John's comments
(member since Dec 07, 2008)
John's comments from the Robert E. Howard Readers group.
(showing 1-16 of 16)
Way to go Werner and the Univ. of Nebraska. I could have used some awesome heroic fantasy fiction in the Old Dominion Library back in the day ... just to take a mental trip away from the studies.
I'm halfway through Horror Stories by REH but it has a different cover ... Solomon Kane's on mine. I finished reading the short story, Valley of the Lost, a few days ago. The ending is quite disturbing.
That is the challenge, all right. And with limited time and money, even more challenging. Sites like this one can provide opinions from other readers, which can be cool if they generally care for the same style.
There's bound collections of the comic books? Hmmm. Maybe Santy will bring one if I make the good list.
Caveat: I don't have bunches of time to read the most recent fantasy novels out there, but the ones I've tried just don't compare to REH, or my next fav, Karl Edward Wagner.
Just grumbling. Maybe the writers who emulate REH too much come off as trying too hard, and don't carve their own niche. I'm trying to avoid such myself, but we'll see.
Ditto. Conan comics got there before the books for me. Kind of my gateway drug to the realms of Robert E. Howard.
At least her skin was sleek and not scaly.And, I don't know, I thought she was somewhat hot but then I've always had a thing for witches.
In this short story from Horror Stories by REH, I am amazed at the prowess of the man's writing, as usual. So hard to believe he was only thirty when he died.
His depiction of a Roman crucifixion of a Pict, a subject of Bran Mak Morn's takes you there in no uncertain terms. Toss in the fact that Morn is there undercover as it were, and the man is tortured before him, and you feel the strains on his psyche.
There's excellent use of "a long flicker of steel in the starlight."
I'm with Craig on REH's characters ... Conan is the most compelling, but then I just can't get into his "modern-day" stuff. Black Canaan was a good, Jim. If memory serves, one of the stories involved a ship-wrecked sailor on an island of humongous crabs. Elements of that story stick with me to this day. The guy's determination vs. murderous foes ...
Yep, clicked on your link. That's the cover art/story.
I finished Road of Kings a few days ago, after taking a slow tour though it. Good, not as good as one of KEW's own creations but certainly better than most other pastiches. I wrote in a yahoo group for KEW that I thought KEW wrote more precisely than REH, but not with same raw power, in this instance anyway. Perhaps in general. He did create a fine plot in Road of Kings, however.
Hey Casper. Welcome to the REH world. I've been in and out of it for thirty years and haven't read all of his works, and am glad. Don't want to run out of reading material like I did with Karl Edward Wagner.I picked up Best Horror Stories of REH from Del Rey just last night. Has a mix of genres, like Jim pointed out re: Grim Lands. Looking forward to reading it.
Mark, I understand your points on REH's boxing and western stories, but I'm not drawn to them simply because they occur in the 'real world.'Howard was so good with Conan that there's no lure to return to reality, though it is in a past reality. Not to say I don't read reality-based fiction because I do, but I'm too enamored with the escapism afforded by Howard's prowess in Hyboria, different enough from our world serve as a temporary pass outta here.
Problem with reading at lunch is that it makes it difficult to return to work. You enter a world of danger and adventure and then bam, back to mundane reality.
Hello. Some of your names and pics are familiar. Guess I started commented before an intro. Writer with a day job and wife and kids here. I read and write in various genres, but always return to the speculative side of life. Huge fan of the works of Howard and Wagner. Maybe it's my bias, but I haven't found any other writers who commanded the scene like they did.
That said, I guess it was the Frazetta covers that drew me in as a teen as much as anything. Made me set aside the Conan comics for actual prose.
I'm slowly working my way through Wagner's Road of Kings. Taking it slow because there's so few of Wagner's works that I have not read, and want to let it sink in, but also from lack of reading time. It's good. Different from Howard -- maybe a bit less raw power -- but good.
For me it's Howard's S&S all the way. Mainly Conan.Black River has to be one of Howard's best stories, and probably one of the best for the entire genre, imo.
Sometimes it's good to grab a few passages of REH reading in the middle of the day. Nice break from the IT realities of the day job
