I live in the northeast. We’re in the middle of a cold snap in the dead of a rougher than usual New England winter and are expecting a huge snowstorm Sunday into Monday.
Given the conditions, may I suggest “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”?
It is a good day to read some Robert E. Howard. After all it’s his 120th birthday.
I read a bit of “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” on the recently released birthday tribute video by the Robert E. Howard Foundation. I recommend the whole thing, but if you just want to see what my basement bar looks like here’s the bit at 16:37.
As you’ll see in the video I have SSOC #1 and it contains a kick-ass adaption of the story by the great Roy Thomas, illustrated by the great Barry Windsor-Smith.
As I noted the story contains a mythic quality present in some but not all of Howard’s stuff. It feels like myth and in a sense it was, adapted from the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo.
But it feels like a northern myth. Atali is a Valkyrie gone bad, not collecting the bodies of the slain but instead leading men to their deaths, at the hands of her two hulking brothers.
Until they meet Conan, that is.
Hoist a tankard of ale or a glass of your favorite adult beverage in honor of the greatest pulpster ever. He lives on in literary Valhalla.
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