I’ve got a new BAF post up at Black Gate.
This one is on The Young Magicians, the second anthology of the series that Lin Carter edited. It’s a companion to Dragons, Elves, and Heroes. This one starts at William Morris and continues up to what was then the present day (1969). Included are selections by Lovecraft, Smith, Howard, Kuttner, Merritt. and de Camp, as well as Lin Carter himself.
“Straggler From Atlantis”
Swords Against Darkness
Andrew J. Offutt, ed.
mmpb, Zebra Books, 1977, $1.95
In the late 1970s, Manly Wade Wellman began a series of novelettes about the last survivor of Atlantis, a warrior bard named Kardios. Or at least he began publishing them in the late 1970s. In his introduction to “Straggler from Atlantis”, Adrew Offutt says that Wellman tried to publish them in the 1930s, but some other chap was writing about an Atlantean named Kull at the time and no editor was buying.
Be that at it may, the Kardios stories were published, although to the best of my knowledge, they’ve never been collected in book form. The ISFDB shows a total of five, with the first four appearing in the first four volumes of Swords Against Darkness and the final one in an anthology from DAW books with the generic title of Heroic Fantasy. Continue reading
Things started a little later on Saturday than they did on Friday. I slept late (or what passes for late for me), showered, went into Cross Plains, and joined some folks for breakfast. After some good conversation, I toodled over to the pavilion and hung out there for a while.
The first panel (all panels where held in the library) was another great discussion. Entitled “A Means to Freedom”, Rusty Burke led the conversation about the correspondence between Lovecraft and Howard. The general consensus was that it was a good thing the internet wasn’t around in those days, or the two men would never have gotten any fiction written. Continue reading
Robert E. Howard Days 2015 has come to an end. And while I have enjoyed them all, this has probably been the one I’ve enjoyed the most. There are a number of things that came together to make this one of the most enjoyable Howard Days for me. The weather couldn’t have been better. The high temperatures were in the low 90s, which means it was warm but not really hot, especially since there was a breeze and the humidity wasn’t too bad. Continue reading
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
Robert E. Howard
Paperback $18
Kindle $11.84 Nook $13.99
“Rogues in the House” may have been among the earlier tales of the wandering Cimmerian that Robert E. Howard wrote, but it is one of the best. I reread it last night to get in the mood for Howard Days, and found it to be compelling and exciting, even though I knew everything that was going to happen.
Sometimes it’s good to go back and reread something when you know all the plot twists the author is going to throw at you. Doing so give you a greater appreciation of the author’s skill and technique. Note: There will be spoilers. Continue reading
It’s Tuesday evening as I write this and in 48 hours, I’ll be in Cross Plains for Howard Days 2015, which officially kicks off on Friday. I’ll provide a report next week. In the meantime, I thought I would inquire as to what any of you any of you might like me to pay particular attention to. The theme this year is the relationship between Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft.
Anyway, if you can’t make it and like me to report on something in particular, please let me know.
Swords of the North
Robert E. Howard
The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press
$50 nonmember, $45 members
Robert E. Howard was enamored of the Celts, so I thought I would look at a pair of stories featuring his Irish pirate, Cormac Mac Art. Cormac is an Irishman who has been banished from the Emerald Isle. He’s thrown his lot in with a group of Vikings led by Wulfhere, a giant of a man. Cormac resembles a Conan prototype in the way he is described. He’s got the haircut, and whereas the rest of the Norsemen are bearded, or at least mustached, Cormac is clean shaven.
These two stories are straight historical fiction without any fantastic elements. They’re still solid pieces of writing, full of battle and carnage, with a few twists thrown in. Continue reading
Hippocampus Press sent out an email yesterday saying that the last day to purchase A Means to Freedom, the collected correspondence of H. P. Lovercraft and Robert E. Howard will be tomorrow. After that, licensing agreements expire, and the book will be out of print and available only on the secondary market. Where it will be much more expensive. Here’s what they said.
Due to low stock and the end of our license term, the last day to purchase A MEANS TO FREEDOM: THE LETTERS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT AND ROBERT E. HOWARD will be Saturday, February 28th. After that date, this work will only be available on the secondary market, and not from Hippocampus Press. It’s been a good run and we have probably reached the intended audience, so a future reprint is unlikely.
So if you were planning on buying a copy, act fast. Or be prepared to shell out the bucks later.
Black God’s Kiss
C. L. Moore
Paizo
trade paperback $12.99
Shortly after she began chronicling the adventures of Northwest Smith, C. L. Moore created a second series character, one that would have an even greater impact on the genre. I’m talking, of course, about Jirel of Joiry.
Instead of setting these stories in space like she did with Northwest Smith, or in some age before the dawn of recorded history, like Howard did with Conan, Moore chose to place Jirel in the fictional French kingdom of Joiry, square in the Middle Ages.
There were only five Jirel stories, plus the Jirel and Northwest Smith team-up “Quest of the Starstone” that she wrote with her husband Henry Kuttner. But for the first time in the history of the field, here was a female character who was worthy of her own series. Note: the rest of this post will contain spoilers. Continue reading
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Howard. For someone who wrote for the pulps, which were considered by many to be barely above subliterate trash during their heyday, he’s got a remarkable legacy.
His books are still being reprinted, with new ones coming out on a regular basis. Howard has been the subject of multiple biographies. A foundation has been formed in his name that gives a scholarship to a graduating senior each year. His work has been adapted to film. (Okay, not necessarily adapted well or faithfully, but it at least has been adapted.) He wrote some of the seminal works in the field of sword and sorcery, works that have been widely imitated for decades. And his collected letters reveal a young man whose mind and imagination were too big for the narrow confines of his small Texas town.
How many best-sellers from his era can you name beyond the obvious ones of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Parker, and Hemingway? How many works of “serious literature” that bravely explore “the human condition” and promote social justice from as little as ten years ago, never mind two or three decades back, are still in print or even remembered?
Howard wrote with a passion, but then there weren’t many things Howard didn’t approach passionately, at least things he chose rather than had thrust on him, such as nonwriting jobs. His ideas and passions came through in his writing. That’s part of what makes so much of his work, whether fiction or poetry or correspondence, both fun and deep. Too many of today’s crusaders for [insert cause du jour here] need to take some time and study Howard’s works and see how it’s done. Howard communicates things like his views on barbarism, civilization, honor, loyalty, etc., clearly and unambiguously without ever interfering with his narrative or throwing the reader out of his story. Would that we had more like him writing today.
So take a moment today and remember him. Raise a glass in his honor. Spend some time in one of his worlds. With snow overnight and more expected for the rest of the day, I’ll read some more in Swords of the North myself. It’s a fitting day to immerse myself in that Northern thing.
Howard Andrew Jones has posted a solid tribute here.