Tag Archives: Robert E. Howard

I Scored!

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At the Friends of the Library Book Sale.  Why? What did you think I meant?

Some of you people need to get your minds out of the gutter.

Here’s what I picked up (click to enlarge).  Paperbacks were fifty cents (when did keyboards stop containing the cents symbol?) and hardcovers a dollar.

Some of these are duplicates, such has the REH titles, the Frazetta, The Saberhagen Dracula books, the SF Hall of Fame, some of the Bova and Drake.  In some cases I wasn’t sure which ones I had and in others I was upgrading.  The Hecate’s Cauldron was a steal for $0.50; the last time I checked, it was selling for around $20 on ABE.

My main objective was to fill in gaps in Bova’s Grand Tour series, and I managed to pick up a couple I didn’t already have.  Most of them, though, are upgrades or reading copies of titles I have that are signed.  Everything else was gravy.

Not bad for $23.50 total.

Burroughs and Lamb

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Today (September 1) is the birthday of two literary giants, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) and Harold Lamb (1892-1962). Continue reading →

A Quick Look at E. Hoffmann Price

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Pulp writer E. Hoffmann Price was born on this date, July 3, in 1898.  He passed away in 1988 at the age of 89 a few weeks prior to his birthday.  Price graduated from West Point, served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, as well as in the Philippines and Mexico.  A student of the orient, he drew on these interests for much of his fiction.

Price wrote for a variety of pulps, especially adventure, detective, and western, but he is best remembered these days for his weird fiction.  A correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, they collaborated on “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”.  I believe he is the only pulp writer to have met Robert E. Howard in person, on two different occasions, IIRC.  He is also the only known person to have Howard, Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith.  Price met many of the pulp writers, including Edmond Hamilton, Jack Williamson, and L. Sprague de Camp.

Price experienced a resurgence in his career in the late 70’s and early 80’s, publishing several fantasy and science fiction novels.

We just got back from vacation last night, so I’m playing catch-up today.  If I get a chance, I’ll read one of his short stories this evening.

Lost Robert E. Howard Manuscript Found

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Workers doing repairs at the Robert E. Howard House in Cross Plains made a startling discovery last week.  While replacing a portion of an outer wall damaged in a  thunderstorm, they found an envelope containing an unknown manuscript.

The manuscript is a rough draft of a Conan story, making it the second novel length Conan yarn.  According to those who have read the manuscript, Conan is robbing a tomb in Stygia when he runs into the sorcerer Thoth-Amon.  They are both after an amulet sacred to the snake god Set.  During the ensuing battle, Thoth-amon casts a spell on Conan that hurls him millennia into the future.  The spell causes Conan to lose his memory.  He wanders Africa, having various adventures, until he runs into Solomon Kane.  With Kane’s help, he returns to the Hyborian Age and defeats Thoth-Amon.

Reaction among Robert E. Howard scholars has been varied.  Rusty Burke says this is the best thing by Howard he has ever read.  Bill “Indy” Cavalier says the discovery will be a game-changer in Robert E. Howard studies.  Mark Finn was speechless.  Speaking by phone from France, Patrice Louinet could only babble excitedly in French.  Jeff Shanks began writing a grant proposal for further archaeological work at the Howard House.  Dave Hardy, on the other hand, is convinced the manuscript is a forgery and has hired retired ADA John Bullard to investigate.  A special edition of The Cromcast will be devoted to the manuscript in the near future.

Remembering Steve Tompkins

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Steve Tompkins (b. 1960) passed away on this date, March 23, ten years ago, i.e., 2009. He was a leading scholar in Robert E. Howard studies, but his interests extended beyond Howard to fantasy in general.  He was Managing Editor of the now defunct The Cimmerian blog at the time of his death.  That being the case, I’m sure he influenced me, indirectly if not directly.  I was a regular reader of The Cimmerian in those days, although I didn’t always pay close attention to who wrote what.  It was the closure of The Cimmerian that motivated me to start blogging myself.  I simply couldn’t find anything similar on the web.

I don’t know if I ever met Mr. Tompkins.  I may have at either Howard Days or the 2006 World Fantasy Convention.  Steve was there.  Regardless, his writing lives on as does his memory.  Howard Andrew Jones and Scott Oden have both posted tributes today.

The following are links to some of Steve’s writings (thanks to Deuce Richardson for the links):

All of his TC posts:
 His REHeapa stuff. Scroll WAY down, links on the left:
This thread has transcriptions of several of his intros etc:

Novalyne’s Birthday

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Novalyne Price Ellis was born on this day (March 9) in 1908.  She passed away in 1999 on March 30.  Novalyne was the author of One Who Walked Alone, a memoir of her relationship with Robert E. Howard during the last two years of his life.  It was based on her diary.

Novalyne Price moved to Cross Plains to teach English in 1934,  She soon met Robert E. Howard, and a tempestuous relationship started.  They had broken up by the summer of 1936, and Novalyne had left Cross Plains to attend graduate school in Louisiana.  She was there when she got the news of Robert’s death.

She wrote One Who Walked Alone as a rebuttal to L. Sprague de Camp’s biography of Howard, Dark Valley Destiny.  If you’ve not read her book, you should.  It’s one of the main sources of information we have about Bob.

The book was filmed in the mid-1990s and starred Vincent D’Onofrio as Robert and Renee Zellweger as Novalyne.

Musings on Robert E. Howard

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Robert E. Howard was born on January 22, 1906.  I’ve been reading through the Conan stories for the series at Black Gate. (The latest post is here.)

I realize a lot of people have favorite Howard characters other than Conan.  Conan was the first Howard I read.  Call it imprinting, but Conan is still my mental template for what a sword and sorcery character is like.  I see more and more things each time I reread one of those stories.

I’m also not into the pastiches very much.  I’m open to reading some, especially some of the ones that will be published this year in the new comics, but to my mind they will never be canonical.  No offense intended to anyone writing them.  I feel the same way about the James Bond books. Continue reading →

Imagining the Horrible with Fritz Leiber

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Horrible Imaginings
Fritz Leiber
Originally published by Midnight House in a limited edition hardcover of 520 copies, of which 500 were offered for sale
Currently available in ebook from Open Road Media, $4.99

I originally intended to read and review only one or two stories from this collection, but I ended up reading them all.  Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.

This book is a mix of early and late horror stories from Leiber’s career.  Midnight House published four collections of Leiber’s work before shutting its doors.  The Open Road edition contains the original introduction where Pelan mentions his plans to publish an alternate version of “Adept’s Gambit” as a Lovecraftian tale, one that (AFAIK still) has never seen print. Continue reading →

Arguments Discussions on the Best Conan Story to Begin at Black Gate

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I mentioned a little while back that I was participating in a series of posts at Black Gate on which Conan story is the best.  Bob Byrne, who is heading up this project, announced the launch date (Monday, January 7).  Bob also posted a list of the authors who are contributing to the series.  I’ll not reproduce it here because I don’t want to steal his thunder.  I’ll just say that I’m honored and humbled to be allowed to participate with this group of writers.

I’d also like to think Bob for this opportunity.