The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard

[[deleted user]]

This is the discussion hub for our discussion of the Short Story anthology...


The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard

— — Content — —
Forward by Marc Schultz  
Introduction by Patrice Louinet  
The Phoenix on the Sword   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The Frost-Giant's Daughter   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The God in the Bowl   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The Tower of the Elephant   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The Scarlet Citadel   (-->> DISCUSSION)
Queen of the Black Coast   (-->> DISCUSSION)
Black Colossus   (-->> DISCUSSION)
Iron Shadows in the Moon   (-->> DISCUSSION)
Xuthal of the Dusk   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The Pool of the Black One   (-->> DISCUSSION)
Rogues in the House   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The Vale of Lost Women   (-->> DISCUSSION)
The Devil in Iron   (-->> DISCUSSION)

Please comment of each individual story in its own topic in the Coming of Conan Short Stories folder (Links to each story's topic in the Table of Content below.) You can use this topic for general discussions of the anthology as a whole or the author.

Freebies: Some of these stories can be found legally on-line in text or audio form:
"The Phoenix on the Sword" @ PodCastle (audio)
"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" as original title "Gods of the North" @ Wikimedia (text) or PodCastle (audio)
"The Tower of the Elephant" @ PodCastle (audio)
"The Queen of the Black Coast" @ Project Gutenberg (text) & LibriVox (audio).
"Pool of the Black One" @ WikiSource (text).
"The Devil In Iron" @ Project Gutenberg (text) & Librivox (audio).

[Brendan]

Ugh I'm right in the middle of a long novel so it might be a week or two before I get to these. I don't expect the Conan stories will be good, but hopefully they will at least be entertaining.

EDIT: The ebook version i found doesn't look like it has the foreword or the introduction, but it does seem to include all the stories listed here, plus it was only $1.10, so i think it will do.

[[deleted user]]

Brendan wrote: "plus it was only $1.10, so i think it will do..."

Given that the publisher wants $17, I'll assure you the Intro & Forward aren't worth it.

Summary: Howard was awesome, a prophet without honor in his own time. People should read the stories only in the order they were written, because I say so. And, you should ignore the horrid "pastiche", by which Louinet means the Carter & de Camp stories. There, I saved you $16!

[[deleted user]]

Brendan wrote: "I don't expect the Conan stories will be good, but hopefully they will at least be entertaining...."

You see, when you write things like that, I hear, "I don't expect them to be good, but hopefully they will be good." Because I'm shallow enough to think "entertaining" is "good" :)

Unless of course by "entertaining" you mean "Plan 9 from Outer Space" entertaining.

[Brendan]

G33z3r wrote: "Because I'm shallow enough to think "entertaining" is "good" :) Unless of course by "entertaining" you mean "Plan 9 from Outer Space" entertaining. "

I'm open-minded, either version of entertaining will be fine with me.

[Jim]

I should have posted this info here, but did so in another topic. Staying on topic is difficult for me, especially today. My mind is jumping around like a rat on crack for some reason.

If you're looking for free versions of his stories, Gutenberg Australia has far more than the regular Gutenberg or other legal places.
http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m...
Scroll down to REH.

Robert E HOWARD (1906-1936)

FANTASY ADVENTURES

The Conan Saga

The Conan Saga - Collected Stories and Novels

Individual Conan Stories:--

Cimmeria - A Poem (1932)
The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)
The Scarlet Citadel (1933)
The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
Black Colossus (1933)
The Slithering Shadow [Xuthal of the Dusk] (1933)
The Pool of the Black One (1933)
Rogues in the House (1934)
Gods of the North (1934)
Iron Shadows in the Moon [Shadows in the Moonlight] (1934)
Queen of the Black Coast (1934)
The Devil in Iron (1934)
The People of the Black Circle (1934)
A Witch Shall be Born (1934)
Jewels of Gwahlur (1935)
Beyond the Black River (1935)
Shadows in Zamboula [Man-Eaters of Zamboula] (1935)
Conan the Conqueror [The Hour of the Dragon] (novel) (1936)
Red Nails (1936)
The Hyborian Age (1938) [An essay pertaining to the Hyborian Age, the fictional setting of the stories about Conan]
The God in the Bowl (1952)
The Black Stranger (1953)

The Kull Saga

The Kull Saga - Collected Stories

Individual Kull Stories:--

The King and the Oak--A Poem (1939)
The Shadow Kingdom (1929)
The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune (1929)
Kings of the Night (1930)

There's a ton of other stories & poems by him, too. They're only in text or HTML format, but that's OK with me.

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: "I should have posted this info here,..."

Thanks, again, Jim.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I'm out of town for work right now, enjoying Arizona's 108° heat in a suit and tie. I finished all the stories but I'm still working on the extras. I'll share my full opinion when I get back but I really enjoyed revisiting Hyboria and my favorite Cimmerian.

[[deleted user]]

Randy wrote: "I'm out of town for work right now, enjoying Arizona's 108° heat in a suit and tie...."

You missed the hot weather. :)

[Jim]

If you're interested in REH's stories, poems, & where/when they've been published, http://howardworks.com/howard.htm is a great site to explore.

Welcome to The Works of Robert E. Howard web page. The idea behind this page is to make available for the Howard scholar and collector, a list of every story, article, fragment and synopsis written by REH, and where to find them. It is not intended to make judgements about Howard and what he wrote, but merely to list everything. Some additional material is included, such as verse books, books about Howard, etc. Please feel free to comment on anything you find here. To reiterate one more time, this site is a work in progress and is not yet complete.

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: "If you're interested in REH's stories, poems, & where/when they've been published, http://howardworks.com/howard.htm is a great site to explore....."

Crom, that's hard to read, with that text over background.

[Jim]

It is, especially since the background is so interesting. My eye keeps getting caught by book covers I love so well.

If it bugs you too much & you have Firefox, you can remove the background. Just right click in the page & choose "Inspect Element"
Select the background.jpg line
right click, Attributes & left click on "Remove element Background"

You'll be left with a white background & the text shows up well on it. Great for old eyes. You can do something similar in Chrome, but just edit the element & delete "Background.jpg", then close the inspector.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I'm still working on the extras - I'm about halfway through "The Hyborian Age" which is Howard's fictional history of Conan's world. It's mildly interesting, but not exactly thrilling. I'm also planning to read the synopses and story fragments, along with the "Hyborean Genesis" which is the editor's piece about the creation of Conan.

But I finished all the stories. It was great to re-visit the world of Conan. When I was a teenager and looking for something to read, my Jr High's librarian steered me to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series, which I loved. As I looked for more Sword and Sorcery books, I eventually ran across Elric and Conan. The Conan books were always enjoyable to me, especially because of the beautiful cover art by Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. Of course a lot of the pictures, just like the material in the stories, is more than a little bit sexist and wouldn't be appropriate in today's world.

I read Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs earlier this year. Like the Conan stories, it exhibited a degree of sexism that would be intolerable today. Tarzan also unfortunately contained a lot of despicable racial stereotypes that I thought were much more understated in Howard's Conan stories (I remember a couple times when Howard made reference to black men "rolling their eyes," and exhibiting superstitious fear in the presence of paranormal danger). But Howard also used the word "black" as a substitute for evil - did anyone else notice this? In almost every story, if there was a supernatural creature, it was always black, and the word "black" itself was used in story titles like Queen of the Black Coast, Black Colossus and The Pool of the Black One.

It makes it hard to go back and appreciate these stories in the face of stereotypes that we find unacceptable in today's world, yet were commonplace (although equally unacceptable) at the time the stories were written.

Howard wasn't really a great writer either, despite what the editor claims in his introduction. Although there are some moments of genius, usually in the action scenes and especially in the thoroughness of his world building which was certainly an inspiration to those who followed, ever great sentence is usually followed or preceded by two or three that are laughably awful.

Overall, I enjoyed seeing my favorite Cimmerian again, despite the dissatisfactions noted above. I think I'm going to read volumes 2 and 3 of this collection, then I may try to pick up some used copies of the later stories written by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Also, I enjoyed this Wikipedia page - scroll down and you'll see a list of Howard's fictitious countries and their real-life inspirations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyboria...

[[deleted user]]

Randy wrote: "Also, I enjoyed this Wikipedia page - scroll down and you'll see a list of Howard's fictitious countries and their real-life inspirations. "

"The only flaw in this stuff is R.E.H.'s incurable tendancy (sic) to devise names too closely resembling actual names" - HP Lovecraft

[[deleted user]]

Randy wrote: "When I was a teenager and looking for something to read, my Jr High's librarian steered me to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series, which I loved. As I looked for more Sword and Sorcery books, I eventually ran across Elric and Conan...."

There was a time when the Leiber books were new (starting in 68) that they were accessible whereas the Howard books were old and out of print. After Tolkien, Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser was also my sword & sorcery indulgence (starting with Swords Against Wizardry.

Two years later, Marvel's Roy Thomas introduced me to Conan and the Hyborian Age.

[[deleted user]]

Randy wrote: "Howard also used the word "black" as a substitute for evil - did anyone else notice this?..."

Not something Howard invented, though you are right he does use it a lot to mark his baddies, saving the reader the trouble of guessing.

He's also pretty quick to add a giant snake, too, and they're never friendly.

[[deleted user]]

A side note... in the Introduction Louinet decries the popular depiction of Conan as having scantily-clad women clinging to him. With "Xuthal of the Dusk" I've just read 3 stories in a row with exactly that – and that's not counting Bêlit of the "Crush me in your arms, lover boy" hello.

(Louinet goes on to mention, probably correctly, that Conan is a character who has gotten away from his creator in popular conception, like Sherlock Holmes, Dracula & Tarzan.)

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

You're right about the snakes, G33z3r. It's weird that I didn't notice it so much when I was reading. Only one spider and like 15 deadly snakes? How is that possible?

And I agree that Conan has definitely gotten away from whatever Howard's original vision was. Based on these stories, Schwarzenegger was an awful choice for the movie role. I never saw the remake so can't comment about it - but I think I'm going to track down all three movies and watch them after finishing this collection.

[[deleted user]]

Randy wrote: "Based on these stories, Schwarzenegger was an awful choice for the movie role...."

Why? Yeah, there's an accent, but who knows what a Cimmerian sounds like? Limited acting ability? We'll you don't exactly need a Meryl Streep for the part. And he seems to be physically the perfect fit.

Randy wrote: "I never saw the remake so can't comment about it - but I think I'm going to track down all three movies and watch them after finishing this collection..."

I actually own the 2011 remake on BluRay. I watched it once.

At least the 1982 Schwarzenegger version entertained. It's also interesting to see how bits of these stories are re-assembled into that movie. Let us know when you've re-watched & we can discuss. :)

The 1984 sequel, "Conan the Destroyer" was written by Roy Thomas (of the Marvel comic book), so I expected a fun romp, but it really disappointed me.

There was also a one-season live-action TV series (1998) as an independent, syndicated production (kind of like the Hercules/Xena/Andromeda shows, but without the Kevin Sorbo :). Plus an animated TV show featuring Young Conan :)

[Phil]

Randy wrote: "I'm still working on the extras - I'm about halfway through "The Hyborian Age" which is Howard's fictional history of Conan's world. It's mildly interesting, but not exactly thrilling. I'm also pla..."

You and I grew up on all the same stuff, Randy.

If you want to talk about race in the old pulps, there is a big difference between ERB and REH. ERB had a lot of indefensible attitudes. One of his Venus books refers to the KKK as a heroic civic organization, or words to that effect. REH was a bit different. He viewed civilization as a bad thing that took man away from his nature. Kind of like Jack London in The Call of the Wild. People of color in Howard's fiction often represent lack of civilization and therefore truth to what people should be. It's a stereotype, sure, but a more nuanced one than you would get in, say, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Roy Thomas is awesome; I grew up on his comics. Arak, Son of Thunder is an under appreciated classic, and I totally defend Conan the Destroyer.

[Phil]

Randy wrote: "Howard wasn't really a great writer either, despite what the editor claims in his introduction."

Disagree. Howard was great, albeit in selective ways. No one has ever embodied blood-rage the way he does in the Conan stories. His love of history imbues his world with concrete realism that has rarely been equalled. He combines fury at civilization, which he saw as a giant lie, with a broad sense of world-building. His best stories embody a sense of brutal tragedy, describing a world in which blood counts more than honor, and power belongs to the strong.

Granted, some of the stories in this volume were clearly written to formula for a quick buck. But when the man was on, he was really on. I'm thinking particularly of some of the later Conan stories as I write this.

[Brendan]

Howard was a big Rousseau fan then, was he?

[Michael]

It's strange, during the 60s and 70s I read a lot of "sword & sorcery" stories, most memorably Fritz Liebers's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but also many others. For some reason I while I knew of the stories I never read any of Howard's Conan stories. I just opened this book to give it a try so I'll be curious how I relate to them 40+ years later.

[Jim]

I read a lot too, Michael. I found few that compared well with REH's writing. Leiber's F&GM, Moorcock's Elric/etc., & KEW's Kane all compared well, the latter even surpassing him sometimes in S&S horror. Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman was fun, too. ERB was good, but his heroes & situations were all the same. Jakes, Carter, & many others failed miserably, though. So I agree with Phil that REH shined above the others in some ways. Far more than he referred to, though.

REH had a lot more range than most give him credit for. While the Conan stories were my favorite, I particularly like some of his horror. His "Conrad and Kirowan" & "Weird Southwest" stories are chilling.

He brought elements of his hard barbarian & his horror to bear on some other serious stories with plain historical fiction. The Sowers of the Thunder is the best exampl with 4 excellent stories in it.
"The Lion of Tiberias"
"The Sowers of the Thunder"
"Lord of Samarcand"
"The Shadow of the Vulture" has Red Sonya in it. It's the only original Howard story I've read featuring her that I can think of.
The first 2 are particularly good & chilling, but on par with Harold Lamb's writing. Historical, real horror, I suppose. These are all available on the Australian Gutenberg site I posted below. I highly recommend reading them.

His funny stories are great, too. If you get a chance to read the Breckenridge Elkins (kind of a wooly Pecos Bill) or his boxing stories (Sailor Steve Costigan or Dennis Dorgan) you should do so. They're slapstick comedy. The 'heroes' are big, tough, amiable guys that are dumber than rocks & manage to get into all sorts of trouble. Through a combination of pure determination & incredible toughness, they manage to get out, but are often the worse for wear. Born losers that I can't help rooting for.

Anyway, if you have some time, check out his other stories. There is a lot more there than people realize. Just go to
http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m...
& scroll down to "Robert E HOWARD (1906-1936)", if you can get past the first entry on the page, "H Rider HAGGARD". Seems like they have most of his stuff, too.
:)

[[deleted user]]

Michael wrote: "It's strange, during the 60s and 70s I read a lot of "sword & sorcery" stories, most memorably Fritz Liebers's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but also many others. For some reason I while I knew of the stories I never read any of Howard's Conan stories...."

This is doubtless based on availability; Howard was mostly out of print. In the lates-60s Carter & de Camp did an ACE anthology with their own stuff & some "posthumous collaborations" with Howard. Hanging out around the SF&F shelf of a 1960s bookseller wouldn't show you a Howard book. You'd find more contemporary authors, e.g. Moorcock & Leiber. Which was why the first Conan story I read was the Marvel comic from Roy Thomas (1970.) I think Thomas's Conan helped spur the revival. And, of course, the movie.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

G33z3r wrote: "Randy wrote: "Based on these stories, Schwarzenegger was an awful choice for the movie role...."

Why? Yeah, there's an accent, but who knows what a Cimmerian sounds like? Limited acting ability? W..."

The best parts of the Conan stories often shows his hidden and sometimes unexpected intelligence. I'm not saying Schwarzenegger isn't smart - far from it, I think he's very smart actually - but his range is so limited as an actor and his accent is so hammy I don't think he would be the best pick to portray the character. But yeah, he's pretty ripped, so he's got that going for him.

Phil wrote: "Randy wrote: "Howard wasn't really a great writer either, despite what the editor claims in his introduction."

Disagree. Howard was great, albeit in selective ways. No one has ever embodied blood-..."

Parts of his writing are good. Parts are terrible. You make good points about things he did well.

[Phil]

G33z3r wrote: "This is doubtless based on availability; Howard was mostly out of print."

There's a whole saga behind this. The rights were held up by de Camp for a long time. He had some writing skill, and his pastiches are usually fun, but his business practices ran to the detriment of Howard's legacy for decades. Howard's intended text, the one we are discussing on this thread, could not come out until de Camp died and the rights reverted to Howard's estate.

As a result, many Sword & Sorcery fans, myself included, had to make do with scrounging the local Book Rack for the Lancer/Ace editions or picking up shoddy pastiches by other authors. Even the decent pastiches, like Robert Jordan's, utterly fail to catch the spirit of the originals.

[Andrea]

Randy wrote: "I'm still working on the extras - I'm about halfway through "The Hyborian Age" which is Howard's fictional history of Conan's world. It's mildly interesting, but not exactly thrilling. I'm also pla..."

As I'm reading that Australian Gutenberg version I've also got the extras related to the world history...it's a bit like reading the Silmarillion before reading The Lord of the Rings...I very quickly lost track of who conquered who and since many of the race's didn't even survive the whole way through I wasn't even sure who I was supposed to care about in regards to the actual stories. In fact I still don't know exactly what snapshot represents Conan's time since Howard brought it all the way up to the modern day.


G33z3r wrote: "The only flaw in this stuff is R.E.H.'s incurable tendancy (sic) to devise names too closely resembling actual names - HP Lovecraft..."

Based on that history I've got in my version, seems like the naming was intentional, as he's describing some improbable prehistory of our current world?

I'm now on the first story (the frost giant one) and so far I've seen Conan kill three people and is currently in the process of trying to catch a girl to rape her...

[Silvana]

I have a collection of his stories which has some of the stories being discussed: Conan the Barbarian: The Complete Collection

But I won't have time to read all this month. Any recommendation for the best one or two stories?



Andrea wrote: "I'm now on the first story (the frost giant one) and so far I've seen Conan kill three people and is currently in the process of trying to catch a girl to rape her... ."

what?

Is this common in Conan stories?

[Phil]

Silvana wrote: "Is this common in Conan stories?"

No. At one point, Conan boasts that while he is not above burglary and assassination, he has never taken a woman by force. And in the stories as written, he never does.

He does attempt it, though, in the story Andrea mentions, which is called "The Frost Giant's Daughter." Why did Howard throw in this blatant contradiction for Conan's character? I think it's because the the story he wanted to tell called for Conan to pursue a woman through the snow before realizing that she is a frost giant's daughter. At that point, typical Howard/Conan supernatural things happen.

[[deleted user]]

Silvana wrote: "Is this common in Conan stories?..."

"Women are as cheap as plantains."

Conan is often rapey, though he never actually does. (Sometime, because the fire in his rough, unwanted kiss causes the ladies to swoon.) He's also big on making bargains in exchange for women, though again, never quite consummating the deal. Howard tells us Conan has an "inherent decency," though it seems only selectively on display.

Also, the previously discussed racism.

[[deleted user]]

Silvana wrote: "I won't have time to read all this month. Any recommendation for the best one or two stories?..."

I'd suggest "The Tower of the Elephant" and "The Queen of the Black Coast". Both, by the way, are available on-line if not already in your collection (see "Freebies" in first message above for links.). The latter features the only woman in this collection not in need of rescue.

[Andrea]

For what it's worth in the Frost Giant series, since the "girl" is not human one could argue she even used magic to influence him since she really did want him to chase her lustfully....

(view spoiler)[...into a trap. But then he avoided the trap and she's like "oh crap" and then really does have to run for her life. (hide spoiler)]

Still not ok, but I could see how it might not have been in his normal character. Glad others are confirming this isn't his standard nature. So far in the second story there are no females for him to lust after for me to judge. His eyes certainly flame a lot though, may want to consider some soothing eyedrops...

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Silvana wrote: "I have a collection of his stories which has some of the stories being discussed: Conan the Barbarian: The Complete Collection

But I won't have time to read all this month. Any rec..."

I'd go with Tower of the Elephant and Black Colossus.

[Cat]

I haven't read the Conan stories before (although I have read a little bit of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser which I preferred btw) but I found, as a collection, these stories to be very disjointed.

The first three stories went from King Conan to Barbarian Conan to Thief Conan and I just didn't really buy that it was all the one character - the storyline jumped around too much. Disconnected stories is often one of the reasons that I avoid short story collections.

I did have a giggle at some of the descriptions which I recognised as the foundations for the tropes and stereotypes of this fantasy genre. Actually, finding those were probably the highlights for me.

Randy wrote: I'd go with Tower of the Elephant and Black Colossus Seconded!

I did find it interesting that Howard was so scathing of the "civilised" man, but his 'barbarian' I think was much more moral (Frost-giant daughter's story notwithstanding).

Definitely an obsession with giant snakes. I think the author must have had a bad experience with them... clearly he was scarred by them!

[Silvana]

Thank you G33z3r, Randy and Cat for the recommendations! Looks like the Tower story is going to be my first sampling.

[[deleted user]]

Crom! Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall Conan ever using the exclamation, "Crom!" in any of these stories.

He talks about Crom a bit with Bêlit.

[[deleted user]]

Randy wrote: By the end of this collection a lot of the stories had started to run togethe..."

Is that the fault of the stories, or the collection? Would you feel the same if you were reading a story every 3-4 months in Weird Tales?

[[deleted user]]

Cat wrote: "The first three stories went from King Conan to Barbarian Conan to Thief Conan and I just didn't really buy that it was all the one character - the storyline jumped around too much. Disconnected stories is often one of the reasons that I avoid short story collections...."

Howard justified that (per Louinet's Introduction) as he was telling the stories as Conan might have told them in a tavern, in whatever order they happened to occur to him.

I don't think it would have been possible for Howard to invent these stories chronologically, though when Thomas started writing the comic adaptation for Marvel he did pretty much that (much to Mr. Louinet's distress, I presume.)

[Phil]

G33, I think Conan's battle cry, "Crom!" was a Roy Thomas creation.

The Roy Thomas comics were great, and he used a lot of Howard's material. There was an awkward moment in about 1979 when Marvel suddenly had access to the De Camp/Carter material, so Thomas built in a whole bunch of side stories and flashbacks. It was part of the whole rights mess that blocked the publication of this volume for several decades.

[Brendan]

Conan does not appear to have particularly liked Crom, and it doesn't seem like an Elric/Arioch situation where he will respond to invocation.

[Phil]

I think Howard's emphasis is on Conan's self-reliance and perseverance. Crom demands toughness!

[Andrea]

Think it was in the Gods of the Bowl story, or the very start of the Elephant Tower, there was a comment that usually you don't invoke Crom because he's a god of strength and battle if you're such a weakling that you need his help, you're not worthy of his attention anyway. Basically he endowed you with warrior perfection at birth, the rest is your problem. Something along those lines.

[S.W.]

G33z3r wrote: Unless of course by "entertaining" you mean "Plan 9 from Outer Space" entertaining.... Howard was awesome, a prophet without honor in his own time."

Right on. Bad '50's sci-fi failed so hard to imitate the 30's and its Golden Age of stories and films. Ed Wood might have been excusably deranged, but most mid century filmmakers just tried to cash in.

[Brendan]

Finished these stories. Not going to read the extras.

Overall impressions: Not great. Physical stereotypes substitute for characterization in every story. The biggest failure in characterization was Conan himself. I don't think we ended knowing anything more about Conan's motivations and goals than when we began. I get the reasoning for the episodic nature due to the magazines the stories were originally published in, but it makes for weird reading in a collection when Conan starts every story as a blank slate coming in from the wild (save one story where he actually had a past, as shown by him knowing a pirate he ran into. That was a good touch, and more details like that were needed.)

One of the appeals of reading pulp fantasy is that it tends to be free of the moralistic good vs evil baggage of epic fantasy. That's missing here, as everything Conan does is presented as unambiguously good, even when he's doing stuff that clearly isn't, and he is fighting against unambiguous evil (the always dark-skinned enemy du jour.)

I felt the same way reading this as i did reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, that it's really not for me. What it did do is make me want to read more Leiber.

Favourite stories: The Tower of the Elephant, The Scarlet Citadel, Rogues in the House

Least favourite: The Frost-giant's Daughter, The Pool of the Black One, The Vale of Lost Women

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Brendan wrote: "Finished these stories. Not going to read the extras."

I can respect that. I did read all the extras - I've got about 7 pages left in "Hyborian Genesis" which is the editor's thoughts on the literary and historical basis for some of the stories. I think it's pretty interesting. Also, some of the story fragments have some good (but not great) stuff in them - I assume they were later finished by Carter and De Camp.

Brendan wrote: "I don't think we ended knowing anything more about Conan's motivations and goals than when we began."

You're right - we never really get to know much about the character aside from a bit here or there. More background would be nice, along with some insights about what makes the guy tick. Maybe the story that gives the best insight is "The Phoenix on the Sword" where old man Conan is sitting down drawing a map of his world. In the original draft version there's an extended version of the scene that gives a bit more insight into Conan.

Based on that, I'd add "Phoenix" to the list of the best stories in the collection. I also liked "Black Colossus" a lot. "Tower of the Elephant" was my favorite.

I thought the weakest were "Frost Giant's Daughter," "The God in the Bowl," and "Xuthal of the Dusk."

I think I enjoyed the collection because I enjoy the Sword and Sorcery genre, and it was interesting and enjoyable to read some of the early stories that helped popularize it.

[S.W.]

Brendan wrote: "(the always dark-skinned enemy du jour.)"

The frost-giant's daughter and her brothers weren't, the women in the lost vale weren't either iirc. The majority of enemies are more a neutral olive-skinned iirc, typical of the equatorial cradles of global --and "wicked"--civilization. Not aimed at you, but I hope the next really inaccurate generalization doesn't contend Conan was likely gay, as S.E. Hnton is battling with some exasperation regarding her "Outsiders" story, homophobia-phobia. Literature is art, and art is sacred. It should be defended as such imo.

So Howard simplifies/exaggerates history in remarkable ways for dramatic unity, readers respond where this works or doesn't work for them, then reader groups discuss further. That's how great writers teach even after they're gone.

[Phil]

Randy wrote: "You're right - we never really get to know much about the character aside from a bit here or there."

I never thought of Conan as a human character so much as a primal force of nature. I think the fact that I read these stories so young means that I just accept them as-is.

[S.W.]

Phil wrote: "I never thought of Conan as a human character so much as a primal force of nature..."

Yes! Phil. One of Howard's fav adjectives was "tiger-like." If you make a really close study of all his fighting-men, compact musculature and speed are the real assets. And d'ya know who really nailed that? BRUCE LEE.

Also, holy cow, look at all the books-read we have in common. Feel free to request a copy of my fantasy novella anytime.