Pre-Tolkien 3: Robert E. Howard and Final Thoughts
The last story I read for the pre-Tolkien challenge was the luridly-named Temptress of the Tower of Torture and Sin by Robert E. Howard. I’d never even heard of this one until I was combing through archive.org’s pulp scans for this challenge. The version I found was a reprint in Avon Fantasy Reader. In my search, I also found another as-yet-unknown-to-me story called The Blonde Goddess of Bal-Sagoth, which I’ll certainly be reading soon.
The story itself is a lost civilization tale, and includes pretty much every appropriate trope you can toss into 17 pages. However, it’s woven in that way only Howard could weave, and it still works, even if it won’t top my favorites list.
The main body of the story begins with two western explorers wandering through the African wilderness. They hear a strange noise a mighty distance off. Of course, being explorers and men of adventure, they guide the expedition toward the sound. All the native hirelings are terrified and abandon them, but they persist, undaunted. They’re immediately captured by an ancient civilization that has existed in a secluded valley for thousands of years. The plot starts out slow and builds to a furious conclusion. Here, Howard’s settings are vivid and incredible, his descriptions are engrossing and energetic, and his characters just plain fun to watch. I didn’t even mind the history lesson thrown in half way.
One of the intrepid protagonists is named John Conrad. I wonder if he is the same John Conrad from Howard’s Conrad & Kirowan stories, which are primarily about the occult. There’s not really any evidence I can remember from those stories to match up with this, other than the name. I choose to believe it’s the same character anyway.
Final Thoughts
I know there are stories out there that are much closer in tone or milieu to Tolkien than the ones I’ve read. I wasn’t really attempting to trace the history of modern fantasy through this challenge. Merely attempting to survey the state of fantasy before everything became epic tales of longness. And I flipped through a bunch of Fantasy-specific magazine issues before settling on what to read.
What I (re?)learned in doing this challenge is that the fantasy magazines of the era published a staggering variety of styles. As such, even though the rules of the challenge clearly state I’m supposed to compare these to Tolkien, there is not really much to directly compare. Obviously, in a short the plot has to move along at pretty fast clip, where Tolkien can dedicate plenty of pages to description and history. But both still have things to say about bravery and heroism. And both were of an epoch wherein you could almost always tell a clear difference between good and evil.
It seems like the novel-length works published in the pulps I looked at displayed the same breadth of style as the shorter works. When I walk down the fantasy & scifi shelves of Barnes and Noble’s, I only see two flavors: epic-directly-Tolkien-descended fantasy, and sexy-chicks-in-leather-pants-urban-fantasy. And I guess the Dresden files, which share general milieu with the sexy women. And then I suppose I can walk across the store to the YA section and pick up a copy of “Harry Potter and the Stolen Storyline.” I get why retailers do this, but I think there’s definitely something to be said for reading outside your favorite narrow niche.
This challenge has been a fun little diversion. Thanks to Alexandru for starting it, and thanks to everybody who has participated. It’s made me happy to revisit a few longtime favorites and amazing to discover so many long-hidden gems.
