Hither Came Conan; A Review

Also a winner of The Valusian Award from
the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

Robert E. Howard Days was wonderful for many reasons, but among them was the opportunity to talk Robert E. Howard, anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Standing in line waiting for barbecue at the pavilion, on a schoolbus tour led by Rusty Burke, or wandering around downtown Cross Plains, everyone was there to talk REH and ready to engage in banter about their favorite tale or their own Howard origin story.

It was like being in a warm blanket of Howard-heads.

Then it was over, and I was thrust back into the hard cold world of the ordinary.

The good news is if you own Hither Came Conan you don’t have to wait a year for a similar experience. Imagine a bunch of folks gathered around a proverbial campfire with an assignment: "Why is this Conan story Howard’s best? You’ve got 10 minutes. Go.” That is the premise of this volume, published in 2023 by the nonprofit publishing house Rogue Blades Foundation.

Hither Came Conan serves as a fine companion to the Conan stories. I can imagine this book serving as an ongoing reference, pulling it off the shelf and seeing what Deuce Richardson or Gabe Dybing has to say when you’ve finished re-reading “Black Colossus” or “The People of the Black Circle” for the eighth time.

This exercise admittedly gets a bit absurd when you are assigned something like “Vale of Lost Women” or the unfinished “Wolves Beyond the Border.” Everything Howard wrote has some minor touch of genius, some cool scene or vivid snatch of poetic prose, but no one can seriously defend the likes of “Vale” as REH’s finest hour. But I give the respective essayists credit for the attempt.

The list is authors assembled for this project is impressive. Wide ranging, from top scholars to fiction authors and ardent fans. People like Patrice Louinet, who stands in the black circle of top Howard scholars (his Hyborian Genesis essays in the Del Reys are a must), Jeff Shanks, David C. Smith, Bobby Derie, Mark Finn, Morgan Holmes, Richardson, many others.  But the true spine of the book is “Re-Reading” Conan by Bill Ward and Howard Andrew Jones, a written dialogue which appears with every story including the “Wolves on the Border” fragment and “The Hyborian Age.”

Truth be told I was preoccupied and not paying attention in 2015 when the great Black Gate Conan re-read was going on, and so I missed this series when it first appeared. It is reprinted here in Hither Came Conan and so was new to me. This remains the best part of the book. Ward and Jones engage in a back-and-forth discussion that almost feels like spoken word. Both are of course incredibly complementary to REH and offer shrewd insights into what makes each tale great, or at least solid pulp fare, while largely managing to avoid engaging in hagiography. Neither are afraid to critique REH and talk about which stories or parts of his stories fell flat or conform to predictable pulp formula. I’m still puzzled by Howard (Andrew Jones’) ongoing rejection of “Beyond the Black River” but hey, that’s why you read a book like this. If it was all unadorned praise it would invite no engagement and discussion and get real boring, real fast.

Some of the essays are very good, others are uneven or somewhat uninspired. My own is in here (“Honor Among Thieves: Hyborian Age Morality,” an “Extra, Extra!” essay analyzing “Rogues in the House,”) which in hindsight is OK. I’m my own worst critic. If you’ve read it let me know what you think.

I gleaned a few new insights reading the essays, for example the considerable effort REH placed into “Man-Eaters of Zamboula” after reading John Bullard’s appraisal of Howard’s careful revisions over three drafts. But what is best about this book is the sense of shared admiration for this character, and the varied voices of the wonderful community of fans that have sprung up around him. In that vein I also appreciated the work of editors Jason Waltz and Bob Byrne for also including the voices of the readers of Weird Tales. It gives us a sense of communion with the past, and the knowledge that fans leaving comments on the Black Gate website aren’t so different than fans writing to The Eyrie letters column circa 1932-37. 

Indeed any evaluation of Robert E. Howard and Conan involves a communion with a time and place nearly 100 years ago. But one that thankfully shows no signs of slipping into the past, thanks to new volumes like this.

The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review

I haven’t bought a new comic book in 33 years, when I purchased the April 1991 Savage Sword of Conan as a high school senior. The venerable magazine ended its long run four years later. I was in college in these waning days of SSOC and so had no spending money for comics; what little funds I had went toward beer. 

I've purchased a handful of back issues of SSOC since, but that’s it. And had no intention of ever buying a new comic again … until now. The hype around the relaunch of SSOC by Titan Comics piqued my interest and I decided to give it a go.

Before I get to the contents I have to say the packaging/mailing is a 10/10. I have never ordered a comic book by mail and dreaded it would arrive mangled by the postal service, but it was secured with cardboard backing in a plastic sheath and packaged in a rigid cardboard flat. The magazine arrived in wonderful shape.

I opened it up and immediately thought, this is what I wanted it to be.

Black and white interior art on newsprint pages, just like the old magazine. Savage and sexy with beheadings and nudity. Pinup art, text articles. The cover callback to the classic Frazetta Conan the Adventurer, featuring Conan astride a mound of corpses with a woman clutching his knee. A shot of nostalgia.

It checked all the boxes.

Yes, it has some well-documented issues with the art being too dark. Not every panel, and the Solomon Kane story does not suffer from this problem. The Hyborian Age map suffers the most, as does a pinup image of Belit. Equally annoying was the lack of page numbers; there is a TOC with page numbers cited but no corresponding numbers on the pages themselves. These were either forgotten or cut off during the printing.

I’m sure these glitches will be fixed.

On to the contents.

I loved opening the issue and seeing an introduction by the legendary Roy Thomas. As if the iconic cover drawn by SSOC veteran Joe Jusko wasn’t enough, Thomas’ recap of the magazine’s history was a perfect way to kick off the issue. Thomas also alluded to having “a story or three” planned for future issues, which would be a very welcome development.

I enjoyed the main feature, “Conan and the Dragon Horde” by writer John Arcudi and artist Man von Fafner. I appreciated it being self-contained to the issue, a big plus for me. The story kept me interested, with enough twists and turns and no lulls. Conan was well-drawn, especially his savage facial expressions. It features a couple well-done “boss fights” with dragon-like dinosaurs and two hulking bodyguards, and a necropolis. The story is quite gritty and has no overt sorcery, even the monsters could be atavistic survivors of a pre-Hyborian/prehistoric age. I perhaps raised an eyebrow at the accuracy of the siege engines (they accurately target moving people, one is used to drop a noose around a man in a melee?) but otherwise was on board with what I was reading.

That said I thought the second-tier Solomon Kane story “Master of the Hunt” was even better. A historical curse laid on a medieval Welsh Lord gives rise to a vengeful demon, and the horror atmosphere is palpable (it reminded me a bit of the beginning of An American Werewolf in London—keep off the moors!). The story ends on a cliffhanger which makes issue #2 a must-buy. The art in this story was perfectly clear and non-murky, and it’s good. Kane is well-rendered.

I’m not sure why the need for the prose Jim Zub story “Sacrifice in the Sand,” other than it pairs with the cover. I would have preferred to see a photo essay like we had in the old SSOC days, perhaps a recap of Howard Days or the like. I hope Titan brings those back. Zub did a nice job writing this short two-pager, and I found his prose atmospheric and poetic. It could have made for a nice 6-8 page illustrated short.

I enjoyed Jeff Shanks’ Solomon Kane essay, which paired well with the story. Shanks is a first-rate Howard scholar whom I met at last year’s Howard Days. His “Hyborian Age Archeology” is a must-read, and I relied upon and cited his essay “History, Horror, and Heroic Fantasy: Robert E. Howard and the Creation of Sword and Sorcery” in Flame and Crimson. In comparison to his academic work this Kane essay is sleight, but that’s what you’d expect in a comic magazine. I found it to be a good overview for a new reader of Kane’s publishing history and the character himself.

Oh and REH himself makes an appearance with a reprint of his poem "The Road of Kings."

I thought the riskiest move was the dead horse on the cover; these days people seem OK with every manner of violence inflicted on humans but revolt at the sight of dead animals. Unfortunately corpses of horses littered the battlefields of every historical engagement, well into the 20th century. I have no problem with it, I’m sure some will.

Overall I’m quite happy with issue #1. If you’re a Conan fan you should be too. SSOC is back.

50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond

Ahh, no. 29, I love you. Love them all...

Savage Sword of Conan debuted August 1974. 

I was just one year old. Probably a little young to be reading this great old magazine. But looking back, I love the thought that when I was born, it existed. Imagine a not yet two-year -old me toddling over and placing a chubby hand on Conan nailed to the tree of death, a grinning skull leering in the distance. Boris Vallejo’s stunning artwork gracing the cover of issue #5, which I proudly own.

SSOC changed me. It was my gateway to Robert E. Howard, and to sword-and-sorcery. It introduced me to a darker, more brutal, savage, and sexy brand of fantasy than I was used to from the Chronicles of Prydain and The Hobbit, books I was first encountering around that same time. 

I might not be here blogging were it not for SSOC.

I’ve recounted this story a few times now. Here on the blog, in the foreword to Flame and Crimson, possibly on a podcast or two. But I still remember that initial shock upon finding a horde of back issues of the magazine circa 1984-85. Some of the fondest memories I have in my life are buying a couple at a time as I could afford them, bringing them home, leaning back in my second-hand split leather desk chair, putting my feet up on my desk. Sipping a cold Pepsi and eating a candy bar bought at a local drugstore. And getting utterly lost in the Hyborian Age. I was gripped in the potent spell of a necromancer.

As I write this essay an overflowing comic box sits to my left. The same ones I bought back in the mid-80s, with a couple issues added here and there over the years. One day I will probably finish my collection.

SSOC had it all. Great art of course, which goes without saying. Considerable diversity in its artists, but with some powerhouses to anchor the title, big names with which I’d become familiar—Adams, Vallejo, Norem, Buscema, Alcala, Chan. And others.

After the art, the terrific map of the Hyborian Age topped by an excerpt from the Nemedian Chronicles. Opening SSOC and seeing this splash page made it feel as though I was being guided into a lost world--perhaps due to the way it presented a lost text disclosing an even deeper layer of history (a layering technique J.R.R. Tolkien used in his works, to great effect). It felt real, lived in, once upon a time, impossibly dim and remote, but possibly our own, historical earth before the time when the oceans drank Atlantis.

Beyond that, SSOC featured stories about other Howardian characters, like Red Sonja or Solomon Kane (whom I did not know at all at the time). Beautiful art portfolios. Letters columns. Prose articles. I even loved the ads, pointing to treasures that I hoped I might one day acquire.

I just pulled out no. 29 at random (see above). And it’s just as awesome as I remember. 

Issue 29 TOC.

That map made me a child of sorcery...

Conan's Ladies... easy on the eye.

Holy balls that's some good artwork... Almuric at left (Tim Conrad)

I desperately wanted to participate.

Would they still honor these prices?

RIP John Verpoorten. I'd read every article, regardless of subject matter.

Swords and Scrolls... first letter by one Andrew J. Offutt. With praise for issue #24 and "Tower of the Elephant."

Listening to an interview with Jim Zub on The Rogues in the House podcast got me interested in subscribing to the new incarnation of the magazine, published by Titan. Which is a bit surprising, I suppose, as I’m no longer a comic book guy (or even an illustrated magazine guy). I’m not opposed to them by any means, but they’re just not in my wheelhouse anymore. 

But with the new SSOC the urge is deeper. It’s tapping into my nostalgia, sure, and that’s a potent vein. But it’s also akin to paying my respects. And seeing what new hands and minds might bring to this beloved old character.

OK, I did it. I ordered issue no. 1. It’s been so long since I bought a comic that I’ve never bought one online. I’m nearly certain the last SSOC I bought was issue 184 (April 1991), featuring “An All New Epic Adventure! Disciple!” I hadn’t yet graduated high school. There was no internet.

I thought I might be prompted to subscribe, but instead I purchased the issue as a standalone.

Here we go again.

Here’s to 50 years of this wonderful old magazine, and for what the future may yet bring.

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review

Some would say there is no good Conan pastiche*, that the only stories of the Cimmerian worth reading are the 21 originals by Robert E. Howard. If that’s you, I get it. 

Me? I have no problem with pastiche, because I can differentiate new takes on the character from canon. They are something apart. That’s why I am able to enjoy the 1982 film, and Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian the comic, even (gasp) the Lancer paperbacks with the L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter additions.

If you’re in the latter camp it does beg the question: What makes good Conan pastiche? Is it getting the character right? The setting, a convincing Hyborian Age verisimilitude? Or is it the style in which the story is told? Should it/must it “feel” Howard-esque?

“The Shadow of Vengeance” by Scott Oden checks all these boxes, but above all else nails Howard’s style.

This is I believe the fifth prose release from Titan, which began with "Conan: Lord of the Mount" by Stephen Graham Jones and includes one Solomon Kane story and the rest Conan. It’s a novella, some 18K words, about 60 pages, and like the rest of the line it is available as an e-book only. 

I, being a transported relic from 1984, don’t possess an e-reader, but Scott was generous enough to send me a word doc.

It’s also apparently the second time the story has been published, the first in Savage Sword of Conan volume 2, in monthly installments across issues #1 – 12. But not having read the Dark Horse or Marvel Comics relaunch of SSOC it was a first read for me.

This is not the next great Conan story … but that’s an impossible standard. As Karl Edward Wagner said, there was only one Robert E. Howard, and we’ve had him. But, it’s terrific pastiche, and can stand alongside much of what Roy Thomas and others were doing during the classic run of Savage Sword I so loved, after Howard’s adapted originals were exhausted.

If it lacks the great pathos of “The Tower of the Elephant,” or the unsettling insights into barbarism vs. civilization like we see in “Beyond the Black River,” that’s OK. Howard’s Conan stories themselves did not all rise to that highest of his own high standards, but instead were what we have here: A very fine adventure story, soaked in blood and the weird.

“The Shadow of Vengeance” follows on the heels of the events of “The Devil in Iron,” which if not accorded one of Howard’s best is still a good, entertaining Conan story. It’s a tale of vengeance, with the vengeance directed at Conan himself by Ghaznavi, regent of Khawarizm.

Big mistake, Ghaznavi. 

Howard fans will recognize these names from “The Devil in Iron” and why the events of that tale would lead to Ghaznavi seeking vengeance for his dead lord, Jehungir Agha.

What makes this story different from the likes of Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts and Steve Perry (not the one that sang “Open Arms”) et. al is Oden’s mimicry of Howard’s prose—check that, his near mastery of Howard’s style.

I read Blood of the Serpent last year and while I liked it well enough, it was not Howard-esque, though it was recognizably Conan’s character. Oden’s style is ridiculously like Howard, ripped from the pages of Weird Tales in the mid-1930s. Its uncanny. 

Here are some Howard-esque passages I really enjoyed:

Karash Khan left but a single watcher to mind the Cimmerian.  This thankless task fell to the youngest of the nine Sicari, a quick-eyed Turanian not much older than twenty.  No one knew his given name, but his brothers called him Badish Khan.  Bred in the alleys of Sultanapur, when the Master found him he was already a hired knife at fourteen with more kills than throat-slitters thrice his age.  He was like an ingot of iron, crude and without form; while Karash Khan was the hammer, it was dark Erlik who provided the flame.

And this, too.

Even so, the Sicari could not withstand the Cimmerian’s berserk fury.  Death might have been their master, but neither god nor man could master this wolf of the North.  His god was Crom, grim and savage, who gave a man the power to strive and slay and little else.  And when he called upon Crom, it was not in prayer or benediction . . . it was so the dark lord of the mound might bear witness.

It all seemed like I was reading something Howard would have written in 1934. Awesome stuff… “dark lord of the mound” induces chills. 

Oden does insert the word “fey” at least twice in the novella, a very old Northern term which I don’t know if Howard ever used in a Conan story, though he may have in “The Grey God Passes” or elsewhere (“It was Dragutin, fey and terrible as he rose up from behind the wagon, who reminded them.  He jabbed an accusing finger at the Cimmerian and yelled: “Kill them!”). It doesn’t matter anyway; I love the term and it works, and is placed here deliberately by Oden, author of The Grimnir Saga, who like me is also possessed of “the Northern Thing.”

Oden also builds the gloomy Cimmerian culture with a few choice passages, as here:

Among southern nations, Conan had seen madness dismissed: a disease physicians sought to cure, a weakness learned philosophers debated in shaded courts.  Madmen were broken men, they said, who could hope for no better than a quick and quiet death.  Among the barbarians of the north, however, madness was something else – a thinning of the veil between worlds, a harbinger of doom, or the curse-gift of that fey and feral goddess, Morrigan.  The Cimmerians held madmen apart from others, their ramblings fraught with the truths of a perilous world.

That’s some fine Hyborian Age goodness there.

There is a great final fight, a terrific desperate melee, and a cool monster too. If that’s what you’re after, you get it here.

If I had any critique, the story perhaps takes a bit too long to get going, with a bit too much up front info. But once it properly starts it doesn’t let up until its savage ending.

If you can’t get enough Conan, start with Scott Oden and “The Shadow of Vengeance.”

*I am aware that pastiche has varied meanings; some say pastiche is a deliberate homage to an author’s style, not a new story of an existing character as I’m using it here. 

1979 Ken Kelly heroic fantasy calendar, month-by-month

Let's look inside, shall we? And return to an age undreamed of ....1979.

Among my prized finds at 2023 Howard Days was this bad boy. A 1979 Ken Kelly Robert E. Howard Heroic Fantasy Calendar. 

Although it came sealed I’ve been dying to open it. But only very lightly sealed, as I recently discovered, and definitely a reseal job. Which made opening it easy. I used a fine knife and cracked through some weak adhesive, leaving the envelope undamaged.

And the glory was revealed. Check out the pics below.

I’m not a collector. I like owning cool shit to display and read, and put my hands on. Life is about enjoying things. We can’t take it with us. The work of the late Kelly (1946-2022) was not meant to be kept under wraps and passed along from investor to investor.

This calendar is in fantastic shape, unmarked and unused and crisp. I’ll keep it that way and handle with the utmost care, but have no desire to keep it hermetically sealed and resell at profit. It’s now going to be displayed on my wall, as it should be.

And its practical applications are not over. In addition to full-color images of Howardian heroes of heroic proportions and the glorious contrasts of light and dark that highlight the best of Kelly’s work, the website www.whencanireusethiscalendar.com tells me that this calendar will be accurate again in 2029, so there’s that, too. I’ll plan to leave it up for at least the next six years until I can use it to plan my summer vacations.

And of course, a centerfold. 

My Howard Days 2023 haul

Somewhere under here is a bar...

Many amusing escapades and scrapes unfolded during Howard Days 2023, not the least of which was my complete and utter lack of restraint around anything vaguely book shaped. I was like a Grateful Dead fan in a pot shop or a PETA member in a rescue shelter, unhinged and helpless, grasping and wanting everything at once.

Someone should have taken my wallet from me.

I came home with 20 “books.” In my defense 9 of these were free, 11 were purchases. But the count is actually higher.

Two of those “books” were bundles of Fantastic magazine won in the silent auction, basically the entire run of issues published in 1961 and 1962. So that is technically an additional 23 digest sized "books" (May 1963 is missing). I also purchased a calendar. So technically I came home with 41 separate items, loosely classified as books. 

And a Robert E. Howard Museum t-shirt. With Conan on it, of course. Not pictured.

I think I need help.

Worse, I packed lightly with just a carry-on suitcase and a separate carry-on leather bag. The latter is something resembling a leather briefcase, with some extra pouches on the side. I was warned to bring an oversized suitcase for the spoils and promptly ignored those warnings. 

Come Sunday I found myself in deep shit. After carefully packing up all my books first (of course! they're the most important items) I was nearly full and hadn’t touched my clothes yet. That left me shoving items for which no room remained into every conceivable pocket. I wound up stuffing dirty underwear into my computer bag to make room. 

Not proud of this, just stating the facts.

Anyway, somehow I made it home with a 60 pound carry on that was a beast to lug, even with wheels, and threatened to burst its zippers. I'm a pretty strong dude but I felt like Vasily Alexseyev on a max clean and jerk getting that thing into the overhead bin.

Following is a complete list of my gross take:

• The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, vol. 1
• The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, vol. 3
• Thick as Thieves, Ken Lizzi
• Cross Plains Pilgrimage, Bobby Derie
• The Robert E. Howard Trivia Book, Bobby Derie
• Hither Came Conan, Jason Waltz (editor)
• Scott Oden Presents The Lost Empire of Sol, Rogue Blades Foundation
• Death Dealer 3, Tooth and Claw, James Silke
• Chacal #2
• The Dark Man Journal vol. 13.1
• Stan Lee Presents Conan the Barbarian #1 (paperback collection of first 3 comics)
• The Filming of Conan, Cinefantastique Special Double Issue
• Skelos #4
• REHUPA Oct. 2012 (no. 237)
• From the Heart of Darkness, David Drake
• 2018 Investigations of the Robert E. Howard House Cellar, Jeff Shanks et. al
• Kagen the Damned, Jonathan Maberry
• Ken Kelly’s Robert E. Howard Heroic Fantasy Calendar, 1979
• Fantastic 1961 bundle
• Fantastic 1962 bundle

Good thing my wife doesn’t read the blog.

There and back again from Massachusetts to Cross Plains: A recap of 2023 Robert E. Howard Days

Ken Lizzi, me, and Deuce, on sacred ground.

That Saturday morning long ago remains fresh in my mind. The day I stumbled across a hoard of Savage Sword of Conan magazines. 

The moment I became spellbound with the worlds of Robert E. Howard.

SSOC spoke to me on a level my then-favorite Avengers or Captain America could not. It was dangerous, barbaric, sexy, violent. Adult, with articles and photography to accompany the gorgeous black and white interior art, welcoming 10- or 11-year-old me to the savage Hyborian Age.

This wonderful, fortuitous find set me on a lifelong love of Howard and the subgenre of fantasy he founded, sword-and-sorcery. Little did I know that 40 years later it would also lead to an unforgettable trip to his hometown.

This past weekend I traveled to Cross Plains for 2023 Robert E. Howard Days. This was not a lightly-made decision. I live in Massachusetts, some 1600 miles from the small town in West Texas that Howard called home. With a wife and family, domestic obligations, and a busy professional career to manage, there is never a good time to do something like this, even though Howard Days had been on my bucket list for years.

Part of the whole wide world of Cross Plains.

But this year the stars and planets aligned. Two dudes whom I knew mainly from online interaction, Deuce Richardson and Ken Lizzi, had rented a house in neighboring Cisco, so I had company and a place to sleep. 

The time had finally come to head to the mecca of all things Howard and sword-and-sorcery.

Last Thursday I flew into Dallas Fort Worth and picked up a rental car. Shortly after 5 p.m. Ken, Deuce and I arrived in Cross Plains. The Howard House had closed for the day but two and a half days of non-stop celebrations were about to begin.

Thinking this could be a once in a lifetime trip, I wanted to see it all—the town, the house, the gravesite, the panel sessions. I also wanted to give myself adequate time to hang out and talk to the throng of Howard fans and Howard Days volunteers that make this event so special.

Deuce had wise words for navigating this dilemma: “Balance the living and the dead.”

So, I gave it my best go to honor the man and explore the town while also spending time with as many attendees as I could. I feel pretty good about the balance I struck.

With Jeff Shanks (left) and Mark Finn.

Meeting Rusty Burke, Fred Blosser, Patrice Louinet, Chris Gruber, Mark Finn, Jeff Shanks, John Bullard, Gary Romeo, Will Oliver, Dierk Gunther and others was incredible. I felt like I already knew many of them from YouTube videos, articles, and podcasts and the like, but talking and shaking hands with them all made it tangible. It was wonderful meeting fellow S&S aficionados Jason Waltz, Keith West, Jason Ray Carney, Aaron Cummins, Chuck E. Clark, and many, many others whose names I’ve unfortunately forgotten or failed to ask.

Far too few know the name Robert E. Howard and the opportunity to talk shop and swap REH nerdity comes very infrequently. At Howard Days its endless. “What’s your Howard origin story?” “What’s your favorite Conan tale?” “Have you read his westerns?” These spontaneous conversations happen in line to get your barbecue, perusing the tables at the silent auction, and especially in the evenings at the pavilion. It’s glorious.

The pavilion.

I thought for my first trip I’d simply soak it all in, but instead found myself serving on two speaker panels. On the first, the Glenn Lord Symposium I found myself sandwiched between two PhDs. But both proved incredibly gracious and down-to-earth. I enjoyed Dierk Gunther’s paper which attempted the formidable task of answering the charges of racism in “The Vale of Lost Women.” Will Oliver’s session was fascinating, offering up statistical evidence including recorded interviews with oil field workers to corroborate that Cross Plains was plagued by crime and violence during the oil bloom. This colored Howard’s worldview and creative output and helps to explain why he thought enemies might be lurking around the next corner.

I offered up “In a far country: The Frontier Fantasy of Robert E. Howard,” making the case for Howard as a writer experiencing the absence of a recently closed frontier, unlike his literary hero Jack London who experienced the gold rush of the Klondike first-hand. This absence caused Howard to turn to fantasy and frontiers within. I indulged the audience and myself with a few passages from Jack London and REH, which I greatly enjoyed reading aloud. It seemed well received and I expect it and the other panels to eventually appear on YouTube, courtesy of videographer Ben Friberg.

The atmosphere at the pavilion made it extra sword-and-sorcery

On Saturday I served on a second panel at the pavilion, “Sword-and-sorcery revival,” an informal, impromptu discussion of the recent upsurge in S&S publishing and authorship. I would describe the panel setting as a raucous tavern in the heart of the Maul. I’ve both run and attended many conferences, and at some point attendees hit panel fatigue and want to get down to the business of socializing. We hit the tipping point midway through and it was hard to control the volume in the pavilion; some 30 or so were quite interested in the panel but others were more interested in beer and conversation. I get it. We soldiered on and gave a pretty good rundown of current sword-and-sorcery publishers, authors, other outlets (podcasts, comics, etc.) and in general stoked enthusiasm for the revival of a genre Howard started back in 1929 with “The Shadow Kingdom.” John Bullard helped us greatly with the panel by making flyers and securing space. Thanks John!

Among the more unexpected experiences was feeling like a quasi-celebrity. I must have signed at least 20-25 copies of Flame and Crimson, Hither Came Conan, New Edge #0, and other odds and ends. Watching former Weird Tales editor John Bettancourt select Flame and Crimson as his raffle prize at the S&S panel and note that he had been looking forward to reading it was a strange, rewarding feeling. 

So, a lot of socializing and hanging out. But it’s also important to honor the dead.

Thank you Project Pride!

Nothing can quite prepare you for the first view of Robert E. Howard’s home and ultimately the humble bedroom where did the majority of his writing. Others have made the same observation many times, but its stunning that Howard was able to birth and deliver such vivid creations to the world from such small, prosaic quarters. It’s a testament to his unique genius. The volunteer docents who serve as tour guides, women from the Cross Plains community, were patient and wonderful. I learned that Howard’s father, Isaac, treated bloodied oil field workers right in the Howard home. One docent noted poetically that blood has seeped its way into the roots of the home.

We also folded in a visit to Brownwood to visit the family gravesite. We timed our trip just right, pulling into the sprawling cemetery in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon and paid our respects to Howard and his parents, laid side-by-side. Someone had left behind a book and figurine; I wish I had thought to do something similar.

I left with a more detailed depiction of Howard’s environs. All the tours including a bus tour of greater Cross Plains were absolutely worth doing. I found it to be a charming little community that feels a little like a relic of a lost age, with a few modern updates (a Dollar Store and the like).

Other highlights:

• Witnessing the incredible dedication of the volunteers that makes Howard Days possible. The Cross Plains community rallies together to do wonderful things, and preserve Howard’s legacy is a year-round effort.

• Buying enough books to break the back of a camel and strain the uttermost capacity of my suitcase. As I shoved volumes in every pocket and cavity I was advised my clothes were expendable. My haul included a pair of winning bids for two large stacks of Fantastic magazine (including the first appearance of Fritz Leiber’s “Bizaar of the Bizarre”) and a couple new hardcovers from the Foundation, the collected letters and poetry. Perhaps my favorite find was a 1979 calendar illustrated by the late great Ken Kelly. I'll share a pic of my hoard later.

• Drinking beer at Red Gap Brewing on a gorgeous day while listening how Foundation board member John Bullard assembled the collected letters of REH for the second edition. Monster effort worthy of an award.

• Attending the Robert E. Howard Foundation awards. Clapping for many deserving winners including John Bullard and Bill Cavalier, Willard Oliver, and Jason Ray Carney. I have not read Dennis McHaney’s Robert E. Howard in the Pulps (winner: The Atlantean), but was very impressed thumbing through Deuce’s copy. That definitely earned its award, too.

• Listening to experts like Bobby Derie, Finn, Shanks, Louinet, guest of honor John Betancourt, and others at the panel sessions. The theme this year was “100 Years of Weird Tales” (founded 1923, still publishing) and the panelists were deeply informed experts and a pleasure to listen to. Derie in particular struck me as a walking encyclopedia of the Weird. 

• Taking a break from Howard to visit Woody’s, a classic car and baseball memorabilia museum just across from the Howard house. This contained an immaculately maintained collection of stunning automobiles once owned by a wealthy private donor.

What's best in life? This.

• Hearing “Cimmeria” recited aloud on the front porch of the Howard house in Italian, Spanish, Gaelic, and Latin. The first man up after “Cimmeria” recited “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” FROM MEMORY, a tough act to follow. Best performance went to some dude from North Carolina who ROARED a poem Howard wrote about the joys of drinking and fighting, punctuated with accusations addressed to “You Sons of Adam!” He had us all laughing and cheering. Howard would have approved.

• Working up the courage to read a poem myself, “The Rhyme of the Viking Path.” I gave the last few verses some appropriate barbaric emphasis and was pleased with the outcome and the crowd reaction. 

• Talking heavy metal with a fellow fan as we waited for the poetry readings to commence (I need to check out Dimmu Borgir).

• Walking across the same scenic iron bridge that Howard once traversed, which later inspired a scene from “The Whole Wide World.”

• Chatting about Red Nails and Margaret Brundage with the great Fred Blosser—a dude I was reading FORTY YEARS ago in the pages of SSOC—in the Cross Plains public library as I scanned through REH manuscripts and a beautiful collection of Weird Tales magazines. Surreal.

• Watching Master and Commander with Deuce and Ken while drinking Shiner Bock, a Texas classic.

• Conversing with a great group about all things Howard and S&S during our final evening at the pavilion. I learned that Will Oliver is working on a Howard biography and is as passionate about the works of Karl Edward Wagner as I am. In short, finding my tribe.

So, there you have it. Robert E. Howard Days 2023 proved to be a quirky, fun, charming, welcoming, and utterly unique event that every Robert E. Howard fan ought to attend at least once in their lifetime.

I wish I could have done more, but 2 ½ days pass quickly. And I suppose that’s what return trips are for. Many prophesized that if I came once to Howard Days it would be forever in my blood, and I’d be back again. 

I suspect one day I will. 

Here's to Howard Days.

Are we in a new sword-and-sorcery renaissance? Not yet. At least commercially.

Some corners of the internet are speculating whether we’re in a third sword-and-sorcery wave. This assumes a first, unnamed wave in which S&S was invented (roughly 1929-36—thanks REH), and a second in which it rose to commercial prominence (roughly 1965-75).

Following a collapse in the early 1980s S&S lay moribund for decades, with a few authors soldiering on and a couple outlets toiling in corners of the internet. This was the general state of the genre until the last few years. 

Today there is a new interest in this old, weird, gritty, sword-slinging alternative to epic fantasy. A non-exhaustive, top of mind list of publications and publishers includes:

• Tales from the Magician’s Skull
• New Edge
• Whetstone
• Savage Realms
• DMR Books
• Swords and Sorceries
• Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
• Rogues in the House
• The Cromcast
• Old Moon Quarterly
• Baen
• Swords and Sorcery Magazine

Recently we’ve had a few successfully funded kickstarters: New Edge magazine, which landed Michael Moorcock for issue no. 1, and now Swords in the Shadows, which features authors like Joe Lansdale, Stephen Graham Jones, and Brian Keene.

Conan is the closest thing we have to a sure thing in S&S and new Conan material is out. Titan Books published a new Conan novel, Blood of the Serpent, with more titles to come. Rogue Blades Foundation has just published Hither Came Conan.

In short, there is quite a bit of contemporary S&S to sink your teeth into, sample, and enjoy. At all levels, from amateur and free, to traditionally published mass-market paperbacks and hardcovers.

But what is actually going on, commercially?

Despite all this output, much of which I have backed and all of which I am grateful for, we are nowhere near a commercial renaissance. While great enthusiasm exists in many quarters, and some good authors and artists serve this space, the simple fact remains: there isn’t enough readers. 

Publishing is a winner-take-all enterprise, existing on what marketing guru Seth Godin and others have described as the long tail theory. One on side, a few huge winners, making millions due to their mass appeal. Think Stephen King, GRRM, J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson. As the tail stretches rightward, we find more writers able to make a living writing, some comfortably, but not as many as you’d think. And then a LONG tail of authors selling hundreds or perhaps tens of copies of books, laboring in obscurity. The same theory applies to publishers. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the long tail is also to serve the needs of niche consumers with obscure interests in a manner that The Big Five (now four) cannot.

The problem is that S&S is way out on the end of that tail, a highly specialized subgenre that appeals to a small subset of readers. How small?

I feel like there could be as few as 1000 hard core S&S fans keeping this enterprise afloat. Some evidence to support that claim:

• Swords in the Shadows: About 600 backers (as of April 11), pledged $16,400 to launch the project.
• Tales from the Magician’s Skull: 640 backers pledged $68,975 to help bring this project to life.
• New Edge: 479 backers pledged CA$ 22,846 to help bring this project to life.
• Whetstone: 755 followers on Facebook
• Contemporary S&S: 743 followers on Facebook
• The Cromcast: 1,000 followers on Facebook
• Rogues in the House: 1.3K followers on Facebook

Pulp Sword and Sorcery is an outlier with 5,200 members on Facebook. But are they just nostalgia-seekers? Nothing wrong with nostalgia, I dwell in it daily. But the numbers don’t support more than 5,000 buying new product.

DMR Books has 2,800 followers and is a publisher that offers its readers old and new material. Perhaps this is our most accurate number.

Admittedly I’m an old fart with so many blind spots I should have my license revoked. I’m not on Instagram and I don’t have much of a handle on Twitter. There are comics to consider, and S&S inspired video games. Both of these have fanbases that might be tapped for the prose fiction S&S I’m speaking about here.

But I’m skeptical, and based on my limited data set these are not big numbers.

A lot closer to home, as of Feb. 1 of this year, Flame and Crimson sold 842 copies. Frankly, better than I had hoped when Pulp Hero Press published the book in Jan. 2020. But, if you add up what I made, and divide by hours worked, its pennies on the hour. 

It is still much too early to say anything definitive. Baen has just published a new book by Larry Correia, Son of the Black Sword, which could be a hit. I have read and enjoyed Correia’s Monster Hunter International. Later this year we’ll see two Hanuvar books by Howard Andrew Jones, whose stuff I enjoy, also from Baen. 

We need just one series to catch a little fire, garner some good press, and attract new blood to this thing we enjoy. That might be enough to build some momentum and lift additional boats.

S&S is undoubtedly going through a spiritual renaissance. People are talking about it again, enjoying the old stuff, and celebrating the new. Exploring what it’s all about, the aesthetic itch it scratches. I will be participating in an informal S&S panel at Howard Days and will do my small part to keep spreading the word. I've read a few really good stories by the likes of Schuyler Hernstrom, John Fultz, and others. This is all a good thing, regardless of whether we see commercial sales the likes the Lancer Conan Saga enjoyed.

But if S&S is ever going to approach what we saw circa 1962-82, we need the type of commercial successes that allow talented writers and artists to do their best work. We’re not there yet and the jury remains out if we will. 

Cross Plains Chronicle: Less than six weeks to go

Hither Came Conan... and thither I go, to Cross Plains

The Cross Plains countdown continues … less than six weeks until events kick off at Robert E. Howard Days.

A couple new items of note:

I have been added as a speaker. I recently received an invitation from Jason Ray Carney to present a paper at The Glenn Lord Symposium, a panel session held the afternoon of Friday, April 28 at the Cross Plains Methodist Church. Jason is the moderator and Dierk Guenther is one other presenter, the third TBD. This is an academic session so I have to prepare and then read a paper of 1500-1800 words.

I just need to figure out the small matter of a topic. Feel free to fire any ideas my way.

Secondly, Rogue Blades Foundation managing editor Jason Waltz will be attending and debuting Hither Came Conan, a collection of essays about Howard’s most famous literary creation that seeks to settle the question, which Conan story is best in life? Including one from me, in which I stump for “Rogues in the House.”

For the record I don’t think RitH is the best Conan story, but Waltz had a hole he needed filling and I stepped up. I do the love the story however and upon re-read discovered an interesting subtext that became the focal point of my essay. So … is Rogues in the House the best? Read and decide…

That reminds me, I need to figure out how much cash to bring. There will be many opportunities to spend including a silent auction, books from the Robert E. Howard Foundation, plus the not so small matter of food and beer. I’m figuring a wad. And maybe an extra suitcase for my loot on the return trip.

All the non-fandom (friends, family, co-workers) I speak to about this trip are VERY intrigued, though their initial reaction is that I’m going to some cultural hot-spot like Austin or Houston or San Antonio, a bustling city with live music and art exhibits and high-end restaurants and breweries. 

Then I show them a map of Texas and point to Cross Plains.

“What’s that near?”

“Wait, Cross Plains has fewer people than my high school?”

“Have fun man! Send pictures.”

Blood of the Serpent: Is the New Conan Novel Really Conan?

This past weekend I finished the new Conan novel, S.M. Stirling's Blood of the Serpent. And wrote a brief review which you can find on the blog of DMR Books.

The TL;DR version should you not want to spare the click: 3.5/5 stars. I liked it, found it to be a well-written page turner, but not the terrific relaunch of authorized Conan prose fiction I wished it to be. I had high expectations, only partially met.

Have you read this? If so would be curious to hear your thoughts.

Fantastic! And thoughts on pastiches

More witches! Art by Jones.

Recently I picked up seven issues of Fantastic. This former digest-sized magazine ran from 1952-1980 before folding. During that time it published many fine stories and authors, covering a wide, eclectic swath of fantasy, science fiction, and horror—including sword-and-sorcery. A lot of the history I covered in Flame and Crimson appeared in the pages of this now defunct publication.

Anyway, I got to reading these old back issues and that led me where my reading inevitably does—to thinking, and writing. I sent a lengthy article about S&S in Fantastic, including the four L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter Conan pastiches that appeared between 1972-75, over to Dave Ritzlin at DMR Books the other day. I expect that to appear on his website next week.

Speaking of pastiches, I recently started reading The Goddess of Ganymede (excellent thus far) and author Michael D. Resnick leads off the volume with this:

To Edgar Rice Burroughs Fans Everywhere

I hope you enjoy reading this Burroughs pastiche as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Finally, I see that we now have a cover of the new Conan novel by S.M. Stirling, Blood of the Serpent. I join a chorus of others in wishing the cover was more classic S&S, a Frazetta-esque painting of the Cimmerian perhaps, but hey, it’s clean, it works, there is a sword on it, and a snake. Two S’s, now that I think of it (too clever by half)? But now this new and latest Conan pastiche feels a lot more tangible.

I tie all of these experiences with pastiches into Deuce Richardson’s recent piece over at DMR Books and it’s got me thinking about this practice as well. 

I have mixed feelings on pastiches, and likewise think we need some better-defined terms. Resnick is here using “pastiche” in its original definition, as Deuce lays out “A literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work.” The Goddess of Ganymede is the story of American soldier of fortune, Adam Thane, on a mission to Jupiter. His spacecraft loses contact with earth and is forced to land on its satellite moon, Ganymede, where Thane is embroiled in swashbuckling adventure. Thane finds he can take huge jumps due to the weaker gravitational pull of the planet, encounters red-skinned inhabitants of the planet, etc. In other words, a transparent Burroughs homage/imitation/pastiche.

De Camp meanwhile used “pastiche” as the continued stories of an established literary character by a new author. That term became synonymous with what he and Carter did with the likes of the Conan story “The Witch of the Mists” (August 1972 Fantastic). This is sort of how we all think of “pastiche” today.

My current stance on (De Campian-style) pastiche is: I enjoy them (when done well) and have no problem with others continuing to write new stories of beloved characters. I do think fidelity to the original character/world/lore should be a very high priority. And I’m also of the belief that pastiches should contain a short introduction to the original series or other clear indicator that these are imitations, not the real McCoy, to prevent any confusion with new readers and point them in the direction of the source material. But if you want to write them (and have the rights), have at it. If it's good, I might read it.

A bookish nostalgia

Humans are on a path of upward progress. This is a good thing. We enjoy material comfort and personal levels of wealth unimaginable 200 years ago. We’re living longer, in less pain and with less physical suffering, than any generation prior. I’m not denying the looming potential catastrophes of China saber-rattling and the deteriorating climate. But I’m hopeful that cooler, economic heads will prevail, and the latter will be solved through emerging tech and greater corporate responsibility.

But, we lose things along this path of progress, too.

As a kid growing up in Reading, Massachusetts I had access to a bookstore that was so much more than just a place to plunk down your nickels. My memories are wreathed in a blanket of nostalgia so thick and cloying that they are likely unreliable, but for me and a few friends this bookstore was a place of wonder. 

I remember the smell, musty but not foul, the one you get when you thumb the pages of an old book near your face and let the breeze riff your hair. I remember the creaking floorboards under my feet. And the sprawling, semi-disorganized riot of it all, old and new titles and wild and fantastic covers colliding in color.

This bookstore carried tons of comics, all the new stuff on display, but reams of back issues, boxed and bagged, ripe to explore. Its book inventory was mostly second-hand, and I was eventually able to buy most of the Lancer Conans and many other old paperbacks too. Dungeons and Dragons and other assorted role playing games could be had. It carried Dragon and White Dwarf, which allowed us to keep up on the RPG news of the day. This was a place to learn.

Money was a limiting factor so we’d spend a lot of time looking through the massive collection of books and comics, reading, observing. I would eventually buy 3-4 issues of Savage Sword of Conan, perhaps, as many as I could afford, and trek home, barely able to contain my excitement at the reading I had ahead. I would stop for a can of soda at the firestation. This had a side door, open to the public, and the soda machine was programmed I think for 40 cents a can, 15 cents less than the corner drugstore. That’s a big difference when you’re living off an allowance or lawn mowing wages.

I’d go home, put my feet up on my desk, and get lost in the Hyborian Age, or the Avengers mansion, or the weird stories told in Heavy Metal or Epic illustrated magazine.

Life was moving slowly, but it was great.

You probably know what is going to happen next. That old bookstore succumbed to soaring real estate values. The owners probably couldn’t afford the rent anymore, or it might have been that the book traffic was getting sucked to the malls of a couple neighboring towns. I don’t know. But one day it closed, and eventually the building in which it stood along with a few other businesses was razed, and replaced with a … bank. Commerce won the day. 

This was near the time that the likes of Barnes and Noble and later Borders were eating up all the book traffic. But soon even those far more standardized, safe, generic bookstores that ate up the little guys would themselves suffer the same fate, succumbing to the grinding wheels of Amazon and online efficiency and convenience.

Maybe I’m just romanticizing a time that I’ll never get back to, or I'm becoming an old fart. Probably both. But I feel like I’m not just reliving lost and fond memories of childhood, but rather remembering a real time that was markedly different. One where I could just be. Before the Great Distraction.

The internet and its subsequent rapid adoption and proliferation has changed the nature of human interaction in ways we really don’t understand. Life was moving slower then. We learned differently, through books and word of mouth, inherited wisdom, or a once daily newspaper or evening newscast. Not an iphone. I know others feel like I do, that sustained reading is much harder today than it used to be.

We were also seemingly much less angry. Yes, humans fought a lot, in terrible wars. But the long spaces between were not filled with what they are now, unending nastiness and pettiness and virtue-signaling and screaming about injustices and offenses, 24-7.

We’ve lost something that we will never recover. 

J.R.R. Tolkien understood this. We move from magic to modernity, from superstition and myth to reason and science, and lose something beautiful. It’s inevitable, and many new things are beautiful, but during this process we discard the old. And it’s sad. 

It’s OK to mourn and honor the past, even as it slips through your fingers.

S&S updates: Dunsany, New Edge, book deals, and a fine response to a troubling essay

Hail to the King of Dreams, baby.

A roundup of recent-ish news and updates on the sacred genre.

My most recent essay for Tales from the Magician’s Skull is up, a piece on fantasy in the era of Lord Dunsany. You can read that here. I’ve recently been digging into a short, informal, but interesting quasi-biography by Hazel Littlefield (at right), who visited Dunsany in his home country and later hosted him late in his life during a trip to the United States. “Fantasy” was a different country back then, wilder and with almost no borders and boundaries, not the oft-discussed, greased publishing machine with its various subgenres and conventions that we have today. I get into a little bit of that in the essay, restrained a bit as TftMS has a hard-ish cap of around 1,000 words.

New Edge, a new S&S digital magazine headed up by Oliver Brackenbury of the “So I’m Writing a Novel” podcast, is now open for registration. The first issue (#0) is free and I believe the plan is to gauge interest for a paid ‘zine, supporting new authors and artists. Recently I agreed to write an essay on the outsider trope in S&S for this debut issue (got to get cracking on that).

Not “new” news, but new-ish to me, is the forthcoming Conan novel Blood of the Serpent, a prequel to “Red Nails” now available for pre-order. I have not read anything by author S.M. Stirling, but after a recent conversation with Deuce Richardson I feel confident that he’s a solid choice for this novel. Stirling has a reputation as a good writer with a big imagination and knows REH inside and out. Time will tell. I hope it’s better than the average novel in the TOR line.

Baen signs Howard Andrew Jones to a five-book deal. I’m glad to see a publisher with some budget and clout invest in S&S, and HAJ is a good author to get behind. I have enjoyed his The Desert of Souls and some of his short fiction in Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and these books will feature his exiled general Hanuvar. Let’s hope this is just the tip of the spear for a continued S&S revival.

I have yet to say anything on the new Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, of which we’ve now seen a couple trailers (or maybe “teaser trailers”?). I’ve been underwhelmed at the generic, CGI-heavy glop I’ve seen to date. The core problem is Amazon’s lack of rights to Tolkien’s actual material. A large, multi-interest conglomeration does not possess Tolkien’s soul and vision, his unique time-and-place honed brilliance with languages, and love and care for his creation. The odds are this will disappoint. The Jackson LOTR films worked because they largely stuck to the source material, and his Hobbit films flopped when they deviated from the book. Amazon has precious little rights to Tolkien’s source material. What we really need is Robert Eggers directing The Children of Hurin.

Finally, I wanted to point folks in the direction of this lengthy but fine post by Jason Ray Carney, rebutting a recent article which made the case that sword-and-sorcery needs to be updated for a modern audience (part of a natural process of discernment), and its old works discarded. We all engage in the process of discernment; it’s why we read Shakespeare instead of instruction manuals, and admire and preserve the Sistine Chapel instead of a child’s crayon drawings. Discernment helps explain why we might love the Chronicles of Narnia or the Chronicles of Prydain as a child, but choose not to read them as adults; though they might still be good books, we’ve developed a more refined palate for adult prose styles or complicated storylines and themes. Likewise, through a process of discernment, many readers have moved away from S&S over the years. But, personal discernment strikes me as very different than a general call to discard literature that someone, somewhere finds problematic. When reading old pulp or pulp-inspired S&S of the 60s-80s, my advice remains consistent: Detach and apply historical context, or as Carney suggests, adopt an egalitarian attitude of “chronopolitanism.” We can like old and new things, simultaneously. We can enjoy old barbaric works as entertainment without becoming barbarians ourselves. 

In summary; If this “new edge” movement embraces the likes of Renegade Swords and Schuyler Hernstrom alongside the likes of the Whetstone crew and Howard Andrew Jones, etc., I’m in. If it draws lines based on adherence to certain political views, or places bounds on artistic freedoms, I’m out.

A rant on the practice of maddening literalism

I’m not one for rants these days… I try to keep things positive, always, because life is short, and walking around angry is no way to live it.

But … (and you knew the “but” was coming) … when I get comments like this on a celebration of 40 years of Conan it’s hard not to see a bit of red. See below, and my polite response on the website of DMR Books. I wanted to write something a lot worse, but decided to save the rant for here.

Some people are so maddeningly literal, that they, to use a tired cliché, can’t see the forest for the trees.

Imagine if you will watching a stirring film like Conan the Barbarian, in 1982 on the big screen, with an audience cheering around you. As the credits roll they rise to their feet, cheering, in celebration of the operatic grandeur. And, as the lights come up, uttering out loud “why did Conan have an Austrian accent when his father did not?” 

You’d be the turd in the punch bowl. I’d be throwing boxes of popcorn at you. And you’d deserve it.

You get a dude who says “Carter did not contribute much to the novelization, or so I have read somewhere.” First of all, an attempted correction better come with an attribution. Second of all, read what I wrote. I said the novel feels like Carter may have written it in a weekend, soaked in cognac and wreathed in cigarette smoke, cribbing off the manuscript. This is obviously not an attempt by me at scholarship on the manuscript of the novelization, which should be evident by anyone reading it. I was being a bit cheeky. Were I writing scholarship on the novelization, and not a celebration of 40 years of Conan, I would have put the time in to dig up as much detail on that crappy novel as I could. Moreover, what I wrote is a perfectly valid observation; the novelization, which I just read, feels that way to me. Slapdash, and Carter-ian.

Aside: If you are going to allow your name to be listed as co-author of the book, and receive remuneration, as Carter did, the responsibility for said content is yours. Anything in that book is Carter’s responsibility.

Likewise, IDGAF if Von Sydow is “Swedish, not German.” Oh by the way he is of German ancestry. But I don’t care; again if I’m reading a biography of Von Sydow I’d love to see all that spelled out in detail. But not in a post like the one I wrote. 

You’ve gotta understand time and place and intent, man. Context.

You know who another maddeningly literal person was? L. Sprague de Camp, who admitted to utterly abandoning Robert E. Howard for years, after discovering a historical anachronism, a reference to a stirrup prior to their purported invention, in one of Howard’s historical stories. 

Can you imagine doing that? And potentially missing out on Kull and Solomon Kane and Conan and everything that came after? It certainly did not stop de Camp from later returning to milk as much as he could from the property. By writing shitty novelizations like Conan the Barbarian, among other things. Maybe the dude should have walked. 

Now I’m being petty. 

But, this is why Howard stopped writing historical fiction, because idiot nit-pickers who cannot see the forest for the trees focus on minor, inconsequential details, and lose the entire plot as a result, and miss out on things like poetry, and beauty, which De Camp utterly lacked (which is why he was incapable of writing convincing Howard pastiche). That’s actually a fault and a deficiency on the part of the critic. Not on Howard’s part, but De Camp’s. It’s called a contextual error.

Now, for the nitpickers reading this, am I saying that accuracy and attention to detail are irrelevant? 

Not in the slightest. But, there is a time and place for it. 

Detailed histories (and I take fault for any errors in Flame and Crimson) and biographies should be accurate. Even then, they must focus on certain things to the exclusion of others, unless you enjoy reading encyclopedias—something else altogether. If you are working in a pharmacy compounding life-saving prescriptions, or in a hospital laboratory, or precision machining, you better be accurate. But this is not the way to approach reading or watching fucking Conan the Barbarian 1982, or reading someone’s nostalgia-fueled recollections of it. Conan is, to be technical for a moment, from a dim and remote part of our own history, but a fabricated pseudo-history, pulled from pseudo “historical” fragments like the Book of Skelos and ghostly recollections, the voices of spirits at Howard’s shoulder. Most read this stuff for the story, the characters, the magic and wonder, the vivid atmosphere, the visceral action, the plotting. If you read it for detailed accuracy in a timeline, or exact 1:1 historical correlations, and get tripped up on why Howard said “bascinet” or something in an out of context manner, odds are you’ll be disappointed. But this is precisely the mindset Howard was trying to get away from.

If that’s your jam, fine, but I think you’re missing something amazing by engaging in this practice, all the time.

TL;DR, nitpicking details is an obnoxious practice. 

I’m sure I’m being thin-skinned about this, and possibly picking on someone who may be being earnest, and not a know-it-all. But there you have it.

Now I’ll try to be a good boy again.