carefully, you can see the bottom of the Howard house on the right side. The rest of the house is lost in the glare.

Before we ate, there was the traditional assault on Caddo Peak. This is the west peak. The east peak is owned by someone else who doesn’t want a bunch of folks traipsing around. Makes sense seeing as how he has cattle grazing there. The heat wasn’t too bad. I think it was around the upper 90s but the breeze and low humidity allowed the evaporative cooling to offset the discomfort.

Al Harron and Miguel Martins atop Caddo Peak

When we got to the top, one gentleman passed around a small bottle of scotch. We each took a sip and toasted our achievement (not keeling over from heatstroke). I’ve forgotten the gentleman’s name, but if he happens to read this, many thanks, sir. I found a nice multi-fossil specimen; Al Harron kindly identified some components.

View from Caddo Peak looking east towards Cross Plains

After that we headed down to an excellent dinner of brisket and sausage with all the fixings. Paul Sammon sat at the table I was at, and he, Willie Siros, and Scott Cupp talked about writers they’d known who are no longer with us. People like Phillip K. Dick, R. A. Lafferty, Karl Edward Wagner, and Theodore Sturgeon. I was insanely jealous that they had known these men. It was a wonderful meal and conversation, and I hope Paul will take the time to write some of his memories down. One thing that frustrates me is how much oral history has been lost in the science fiction and fantasy fields because no one has bothered to write things down.

Sunset

When the meal was over, we went and watched the Sun set. Then those who were so inclined headed back to the Pavilion. I went for a few minutes but didn’t stay long since I had an hour’s drive in the dark ahead of me and didn’t want to sleep at the wheel. I got Barbara Barrett to sign Dreams in the Fire since she hadn’t been at the signing earlier and chatted for a few minutes with Damon Sasser. Last year, Dave Hardy provided some homemade mead. It was good, but this year’s batch was better. I had a taste and really wished I didn’t have to drive. I would have loved to have some more. Thanks for bringing it, Dave. I need to get the recipe from you.

Then I hit the road, and Howard Days 2011 became a memory, at least for me. But a very good memory…

Report on Howard Days 2011, Day One

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The side of the Cross Plains library

Robert E. Howard Days 2011 was a great success, at least in my opinion. The weather was hot, but not humid, and the breeze helped keep things cool. Some people might say we had wind, but since the sky didn’t turn brown from dust like it has for the last few months where I live, I’ll say we only had a breeze in Cross Plains.

Festivities started on Thursday night, but I wasn’t able to arrive until Friday morning. I’ll report on what I participated in. Al Harron, at The Blog That Time Forgot, has posted daily summaries, starting with this one for Thursday. Al and I participated in some of the same activities but also a number of different ones, so check out his posts as well. Others will be posting their reports, and I’ll try to provide links throughout the week as I become aware of them.

I’ll put in more photos than I usually do, at least for the first day. My camera battery died on the second day, so all I have are a few photos I took with my phone. I’ll put the best of those in.

I got to the Pavilion shortly before 9:00 a.m. Several familiar faces were already there. I grabbed a donut and coffee and began saying hello after swinging by the bin with the issues of The Cimmerian for sale. I picked up a few and began mingling. One of the people I had the pleasure of meeting was Miguel Martins. Rusty Burke was leading a trailer tour again this year. Until last year, this was known as The Walking Tour, but a trailer with chairs on it has taken its place. And a good thing, too. Even though it was still relatively cool at this time in the morning (low 80s Fahrenheit), it would have been hotter than that before the tour was over.

House where Novalyne Price lived

Just before the tour started Al Harron, arrived. I met Al last year and made it a point of saying hello before we left. The tour was packed. All the chairs on the trailer were taken and four people were piled into the bed of the pickup towing us. We went by the cemetery (the Howards are all buried in Brownwood) and behind downtown, crossed the highway, and went by the house where Novalyne Price lived while she worked as a teacher at Cross Plains High School from 1934-1936. That’s her room on the right with the air conditioner sticking out of the window. If you haven’t read her memoir about her relationship with Bob, One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard the Final Years, you should. It formed the basis of the movie The Whole Wide World, starring Vincent D’Onofrio and an at the time nearly unknown actress named Renee Zellweger.

Rusty Burke leading the Trailer Tour

We also saw the building where the dry-cleaning business Bob worked at was once located, the location of the drug store where he once worked, and the building where he had his stenography business. Trying to take phhotos from a moving trailer turned out to be harder than I thought, so I don’t have many.

After we returned to the Pavilion, I wandered through the Howard house. There were a number of new docents this year. The gift shop had the usual number of books and zines, as well as copies of The Whole Wide World and various T-shirts and caps.

Hester’s room, left side

Hester’s room, right side

I’ve included three photos from the house. The first is of the left side of Hester’s room, taken from the doorway. This is the front bedroom that looks out on the porch. When you enter the house through the front door, you face a long hall with the living room on the right and Hester and Isaac’s room on the left.

The second photo is the right hand side of the room. Off to the right, out of the field of view, is a dresser. There’s a small closet to the left of the bedroom door. As you can see, the room would be considered small by today’s standards. My memory says that the bed was in front of the window on previous visits rather than to the side, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to see if I can locate some photos from a previous visit.

The window on the right looks out on what was originally a porch. It became Bob’s room. You can see a trunk through the window if you look carefully.

The third photo is looking into Bob’s room. The brightly lit window looks out onto the side yard. The windows on the right have a picture of what the backyard would have looked like in the 30s. A later owner of the house added a room which is now the gift shop. The typewriter and writing table on the right are the originals. The original table was sold or given to someone who cut the legs off to make it into a coffee table. There is a typewriter whose owner claims is Howards, but last year Paul Sammons found a typewriter which may be the original one. That question has yet to be answered conclusively. The books on the dresser on the left are copies of ones Bob was known to have owned, although they are not original. Until you stand in front of it, it’s hard to imagine how small Bob’s bedroom is by contemporary standards. If I had to live in such a cramped space I think I would imagine being a wanderer. It’s no wonder he spent so much time in his car driving around the countryside.

Bob’s room

Then it was time for the morning’s panel, which was held at the library. Rusty Burke and Bill Cavalier related how the first Howard Days came about. It was a group of fans who wanted to see where Robert E. Howard had written his tales of Kull, Solomon Kane, and Conan.

After the panel, I gave a ride back to the Pavilion to some friends, stopping at the Post Office on the way. Each year the Cross Plains Post Office commemorates Howard Days with a unique postal cancellation. I had missed the cancellation on previous visits, but this year I managed to get two post cards and an envelope with the cancellation. They’re going to go into frames.

Lunch was chili dogs with all the fixings at the Pavilion. Then it was back to the library for panels on They Kept the Legacy Alive with Damon Sasser, Dennis McHaney, Lee Breakiron, and Bill Cavalier and Howard’s Historicals with Barbara Barret and Amy Kerr. I was late and missed most of the first panel, but caught all of the ladies’ panel. Each focused on one of Bob’s strong women characters. These ladies know their stuff.

Cross Plains has a top notch library. It was one of the three finalists last year for Best Small Town Library in the US. I took a minute to look at some of the pulps and books the library put on display. They have quite an extensive collection of Howard’s publications. These usually stay locked up in the bank vault, but the library puts them on display for Howard Days. Closely watched, of course. Here are some shots of what they have. I turn green with envy every time I see them.

Cross Plains Library collection

More of the collection

Original publication of some of Bob’s work

They don’t make covers like this anymore. Sigh.

The last item of the afternoon was the trailer for the new Conan movie in the high school auditorium. Specifically, the “Red Band” trailer, or the R-rated trailer in other words. Fred Malmberg of Paradox Entertainment led the discussion. Star Jason Mamoa had wanted to be there but was unable to due to a wedding he needed to attend. He did send a video clip clip greeting, which was pretty cool. I’ve got pictures of some of hte pro0ps they had on hand. I’ll post those later this week or early next week. We were told we could take pictures but were asked not to post them until late this week. They hadn’t been publicly shown before.

Miguel asked me after it was over what I thought. I said that it will be visually stunning and would probably be a good movie about a character named Conan. Whether that character had any resemblance to a character of the same name created by Robert E. Howard remained to be seen.
I went back to the pavilion and visited with friends for a little while, then proceeded on to the banquet. Like last year, the food was good, fajitas with rice and beans. Fred Malmberg sat across and and one seat down from me, so I got to talk with him some. He seems to be very knowledgeable about Howard’s works and wants to have them adapted faithfully to the screen. I gained some insight into how the whole process of bringing a property to film works from talking to him. Paul Herman presented the Robert E. Howard Foundation scholarship. This is a $1000 scholarship presented each year to the winner of an essay contest. This year’s winner read her essay, which was over one of Howard’s poems.

Dennis McHaney

Damon Sasser

Guests Dennis McHaney and Damon Sasser gave gave brief speeches on how they came to be involved in Howard fandom. The silent auction was didn’t seem to have as much stuff as last year, or maybe I had better self control. I didn’t get everything I bid on, but I did okay. The auction is a fundraiser for Project Pride, the community development organization that hosts Howard Days. I heard the next day they raised over $1500. If that’s not correct, someone please let me know.

Al Harron accepting his award

The Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards were announced. Rob Roehm won more than anyone, but there were a number of other winners as well. I don’t have a complete list, but I will post a link when the Foundation posts them. Two of the most surprised winners were David Hardy and Al Harron. That’s Al accepting his award in the photo.

Bill Cavalier

Bill Cavalier received the Black Circle Award, which is for lifetime achievement. It’s not easy to win. You have to be nominated one year and then receive a certain percentage of the vote the next. That’s him holding it up.

Adventures Fantastic would like to congratulate all of the winners.

After the awards, those of us who didn’t have a long drive went to the Pavilion for the poetry throwdown. I was tired and decided not to push my luck and headed on home.

I’ll write about the second day in a followup post.

Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, and Hawks

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This year marks a number of anniversaries in Robert E. Howard fandom: 25 years of Howard Days in Cross Plains, 50 years since the first publication of Glenn Lord’s The Howard Collector, 75 years of Robert E. Howard’s Legacy, and 100 years since the founding of Cross Plains. In addition to these, this year is the 40th anniversary of Marvel Comics bringing Conan to comics and the 45th year since the Lancer publication of Conan the Adventurer. It’s the last that’s of interest to us in this post.

Or to be more precise, it’s the stories that L. Sprague de Camp either finished or rewrote that we’re going to take a look at. Specifically, “Hawks Over Shem”, which was a rewrite of an unsold historical adventure entitled “Hawks Over Egypt”. Those of you who are familiar with the Lancer (later Ace) editions might be saying, “Wait a minute, that story is in Conan the Freebooter“, and you’d be correct.

I was reading “Hawks Over Egypt”, remembered it was one of the stories de Camp had rewritten, and thought a post about the changes he’d made might be of interest to some of you, especially since this was the 45th anniversary of the Lancer editions.

So let’s take a look at what de Camp changed. As you might suspect, there will be spoilers.

“Hawks Over Egypt” is currently available in the Del Rey collection Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures as well as Lord of Samarcand and Other Adventure Tales of the Old Orient (The Works of Robert E. Howard) from Bison Books.

The story was probably written in 1932 or 1933, although I’ve not found a definite date (if I do I’ll correct this post). Howard had been submitting, and selling, his historical adventures to Oriental Stories (later renamed Magic Carpet), but the Depression put an end to that publication in 1933, with the last issue being January 1934.

The story as Howard originally wrote it had seven numbered chapters. In the first chapter, two men have an encounter in a dark alley in Cairo. The Turk, Al Afdhal, accuses the Moor of following him. The Moor denies it, and the men are about to come to blows when they are set upon by three Sudanese, who are looking for one of them, Al Afdhal as it turns out. The largest of the three attacks the Moor, who quickly dispatches him and intervenes to save the Turk. They retire to an illegal tavern. The caliph has banned the sale and consumption of alcohol. (An echo of Prohibition, perhaps?) There Al Afdhal reveals that he knows the Moor isn’t a Moor but a Christian. The supposed Moor turns out to be Diego de Guzman, and he’s in town looking to settle a score with one Zahir el Gazi, who is currently on of the three general helping the caliph, Al Hakim, maintain his reign of terror on the city. The other two are the Sudani Othman and the Turk Es Salih Muhammad. The chapter ends with Al Afdhal pledging his help to de Guzman.

The second chapter finds a woman, Zaida, roaming the streets. This is an offense punishable by death. Al Hakim is mad and has decreed that women should not be out, day or night. Zaida has no choice. She was the mistress of el Gazi until he tired of her and turned her out. She encounters a cloaked man who turns out to be the caliph, prowling the streets to see if his edicts are being obeyed. In order to save her life, Zaida convinces him he is the embodiment of Allah. (This isn’t hard to do.) To reward her for being the first to recognize his divinity, she becomes his new consort, replacing a very jealous woman named Zulaikha.

In Howard’s version he opens Chapter 3 with a description of what the world political situation is like in the year of the story, 1021. This type of infodump was a common practice in those days, especially in historical fiction. It served in this case to give insight into the motivation of some of the characters in what follows without interrupting the action later. The chapter proceeds with Al Afdhal leading de Guzman through a secret tunnel into the former palace of Es Salih Muhammad, which is now occupied by el Gazi since he has risen in the caliph’s favor above Muhammad. After killing a guard, they find the el Gazi alone. De Guzman engages him in a sword fight, eventually killing him, but not before el Gazi brags of the caliph’s plans to form an army and invade Spain. De Guzman knows Spain is too fractured politically to be able to defend itself against a united attack. He makes it his mission to stop Al Hakim. The only way to do this is to kill him, since he’s mad.

In Chapter 4, the city of Cairo erupts in rioting after Al Hakim proclaims himself God. De Guzman listens in on the talk and rumor and decides the best way to get to Al Hakim is through Zulaikha, who is furious over being deposed by Zaida. He goes in search of her.

Meanwhile in Chapter 5, Al Hakim decides its beneath his godhood to mate with a mortal and gives Zaida to Othman. While taking Zaida back to his palace, Othman is confronted by Zulaikha, who buys Zaida from him with the added incentive of threatening to tell el Gazi’s followers that Othman killed el Gazi.

Chapter 6 finds Zulaikha torturing Zaida. Othman bursts in, kills Zulaikha. De Guzman enters at this point, sees a black man attacking a white woman, and kills Othman. He releases Zaida from her bonds but shows no further interest in her, even though she’s beautiful, tied down, and naked. He’s that bent on stopping the invasion of Spain. Al Afdhal shows up, and de Guzman reveals that he’s known the man to be the third general, Es Salih Muhammad. De Guzman manages to convince Muhammad to kill Al Hakim, forgo the invasion, and rule Cairo as the caliph.

Chapter 7 is fairly short. Zaida makes her way back to Al Hakim, convinces him she’s leading him to safety, and stabs him. De Guzman and Muhammad take over the city.

That’s the story as Howard basically wrote it. My synopsis doesn’t do it justice. It’s more detailed and complex than I’ve made it sound. In the interest of length, I’ve only hit the high points and have left out some minor plot elements.

So now let’s look at what de Camp did to make the story a Conan story. Although he has his defenders, primarily Gary Romeo, de Camp has taken a huge amount of flack over the years because of his heavy handed editing and revision of Howard and for his Howard biography Dark Valley Destiny. The bulk of this controversy is outside the scope of this essay.

What we want to look at here is how de Camp changed “Hawks Over Egypt” when he rewrote it as “Hawks Over Shem” to make it a Conan story. It was the lead story in the Conan the Freebooter. There are enough characters in this tale that I’m not going to give the names of any other than Conan simply to keep things from getting too confusing.

There are no chapter breaks in the rewrite. Instead there are merely line breaks denoting scene changes. Also, the historical summary of 1021 has been deleted, which is not surprising since Conan’s world isn’t the real world, only an imaginary analogy. At least de Camp didn’t try to rewrite that portion.

One of the first changes is in the opening scene, when instead of about to fight, the man who turns about to be Conan (de Guzman in the original), has beaten his opponent without killing him. They are then set upon by not three but four Kushites. I guess de Camp added the fourth to show what a badass Conan is. This causes de Camp to rewrite that part of the fight.

Here’s a small part of Howard’s original version. De Guzman “…did not await the attack. With a snarling oath, he ran at the approaching colossus and slashed furiously at his head. The black man caught the stroke on his uplifted blade, and grunted beneath the impact. But the next instant, with a crafty twist and wrench, he had locked the Moor’s blade under his guard and torn the weapon from his opponent’s hand, to fall ringing on the stones. A searing curse ripped from [de Guzman’s] lips. He had not expected to encounter such a combination of skill and brute strength. But fired to fighting madness, he did not hesitate. Even as the giant swept the broad scimitar aloft, the Moor sprang in under his lifted arm, shouting a wild war-cry, and drove his poniard to the hilt in the negro’s broad breast.”

And here’s a bit of de Camp, when Conan dispatches the second attacker, the one that matches the description of the attacker in the original: “As the stranger struck, so did the giant, with a long forehand sweep that should have cut the stranger in two at the waist. But, despite his size, the stranger moved even faster than the blade as it hissed through the night air. He dropped to the ground in a crouch so that the scimitar passed over him. As he squatted in front of his antagonist, he struck at the black’s legs. The blade bit into muscle and bone. As the black reeled on his wounded leg and swung his sword up for another slash, the stranger sprung up and in, under the lifted arm and drove his blade to the hilt in the Negro’s chest.”

See the similarities? You do? What have you been smoking? It’s not even the same fight. De Camp does have the fight end with a paraphrase Howard’s words, but everything that came before was completely rewritten.

And it didn’t have to be! There was absolutely nothing wrong with Howard’s prose. It flowed, it pulled the reader in, it was good. De Camp’s isn’t bad, but Howard’s was better. And why add an opponent to the fight? It didn’t serve any purpose as far as plot is concerned.

In the interest of time, I won’t detail all the changes. Some of them were necessary to change the setting of the story from the real world to the Hyborian world. Others were completely unnecessary or inconsistent with Conan’s character. For instance, the el Gazi character in both stories sets events in motion with an ambush. De Guzman survives and is taken prisoner, only managing to obtain his freedom and come to Cairo a few years later. Conan feigns death on the battlefield and trots into town a few months after the ambush. Conan? Playing dead on a battlefield? Give me a break.

The scenes with Zaida are placed in the text in a different order. She is also present when Conan and the Al Adfhar character burst in on the el Gazi character but escapes. She wasn’t present in the original. De Camp placed her here to give Conan motivation for staying after he extracts his revenge. He wants to claim her as his own. Conan would have no interest in stopping an invasion and most likely would have signed on to fight.

The biggest change is in the ending. The Zulaikha stand-in is a witch in de Camp’s version. She is summoning up some sort of creature when she’s killed. The fight that follows between Conan and the Othman character ends not with Conan killing him, but with a creature of smoke rising up and enveloping him, draining the blood and bones from his body. Blood sucking smoke monsters aren’t that original; Howard would have done better. Conan frees the girl he has come there to find. She wants him to plunder the house and run away with her; he prefers them to stay so he can be co-ruler of the city. Then the dead body of Zulaikha rises up and runs out of the room. Conan changes his mind and hits the road.

In the end, the mad caliph isn’t stabbed by the girl he spurned but is instead run off of a tower to his death by a mob. A complete rewrite by de Camp. Again, the original ending was better and would have been consistent with Conan. Not all the villains in the Conan stories are killed by Conan IIRC.

The changes de Camp made to “Hawks Over Egypt” in turning it into a Conan story were pretty substantial. The plot had to be significantly altered in places to make it work, and there are times when Conan’s character just isn’t all that consistent with the way Howard wrote him. What’s more, the passages de Camp inserted aren’t as well written as Howard’s. They tend to stand out in places.

When de Camp was putting together the Lancer Conan books, there wasn’t much Howard in print, to put it mildly, nor was the possibility of bringing some of Howard’s other work into print a guarantee. The first Howard boom was still a few years off. I can understand the temptation to alter some of the unpublished historical adventures to make them Conan stories. Publishing standards in those days tended to demand books that would be considered thin or short by today’s standards. L. Sprague de Camp was trying to impose an internal chronology on Conan and fill in what he viewed to be gaps. Such a project would naturally require new content, and the lengths of books publishers were willing to publish mandated more books than the three Del Rey has published.. I can understand that. I really can. I just can’t condone it.

I met the de Camps several times during their last decade and found them both to be cultured, erudite, and easily approachable. Also, I’ve enjoyed many of de Camp’s original works and wish more were in print. But I just can’t sanction him taking such liberties with Conan. The problem with changing a tale set in the historical world and transforming it into a fantasy starring an established character in an imaginary world with its own detailed geography and history is that you have to make so many changes to the plot and/or the characters to make it fit. If de Guzman had been more Conan-esque, it might have worked in this case. But a careful reading of both stories will show that de Guzman and Conan aren’t the same; their personalities are too different.

In my opinion, there hasn’t been anyone who can successfully imitate Howard. The unique elements that came together to produce the man also produced the writing style. The two cannot be separated. So far, no one who has tried has been able to match that style. I doubt there ever will be anyone who can. De Camp and Lin Carter certainly couldn’t, and de Camp, despite his butchering of Howard’s prose, was an accomplished writer. One whose original works were important and should be read today. Just not his Conan pastiches. Most people who have read Carter (and I admit I haven’t), at least those I’ve talked to, wouldn’t give him that much credit.

Personally, I prefer the original version of this story, the straight historical. And that goes for all of Howard’s works that have been changed, edited, or adapted.