Conan

[Reader]

Any Conan-readers? I have read one novel only...Conan and the Manhunters, i enjoyed every page!

 

[Brys]

I've read the first fantasy masterworks collection. It was pretty good - well written, sometimes quite imaginative, but the misogyny and racism of Howard got quite annoying after a while, and while the Conan series might be quite a lot better than some modern heroic fantasy authors, I don't think he's on the same level as writers like Leiber or CAS.

 

[GOLLUM]

I like Robert E Howard's Conan as most are aware and you're correct Brys about the racism side but I guess that's perhaps a product of the times the author was growing in, like Lovecraft, maybe REH felt it was perfectly normal to hold particualr views as it was possibly the mainstream position of the day? Not an excuse but perhaps something to consider. This could be a fairly complex issue to analayze but I'm super tired so I'll sign off for now.

Very interesting topic Reader, so thank you for posting it...

 

[Reader]

Thanks Golem, i felt Conan was pretty neccesary on this forum because of the many novells there are about the guy.

 

[steve12553]

I like Robert E Howard's Conan as most are aware and you're correct Brys about the racism side but I guess that's perhaps a product of the times the author was growing in, like Lovecraft, maybe REH felt it was perfectly normal to hold particualr views as it was possibly the mainstream position of the day?

I looked up "racism" in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1969 edition. This was the required book when I went to college the first time. The word was just barely defined like it was a new concept. I suspect what we would define as racism now might have just been flaws in our culture and understanding. As readers of science fiction and fantasy haven't we come across the concept that someday we will be trying to adapt our culture to some type of being that we don't accecpt as equals now like dolphins chimpanzees ar some sort of alien life we can't conceive of. In today's society with what we know it would be intolerable. Back then they really didn't have a clue.

 

[PenDragon]

I've read the first fantasy masterworks collection. It was pretty good - well written, sometimes quite imaginative, but the misogyny and racism of Howard got quite annoying after a while, and while the Conan series might be quite a lot better than some modern heroic fantasy authors, I don't think he's on the same level as writers like Leiber or CAS.

The rascism, misogyny and anti-Arab/Semetic stuff is pretty unpalatable, but I think we need to make certain allowances, based solely on the fact of the time frame and geography. Not however, based on any condolence of said attidtudes.

These stories were orignially published in 30's America some 3 decades before the end of segregation in America, 4 decades before the womens movement took off. The fact that they were published in magazines and sold openly suggests that there was nothing in the stories that was unacceptable in their content in their own time. In fact it was only the (by todays standards very mild) sexual content that made the Conan stories slightly contraversial in their own day.

I think the most problematic of the stories in terms of raciscm is The vale of Lost Women with very bad connotations based on inter-racial relationships, but consider the context of how such a situation would have been viewed in 30's America, the fact that Star Trek caused contraversy and broke down barries with the first mixed race screen kiss some 30 years later in the 60's and add to that the fact that in America mixed race relationships are still problematic and I think we can't really lay all the blame at the authors feet. He was in fact just reflecting society as it was. It's true these positions are deplorable, it's also true R.E. Howard obviously agreed with these positions but so did the majority of society at that time and for many years to come.

It would be nice though if there were some mention of these issues in the foreward to Conan reprints.

For me a bigger problem is with of the style issues, I think R.E. Howard wrote really good prose but when you read a whole collection like the Fanatsy masterworks collections you can see a few flaws that crop up such as repeated plots and themes (an awful lot of lost cities for example) and some grating word choice (Thews and Sward being the worst offenders). However, he was young, stupidly young in fact, being only 35 when he died. More time, better editors (who could have pointed out his overuse of certain words/phrases/plots, etc.) and he would have been even more frighteningly talented.

 

[GOLLUM]

Thank you Pendragon for nicely fleshing out what I had alluded to in an early post.

Where were you when I was writing my Howard bio hey?...

May I assume you've not only read the Conan stories but a number of Howard's other creations as well then and if so which is your favourite?

Do you perchance have a copy of Wandering Star's wonderous publication of the most authentic and original colection of Conan works known to mankind?

Also what other authors have you read from the so-called pulp magazines of the day?

I await your response with interest....

 

[PenDragon]

May I assume you've not only read the Conan stories but a number of Howard's other creations as well then and if so which is your favourite?

Do you perchance have a copy of Wandering Star's wonderous publication of the most authentic and original colection of Conan works known to mankind?

Also what other authors have you read from the so-called pulp magazines of the day?

I await your response with interest....

Sorry to dissapoint Gollum but I'm a newb when it comes to actually reading Howard's work and other Sword & Sorcery. I've read the one Conan collection from Millenium so far, one Jack Vance short story and one Fritz Leiber story (Snow Women). I have read quite a few Elric Novels/stories in the distant past and I'm well versed in the source material of S&S (Old English poems like Beowulf, Icelandic Saga's, mythology, History, Homer) and widely read in fantasy, but have just started to really get into the subgenre S&S.

As far as Howard's other creations go Bran Mac Morn (is that right?) sounds good.

 

[GOLLUM]

As far as Howard's other creations go Bran Mac Morn (is that right?) sounds good.

Make sure you check out the Millenium (Victor Gollancz) Masterwork series incl. the first and second books of Lankmahr for Leiber's wonderfully realised dynmaic duo Fahrd and the Grey Mouser. Also C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry for a female perspective on a S&S Heroine, also a Masterwork title. Masterwork also has the collected works of Howard's Conan in 2 volumes.

Bran Mak Morn is a Pictish Chieftian battling all manner of weird and wonderful creatures and one of my fav Howard creations along with Kull the Conqueror. Other notables include Howard's boxing tales starring sailor detective Steven Costigan and of course Solomon Kane, an Indiana Jones style character who travels the world vanquishing evil wherever it may appear plus his Texicana Fantasy/Horror western hero Kirby Buckner and a Lawrence Of Arabia style character in Francis Gordan aka El Borak.

There's more but I shall not bore you with the details right now...

Suffice to say check out this link to give yourself a better idea of the many varied genres REH actually wrote in!

http://www.rehoward.com/reh-bio.htm

 

[Reader]

Just read Conan The Hero yesterday, and i thought it was a cool story! Im pleased with these little Conan stories in compact form from Tor-books. I have 2 of them, Conan the manhunters and The Hero. There are 50 more ...huh

 

[GOLLUM]

Just read Conan The Hero yesterday, and i thought it was a cool story! Im pleased with these little Conan stories in compact form from Tor-books. I have 2 of them, Conan the manhunters and The Hero. There are 50 more ...huh

I have to be honest here and say I'm not generally a big wrap for authors essentially writing pastiches as they can often fail to capture the essence of the original work even if writers as well known as Jordan did participate in this particular project. Also in Conan's case Robert E. Howard's orginal stories will always be the superior work IMO unless something truly remarkable comes along. I can however think of a recent example where current contributions have at least managed to match and in some cases exceed the standards set by the original author in the book The Last Continent: New Tales Of Zothique, which is a non-pastiche tribute anthology to the late and great Clark Ashton Smith. Of course I suppose any publicity is good publicity and having modern writers contribute to the specific worlds created by their predecessors at least helps bring back awareness and hopefully intertest in an an authors work which would otherwise be forgotten. A classic case in point of this is of course L Sprague DeCamp's, ableit at times problematic, revival of Howard's Conan in the 1970s and beyond.

 

[PenDragon]

I tried reading one of Jordan's Conan books, meh, dumped it half-way through.

Gollum, you might be interested in this....http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com/product.php/sword.html

It's a roleplaying supplament but it's cheap and worth buying just for the author's essay on the S&S genre, he dedicates a section to what he calls the mid '70's betrayl of the genre. The artwork is great too.

Apparently one of the writers who places at Flashing Swords and hangs around on their forum has written a really good Conan novel that is according to the reviews at sword&sorcery.org true to Howard's Conan as opposed to some of the pastiche's.

Cheers for the howard link I'll check it out.

 

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for the link PenDragon, I wouldn't be surprised if DeCamp's and Lin Carter's names pop up somewhere in that essay if he's referring to pastiches as the driving force behind the Conan revival at that time. Better check up the article to make sure.

You got the name of that author at Flashing Swords?...

 

[Jaggy Jai]

Its always very interesting, the racism angle in early sci-fi/fantasy (especially those from the era of the pulps!).....it always reminds me of the original title of Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie...... but most of the intellegent people I speak to irregardless of race see just as it has been branded here.....a sign of those times.....still always interesting!

 

[steve12553]

Its always very interesting, the racism angle in early sci-fi/fantasy (especially those from the era of the pulps!).....it always reminds me of the original title of Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie...... but most of the intellegent people I speak to irregardless of race see just as it has been branded here.....a sign of those times.....still always interesting!

I looked that up. That's pretty bold even for 1939. I've never seen that word in a title and never seen it often in literature outside of Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain was obviously sympathetic and showed care and respect for his characters. This kind of thing makes me believe that we still have some moral evolution to go as a species.

 

[j d worthington]

Keep in mind too, Steve, that the word didn't have quite as strong a negative connotations in other places as it came to have here in America. In fact, in origin it was by not derogatory, merely descriptive; it only became so through vulgar usage. Before that it simply denoted negro or, more broadly, any person of a dark-skinned ethnos (hence the title of Christie's novel, which refers to Indians). As far as its usage in a title, there's always Joseph Conrad's novel as well....

 

[bryanspellman]

I picked up the Wandering Star editions. And they are fantastic!!! Also grabbed the Bran and Solomon series as well.

 

[j d worthington]

I picked up the Wandering Star editions. And they are fantastic!!! Also grabbed the Bran and Solomon series as well.

Are these the limited hardbound editions? Del Rey is putting out Trade Paper editions of these and if you're more interested in the text than the format, these are considerably more affordable. There have been 5 volumes so far, as I recall, and ... Whooops! King Kull should now be out this month, I think, so make that 6!

 

[bryanspellman]

I have neither the money or goodwill of the wife to spend that much on these books. They are the Trade Paper based on the Wandering Star...either way theyare great stories and look good on the shelf!!!!!

 

[j d worthington]

Whew! I was beginning to think that you'd better have armed guards, if you had... this is Howard's Centennial, don't forget!