Reading the Lancer/Ace Conan Saga

[Miles]

So I decided to get the Lancer/Ace 12 volume set as well as the Bantam 6 volume set and just started on book 1 Conan. So far I've only read the first story (The Thing in the Crypt) and it was surprisingly decent for a pastiche by De Camp/Carter, I'm sure that most purists hate these volumes however, I love Howards characters so much that sometimes a bad pastiche is better then nothing.

[Jim]

I started out reading the Lancer editions with Frazetta's wonderful covers. As a kid, I really liked both De Camp & Carter's other books, too. (Remember Jandar Of Callisto? Awful, but fun back then.) While neither is the author REH was, they did put the stories into a comprehensive story line & made them popular, so they should be granted that much. I thought their changes to "The Treasure of Tranciscos" (sp?) worked, too. I've read the other 2 versions & still prefer theirs.

I prefer many of their stories simply because they're finished. I enjoyed their version of Kull: Exile of Atlantis far better.

[Miles]

Just ordered Carter's King Kull set so looking forward to reading that.

[Vincent]

My first exposure to Conan was through the Ace/Lancer books, so I don't feel that harshly about de Camp's and Carter's stories, but I do feel (as an adult) they misunderstood the character.

After reading "Conan vs. Conantics," http://www.donherron.com/?page_id=1539 , I've decided the de Camp and Carter stories better reflect the son of Conan rather than Conan himself. I wouldn't mind seeing de Camp & Carter's Conan stories in a stand-alone collection, rather than mixed in with REH's stories. No one would think of publishing a collection of Sherlock Holmes that mixes pastiche with originals.

I think my favorite de Camp & Carter pastiche was "Black Tears" (found in Conan the Wanderer).

Another article that outlines some of the reasons for the hostility toward de Camp & Carter can be found here: http://www.barbariankeep.com/issues.html

Also of note, I read somewhere that de Camp didn't like Conan with long hair, so Frazetta would turn in his covers late so that de Camp couldn't order them changed. The covers to the Gnome Press editions all had comparatively short-haired Conans (compared to most of today's artwork of him). De Camp also insisted all Conan pastiches feature a "good-guy" Conan. REH's stories where Conan hired out to be an assassin and so forth were NOT to be emulated.

[Miles]

Sounds like a backwards way of killing an authors reputation which truthfully happened unfortunately.

[Michael]

I started out reading the Lancer/Ace Conan series as well. I bought and read Conan the Warrior first back in 1967. It was because I liked the cover and a friend told me about it. The first book published was Conan the Adventurer although that was an awesome cover too!
Of course I loved it all at the time as well as DeCamp and Carter. It was my first exposure to REH. Once I read the true Howard versions my thinking changed a bit. Yes, I remember Jandar of Callisto and also Thongor of Lemuria. Very forgettable stuff. Carter made Conan into Thongor in my opinion. I have all of the Lancer/Ace books because I am a collector but I never read them anymore. In my opinion the only way to read Conan is the pure Howard versions which can be picked up fairly inexpensively in the Del Rey editions. If you want to know what all of the fuss is about with De Camp go to the following website (REHUPA) and read the 16 part "The DeCamp Controversy" by Morgan Holmes. It may open your eyes a bit. Frankly DeCamp is an okay writer but I am stunned that he was the 4th person awarded the "Grand Master of Science Fiction Award" ahead of Asimov and Clarke!?
His claim to fame is the questionable editing he did on The Conan stores, "the Compleat Enchanter" with Fletcher Pratt, and maybe the Novarian stories. I did like the "Goblin Tower" as spoof of fantasy stories. How many books did he actually write by himself? Look at the list. Lots of collaborations. If you look on Amazon check the list of his books against Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Robert E Howard for that matter. I won't go so far as to call him a hack but many people in the know from that era consider DeCamp a mercenary who hijacked Howard's Conan stuff for the money while critisizing Howard's writing.
The following was written by DeCamp as a critique of Howard. “Howard was an almost-very-good writer who might have overcome certain limiting quirks had he not killed himself at an early age…His main fault was a tendency carelessly to throw his imaginary world together anyhow, so that the poor carpentry shows.”
Sorry but I prefer the pure Howard stuff and his imaginary world to anything DeCamp has ever written. No offense to anyone else's tastes. I am a Howard fan first and I like Conan because Howard created him. I don't like hardly any pastiches of Conan except may for "Road of Kings" by Karl Edward Wagner.But I own a few and may read them someday but I prefer to reread Howard than read the pastiches out there. Some have praised John Maddox Roberts Conan books. I will say this though...I hope a lot more pastiches get written because it will hopefully bring more people to Howard's writings. Conan is iconic now like Superman, Sherlock Holmes, and Tarzan. Kind of like lots of actors playing Hamlet. I don't have a problem with it at all.
http://www.rehupa.com/?p=250

[Miles]

I myself am a rather new Howard reader, and truthfully I decided to jump on his bandwagon at the perfect time, I am more so a fan of Howard than his creations, however sometimes pastiches are alright for me to read, for some reason it seems nice to see where Conan or any other REH creations started, and then to see where they went for a while before coming back to true Howard. I enjoy his Conan immensely, however he is not the sole reason I'm a Howard fan, however is is sometimes nice to see where some people thought the fragments were going, and one day I think it would be great to get a compilation of amateur Howard fans to try and complete some of their favorite fragments just to see how others see the stories.

With that aside though back on topic, despite the angry feelings towards these two I see an admirably decent job at creating a timeline however I do not see the point of mixing REH with pastiche's, something I wish they would of separated, which would of never happened from all the things about there egos I have heard about.

[Michael]

Amen Brother! You are a welcome member to this site. I enjoy reading your posts as a new Howard reader. As a matter of fact I am reading "The Return of Skull Face" right now (for the second or third time) and over half of it is finished by author Richard A Lupoff. It was actually "commissioned" by Glenn Lord! The fragment is usually known as "Taverell Manor" but I think Mr Lupoff did an admirable job and I like it so I'm not a total purist!LOL

[Jim]

Karl Edward Wagner wrote the best REH pastiches, IMO. I like Kane every bit as much as Conan & Bran, possibly more.

[Vincent]

I much prefer Dale Rippke's timeline to L. Sprague de Camp's. It makes a lot more sense. Dark Horse Comics is using the Rippke timeline. Rippke's timeline can be found here: http://www.rehupa.com/OLDWEB/rippke_c...

It is also available in book form: The Hyborian Heresies, which I recommend because of the additional essays.

One reason I like the Rippke Chronology is that Dale Rippke didn't have to change the stories to make the timeline work - de Camp had to alter several stories to shoehorn them into HIS timeline. That, to me, is evidence of a poor chronology.

My first Ace/Lancer books were Conan the Adventurer and Conan: Conan the Usurper. I still maintain a complete collection of both the Lancer editions and the Ace editions, but I also don't read them anymore. I do think someone ought to pull out de Camp's and Carter's pastiches and publish them seperately (and perhaps subject de Camp to some posthumous editing and turn those stories into the Son of Conan, LOL).

[Vincent]

Michael, I am looking forward to reading a review of the the Lupoff material. I have The Return of Skull Face but haven't read it yet (I've read the original fragment in Tales of Weird Menace, of course.

[Miles]

Is Lupoff's Return of Skull-Face completion the same one in Skull-Face titled Taverall Manor? And I have to agree with you on certain pastiches, I myself loved Blosser's take on Mystery of Tannernoe lodge, especially linking it Steve Harrison's Lord of the Dead & Names in the Black Book.

[Gene]

I generally agree with Michael's opinion on deCamp-- and Lin Carter-- doing their pastiches. The only Howard pastiches I've liked were the early Conan comics by Thomas and Smith, which showed some inventiveness in weaving together disparate Howard stories. Their biggest accomplishment was to take Thoth-Amon, who was no more than a mildly interesting side-character in his one Howard appearance, and make him into a major villainous presence.

[Michael]

Vincent wrote: "Michael, I am looking forward to reading a review of the the Lupoff material. I have The Return of Skull Face but haven't read it yet (I've read the original fragment in [book:Tales..."

"The Return of Skull Face" is the completion of the unfinished story "Taveral Manor" which appears in "Tales of Weird Menace" published by Robert E Howard Foundation. The Return of Skull Face was actually published for Fax Collector's Editions back in 1977. Glenn Lord who was the agent for the Howard Estate for many years asked Richard A Lupoff to finish the story.

[Vincent]

Right. I have the volume, I just haven't read it yet, so I'm looking forward to your review of it.