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You know what? Good on King. Thad’s wife has to drag it out of him but he tells her about the stuff that leads her to know that it isn’t just a crazed fan. Maybe I’m just used to the artificial drama of some novels but this was pretty refreshing.

There are now several aspects of horror at play. Right now King is examining your shadow self arising as a separate being, but what kind of terror happens when you are framed for murder with typically incontrovertible proof? I think that’s part of the as of now only hinted at horror with Homer’s death. He picked George up because he is the spitting image of Thaddeus.

The home aspect with Wendy and William as twin infants is as sweet as can be. I realize now that we are DEEP in a glut of King protagonists who are authors, and this is perhaps the most self-referential yet, marrying his time publishing as Richard Bachman to his uncomfortable awareness of his temper as originally explored in The Shining. King doesn’t hesitate to jump in with this one, either.

“Hyborian Genesis” by Patrice Louinet

This is a great companion essay that goes into Howard’s state of mind when the inspiration of Conan struck him and the writing of the stories as we understand them as well as milestones in the tales as far as what other references Howard made. It goes hard in arguing that Howard cribbed a lot early on from Bullfinch’s Mythology and is pretty convincing, to me at least.

This stretch of 10 or so pages has a list of Hyborian names which is more in the realm of Trivium as well as two drafts of maps made over maps of Europe. The maps are way more helpful and I can’t help but draw a connection to Conan the mapmaker in “The Phoenix on the Sword”. In these you can see that about half of Cimmeria is underwater as the North Sea, the remnants being Scotland and lower-Scandinavia.

“Untitled Draft”

This is a half-complete treatment of the Weird Africa story from the previous synopsis. On one hand, I think that it portrays an African civilization in a less derogatory manner than “The Vale of Lost Woman”. On the other, it’s rife with sexual menace, the near-dismemberment of Tananda being an unusually violent treatment of a woman for Howard (loin-flailing in Xuthal aside).

“Untitled Synopsis”

This is the skeleton of another Weird Africa story where Conan saves the king’s sister from being brutally murdered by the people. Of course, she’s not a great person, unlike the blameless white woman who was captured expressly for one of the intriguers to gain favor with the king. This is one of these stories where just about “everyone sucks” except almost everyone is proto-African.

“Untitled Fragment”

The first act and a half or so of a full story… except I’m sure that the first section, where Conan is attempting to loot a battleground that everyone else covers while he was still killing, would be expanded. We don’t have any idea of who the wounded woman is but his near-mercy-killing brings to mind the “Xuthal” story.

“Untitled Synopsis (Black Colossus)”

This story actually has a couple of differences. Yamela was apparently going to try (but be unable to bring herself) to sacrifice her handmaid to Mitra. It also specifies that Conan’s army wins only due to the intercession of an old, old Kothian god. The closest the final version gets to this is Thugra Khotan’s demon abandoning him during his flight with Yamela.

“Untitled Synopsis (The Scarlet Citadel)”

Howard’s first written idea of this piece. It’s way more focused on the details of the army clash that resulted in Conan’s capture (including the specific numbers and unit types) and then the moment where he gets the keys to his bindings. Most of the dungeon-delving segment was clearly spun whole from the stuff of dreams.

“Untitled Synopsis”

Howard’s generative stories are pretty fun to read! This two-page synopsis hits the “lost antiquity” and “thieves working together” except Conan’s fellow thief is an officer who was sent to arrest him and, after doggedly trying to capture him, helps in looting the temple. The twist ending would be a fun one, too, with serendipity giving Conan an out of his trouble in town.

“The Hyborian Age”

Howard lays out his imagined history between the cataclysm that sank Atlantis and then, much later, the post ice-age cataclysm that shaped Europe into what we know it as today, complete with the genealogical traditions of the current people of Europe as they trace back to the Hyborian age. It’s a historical drama in very broad strokes.

“Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age”

Three paragraphs detailing the Aquilonians, the Gunderlanders, and the Cimmerians, mostly as his initial sketch of the fictional people. The most important concepts explored here are that 1) the Cimmerians are the descendants of the Atlanteans and 2) Howard’s fantasy world was invested in what I will loosely call “devolution” as a fundamental of life.

“The Phoenix on the Sword (First Submitted Draft)”

Now we are in the Miscellanea, where Howard’s unpublished but historically interesting Conan materials are gathered. This first draft is largely the same as the finished version but the added / cut material is insightful as to Howard’s creative process and what he was trying to establish with the characters.

“The Devil in Iron”

The scenario of Xupar is superficially similar to Xuthal and the text itself refers to the story or at least the black lotus drug. It’s a lost antiquity, a vaguely Mesoamerican metropolis that has reawakened near not-Russia. There are some political machinations to put Conan on the island. I have a feeling that this is Howard hitting his money-making stride.

“The Vale of Lost Women”

Umm

This one is a weird Africa story. Livia is a kidnapped white woman from not Italy and just saw her brother mutilated (implied to be emasculated) and murdered. She just happens to see white war chief Conan and makes an impassioned plea - she’ll be his sex slave if he kills the King and rescues her, a white woman, from these black men.

“Rogues in the House”

Okay! This is Suicide Squad. Conan, likely to be executed, is hired by a doomed man to slay the Red Priest. Through some shenanigans, both Conan AND the dude end up in the Priest’s basement, and with the recently defrocked Priest, as well. It’s a fine story but it could have been more fun had the trio done more dungeon delving or been forced to work together more outside of Thak.

“The Pool of the Black One”

More seafaring with Conan ingratiating himself with a crew of pirates but not before the captain’s desire for eldritch treasures nearly dooms the entire crew, including his not-Spanish sex slave, Sancha. This is one of those bizarre lost antiquity stories, this time consisting of a race of super-tall men who are turning people into shrunken, bone curios.

“Xuthal of the Dusk”

Conan and his slave-woman, sole survivors of an ill-fated mercenary campaign, happen across a city where the people spend most of their time dreaming under the influence of the black lotus while some eldritch being from below occasionally nabs a citizen for vittles.

“Iron Shadows in the Moon”

Another treatise on how horrible civilized people are with regards to Olivia’s situation, a princess sold by her own father to a degrading despot. The rest of this is another lost antiquity story with pirates, a “gray man ape”, and villains cursed into iron statues for torturing and killing a demigod. I don’t think that the three hazards of this story are woven together well.

“Black Colossus”

A three thousand year old sorcerer arises from suspended animation and promptly pursues the beautiful Princess Yasmela, ruler of Khoraja. She asks for aid from Mitra, who says to leave it all to the first man she sees outside of the palace. Wouldn’t you know but it’s Conan? Great battle scene, harrowing chase sequence. Not exactly an adventure in the typical sense.

“Queen of the Black Coast”

Conan falls in with a sexy lady pirate queen who takes him for her mate. This goes great until an ill-advised foray into a rumored jungle city. This is a “lost continent”-type story where the explanatory exposition is rendered by a dream induced by the black lotus. Bêlit’s questioning about the afterlife and her promise to Conan foreshadows her fate with bright, neon lights.

“The Scarlet Citadel”

This one has it all. King Conan is imprisoned by a rival nation as part of a betrayal plot. There is a bunch of dungeon delving where he sees a host of gross, horrifying things that speak to the sort of Hellish experimentation that Clark Ashton Smith cheerfully described, and then the exploration bears fruit as Conan finds a solution for the kingly intrigue that started the piece.

“The Tower of the Elephant”

Conan, like other folk not used to civilization, can’t take getting laughed at. This is a heist story where he meets a sympathetic character who is out to steal the same thing he’s after. On their way they confront lions, a giant spider, and the reason why the Tower and the Heart are of the Elephant.

“The God in the Bowl”

Hey, a murder mystery! And Conan’s fixing to take the rap for it since, well, wrong place, wrong time. The side plot of why Conan happened to be at the temple is wrapped up a bit too nearly but I guess they had to have a reason why the more or less honorable Demetrio wouldn’t face down the horror. This is also makes Thoth-amon a recurring bad guy, though not a direct rival of Conan.

“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”

Oof. Conan is a mercenary in Viking conflicts and, as the sole survivor of a battle, is lured by a goddess-like temptress, laughing and naked, into the wastelands. It’s all fun and games for her until he slays her frost giant brothers. The tale thankfully stops short of rape. Someone explains what happened and Conan has doubters but he also has her transparent, gossamer gown.

“The Phoenix on the Sword”

The first Conan story is at something like the twilight of his years. He is the king of a country but political machinations are poised to overthrow him in an assassination attempt. The sorcery comes from the proto-Egyptian, Thoth-Amon, who through Set has the ability to summon cosmic horrors into our world to do his bidding, and which can slay men through mind-breaking insanity.

“Cimmeria”

A poem where Howard gets the name of the land from where Conan hails — “Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.” It’s a romantic image based on a rainy, mist-cloaked Texan wilderness. The whole “past lives” conceit of the 20s and 30s is the reason why our narrator, in the present day, is able to tell us of their memory of Cimmeria.

It’s time for… SWORD AND SORCERY!!!!

i don’t think that it’s a stretch to say that Tolkien’s universe, which piggybacked off his attempt to create a new mythological origin for the United Kingdom, has been more influential on fantasy as a whole. I’ve always wanted to explore Sword and Sorcery, though, and Conan as a pop culture icon rivals the entire cast of LOTR except for maybe Sméagol lol

“The Fire and the Cloud”

On the one hand, a series of humorous exchanges between Moses and a lizard, including Moses summoning just enough flies every day for the lizard to be satisfied. On the other, Moses is building, has built, the monument where he buries… the person who was Moses, if that makes any sense, before walking into the wilderness.