Alia said:Your too young for wine Cal... soda only for you.
Are americans allowed at this Braai or is it by Goddess invite only?
Lovecraft... that's ringing some famaliar bells... Ah I remember now, Gollum's next author.
Yeah!! I love her books, I read most of her Avalon books while I was pregnant with my youngest. Glad to see that she's making the cut.Yep Marion Zimmer Bradley wasn't on my list but I'll look to add her.
Have you read this book Gollum? Have you seen the movie? Do you know the stories behind this man? I fell into his trap! Which made me love the book that much more.Yes "The Princess Bride" (1974) is considered as something of a classic but not sure if I'll add Goldmann at this stage. I'll wait until I've ploughed through the current lot first.
aaahhhh... I can't wait until we get to MZB!!!! I can actually talk about her without sounding mental challenged!Alia, this is perhaps a bit previous, since we're not officially talking about MZB yet, but I've noticed that they're bringing out omnibus editions of some of the Darkover books lately.
GOLLUM said:Alia,
Now the question of the Conan Weird Tales stories by REH (incidentally he was actually known or referred to by his friends as REH and not Robert Howard) and their history over the years is quite a saga. Actually there’s enough to write a story about that in itself and it’s a continuing sore point with REH fans to this day. All the stories by REH are short stories or novella length, the only novel being “The Hour Of The Dragon”, a Conan tale.
Anyways, I’ll try to give you the shorter version here and YES the Conan stories at least have been published more than once since his death and more recently the western tales and others but read on.
Basically the following is the original list of Conan tales as they appeared in the 1930s Weird Tales magazine including “The Hour Of The Dragon”, which was his only published novel in 1950, obviously after his death.
1. "The Phoenix on the Sword”
2. "The Scarlet Citadel"
3. "The Tower of the Elephant”
4. "Black Colossus"
5. "The Slithering Shadow"
6. "The Pool of the Black One"
7. "Rogues in the House"
8. "Shadows in the Moonlight"
9. "Queen of the Black Coast"
10. “The Devil in Iron"
11. "The People of the Black Circle" a 3 part series
12. "A Witch Shall Be Born”
13. "Teeth of Gwahlur"
14. "Beyond the Black River" 2-part series
15. "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula"
16. The Hour of the Dragon (novel) - 5-part series
17. "Red Nails" - 3-part series
These stories were republished following varying levels of editing by L. Sprague De Camp in the main for the Lancer/Ace paperback editions and Gnomes Press hardback editions mainly in the 1950s and 60s in addition to some other unpublished stories found by Mr de Camp. Hence the controversy with REH fans and scholars. Having said that without Mr de Camp, Conan may not have seen the light of day or at least quite so quickly.
However the original Weird Tales stories and other so called “fragmentary” Conan stories (i.e. incomplete), synopsises etc.. in their original format have been recently published (2002-2004) in a 3 volume hardback version by Wandering Stars Publishers. However trade paperback editions are now coming out in 3 volumes by Ballantine Books. If you want to read the stories as originally written by REH then this is where you should look!!
OK you’ll also be happy to hear that just recently as in April!!! many of REHs works from the pulp magazines like Weird Tales and other mags of the time including unpublished stuff and of course his “western” stories albeit with weird or supernatural undertones at times have been published in collections available from University Of Nebraska Press under their Bison label. A link to this site appears below but in summary the book links you will want to check out there are as follows. I suspect the fifth title in this list is the one you’ll most want to investigate:
1. The Black Stranger and Other American Tales (Heroic fantasy and Horror stories)
2. Lord of Samarcand and Other Adventure Tales of the Old Orient (All of REHs oriental stories including some unpublished works).
3. Boxing Stories (Most of his boxing stories including 10 on Steven Costigan, his most popular character).
4. The End of the Trail (A collection of western stories with plenty of outlaws and gunmen).
5. The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales (Comic and dialect Western tales I think sort of along the lines of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed .ie. "larger than life" figures if you know what I mean)
*NB Not sure if you can get these in the shops or only online via this website?
Just click on this link and you’ll see the titles in the first few books featured.
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/special/newThisMonth.jsp
P.S. I have links to other stuff by REH but I think these should be a good starting point along with the recently released Ballantine Trade pb 3 volume “original” version of Conan stories. If you get through these you’ll know more about REH than I do mate!
Ciaoo for now.
Sorry to hear about that but... other side I'm happy too. I can catch up with the reading list, including the books I mentioned above.Due to personal cicumstances, I won’t be able to post new authors on this thread for the next week or two. However, I will still maintain this thread over time and be on the forum to answer other queries when I can.