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Conan the Cimmerian #1
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
Fourteen short stories featuring Conan the Barbarian present in the first of three intended volumes several of the sword-wielding fantasy hero's most popular adventures, complemented by lavish black-and-white illustrations as well as a number of the author's original drafts and synopses.
Poem and first 13 tales, in order written, plus Miscellanea drafts, notes, maps by author.
Cimmeria poem
1 The Phoenix on the Sword 1932
2 The Frost-Giant's Daughter 1976
3 The God in the Bowl 1952
4 The Tower of the Elephant 1933
5 The Scarlet Citadel 1933
6 Queen of the Black Coast 1934
7 Black Colossus 1933
8 Iron Shadows in the Moon 1934
9 Xuthal of the Dusk 1933
10 The Pool of the Black One 1933
11 Rogues in the House 1934
12 The Vale of Lost Women 1967
13 The Devil in Iron 1934
Poem and first 13 tales, in order written, plus Miscellanea drafts, notes, maps by author.
Cimmeria poem
1 The Phoenix on the Sword 1932
2 The Frost-Giant's Daughter 1976
3 The God in the Bowl 1952
4 The Tower of the Elephant 1933
5 The Scarlet Citadel 1933
6 Queen of the Black Coast 1934
7 Black Colossus 1933
8 Iron Shadows in the Moon 1934
9 Xuthal of the Dusk 1933
10 The Pool of the Black One 1933
11 Rogues in the House 1934
12 The Vale of Lost Women 1967
13 The Devil in Iron 1934
496 pages, Hardcover
First published December 2, 2002
About the author
Robert E. Howard
2,858 books2,493 followersRobert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. Howard wrote "over three-hundred stories and seven-hundred poems of raw power and unbridled emotion" and is especially noted for his memorable depictions of "a sombre universe of swashbuckling adventure and darkling horror."
He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.
—Wikipedia
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.
—Wikipedia
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 768 reviews
February 28, 2019
Having finally decided to read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, I am glad I had the good fortune to purchase the three volume, fully illustrated, Del Rey collection. Unlike the numerous Lancer/Ace paperbacks available to me in the '60's and '70's—the ones with the really cool Frank Frazetta illustrations--this edition does things right.
One of the reasons I never explored Conan's world is that every Lancer/Ace volume I examined in the bookstore sported the name of at least two authors, sometimes three. Howard--who I knew created Conan—was of course always there, but inevitably his name was accompanied by L. Sprague de Camp or Lin Carter, or both. I've always distrusted collaborations and posthumous continuations, and I could never tell from the Lancer/Ace presentations which was which. In addition, I was further baffled by the fact that each volume was placed in the context of an extensive and complicated chronology of Conan's life and adventures, which—given the multiplicity of authors—I also instinctively distrusted. Even the first volume in the chronology contained works of all three. All I wanted was the original Howard stories, and, not knowing a simple way to get them all together in one place, I gave up.
The Del Ray edition—which has really cool illustrations by Mark Schultz of “Xenozoic Tales"—is also governed by chronology, but it is the chronology of Robert Howard's literary efforts, not Conan's heroic deeds. The tales in this first volume are presented in the order of their composition, and it is interesting to note that, as these adventures arose in the imagination of Howard, they bear no relationship to any chronology: Conan is a middle-aged king in the first story, a mercenary in his early manhood in the the second story, and a very young thief in the third.
As I continued to read, I began to sense that this lack of chronology was appropriate. Conan's great barbarian virtue is that he is totally alive in the moment, whether stealing a magic gem, commanding a pirate ship, or threading his way through a dungeon filled with terrors. His fierce, bright intelligence is not reflective, and so he is free to make his decisions unaffected by any theory of the past. By contrast, it is the sorcerers—usually Conan's adversaries—who are bound by tradition and history, asleep and ensared in ancient mazes which--like editor's chronologies--are often prisons of their own devising.
Howard is a powerful writer. His diction is more than occasionally trite, but his style is muscular and forthright, his prose musical and clear. All thirteen stories here are worth reading, but “The God in the Bowl,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “The Queen of the Black Coast,” “Xuthal of the Dusk,” "Rogues in the House," "The Vale of Lost Women,” and "The Devil in Iron” gave me particular delight.
March 26, 2015
What it is that makes Howard so much more compelling than his many imitators? To the untrained eye, it may be hard to see differences, since his faults are sometimes more readily apparent than his virtues, though he has plenty of both. Some might try to 'salvage him' from his pulp origins, but despite all his literary aspirations, I'm happy to call him a pulp author, and one of the best.
I have a great deal of praise for this edition in particular, volume one of a three-part series which collects for the first time Howard's Conan stories as he originally wrote them, without the meddling of either magazine editors or De Camp (who shamelessly rewrote Howard's unfinished stories to match his own views, and released them as 'originals'). It is also first to publish them in pure chronological order, eschewing all and sundry attempts to produce an official 'internal chronology'.
Howard meant the order to be somewhat ambiguous, mimicking the epics and histories that inspired the names and events of his stories. Our delightful editor plays the old Lit Crit game of connecting all the dots from the Conan tales to their origins in Plutarch, Bullfinch's Mythology, Lovecraft, or Bierce. I'm indebted to her for helping me to see Conan with new eyes by lending me the perspective of the Howard scholar.
Seeing the way his world sprang up from notes, sketches, and maps is fascinating, and the critical essays try to get a little more mileage out of Lovecraft's misunderstanding of Howard's pseudo-historical names. They are meant to be evocative of a world that, while familiar, still holds surprises. We can recognize a type, a historic conflict, terrain, and temperament without being tied down to the specificity of true historical fiction.
Howard did not want so narrow a view, and was never a stickler for small details, as evidenced by the singular madness his chronologers develop trying to account for the appearance and disappearance of Conan's red cloak and horned helm throughout the stories. Howard liked an underpinning of consistency, but excitement and story always took precedence, which is why, despite drawing names and plots from history (much as Shakespeare did), he never let them bog down his stories, always aiming, above all, to entertain.
When I say that we get Howard without editorial meddling, we must still understand that he was writing for an audience, and that much of the excitement and titillation in his tales was a sugaring of his pill for the lower denominator. Yet for all that, much of his psychology and sexual politics is deceptively complex. It is easy to dismiss him as a cliche strong man with an endless following of swooning women, but there is something more subtle at work.
Firstly, each story that shows Conan in a relationship is written from the point of view of the woman. Often, Conan does not even appear until after her character and situation are already developed. We rarely get an emotional insight into Conan, into his plans or emotions, but we do see into his heroines, which is the reverse of most fantasy romances.
In addition, Conan is often painted as the object of desire. The author's vision rests equally on the desirability of Conan and of the women, showing how and why feeling might develop between them. Conan, having been raised outside of civil society, cannot charm the women, bargain with them for favors, or fool them. His appeal is not that he has wealth, prestige, or grooming, but that he is attractive, confident, physically powerful, guileless, and does not mingle his desires with ulterior motive. He is part 'bad boy', but he is also attractive because he lies outside the arena of sexual politics--something like dating someone outside your high school to avoid the judgment, name-calling, in groups, and jealousy that would otherwise result.
The women are often the victims of civilization; that is to say, they have been carefully bred to be beautiful, desirable, and controlled. They rarely have power in their own cultures, often finding themselves at the whims of powerful men, and so it makes sense that they would seek out Conan, who is not a part of this unbalanced social system, and who has the physical and mental strength to protect them from reprisal when she abandons that culture.
On the surface, "The Vale of Lost Women" is the story which most condemns Howard as a chauvinist (and racist), but there is a subtle subversion within the tale that shows Howard as a much more canny student of the human condition than most give him credit for. The premise of the story doesn't do Howard any favors, and certainly hasn't aged well: a well-bred white woman has been captured by a barbaric pseudo-African tribe by whom Conan has found himself employed.
He finds the woman accidentally, during a revel, chained up in a tent, and she begs him to release her, saying that surely not even a barbarian like him would leave a white woman in the hands of the cruel black chief. It's hard to read without feeling a lump of political correctness rise in our throats--but socially and historically, it's neither and absurd statement, nor an insulting one.
'Odalisques' or white, virgin girls were the most valuable in trade for Barbary pirates to Moorish harems. Even today, Black women get fewer responses in online dating than any other race/sex group. Just because it's unpleasant doesn't mean that it isn't socially true, and just because it is a current social fact doesn't mean that it is an ultimate, universal truth.
We can say it is a social fact that women have been historically controlled and judged by the slut/virgin dichotomy, but that doesn't mean that they desire to be controlled, or to be sluts or virgins. It also doesn't mean that stories which portray this unfortunate dynamic necessarily support it. As students of Nietzsche and Machiavelli know, saying 'this is how the world is' is not the same as saying 'this is how it ought to be'.
Let me say that again: just because a writer presents white women as more culturally valuable doesn't mean that they are any more attractive, intelligent, or worthwhile than any other person. Cultural values are funny things, and don't necessarily align with real values. Just because someone is willing to pay $500 for a rare Beanie Baby doesn't mean that a Beanie Baby is somehow intrinsically better than a comparatively cheaper encyclopedia or road atlas.
It's easy to get hung up on what the author is specifically saying, and hard to step beyond it and look at how and why it's being said. A character's statement is different from an author's, and Howard is surprisingly careful to keep social observations in the mouths of characters, and out of the omniscient narrative voice. After her appeal to racial loyalty, the woman offers herself to Conan in exchange for being freed from the tribe--aghast at the lengths to which she must go. But Conan laughs.
He laughs and tells her that she is sadly mistaken if she assumes that she can merely trade sex for favors, as she has been taught to do in civilized society. It's this simple observation that shows that Howard (and Conan) are better students of the human condition than they get credit for. For Conan, sex does not have this connotation of a social trade, it is an act engaged in out of desire, not coercion. He scorns the 'civilized' notion that women are property to be bargained for. This separation is the same conclusion Angela Carter makes about De Sade in her incomparable Sadeian Woman : that the trade value of sex must be unveiled and demystified in order to approach any kind of sexual equality.
We must recall that this understanding of sex is enforced on both sides, and that if women have an artificially increased value in sexual social trade, it will eclipse any other value they have, or that they might wish to have, and few will consider them as anything else.
But Conan, being outside of that system, values women differently. After his moment of insight, he shocks us back with his barbarism, saying he really couldn't leave a white girl like her in the hands of the chief, and that he's tired of 'black sluts', which is unpleasant and unsympathetic enough to clamp our minds shut again, though whether it might be true to the world or the character (who has hang-ups with his own racial identity), I leave up to you. After all, it is rare that a person raised under one set of signifiers for attractiveness learns in later life how to appreciate a completely different idea of beauty.
He does decide to save her, but not in trade for sexual favor, which once again separates Howard from the thud and blunder writers who followed him. Again and again, if we look at Conan's scattered romantic relationships, we see that he is only interested in the fulfillment of mutual desire, and that the woman's side of the relationship is often the one Howard chooses to explore. Conan rejects the notion of coercing women, let alone forcing them, as beneath him.
He doesn't pressure women, or conquer them, or trade for sex, and the women are constantly surprised at his lack of overture, his refusal to make a game out of the whole thing--or a schoolboy's lovesick obsession. But then, Conan is less interested in an 'erotic victory' than in mutually beneficial pleasure, even if that pleasure is not socially condoned, and is, instead transgressively focused on female desire. Conan's outsider status as a barbarian allows him to approach women on more-or-less equal terms, giving them an opportunity to reject the values which otherwise bind them and to choose for themselves.
Sure, the relationships and their consummation might be idealized and romantic--they're still pulp--and I'm not claiming Howard didn't harbor certain racist and sexist opinions, but the way these themes develop psychologically in his work is rarely so simple. Howard, like Conan, was a man of contradiction and surprising subtlety.
His language also makes his work stand out from the pack: high-energy, evocative, and well-paced, his world and characters are always alive and active on the page. He takes generously from his historical and literary influences, playing with vocabulary and style to evoke a far-off period without growing so distant that he risks losing the uninitiated, as an eccentric linguist like Eddison is liable to do.
One thing the reader must come to terms with in order to enjoy him is Howard's repetition. He has favored words, phrases, and descriptions that come up again and again throughout the stories, and sometimes they feel like crutches. Part of it is that these were to be consumed as single stories, so some repetition would not likely have been noticed--but it happens even within a story.
At these points, I am tempted to compare Howard to the deliberate repetition of the epic tradition of the 'Homeric Epithet', an oft-repeated poetic phrase that becomes part of the rhythm of the text, such as "wine dark sea" or "long-haired Acheans"--or the way every warrior in the Shahnameh is described as a lion, and every beautiful woman is a cypress. Howard knows that there is power in phrases, and by repeating them, he creates motifs, identities, and connections. But, as usual for Howard, it's a combination of highs and lows: we get glimpses of his powerful, poetic language intermixed with his less effective, florid attempts.
But more than even his most effective prose (and occasional, surprisingly unoffending poetry), what sets Howard apart is his pure storytelling. His sense of pacing is admirable, often cutting out unnecessary scenes that other writers would not have realized were redundant. The stories flow along, drawing equally from the verisimilitude of historic tales and the archetypal form of the adventure story.
He moves fluidly through themes and styles, combining romance, war stories, supernatural horror, political thriller, and treasure hunting all in one story, maintaining a lilting, surprising pace without losing the story's center. His stories as a whole also work to build a grander world, much of it left for the reader to complete between hints and loose threads. There is a definite sense of historical discovery in this style, and the first three Howard stories give us Conan as a king, as an untried youth, and as a wary reaver.
Read a hundred pages of Conan and you will get a picture of a whole life, a man in different stages, changed by the world. We also get a glimpse of that world, and understanding of its places and ways without being explicitly told what they are. Compare this to almost any other fantasy writer, and they will come up short.
A hundred pages of Tolkien, Jordan, Goodkind, or Wolfe, and you haven't even left the protagonist's home. You won't get a view of the world, nor character growth. You might read a thousand pages of a fantasy series and see less growth than you would in a few Conan stories.
My question has always been: what do we gain from those thousands of extra pages? A more exciting story? A more complex world? A deeper character? Sadly, the answer is often no. Few authors seem to have taken Howard's lesson that saying more isn't as easy as simply writing more.
But then, Howard set the bar pretty high. There's nothing wrong with pulp, because pulp is written for an audience. Too often, these days, one seems to find authors obsessed with a kind of 'pure' writing that refuses to bow to any audience, editor, or sense of fun, and all you're really left with is pretension.
Pulp often gets a bad rap--the unshy way that it approaches sex, race, and politics can make a modern reader feel awkward, but at least these stories are actually, in a very real way, confronting and exploring those issues--and forcing us to do so, as well. Though the next two volumes of Conan stories never quite reach the vivacious heights of these early outings, I have to say: for all his flaws, it's still hard to find a fantasy writer who can better Howard.
My List of Suggested Fantasy Books
I have a great deal of praise for this edition in particular, volume one of a three-part series which collects for the first time Howard's Conan stories as he originally wrote them, without the meddling of either magazine editors or De Camp (who shamelessly rewrote Howard's unfinished stories to match his own views, and released them as 'originals'). It is also first to publish them in pure chronological order, eschewing all and sundry attempts to produce an official 'internal chronology'.
Howard meant the order to be somewhat ambiguous, mimicking the epics and histories that inspired the names and events of his stories. Our delightful editor plays the old Lit Crit game of connecting all the dots from the Conan tales to their origins in Plutarch, Bullfinch's Mythology, Lovecraft, or Bierce. I'm indebted to her for helping me to see Conan with new eyes by lending me the perspective of the Howard scholar.
Seeing the way his world sprang up from notes, sketches, and maps is fascinating, and the critical essays try to get a little more mileage out of Lovecraft's misunderstanding of Howard's pseudo-historical names. They are meant to be evocative of a world that, while familiar, still holds surprises. We can recognize a type, a historic conflict, terrain, and temperament without being tied down to the specificity of true historical fiction.
Howard did not want so narrow a view, and was never a stickler for small details, as evidenced by the singular madness his chronologers develop trying to account for the appearance and disappearance of Conan's red cloak and horned helm throughout the stories. Howard liked an underpinning of consistency, but excitement and story always took precedence, which is why, despite drawing names and plots from history (much as Shakespeare did), he never let them bog down his stories, always aiming, above all, to entertain.
When I say that we get Howard without editorial meddling, we must still understand that he was writing for an audience, and that much of the excitement and titillation in his tales was a sugaring of his pill for the lower denominator. Yet for all that, much of his psychology and sexual politics is deceptively complex. It is easy to dismiss him as a cliche strong man with an endless following of swooning women, but there is something more subtle at work.
Firstly, each story that shows Conan in a relationship is written from the point of view of the woman. Often, Conan does not even appear until after her character and situation are already developed. We rarely get an emotional insight into Conan, into his plans or emotions, but we do see into his heroines, which is the reverse of most fantasy romances.
In addition, Conan is often painted as the object of desire. The author's vision rests equally on the desirability of Conan and of the women, showing how and why feeling might develop between them. Conan, having been raised outside of civil society, cannot charm the women, bargain with them for favors, or fool them. His appeal is not that he has wealth, prestige, or grooming, but that he is attractive, confident, physically powerful, guileless, and does not mingle his desires with ulterior motive. He is part 'bad boy', but he is also attractive because he lies outside the arena of sexual politics--something like dating someone outside your high school to avoid the judgment, name-calling, in groups, and jealousy that would otherwise result.
The women are often the victims of civilization; that is to say, they have been carefully bred to be beautiful, desirable, and controlled. They rarely have power in their own cultures, often finding themselves at the whims of powerful men, and so it makes sense that they would seek out Conan, who is not a part of this unbalanced social system, and who has the physical and mental strength to protect them from reprisal when she abandons that culture.
On the surface, "The Vale of Lost Women" is the story which most condemns Howard as a chauvinist (and racist), but there is a subtle subversion within the tale that shows Howard as a much more canny student of the human condition than most give him credit for. The premise of the story doesn't do Howard any favors, and certainly hasn't aged well: a well-bred white woman has been captured by a barbaric pseudo-African tribe by whom Conan has found himself employed.
He finds the woman accidentally, during a revel, chained up in a tent, and she begs him to release her, saying that surely not even a barbarian like him would leave a white woman in the hands of the cruel black chief. It's hard to read without feeling a lump of political correctness rise in our throats--but socially and historically, it's neither and absurd statement, nor an insulting one.
'Odalisques' or white, virgin girls were the most valuable in trade for Barbary pirates to Moorish harems. Even today, Black women get fewer responses in online dating than any other race/sex group. Just because it's unpleasant doesn't mean that it isn't socially true, and just because it is a current social fact doesn't mean that it is an ultimate, universal truth.
We can say it is a social fact that women have been historically controlled and judged by the slut/virgin dichotomy, but that doesn't mean that they desire to be controlled, or to be sluts or virgins. It also doesn't mean that stories which portray this unfortunate dynamic necessarily support it. As students of Nietzsche and Machiavelli know, saying 'this is how the world is' is not the same as saying 'this is how it ought to be'.
Let me say that again: just because a writer presents white women as more culturally valuable doesn't mean that they are any more attractive, intelligent, or worthwhile than any other person. Cultural values are funny things, and don't necessarily align with real values. Just because someone is willing to pay $500 for a rare Beanie Baby doesn't mean that a Beanie Baby is somehow intrinsically better than a comparatively cheaper encyclopedia or road atlas.
It's easy to get hung up on what the author is specifically saying, and hard to step beyond it and look at how and why it's being said. A character's statement is different from an author's, and Howard is surprisingly careful to keep social observations in the mouths of characters, and out of the omniscient narrative voice. After her appeal to racial loyalty, the woman offers herself to Conan in exchange for being freed from the tribe--aghast at the lengths to which she must go. But Conan laughs.
He laughs and tells her that she is sadly mistaken if she assumes that she can merely trade sex for favors, as she has been taught to do in civilized society. It's this simple observation that shows that Howard (and Conan) are better students of the human condition than they get credit for. For Conan, sex does not have this connotation of a social trade, it is an act engaged in out of desire, not coercion. He scorns the 'civilized' notion that women are property to be bargained for. This separation is the same conclusion Angela Carter makes about De Sade in her incomparable Sadeian Woman : that the trade value of sex must be unveiled and demystified in order to approach any kind of sexual equality.
We must recall that this understanding of sex is enforced on both sides, and that if women have an artificially increased value in sexual social trade, it will eclipse any other value they have, or that they might wish to have, and few will consider them as anything else.
But Conan, being outside of that system, values women differently. After his moment of insight, he shocks us back with his barbarism, saying he really couldn't leave a white girl like her in the hands of the chief, and that he's tired of 'black sluts', which is unpleasant and unsympathetic enough to clamp our minds shut again, though whether it might be true to the world or the character (who has hang-ups with his own racial identity), I leave up to you. After all, it is rare that a person raised under one set of signifiers for attractiveness learns in later life how to appreciate a completely different idea of beauty.
He does decide to save her, but not in trade for sexual favor, which once again separates Howard from the thud and blunder writers who followed him. Again and again, if we look at Conan's scattered romantic relationships, we see that he is only interested in the fulfillment of mutual desire, and that the woman's side of the relationship is often the one Howard chooses to explore. Conan rejects the notion of coercing women, let alone forcing them, as beneath him.
He doesn't pressure women, or conquer them, or trade for sex, and the women are constantly surprised at his lack of overture, his refusal to make a game out of the whole thing--or a schoolboy's lovesick obsession. But then, Conan is less interested in an 'erotic victory' than in mutually beneficial pleasure, even if that pleasure is not socially condoned, and is, instead transgressively focused on female desire. Conan's outsider status as a barbarian allows him to approach women on more-or-less equal terms, giving them an opportunity to reject the values which otherwise bind them and to choose for themselves.
Sure, the relationships and their consummation might be idealized and romantic--they're still pulp--and I'm not claiming Howard didn't harbor certain racist and sexist opinions, but the way these themes develop psychologically in his work is rarely so simple. Howard, like Conan, was a man of contradiction and surprising subtlety.
His language also makes his work stand out from the pack: high-energy, evocative, and well-paced, his world and characters are always alive and active on the page. He takes generously from his historical and literary influences, playing with vocabulary and style to evoke a far-off period without growing so distant that he risks losing the uninitiated, as an eccentric linguist like Eddison is liable to do.
One thing the reader must come to terms with in order to enjoy him is Howard's repetition. He has favored words, phrases, and descriptions that come up again and again throughout the stories, and sometimes they feel like crutches. Part of it is that these were to be consumed as single stories, so some repetition would not likely have been noticed--but it happens even within a story.
At these points, I am tempted to compare Howard to the deliberate repetition of the epic tradition of the 'Homeric Epithet', an oft-repeated poetic phrase that becomes part of the rhythm of the text, such as "wine dark sea" or "long-haired Acheans"--or the way every warrior in the Shahnameh is described as a lion, and every beautiful woman is a cypress. Howard knows that there is power in phrases, and by repeating them, he creates motifs, identities, and connections. But, as usual for Howard, it's a combination of highs and lows: we get glimpses of his powerful, poetic language intermixed with his less effective, florid attempts.
But more than even his most effective prose (and occasional, surprisingly unoffending poetry), what sets Howard apart is his pure storytelling. His sense of pacing is admirable, often cutting out unnecessary scenes that other writers would not have realized were redundant. The stories flow along, drawing equally from the verisimilitude of historic tales and the archetypal form of the adventure story.
He moves fluidly through themes and styles, combining romance, war stories, supernatural horror, political thriller, and treasure hunting all in one story, maintaining a lilting, surprising pace without losing the story's center. His stories as a whole also work to build a grander world, much of it left for the reader to complete between hints and loose threads. There is a definite sense of historical discovery in this style, and the first three Howard stories give us Conan as a king, as an untried youth, and as a wary reaver.
Read a hundred pages of Conan and you will get a picture of a whole life, a man in different stages, changed by the world. We also get a glimpse of that world, and understanding of its places and ways without being explicitly told what they are. Compare this to almost any other fantasy writer, and they will come up short.
A hundred pages of Tolkien, Jordan, Goodkind, or Wolfe, and you haven't even left the protagonist's home. You won't get a view of the world, nor character growth. You might read a thousand pages of a fantasy series and see less growth than you would in a few Conan stories.
My question has always been: what do we gain from those thousands of extra pages? A more exciting story? A more complex world? A deeper character? Sadly, the answer is often no. Few authors seem to have taken Howard's lesson that saying more isn't as easy as simply writing more.
But then, Howard set the bar pretty high. There's nothing wrong with pulp, because pulp is written for an audience. Too often, these days, one seems to find authors obsessed with a kind of 'pure' writing that refuses to bow to any audience, editor, or sense of fun, and all you're really left with is pretension.
Pulp often gets a bad rap--the unshy way that it approaches sex, race, and politics can make a modern reader feel awkward, but at least these stories are actually, in a very real way, confronting and exploring those issues--and forcing us to do so, as well. Though the next two volumes of Conan stories never quite reach the vivacious heights of these early outings, I have to say: for all his flaws, it's still hard to find a fantasy writer who can better Howard.
My List of Suggested Fantasy Books
January 22, 2024
Watch my video review by clicking here.
Extremely, extremely dated writing style. Physical descriptions reign supreme over any actual personality descriptions, and the sexism is hard to swallow as a modern reader.
Extremely, extremely dated writing style. Physical descriptions reign supreme over any actual personality descriptions, and the sexism is hard to swallow as a modern reader.
April 4, 2019
⚔ Me Like Me Some Yummy Barbarian Cimmerian for Breakfast Buddy Read (MLMSYBCfBBR™) with the Scarlet Citadel Hordes of Doom (SCHoD™), namely My One and Only Male Hatchling and The Most Dreaded Overlord ⚔
Mathematically Computed Overall Rating: 3.917640615 stars.
So. Before reading this Slighty Very Bloody Shrimping Entertaining Collection (SVBSEC™), my knowledge about Conan was limited to this:
Yes yes yes, I know, I should be disgustingly ashamed of myself. And I am, actually. Most revoltingly ashamed indeed. And I think I deserve to be ruthlessly punished. By Conan himself, obviously. Ergo, I am officially surrendering my Appropriately Scantily-Clad Nefarious Little Lithe Self of the Supple Limbs (ASCNLLSotSL™)—in grand Robert E. Howard style, thank you very much—to the Cimmerian Sweetie Pie, and throwing myself on his Barbarian mercy and stuff.
But anyway. Now that I have read this SVBSEC™, I can tell you that:
① Conan is MINE.
② Robert E. Howard is one of the most underrated Fantasy authors in the history of most underrated Fantasy authors. The guy is Super Extra Talented (SET™), and his writing is downright amazing. QED and stuff.
③ See ①
④ See ③
I’d tell you more fascinating facts about this book but it seems I’ve utterly exhausted my character allowance for this review (strange that), so I won’t. Lucky you and stuff.
① The Phoenix on the Sword: 4 stars and stuff.
The first thing that came to my shrimpy little head while I was reading this story? This: “Oh wow, Conan is more than a lethally deadly combination of broad shoulders, chiselled muscles, sun-browned skin and luscious black mane and stuff! The dude can actually articulate whole, meaningful sentences! And he can write! With a golden stylus, no less! And on waxed papyrus, too! Color me slightly flabbergasted, the Barbarian One ain’t not the Braindead Nitwit of the Cavernously Empty Cerebrum (BNotCEC™) I thought he was! Well I’ll bedamned shrimped!”
I’m thinking I shouldkidnap adopt Conan pre-emptively just in case, and lock him up offer him free room and board in my High Security Harem. I mean, not only does he have a shining intellect and a Super Extra Hot Body Barbarian Body (SEHBB™), he also grins savagely! And crushes skulls as a hobby! And therefore regularly ends ups with brains spattered all over his face! And you know what else? Every local rogue swears by him, and he is known as the Liberator, just like my Croaker! Now if that doesn’t make him prime slave boyfriend material, I don’t know what will.
But there’s more to this story than my new, yummilicious paramour. Oh yes, there most certainly is. We’ve got sardonic villains you can hear figuratively muahahaha-ing (yes, that is a thing) from thousands of miles away. And discussions about gory heads (which are always a plus, if you ask me). We’ve got scheming, treacherous bastards and tyrants who need to die and mad minstrels and conspiracies and vile assassination attempts and cosmic horrors. And also slightly hideous, demoniac creatures that look like crosses between black-fanged, yellow-eyed, shriveled mummies and baboons. YUM.
② The Frost-Giant's Daughter: 2.75 stars.
In which my new Barbaric Sweetheartacts like a creepy rapist ass and is saved from an untimely, savage DNF death by a final twist he was probably the only being in the universe not to see coming, and also by the fact that I’m feeling uncharacteristically understanding and amicable today and therefore decided to cut Howard some slack since he wrote this story in the 1930s and stuff is shamelessly taunted and indecently enthralled by a vile temptress (aka the Golden-Haired Naked Chick of the Gleaming Body and White, Heaving Bosom), which causes him to act like a wanton barnacle in heat against his own will, and go chasing after her through the wild wastes of the North (all snow, no polar bears) and stuff. He kinda sorta tries to grab her shapely derriere and feast on her womanly assets at some point, but it’s really not his fault and he cannot be held responsible for his actions here. Because he is naught but a poor, defenseless man under the irresistible spell of a wicked, evil bitch witch, you see. Ugh. Some women will really stop at nothing in order to seduce weak, vulnerable dudes. Needless to say, the murderous crustaceans and my little self think this is all quite revoltingly shocking indeed, and cannot approve of such obscenely depraved behavior.
P.S. My Cimmerian Sweat Pea might or might not have been saved from the above mentioned untimely, savage DNF death by Howard's slightly fantastic writing. And by blood gushing from half-severed necks, too. Maybe. Perhaps.
③ The God in the Bowl: 4 stars.
I know, right?
But let’s start at the beginning, shall we? This little story here is a sort of Barbarian Style Locked-Room Mystery Meets Murder Mystery Meets Blood And Gore Yay Type Thingie (BSLRMMMMMBAGYTT™), in which my Barbarian Sweetheart (aka the “Vicious Looking Brute of the Villainous Countenance”) finds himself quite involuntarily mixed up in a crime investigation. And it’s pretty cool and stuff. There is the localInquisitor Sherlock/Poirot/Maigret. There are wonderfully brutish policemen who try to get confessions by threatening to crush people’s bones to pulp (that’s the best way to do it, if you ask me). There are savage grins. And evil ones, too. Delightful words of endearment such as “Speak up, you rat!” are exchanged. There are duplicitous employers and lying bastards and spoiler spoiler spoiler. Groans and shrieks abound. Heads roll, heads fly, and there are showers of blood. In order words: YUM. Again.
④ The Tower of the Elephant: 3.353648 stars.
So here—as in the previous story—we follow the adventures of my Barbarian Sweetie Pie™ in his younger days, back when he was naught but an uncivilized, half-naked brute, fresh out of his savage native land. Poor Cimmerian Paramour Mine. Being so suddenly immersed in such a revoltingly sophisticated society is quite the culture shock for him. And I can’t say I’m surprised. I mean, here he is, running around in his Super Extra Sexy Loincloth (SESL™), doing his thieving thing, minding his own larcenous business and being generally yummy, when all of a sudden the local rascals, sorry, I mean civilized locals, go all, “Heathen dog! We’ll have your heart for that!” on him. There are better to welcome a stranger to one’s nation, if you ask me. No wonder my Barbaric Sweet Pea™ got all “bewildered and chagrined” and stuff. And ended up doing the Slice Slice Slice Chop Chop Chop Thing (SSSCCCT™) with his sword. I mean, shedding a little blood is the only way to teach rude people good manners sometimes.
Go, baby, go! You show these “furtive cut-purses, leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes and strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery” what courtesy and graciousness really mean!
Having thus beautifully imparted his views on proper etiquette, my I-May-Be-A-Savage-But-At-Least-I’m-Polite Boyfriend is therefore free to return to the order of the day, aka stealing a Secret Magical Gem Type Thingie (SMGTT™). A more amiable, civilrascal local is met, criminal forces are joined and thieving business ensues. Death by deadly mist is averted. Swords drip with the blood of strange, silent, cursed beasts (yay!). Cords “woven from the tresses of dead women” are climbed. A fiendish, hairy black horror with frothing fangs (yum) is fought. My Cimmerian Babe™ barely manages not to “explode in a burst of murderous frenzy,” then he gets to meet an Elephant (which might or might not have given this story its name) and also a shrinking, pygmy-type priest who squeaks like an insect. Fun times. “Does he end up stealing the SMGTT™,” you ask? Now now, my Little Barnacles. You don’t really think I’d be callous enough to spoiler spoiler spoiler the fish out of you, do you?
All in all, not the best story in this collection so far, but as long as my Cimmerian Paramour of the Powerful Frame, Massive Chest and Smouldering Blue Eyes™ keepsrunning around half naked shedding blood in a most barbaric (and polite, of course) manner, I’m deliriously happy and stuff.
⑤ The Scarlet Citadel: 4.5 stars.
Yes, that is indeed my Barbarian Sweetie Pie, dressed as an owl last Halloween, and giving his foes the Evil Eye of Death Doom and Spontaneous Combustion™.
So here is King Conan (aka His Yumminess The First), incarcerated in the cheery, welcoming depths of Ze Scarlet Citadel, where he gets the coolestjail playmate ever:
Anyway, being his usual kick-ass, cunning, resourceful little self, His Yumminess The First manages to get out of the Scandalous Shackles of Infamy™ and goes on his merry way, trying to escape Ze Scarlet Citadel of Joy and Merriment™. He gets to meet the local population, among which a jelly-like, amorphic bulk with tentacles and a frog-like head that kinda sorta makes you want to puke when you look at him/her/it/them/whatever. Fun times.
Evil, wicked plants are fought. Ancient wizards are spoiler spoiler spoiler. And then spoiler spoiler spoiler happens. A Giant Neither Bat Nor Bird Thingie shows up. Great distances are travelled at great speeds. There is bewilderment, turmoil and chaos. Dead cats come deluging down (don’t ask). My Little Cimmerian Cabbage plays with his sword for a bit and roars like a lion for a while. Then he starts hurling bodies from great heights so that the crowd down below can tear them to pieces (what can I say, His Yumminess The First is generous like that). Savage grins abound, things explode with flashes of hellish fire, heads are severed, blood flows, and the villains get killed dead. That’s what you get for messing with Conan, King of Aquilonia, you evil, treacherous bastards! No matter what you throw at him, my Barbarian Paramour will always prevail, you perfidious scum!
⑥ Queen of the Black Coast: 5 stars.pathetic modern Fantasy heroines to shame. She is fierce, she is badass, she is independent. She is unapologetic as fish. And a pirate queen, my Little Barnacles! A bloody shrimping pirate queen!
Oh, and as you can see, she’s Super Extra Hot™, too. (Especially considering that she just turned 84 this year. She must use a pretty good moisturizing cream, methinks.) No wonder my Barbarian Paramour fell for her at first sight. And vice versa.
But wait. Let’s backtrack for a second. I mean, I bet you’re dying to know how these two lovebirds met. Well, this is how it all started:
Because my Cimmerian Sweetie Pie + pirates obviously = deliciously yummy in my tummy. Anyway, my boyfriend was minding his own business in some super welcoming coastal town when he kind of ran into trouble with local law enforcement. Conan got himself a little bit arrested and there was a tiny misunderstanding, and then stuff happened.
So off they went, my boyfriend and girlfriend, sailing and fighting and sacking and pillaging and laughing and making mad lurve aboard Bêlit’s ship (the very aptly named Tigress). But then they started gliding “into the realm of horror and death”, with “mystery and terror” about them, and things got not-so-funny-anymore in less time than it takes to say “unleash the crustaceans.” Gigantic serpents happened. And also villainous, slightly oversized winged apes. And malign entities. Then Conangot attacked by evil black lotuses ate too many magic mushrooms and went MIA for a while. He got back from wherever-the-fish-he-was, and berserk fury ensued. And the rest, as they say, is spoiler spoiler spoiler.
So. Bêlit is awesome (especially considering her character was created in 1934) + Conan chops and skewers and severs exquisitely + Howard’s writing is absolutely fantastic = this might or might not be my favorite story in this collection so far. Perhaps. Maybe. Possibly.
Well well well, would you look at that! Looks like I've beenoverly talkative as usual uncharacteristically chatty and have therefore exhausted the character allotment for this review! Imagine that! So I guess all that's left for me to do is write the rest of Fascinating Crappy Non-Reviews (MFCNR™) for this collection separately and stuff. Fret not, my Little Barnacles, for I shall provide the links for said MFCNR™ henceforth. Lucky you and stuff.
⑦ Black Colossus: 3.32568 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑧ Iron Shadows in the Moon: 4.5 stars
➽ Review here.
⑨ Xuthal of the Dusk: 5 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑩ The Pool of the Black One: 5 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑪ Rogues in the House: 4 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑫ The Vale of Lost Women: 1.5 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑬ The Devil in Iron: 4 stars.
➽ Review here.
Mathematically Computed Overall Rating: 3.917640615 stars.
So. Before reading this Slighty Very Bloody Shrimping Entertaining Collection (SVBSEC™), my knowledge about Conan was limited to this:
Yes yes yes, I know, I should be disgustingly ashamed of myself. And I am, actually. Most revoltingly ashamed indeed. And I think I deserve to be ruthlessly punished. By Conan himself, obviously. Ergo, I am officially surrendering my Appropriately Scantily-Clad Nefarious Little Lithe Self of the Supple Limbs (ASCNLLSotSL™)—in grand Robert E. Howard style, thank you very much—to the Cimmerian Sweetie Pie, and throwing myself on his Barbarian mercy and stuff.
But anyway. Now that I have read this SVBSEC™, I can tell you that:
① Conan is MINE.
② Robert E. Howard is one of the most underrated Fantasy authors in the history of most underrated Fantasy authors. The guy is Super Extra Talented (SET™), and his writing is downright amazing. QED and stuff.
③ See ①
④ See ③
I’d tell you more fascinating facts about this book but it seems I’ve utterly exhausted my character allowance for this review (strange that), so I won’t. Lucky you and stuff.
① The Phoenix on the Sword: 4 stars and stuff.
The first thing that came to my shrimpy little head while I was reading this story? This: “Oh wow, Conan is more than a lethally deadly combination of broad shoulders, chiselled muscles, sun-browned skin and luscious black mane and stuff! The dude can actually articulate whole, meaningful sentences! And he can write! With a golden stylus, no less! And on waxed papyrus, too! Color me slightly flabbergasted, the Barbarian One ain’t not the Braindead Nitwit of the Cavernously Empty Cerebrum (BNotCEC™) I thought he was! Well I’ll be
I’m thinking I should
But there’s more to this story than my new, yummilicious paramour. Oh yes, there most certainly is. We’ve got sardonic villains you can hear figuratively muahahaha-ing (yes, that is a thing) from thousands of miles away. And discussions about gory heads (which are always a plus, if you ask me). We’ve got scheming, treacherous bastards and tyrants who need to die and mad minstrels and conspiracies and vile assassination attempts and cosmic horrors. And also slightly hideous, demoniac creatures that look like crosses between black-fanged, yellow-eyed, shriveled mummies and baboons. YUM.
② The Frost-Giant's Daughter: 2.75 stars.
In which my new Barbaric Sweetheart
P.S. My Cimmerian Sweat Pea might or might not have been saved from the above mentioned untimely, savage DNF death by Howard's slightly fantastic writing. And by blood gushing from half-severed necks, too. Maybe. Perhaps.
③ The God in the Bowl: 4 stars.
“Let one of you touch me and I'll spill his guts on the floor.”That’s my Barbarian Boy! Oh how I love it when my favorite loincloth-wearing Cimmerian of the dangerous (and smoldering!) blue eyes, powerful build, sun-kissed skin and unruly black hair goes all vicious savage on his foes, and threatens to slice them into tiny little pieces! It’s Super Extra Sexy (SES™) and stuff. I mean, how can you NOT swoon when you read stuff life:
“Any man who touches me will quickly be greeting his ancestors in hell.”And like:
“If he had sought to hinder me I'd have split his skull.”
I know, right?
But let’s start at the beginning, shall we? This little story here is a sort of Barbarian Style Locked-Room Mystery Meets Murder Mystery Meets Blood And Gore Yay Type Thingie (BSLRMMMMMBAGYTT™), in which my Barbarian Sweetheart (aka the “Vicious Looking Brute of the Villainous Countenance”) finds himself quite involuntarily mixed up in a crime investigation. And it’s pretty cool and stuff. There is the local
④ The Tower of the Elephant: 3.353648 stars.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”Truer words were never spoken, methinks.
So here—as in the previous story—we follow the adventures of my Barbarian Sweetie Pie™ in his younger days, back when he was naught but an uncivilized, half-naked brute, fresh out of his savage native land. Poor Cimmerian Paramour Mine. Being so suddenly immersed in such a revoltingly sophisticated society is quite the culture shock for him. And I can’t say I’m surprised. I mean, here he is, running around in his Super Extra Sexy Loincloth (SESL™), doing his thieving thing, minding his own larcenous business and being generally yummy, when all of a sudden the local rascals, sorry, I mean civilized locals, go all, “Heathen dog! We’ll have your heart for that!” on him. There are better to welcome a stranger to one’s nation, if you ask me. No wonder my Barbaric Sweet Pea™ got all “bewildered and chagrined” and stuff. And ended up doing the Slice Slice Slice Chop Chop Chop Thing (SSSCCCT™) with his sword. I mean, shedding a little blood is the only way to teach rude people good manners sometimes.
Go, baby, go! You show these “furtive cut-purses, leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes and strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery” what courtesy and graciousness really mean!
Having thus beautifully imparted his views on proper etiquette, my I-May-Be-A-Savage-But-At-Least-I’m-Polite Boyfriend is therefore free to return to the order of the day, aka stealing a Secret Magical Gem Type Thingie (SMGTT™). A more amiable, civil
All in all, not the best story in this collection so far, but as long as my Cimmerian Paramour of the Powerful Frame, Massive Chest and Smouldering Blue Eyes™ keeps
⑤ The Scarlet Citadel: 4.5 stars.
“Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!”My Cimmerian Hunney Bunney™ most shamelessly betrayed by a bunch of Super Extra Treacherous Bastards (SETB™)! And made prisoner! And shackled! And locked up in a place that isn’t half as welcoming as my High Security Harem! No wonder he’s ever so slightly pissed off and wants to redecorate his enemy’s interiors with body parts!
Yes, that is indeed my Barbarian Sweetie Pie, dressed as an owl last Halloween, and giving his foes the Evil Eye of Death Doom and Spontaneous Combustion™.
So here is King Conan (aka His Yumminess The First), incarcerated in the cheery, welcoming depths of Ze Scarlet Citadel, where he gets the coolest
“Slowly a huge, hideous, wedge-shaped head took form before his dilated eyes, and from the darkness oozed, in flowing scaly coils, the ultimate horror of reptilian development […] This reptile was venomous; he saw the great fangs, a foot long, curved like scimitars. From them dripped a colorless liquid that he instinctively knew was death.”Most puny humans in this situation would slightly recoil, and go all, “uh-oh, Houston, we have a problem,” but my Barbarian Poppet ain’t no puny human, obviously, and goes all, “yay, I have a new Extra Chummy Scaly Friend™!” More or less.
Anyway, being his usual kick-ass, cunning, resourceful little self, His Yumminess The First manages to get out of the Scandalous Shackles of Infamy™ and goes on his merry way, trying to escape Ze Scarlet Citadel of Joy and Merriment™. He gets to meet the local population, among which a jelly-like, amorphic bulk with tentacles and a frog-like head that kinda sorta makes you want to puke when you look at him/her/it/them/whatever. Fun times.
Evil, wicked plants are fought. Ancient wizards are spoiler spoiler spoiler. And then spoiler spoiler spoiler happens. A Giant Neither Bat Nor Bird Thingie shows up. Great distances are travelled at great speeds. There is bewilderment, turmoil and chaos. Dead cats come deluging down (don’t ask). My Little Cimmerian Cabbage plays with his sword for a bit and roars like a lion for a while. Then he starts hurling bodies from great heights so that the crowd down below can tear them to pieces (what can I say, His Yumminess The First is generous like that). Savage grins abound, things explode with flashes of hellish fire, heads are severed, blood flows, and the villains get killed dead. That’s what you get for messing with Conan, King of Aquilonia, you evil, treacherous bastards! No matter what you throw at him, my Barbarian Paramour will always prevail, you perfidious scum!
⑥ Queen of the Black Coast: 5 stars.
“Who is Bêlit?”That she is. And also the original kick-ass chick. Let me tell you, my Comely Decapods, Bêlit here puts 99% of
“The wildest she-devil unhanged.”
Oh, and as you can see, she’s Super Extra Hot™, too. (Especially considering that she just turned 84 this year. She must use a pretty good moisturizing cream, methinks.) No wonder my Barbarian Paramour fell for her at first sight. And vice versa.
"Look at me, Conan!" She threw wide her arms. "I am Bêlit, queen of the black coast. Oh, tiger of the North, you are cold as the snowy mountains which bred you. Take me and crush me with your fierce love! Go with me to the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am a queen by fire and steel and slaughter – be thou my king!"These two were meant to be together, if you ask me. And, believe it or not, I’m not jealous of their little fling. Not even a little. Why would I be, anyway? He’s my boyfriend, she’s my girlfriend, one big happy family and stuff!
But wait. Let’s backtrack for a second. I mean, I bet you’re dying to know how these two lovebirds met. Well, this is how it all started:
“1. — CONAN JOINS THE PIRATES”And this is when I went all,
Because my Cimmerian Sweetie Pie + pirates obviously = deliciously yummy in my tummy. Anyway, my boyfriend was minding his own business in some super welcoming coastal town when he kind of ran into trouble with local law enforcement. Conan got himself a little bit arrested and there was a tiny misunderstanding, and then stuff happened.
“So then, seeing they were all mad, I drew my sword and cleft the judge's skull”Such a quick thinking babe you are, Appetizing Barbarian Mine! Talking about being quick, a good thing you made a hasty escape here, and found a ship to flee this most welcoming city post haste!
"Can you pay for your passage?" demanded the master.Always so generous with his funds, my boyfriend. It’s beautiful, really. Anyway, Conan got aboard the ship, stuff happened again, he met my girlfriend Bêlit and her pirate crew, and 💕insta-lurve💕 was instantly in the air.
"I pay my way with steel!" roared the man in armor, brandishing the great sword that glittered bluely in the sun. "By Crom, man, if you don't get under way, I'll drench this galley in the blood of its crew!"
“He glanced at the blue-fringed shore, at the far green hazes of the ocean, at the vibrant figure which stood before him; and his barbaric soul stirred within him. To quest these shining blue realms with that white-skinned young tiger-cat—to love, laugh, wander and pillage—"I'll sail with you," he grunted, shaking the red drops from his blade.”Note to self: never forget to shake the blood from your blade, it’s hot as fish.
So off they went, my boyfriend and girlfriend, sailing and fighting and sacking and pillaging and laughing and making mad lurve aboard Bêlit’s ship (the very aptly named Tigress). But then they started gliding “into the realm of horror and death”, with “mystery and terror” about them, and things got not-so-funny-anymore in less time than it takes to say “unleash the crustaceans.” Gigantic serpents happened. And also villainous, slightly oversized winged apes. And malign entities. Then Conan
So. Bêlit is awesome (especially considering her character was created in 1934) + Conan chops and skewers and severs exquisitely + Howard’s writing is absolutely fantastic = this might or might not be my favorite story in this collection so far. Perhaps. Maybe. Possibly.
Well well well, would you look at that! Looks like I've been
⑦ Black Colossus: 3.32568 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑧ Iron Shadows in the Moon: 4.5 stars
➽ Review here.
⑨ Xuthal of the Dusk: 5 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑩ The Pool of the Black One: 5 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑪ Rogues in the House: 4 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑫ The Vale of Lost Women: 1.5 stars.
➽ Review here.
⑬ The Devil in Iron: 4 stars.
➽ Review here.
May 3, 2011
*** NOTE: Lesson number 4 above was inspired by Ceridwen’s legendary review of Ulysses and the even more legendary comment section following it....The Guest Speaker doesn't know it but the real goal of lesson #4 is to help the instructors spot and weed out incurable ASSHATS.
5.0 stars. This was my first in depth experience with Robert E. Howard’s Conan and IT…….WAS…….PULPTASTICALLY ……DELICIOUS. However, not only was it more fun than a dungeon full of giant snakes, but it was also very instructive. I learned an awful lot about both myself and the imaginary world around me. In fact, throughout the process of reading these wonderful stories, I continued to grow as a mythical figure within my own head until now I believe I am truly ready to sack my first city.
Now since I live in Las Vegas, my plan is to start with a smaller nearby city that has strategic resources around which I can consolidate my power base. I have decided on Pahrump, Nevada which is only about 20 minutes away and has both a Wal-Mart and legal brothels. Definitely a two birds/one stone thing. Anyway, from there, I should be able to lay siege to several of the outlying casinos that maintain 24 Hr buffets and from there, by Crom, it is only a matter of time.....Sorry about that, my med dosages are all out of whack and I have a tendancy to wax maniacal before they kick in.....better now...
Anyway, when I first started reading these stories, I didn't have really high expectation, despite the glowing reviews from others. I assumed the stories would be dated and loaded with several different kinds of cheese. However, given the significant influence Robert E. Howard and Conan on the fantasy genre, I thought it was appropriate to read at least a few for historical purposes.
Well, so much for my expectations because I absolutely loved these stories. Robert E. Howard’s writing is lush and descriptive and filled with scrumptious helpings of phasmatastic melodrama. The stories are like violently psychotic poetry. Add to the wonderfully fun prose world-building smoking enough to set your naughty bits on fire and a main character so badass that he picks chunks of guys tougher than Frank Sinatra out of his stool (....obscure reference to Phil Hartman on SNL for those of you following along at home).
Bottom-line, these stories are just a blast. My only caveat would be that the tone of the stories are similar enough that I found I enjoyed them more when I only read two or three at a time before going on to something else. The following is a brief description of the stories and how I would rate them (along with a few notable quotes and some cool pics).
THE PHOENIX ON THE SWORD: First appearance of Conan in print.
"Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet."Taking place at a time when Conan was King of Aquilonia, plot concerns a group of four conspirators plotting to assassinate Conan and take the crown. Notable as the first appearance of the dark wizard Thoth-Amon. 5.0 STARS
THE FROST GIANT'S DAUGHTER: Arguably the earliest Conan story from a chronological standpoint, the story begin shortly after Conan is the lone survivor of a brutal attack in which over 80 men died. As Howard describes the scene:
The clangor of the swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow. The bleak pale sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay as they had fallen. The nerveless hand yet gripped the broken hilt; helmeted heads back-drawn in the death-throes, tilted red beards and golden beards grimly upward, as if in last invocation to Ymir the frost-giant, god of a warrior-race.Conan meets a mysterious woman who takes him to the far North into the legendary realm of the Frost Giants. 4.5 to 5.0 STARS.
THE GOD IN THE BOWL:
This superb story is a true highlight. It is a kind of murder mystery in which Conan has broken into a museum to steal a priceless treasure. The story does a create job of expanding on the mythologies of Conan’s world and invoking images and possible connections to H.P Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. It is that "connection" that I think makes the Conan "world building" so incredible. 5.0 TO 6.0 STARS
THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT:
Widely considered one of the single BEST Conan stories, I would certainly agree. This story is unique in that the mythology of Conan is expanded to include some significant science fiction elements (similar to what HP Lovecraft’s “At the Mountain of Madness” did for the Cthulhu mythos). Absolutely sensational story. 6.0 STARS.
THE SCARLETT CITADEL:
Another superb Conan story. In this famous tale, "King" Conan goes to the aid of a neighboring ruler who tells Conan that a rival King is threatening his border. In fact, the two kings have set a trap for Conan with the aid of Conan's archenemy, the wizard Tsotha-lanti. Conan is imprisoned Tsotha-lanti's dungeon, a place where “evil experiments are conducted on prisoners” and the real meat of the plot is a tour of the dungeon and Conan's attempt to escape. Outstanding story. 5.5 Stars. A notable quote from the story has Conan explaining why his rule is more legitimate than the rule of someone inheriting the throne:
You sit on satin and guzzle wine that the people sweat for, and talk of divine rights of sovereignty — BAH! I climbed out of the abyss of naked barbarism to the throne and in that climb I spilt my blood as freely as I spilt that of others. If either of us has the right to rule men, by Crom, it is I.
QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST:
Conan takes to the seas as a pirate alongside "Belit" the Queen of the Black Coast. A great story and one in which Conan has a true love interest. 4.0 STARS.
BLACK COLOSSUS: Conan battles another nasty demon-wizard, this one named Thugra Khotan in another superb Conan story. 5.0 STARS.
IRON SHADOWS OF THE MOON: Conan finds himself on a dark island surrounded by cursed soldiers made of iron and has to do a little Barbarian welding on their metal asses. A great Conan story. 4.5 to 5.0 STARS.
XUTHAL OF THE DUSK: One of the weaker stories in the collection has Conan fleeing with a princess across a desert after surviving a battle and encountering a legendary city and its other-worldly inhabitants. 3.0 STARS.
THE POOL OF THE BLACK ONE: Another personal favorite of mine. We again see Conan playing pirate and he finds himself along for the ride as crew for a ship heading for a mysterious island that is supposed to contain a legendary treasure. Unfortunately, it also contains some real nasties or as Howard describes it:
Conan glared frozen with repulsion and shaken with nausea. Himself as cleanly elemental as a timber wolf, he was yet not ignorant of the perverse secrets of rotting civilizations. He had roamed the cities of Zamora, and known the women of Shadizar the Wicked. But he sensed here a cosmic vileness transcending mere human degeneracy--a perverse branch on the tree of Life, developed along lines outside human comprehension.Yeah….those kind of nasties. 5.0 to 5.5 STARS.
ROGUES IN THE HOUSE: A good story in which Conan is once again caught in the middle of the scheming of two rival princes. One of my least favorite from the collection. 3.5 to 4.0 STARS.
THE VALEOF LOST WOMEN: All I am going to say about this one is that if you take the racism, sexism and homophobia and laugh at it because of its absurdity then you might get some real chuckles out of this one. Otherwise, good ole REH kinda went off the deep end on this one. 2.0 STARS
THE DEVIL IN IRON: Conan finds himself sidewise again with a nasty demon named Khosatral Khel. Khel having recently been awakened recreates his old fortress complete with giant snakes and zombies. Time for a little Conan smack-down. An excellent way to end the collection. 4.5 to 5.0 STARS.
May 21, 2024
I've now discovered that the best way to read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories is in big, undiluted doses. Do yourself a favor and avoid any of the stories completed or edited by L. Sprague de Camp. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. And don't dip your toes into Conan's world, plunge into it headfirst and stay a while. Taken as individual snacks, each Conan story has its sweet spots and its bitter bits. But taken as a meal, several Conan stories can provide a rich feast.
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian provides enough Conan to satisfy, but not so much to over-stuff yourself on the macho barbarian. The stories in this volume are presented in the order written, not in the false chronological order that de Camp was so fond of using in his collections of Howard's work (interpolated with his own writing, one must note). In this order, one can see Howard's writing evolve as the book marches on. Howard repeats himself, both in characterization and plot, a few times. But this is actually a virtue in this case, as it "thickens" the character of Conan. If the reader is limited to only a few Conan stories, he or she misses the deepening of Conan - not growth, necessarily, as he is, at his base, the same throughout. But Conan is a deeper character than you might imagine if you have limited your view of him to only a few stories.
There are a number of excellent stories in this volume, though none are without fault. "The Tower of the Elephant," for example, is a great mystical story, unfortunately marred by the unlikely (and highly unbelievable) encounter with the master thief, Taurus of Nemedia.
"Queen of the Black Coast" is as close as you'll get to romance in a Conan tale, a romance that is helped along by Belit (the Queen spoken of in the title) and her incredible hormonal drive. This story really shows Howard at his worst, as evidenced by a huge info-dump mid-story from the lips of Conan himself. I like Conan better when he's talking less, to be honest.
But "Queen" also shows Howard at the height of his prose-prowess:
Rising above the black denseness of the trees and above the waving fronds, the moon silvered the river, and their wake became a rippling scintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shining road of bursting jewels.
It's a little purple, admittedly. But any author should be happy with such a vividly descriptive sentence. In the end, "Queen of the Black Coast" is representative of all that makes a Conan story a Conan story: mystery, sorcery, lust, and vengeance. If you can look past the racism and sexism on display, or at least suppress the urge to stop reading out of sheer disgust at the dated attitudes, there is some good, even elegant, story telling in there.
"Black Colossus" might contain the best description of why the barbarian's attitude is so . . . well, barbaric:
Conan listened unperturbed. War was his trade. Life was a continual battle, or series of battles; since his birth Death had been a constant companion. It stalked horrifically at his side; stood at his shoulder beside the gaming-tables; its bony fingers rattled the wine-cups. It loomed above him, a hooded and monstrous shadow, when he lay down to sleep. He minded its presence no more than a king minds the presence of his cup-bearer. Some day its bony grasp would close; that was all. It was enough that he lived through the present.
"Rogues in the House" was one of my favorite stories in this volume, but not because of Conan, who really only played a peripheral role in the story until its climax. This story was full of mystery and treachery, with a demonic man-beast as (the most obvious) villain and a bevy of technological tricks disguised as sorcery that lent a refreshing quirkiness to the plot. What more could you ask for in a Sword and Sorcery tale?
"The Devil in Iron" seemed to collate many of the tropes found in earlier stories and is the appropriate culmination of the volume. It's as close to a "dungeon crawl" as Conan ever gets, so if you must get your roleplaying geek "on", this is the story for you.
A rather lengthy "Miscellanea" section wraps up the book, but is kind of an anticlimax, if read straight through. I would, from time to time, toggle back to this section when I felt reader's fatigue setting in. I found that the pieces there on the Hyborian age and on the genesis of Howard's career were welcome temporary diversions that left me recharged to tackle more of the stories. The two rough maps also helped to contextualize the stories within geographical bounds.
I've missed mentioning many of the stories in this volume. This is intentional. You may or may not like the same stories I did, but I believe there's enough in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian to warrant a good, long stretch of your reading time. It might be a while before I dive into Conan like this again (there are other volumes in the same series), not because I didn't enjoy the journey. On the contrary, I liked it so much that I need to be sure to have a good block of time to chew up at my leisure, to really savor the hearty meal that Howard has cooked up!
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian provides enough Conan to satisfy, but not so much to over-stuff yourself on the macho barbarian. The stories in this volume are presented in the order written, not in the false chronological order that de Camp was so fond of using in his collections of Howard's work (interpolated with his own writing, one must note). In this order, one can see Howard's writing evolve as the book marches on. Howard repeats himself, both in characterization and plot, a few times. But this is actually a virtue in this case, as it "thickens" the character of Conan. If the reader is limited to only a few Conan stories, he or she misses the deepening of Conan - not growth, necessarily, as he is, at his base, the same throughout. But Conan is a deeper character than you might imagine if you have limited your view of him to only a few stories.
There are a number of excellent stories in this volume, though none are without fault. "The Tower of the Elephant," for example, is a great mystical story, unfortunately marred by the unlikely (and highly unbelievable) encounter with the master thief, Taurus of Nemedia.
"Queen of the Black Coast" is as close as you'll get to romance in a Conan tale, a romance that is helped along by Belit (the Queen spoken of in the title) and her incredible hormonal drive. This story really shows Howard at his worst, as evidenced by a huge info-dump mid-story from the lips of Conan himself. I like Conan better when he's talking less, to be honest.
But "Queen" also shows Howard at the height of his prose-prowess:
Rising above the black denseness of the trees and above the waving fronds, the moon silvered the river, and their wake became a rippling scintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shining road of bursting jewels.
It's a little purple, admittedly. But any author should be happy with such a vividly descriptive sentence. In the end, "Queen of the Black Coast" is representative of all that makes a Conan story a Conan story: mystery, sorcery, lust, and vengeance. If you can look past the racism and sexism on display, or at least suppress the urge to stop reading out of sheer disgust at the dated attitudes, there is some good, even elegant, story telling in there.
"Black Colossus" might contain the best description of why the barbarian's attitude is so . . . well, barbaric:
Conan listened unperturbed. War was his trade. Life was a continual battle, or series of battles; since his birth Death had been a constant companion. It stalked horrifically at his side; stood at his shoulder beside the gaming-tables; its bony fingers rattled the wine-cups. It loomed above him, a hooded and monstrous shadow, when he lay down to sleep. He minded its presence no more than a king minds the presence of his cup-bearer. Some day its bony grasp would close; that was all. It was enough that he lived through the present.
"Rogues in the House" was one of my favorite stories in this volume, but not because of Conan, who really only played a peripheral role in the story until its climax. This story was full of mystery and treachery, with a demonic man-beast as (the most obvious) villain and a bevy of technological tricks disguised as sorcery that lent a refreshing quirkiness to the plot. What more could you ask for in a Sword and Sorcery tale?
"The Devil in Iron" seemed to collate many of the tropes found in earlier stories and is the appropriate culmination of the volume. It's as close to a "dungeon crawl" as Conan ever gets, so if you must get your roleplaying geek "on", this is the story for you.
A rather lengthy "Miscellanea" section wraps up the book, but is kind of an anticlimax, if read straight through. I would, from time to time, toggle back to this section when I felt reader's fatigue setting in. I found that the pieces there on the Hyborian age and on the genesis of Howard's career were welcome temporary diversions that left me recharged to tackle more of the stories. The two rough maps also helped to contextualize the stories within geographical bounds.
I've missed mentioning many of the stories in this volume. This is intentional. You may or may not like the same stories I did, but I believe there's enough in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian to warrant a good, long stretch of your reading time. It might be a while before I dive into Conan like this again (there are other volumes in the same series), not because I didn't enjoy the journey. On the contrary, I liked it so much that I need to be sure to have a good block of time to chew up at my leisure, to really savor the hearty meal that Howard has cooked up!
June 4, 2023
My first time reading Robert.E.Howard stories. These tales had so much passion and energy. I was totally enamored.
The stories switch back and forth in time. Some of them have Conan as a King while in others he is a travelling mercenary for hire or a pirate.
Howard is not too big on plotting. But the descriptions of spectacular cities, palaces, jungles, islands, other worldly beings, violent battles and passionate men and women are what makes these stories worthwhile.
There is a marked attempt to transcend the ordinary, the mundane and the civilized in Howard's writing. This is a man who is only interested in the strong and the decisive. He has no time for bookworms and the brooding kind of men. Even though his biography suggests he himself was a scholar.
Howard also has an obsession with other worldly beings, especially 40 to 80 foot tall serpents. A lot of the thrills take place in horrifying secret corridors, chambers and dungeons which are populated by serpents and other strange creatures.
My favorite stories in the collection:
The Phoenix on the Sword: Conan, the King is about to be usurped by his enemies lead by Ascalante, wannabe king of Aquilonia. But Conan is paid a visit in his dreams by Epemitrius, the sage and his sword is blessed with a phoenix. This helps him fight his enemies, both human and otherworldly, better. I think Hollywood has not been able to capture the truly grotesque and cosmic horror of fantasy novels. My first Conan story by Robert. E. Howard.
The Tower of the Elephant: Conan and Taurus of Nemedia, the Prince of Thieves, gang up to rob the Elephant Tower of its jewels and pearls. This is a great action adventure story with men climbing up tall towers using ropes and entering secret chambers where other worldly creatures lay await for them. This story was used in Conan the Barbarian, the Milius movie. But there is no spider in the movie. Or the elephant headed man (inspired by the Hindu god Ganesha, perhaps?), like in this book.
Queen of the Black Coast: A rip-roaring passionate erotic nautical action adventure from Robert. E. Howard. Conan becomes King to Belit, a female pirate with whom he makes passionate and violent love on their ship, the Queen of the Black Coast. An expedition up a strange river leads to them discovering vast treasures. But they also run into other worldly creatures who cuts short not just Conan's life as a pirate, but also his love life.
The stories switch back and forth in time. Some of them have Conan as a King while in others he is a travelling mercenary for hire or a pirate.
Howard is not too big on plotting. But the descriptions of spectacular cities, palaces, jungles, islands, other worldly beings, violent battles and passionate men and women are what makes these stories worthwhile.
There is a marked attempt to transcend the ordinary, the mundane and the civilized in Howard's writing. This is a man who is only interested in the strong and the decisive. He has no time for bookworms and the brooding kind of men. Even though his biography suggests he himself was a scholar.
Howard also has an obsession with other worldly beings, especially 40 to 80 foot tall serpents. A lot of the thrills take place in horrifying secret corridors, chambers and dungeons which are populated by serpents and other strange creatures.
My favorite stories in the collection:
The Phoenix on the Sword: Conan, the King is about to be usurped by his enemies lead by Ascalante, wannabe king of Aquilonia. But Conan is paid a visit in his dreams by Epemitrius, the sage and his sword is blessed with a phoenix. This helps him fight his enemies, both human and otherworldly, better. I think Hollywood has not been able to capture the truly grotesque and cosmic horror of fantasy novels. My first Conan story by Robert. E. Howard.
The Tower of the Elephant: Conan and Taurus of Nemedia, the Prince of Thieves, gang up to rob the Elephant Tower of its jewels and pearls. This is a great action adventure story with men climbing up tall towers using ropes and entering secret chambers where other worldly creatures lay await for them. This story was used in Conan the Barbarian, the Milius movie. But there is no spider in the movie. Or the elephant headed man (inspired by the Hindu god Ganesha, perhaps?), like in this book.
Queen of the Black Coast: A rip-roaring passionate erotic nautical action adventure from Robert. E. Howard. Conan becomes King to Belit, a female pirate with whom he makes passionate and violent love on their ship, the Queen of the Black Coast. An expedition up a strange river leads to them discovering vast treasures. But they also run into other worldly creatures who cuts short not just Conan's life as a pirate, but also his love life.
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April 3, 2013
Conan is one of those great literary characters whose true nature has been swallowed up in the morass of media reinterpretation. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian is a giant of a man, yes, but he is not the lumbering bear he later became in the popular consciousness; Schwarzenegger is not to blame for that, as this understanding had become the common one long before his films were made (check out the earlier comic book versions), and he merely played the character as the script demanded. Howard's Conan is muscular, yes, but also dark and lithe and precise -- he is likened to a panther repeatedly due to his speed and agility. Howard's Conan is uneducated and uncivilized and savage, but he is not a bumbling brute -- he is cunning and clever and feral. He is no Aryan demigod, but rather a proto-Celt (hence his name) with jet black hair and dark brown skin. He is not trying to avenge his family's slaughter, but simply trying to live in a brutal world -- in fact, he left his family alive and well because he grew bored with the opportunities available to him among the Cimmerians. He kills because he likes to and because he is good at it.
Howard is a lot like his most famous creation in that the popular understanding of him does not always match the reality. On the one hand he appears to have been a miserable racist, typical of his own cultural milieu -- but on the other hand he writes stories in which a black prince calls white men "dogs" and says only a white man would be so soulless as to kill others for money. He writes stories of fictional barbarians and witch-hunting puritans, but he writes with a beauty and power at which even our most "sophisticated" modern authors can only marvel. If i could be even half the writer Howard was, I would be content.
Howard is a lot like his most famous creation in that the popular understanding of him does not always match the reality. On the one hand he appears to have been a miserable racist, typical of his own cultural milieu -- but on the other hand he writes stories in which a black prince calls white men "dogs" and says only a white man would be so soulless as to kill others for money. He writes stories of fictional barbarians and witch-hunting puritans, but he writes with a beauty and power at which even our most "sophisticated" modern authors can only marvel. If i could be even half the writer Howard was, I would be content.
June 11, 2020
The first 13 REH Conan stories complete with his poem "Cimmeria", drafts, synopses, artwork by Mark Schultz, notes, maps, and Howard's sprawling "The Hyborian Age" history are included in this remarkable book.
But the major highlights are the stories and the gems like "The Tower of the Elephant" in which a young Conan attempts to steal from an impregnable tower in the seedy city of Zamora and comes across more than he ever thought possible in his world in elephantine Yag-kosha" along with "Queen of the Black Coast" in which Conan meets his first major love interest in Belit, the she-pirate and terror of the seas. Though she exists only in this one story it was terrific of Roy Thomas to expand her role and appearances in the color Conan comic book series from Marvel.
"Xuthal of the Dusk" though similar to the later "Red Nails" seemed to challenge Conan more than in any other story with an epic battle between our hero and a slithering frog-like creature and rounding out the gems is "The Devil in Iron" in my humble opinion pitting Conan against numerous foes and the might of Khosatral Khel, an iron golem meshed with a fighter/mage in Dungeons and Dragons terms for lack of anything better to describe him as.
But the major highlights are the stories and the gems like "The Tower of the Elephant" in which a young Conan attempts to steal from an impregnable tower in the seedy city of Zamora and comes across more than he ever thought possible in his world in elephantine Yag-kosha" along with "Queen of the Black Coast" in which Conan meets his first major love interest in Belit, the she-pirate and terror of the seas. Though she exists only in this one story it was terrific of Roy Thomas to expand her role and appearances in the color Conan comic book series from Marvel.
"Xuthal of the Dusk" though similar to the later "Red Nails" seemed to challenge Conan more than in any other story with an epic battle between our hero and a slithering frog-like creature and rounding out the gems is "The Devil in Iron" in my humble opinion pitting Conan against numerous foes and the might of Khosatral Khel, an iron golem meshed with a fighter/mage in Dungeons and Dragons terms for lack of anything better to describe him as.
July 25, 2017
Collection of early Conan stories by his late creator Robert E Howard, including:
- Cimmeria - 3/5 - brief poem describing Conan's homeland
- The Phoenix on the Sword - 4/5 - Conan's first appearance is a Game-of-Thrones-esque plot to overthrow the barbarian king
- The Frost-Giant's Daughter - 3/5 - initially rejected for publication and eventually published posthumously, this brief tale exhibits mythological elements of Conan's world
- God in the bowl - 3/5 - Also rejected during Howard's lifetime, this story is...a locked-room mystery starring Conan the Barbarian?!?
- The Tower of the Elephant (Conan, #3) - 4/5 - Conan the Thief plunders the tower of a powerful magician
- The Scarlet Citadel - 4/5 - Conan the King faces a threat to his reign from nearby kingdoms and an evil magician (is there any other kind?)
- Queen of the Black Coast - 3/5 - parts of this pirate story are really good, other parts are just laughable
- Black Colossus - 4/5 - yet another evil magician threatens to upset peace and happiness in the Hyborian Age
- Iron Shadows in the Moon - 3/5 - feels rushed even though all the elements of an interesting story are present
- Xuthal of the Dusk (originally published and more often known as The Slithering Shadow) - 3/5 - Fritz Leiber hated this one, and it is a bit disappointing
- The Pool of the Black One - 3/5 - lots of action but overall not one of the best
- Rogues In The House - 4/5 - who's run amok in the house of a powerful wizard?
- The Vale Of Lost Women - 3/5 - sexist, yes, and also a bit silly for a Conan story
- The Devil in Iron - 3/5 - Enjoyable, but seems pretty similar to some of the prior stories - has the formula started to wear thin?
But wait, there's more! (let's call it 3/5 stars for all the extras)
- The Phoenix on the Sword (first submitted draft) - interesting to read the originally rejected draft, but the final edit is a tighter, more satisfying read
- Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age
- The Hyborian Age - a dry but thorough history of Conan's fictitious era
- Untitled Synopsis
- Untitled Synopsis (The Scarlet Citadel) - interesting that the entire last half of the story is summed up in 2-3 sentences
- Untitled Synopsis (Black Colossus)
- Untitled Fragment
- Untitled Synopsis
- Untitled Draft
- Hyborian Names and Countries
- Hyborian Age Maps
You'll also get Appendices:
- Hyborian Genesis by Editor Patrice Louinet - an interesting essay about the likely inspirations for various Conan stories and also covers some of the changes in each story from the time of writing to time of publication
- Notes on the Conan Typescripts and the Chronology
- Notes on the Original Howard Texts
Not to mention illustrations throughout by Mark Schultz who also wrote the Foreword, and an Introduction by Editor Patrice Louinet.
- Cimmeria - 3/5 - brief poem describing Conan's homeland
- The Phoenix on the Sword - 4/5 - Conan's first appearance is a Game-of-Thrones-esque plot to overthrow the barbarian king
- The Frost-Giant's Daughter - 3/5 - initially rejected for publication and eventually published posthumously, this brief tale exhibits mythological elements of Conan's world
- God in the bowl - 3/5 - Also rejected during Howard's lifetime, this story is...a locked-room mystery starring Conan the Barbarian?!?
- The Tower of the Elephant (Conan, #3) - 4/5 - Conan the Thief plunders the tower of a powerful magician
- The Scarlet Citadel - 4/5 - Conan the King faces a threat to his reign from nearby kingdoms and an evil magician (is there any other kind?)
- Queen of the Black Coast - 3/5 - parts of this pirate story are really good, other parts are just laughable
- Black Colossus - 4/5 - yet another evil magician threatens to upset peace and happiness in the Hyborian Age
- Iron Shadows in the Moon - 3/5 - feels rushed even though all the elements of an interesting story are present
- Xuthal of the Dusk (originally published and more often known as The Slithering Shadow) - 3/5 - Fritz Leiber hated this one, and it is a bit disappointing
- The Pool of the Black One - 3/5 - lots of action but overall not one of the best
- Rogues In The House - 4/5 - who's run amok in the house of a powerful wizard?
- The Vale Of Lost Women - 3/5 - sexist, yes, and also a bit silly for a Conan story
- The Devil in Iron - 3/5 - Enjoyable, but seems pretty similar to some of the prior stories - has the formula started to wear thin?
But wait, there's more! (let's call it 3/5 stars for all the extras)
- The Phoenix on the Sword (first submitted draft) - interesting to read the originally rejected draft, but the final edit is a tighter, more satisfying read
- Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age
- The Hyborian Age - a dry but thorough history of Conan's fictitious era
- Untitled Synopsis
- Untitled Synopsis (The Scarlet Citadel) - interesting that the entire last half of the story is summed up in 2-3 sentences
- Untitled Synopsis (Black Colossus)
- Untitled Fragment
- Untitled Synopsis
- Untitled Draft
- Hyborian Names and Countries
- Hyborian Age Maps
You'll also get Appendices:
- Hyborian Genesis by Editor Patrice Louinet - an interesting essay about the likely inspirations for various Conan stories and also covers some of the changes in each story from the time of writing to time of publication
- Notes on the Conan Typescripts and the Chronology
- Notes on the Original Howard Texts
Not to mention illustrations throughout by Mark Schultz who also wrote the Foreword, and an Introduction by Editor Patrice Louinet.
May 24, 2021
Note, May 23, 2021: When I wrote this review, I stated that no one had ever published a complete collection of Howard's poetry. Actually, though I didn't know it then, one was published in 2009, so I've just updated the review to reflect this.
Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly the best-known of the several series protagonists created by pulp-era giant Robert E. Howard; his corpus of Conan stories essentially created the whole sub-genre of "swords-and-sorcery" fantasy. I came to REH's work relatively late in my reading life (though I now count him as a favorite author), and was introduced to Conan through the collection The Essential Conan. My review of that book is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... , and many of the comments there are relevant here. Most of the stories assembled here, however, are earlier than the ones in the former collection; editor Patrice Louinet has brought together the first 13 Conan tales, arranged in the order that they were written (which isn't the same as the publication order; and some of these in fact were first published posthumously). The only material that appears in both volumes is the last story here, "The Devil in Iron," and Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age," which provided the pseudo-historical and geographical background for his Conan and Kull stories. These are set in a world of pagan cultures and civilizations which supposedly long preceded the historical ones in our real world, and which were allegedly destroyed in the latest of a series of apocalyptic cataclysms that altered the shape of the continents, but whose survivors were the ancestors of various races and cultures in our ancient world. REH wrote the essay fairly early in Conan's literary life, and the rough outlines of the "history" and geography it sketches were already in his mind when he typed the stories that preceded it. "In writing about him and his adventures in the various kingdoms of his Age," Howard wrote, "I have never violated the 'facts' or the spirit of the 'history' here set down, but have followed the lines of that history as closely as the writer of actual historical fiction follows the lines of actual history. I have used this 'history' as a guide in all the stories in this series that I have written."
In terms of their literary quality and style, IMO all of the stories here are remarkably consistent, and they exhibit craftsmanship of a high order. Conan is a very well realized, round and vibrant character; the supporting characterizations are not typically as deep, and some represent types, but they are effectively drawn and differentiated. Howard excels at inventive, consistently interesting story-telling, excellently paced and with skillful use of scene breaks. A lot of action is provided, (and it can be grisly-gory action). While his world-building doesn't quite equal Tolkien's (he never created actual languages for his various cultures), it comes close, with a highly textured imaginary world resting on a complex, eons-spanning back-story. Personally, I consider him one of the best English-language stylists I've ever encountered; his prose is lush, richly descriptive and artistic. A number of the Conan stories here consciously incorporate elements of his pen pal H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cosmology, with its uncritical evolutionism and its Elder Gods from outer space or other dimensions; but Howard is very much his own man, not a Lovecraft clone. Lovecraftian motifs are adopted as adjuncts to a decidedly different type of story-telling.
Reading these stories helps to greatly flesh out Conan's character development, although they're not told in the chronological order of his life. (The first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword," is actually set in Conan's later life, after he has become king of Aquilonia and reigned for some years.) He's not an amoral thug; he has (as I noted from the stories in the other collection I read) his warrior code of honor, fairness, and loyalty where he thinks it's due, he won't betray a friend, and he notes in "The Vale of Lost Women" that "I never forced a woman against her consent." In both that story and the lead story, we also see that he grows morally from the experiences he undergoes. But his morality is basically the primitive morality of in-group --clan, ethnic group, war band-- against out-group; loyalty and moral considerations apply to one's own circle, but those outside it, in theory and sometimes in practice, are fair game for violence and predatory behavior. He's not an exponent of Christian moral sensibilities --not surprisingly, since he lives in a pre-Christian world. (That's why, among Howard's heroes, though I like and respect Conan, I personally prefer Solomon Kane over him, although that's not a majority position.)
In this book more so (at least to my perception) than in the other one, valid criticisms can be made on the grounds of racism and sexism. Portrayals of black characters aren't generally invidious, but Conan's remarks in "The Vale of Lost Women," where he explicitly grounds his willingness to rescue a white woman from a black man on their relative skin colors, is frankly racist, as is his "black sluts" comment. Conan's attitudes, of course, are not necessarily Howard's; in this and other respects, the author is creating a fictional character who's shaped by his milieu. (A world in which the white and black races live physically apart and only encounter each other as foreigners, and often as hostile foreigners, is apt to breed negative racial stereotypes, on both sides.) But it's still off-putting (and cost the book a star). From references elsewhere to the story "Queen of the Black Coast," I'd formed the impression that pirate queen Belit was black. Actually, although her crew is black and she operates off the coast of what is today Africa, she's herself a white Shemite. Her backstory is never explained, and to me her whiteness felt like an anomaly resorted to in order to keep Conan from having a romantic relationship with a black woman; so an opportunity to break literary ground was wasted there.
Also contrary to my previous assumptions, Belit isn't an action-heroine type; she directs physical action by her crew, but she doesn't take part in it herself, and she's more villainess than heroine: she's a self-servingly predatory pirate apparently in the game for the plunder, generally in the habit of slaughtering all the victims of her depredations with no mercy, and not particularly solicitous for the lives and safety of her own men, either. (In his pastiche Conan at the Demon's Gate, set not long after the events of this story and including several references to Belit, Roland Green endows her with an anti-slave traders agenda, but there's no indication of that here.) She's pretty much an incarnation of the pulp-era stereotype of the manipulative female villain, as is the title character of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and Thalis in "Xuthal of the Dusk." The "good" females, on the other hand, are largely passive "damsel in distress" types, also common in the pulp fiction of that day. (I agree with Louinet that the Xuthal story is a sort of inferior prototype of the last Conan story Howard wrote, "Red Nails," but Valeria's character there is a considerable advance over Natala's.) Several stories provide Conan with a romantic interest and an implied or stated sexual relationship (there's no explicit sex in the stories, however), but the female changes in each story, which creates the impression that females exist to be interchangeable transient partners for the male of the species. In fairness to Howard, the racial and gender portrayals here have to be considered as only a part of his corpus; for example, his Dark Agnes stories present a much more proto-feminist view of womanhood and its possibilities, as the shaman N'Longa, a valued friend and ally of Solomon Kane, embodies a distinctly different and more equalitarian view of blacks.
These caveats aside, I did really like and appreciate the stories here for the most part. "Xuthal of the Dusk," in particular, gives a markedly prescient picture of a community where virtually all of the populace live in a more or less constant state of stoned drug dependency, preferring soporific dreams of illusory bliss to any actual constructive activity --in other words, the exact vision that much of our political class and punditocracy want to visit on us. It's hard to pick out a single favorite selection; but if I had to, it would be "The Tower of the Elephant."
This collection also includes Howard's haunting poem "Cimmeria," written before any of the Conan stories and not mentioning Conan, but which can clearly be seen as a precursor of the literary vision behind the stories. (From what I've read of his poetry, I'd say REH had a major poetic talent; I agree with Lovecraft that a complete book-length collection of his poetry would be a worthwhile publication, so The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard is now on my to-read shelf.) The considerable appended material of first drafts or incomplete fragments of Conan stories is of interest to Howard scholars, but probably not to ordinary Howard fans (at least not to this one); and the several reproductions of Howard's sketches of maps of the Hyborian world aren't as clear or easy to refer to as the map in The Essential Conan based on them. But Louinet's Introduction and his appended "Hyborian Genesis," which explains the background of the corpus as a whole and the individual stories, are fascinating and informative. I was particularly interested, among other things, in the influence on Howard of both Plutarch and Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (where both the name Conan and the place name Cimmeria appear.) The many illustrations here by Mark Schultz (who discusses them in the Foreword) are also outstanding.
This is a thick, beautiful trade paperback volume, with production values that shout "QUALITY!" In short, this is a must-read for serious Howard fans, and indispensable for Howard scholars.
Conan the Barbarian is undoubtedly the best-known of the several series protagonists created by pulp-era giant Robert E. Howard; his corpus of Conan stories essentially created the whole sub-genre of "swords-and-sorcery" fantasy. I came to REH's work relatively late in my reading life (though I now count him as a favorite author), and was introduced to Conan through the collection The Essential Conan. My review of that book is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... , and many of the comments there are relevant here. Most of the stories assembled here, however, are earlier than the ones in the former collection; editor Patrice Louinet has brought together the first 13 Conan tales, arranged in the order that they were written (which isn't the same as the publication order; and some of these in fact were first published posthumously). The only material that appears in both volumes is the last story here, "The Devil in Iron," and Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age," which provided the pseudo-historical and geographical background for his Conan and Kull stories. These are set in a world of pagan cultures and civilizations which supposedly long preceded the historical ones in our real world, and which were allegedly destroyed in the latest of a series of apocalyptic cataclysms that altered the shape of the continents, but whose survivors were the ancestors of various races and cultures in our ancient world. REH wrote the essay fairly early in Conan's literary life, and the rough outlines of the "history" and geography it sketches were already in his mind when he typed the stories that preceded it. "In writing about him and his adventures in the various kingdoms of his Age," Howard wrote, "I have never violated the 'facts' or the spirit of the 'history' here set down, but have followed the lines of that history as closely as the writer of actual historical fiction follows the lines of actual history. I have used this 'history' as a guide in all the stories in this series that I have written."
In terms of their literary quality and style, IMO all of the stories here are remarkably consistent, and they exhibit craftsmanship of a high order. Conan is a very well realized, round and vibrant character; the supporting characterizations are not typically as deep, and some represent types, but they are effectively drawn and differentiated. Howard excels at inventive, consistently interesting story-telling, excellently paced and with skillful use of scene breaks. A lot of action is provided, (and it can be grisly-gory action). While his world-building doesn't quite equal Tolkien's (he never created actual languages for his various cultures), it comes close, with a highly textured imaginary world resting on a complex, eons-spanning back-story. Personally, I consider him one of the best English-language stylists I've ever encountered; his prose is lush, richly descriptive and artistic. A number of the Conan stories here consciously incorporate elements of his pen pal H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cosmology, with its uncritical evolutionism and its Elder Gods from outer space or other dimensions; but Howard is very much his own man, not a Lovecraft clone. Lovecraftian motifs are adopted as adjuncts to a decidedly different type of story-telling.
Reading these stories helps to greatly flesh out Conan's character development, although they're not told in the chronological order of his life. (The first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword," is actually set in Conan's later life, after he has become king of Aquilonia and reigned for some years.) He's not an amoral thug; he has (as I noted from the stories in the other collection I read) his warrior code of honor, fairness, and loyalty where he thinks it's due, he won't betray a friend, and he notes in "The Vale of Lost Women" that "I never forced a woman against her consent." In both that story and the lead story, we also see that he grows morally from the experiences he undergoes. But his morality is basically the primitive morality of in-group --clan, ethnic group, war band-- against out-group; loyalty and moral considerations apply to one's own circle, but those outside it, in theory and sometimes in practice, are fair game for violence and predatory behavior. He's not an exponent of Christian moral sensibilities --not surprisingly, since he lives in a pre-Christian world. (That's why, among Howard's heroes, though I like and respect Conan, I personally prefer Solomon Kane over him, although that's not a majority position.)
In this book more so (at least to my perception) than in the other one, valid criticisms can be made on the grounds of racism and sexism. Portrayals of black characters aren't generally invidious, but Conan's remarks in "The Vale of Lost Women," where he explicitly grounds his willingness to rescue a white woman from a black man on their relative skin colors, is frankly racist, as is his "black sluts" comment. Conan's attitudes, of course, are not necessarily Howard's; in this and other respects, the author is creating a fictional character who's shaped by his milieu. (A world in which the white and black races live physically apart and only encounter each other as foreigners, and often as hostile foreigners, is apt to breed negative racial stereotypes, on both sides.) But it's still off-putting (and cost the book a star). From references elsewhere to the story "Queen of the Black Coast," I'd formed the impression that pirate queen Belit was black. Actually, although her crew is black and she operates off the coast of what is today Africa, she's herself a white Shemite. Her backstory is never explained, and to me her whiteness felt like an anomaly resorted to in order to keep Conan from having a romantic relationship with a black woman; so an opportunity to break literary ground was wasted there.
Also contrary to my previous assumptions, Belit isn't an action-heroine type; she directs physical action by her crew, but she doesn't take part in it herself, and she's more villainess than heroine: she's a self-servingly predatory pirate apparently in the game for the plunder, generally in the habit of slaughtering all the victims of her depredations with no mercy, and not particularly solicitous for the lives and safety of her own men, either. (In his pastiche Conan at the Demon's Gate, set not long after the events of this story and including several references to Belit, Roland Green endows her with an anti-slave traders agenda, but there's no indication of that here.) She's pretty much an incarnation of the pulp-era stereotype of the manipulative female villain, as is the title character of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and Thalis in "Xuthal of the Dusk." The "good" females, on the other hand, are largely passive "damsel in distress" types, also common in the pulp fiction of that day. (I agree with Louinet that the Xuthal story is a sort of inferior prototype of the last Conan story Howard wrote, "Red Nails," but Valeria's character there is a considerable advance over Natala's.) Several stories provide Conan with a romantic interest and an implied or stated sexual relationship (there's no explicit sex in the stories, however), but the female changes in each story, which creates the impression that females exist to be interchangeable transient partners for the male of the species. In fairness to Howard, the racial and gender portrayals here have to be considered as only a part of his corpus; for example, his Dark Agnes stories present a much more proto-feminist view of womanhood and its possibilities, as the shaman N'Longa, a valued friend and ally of Solomon Kane, embodies a distinctly different and more equalitarian view of blacks.
These caveats aside, I did really like and appreciate the stories here for the most part. "Xuthal of the Dusk," in particular, gives a markedly prescient picture of a community where virtually all of the populace live in a more or less constant state of stoned drug dependency, preferring soporific dreams of illusory bliss to any actual constructive activity --in other words, the exact vision that much of our political class and punditocracy want to visit on us. It's hard to pick out a single favorite selection; but if I had to, it would be "The Tower of the Elephant."
This collection also includes Howard's haunting poem "Cimmeria," written before any of the Conan stories and not mentioning Conan, but which can clearly be seen as a precursor of the literary vision behind the stories. (From what I've read of his poetry, I'd say REH had a major poetic talent; I agree with Lovecraft that a complete book-length collection of his poetry would be a worthwhile publication, so The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard is now on my to-read shelf.) The considerable appended material of first drafts or incomplete fragments of Conan stories is of interest to Howard scholars, but probably not to ordinary Howard fans (at least not to this one); and the several reproductions of Howard's sketches of maps of the Hyborian world aren't as clear or easy to refer to as the map in The Essential Conan based on them. But Louinet's Introduction and his appended "Hyborian Genesis," which explains the background of the corpus as a whole and the individual stories, are fascinating and informative. I was particularly interested, among other things, in the influence on Howard of both Plutarch and Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (where both the name Conan and the place name Cimmeria appear.) The many illustrations here by Mark Schultz (who discusses them in the Foreword) are also outstanding.
This is a thick, beautiful trade paperback volume, with production values that shout "QUALITY!" In short, this is a must-read for serious Howard fans, and indispensable for Howard scholars.
March 28, 2012
You know, I used to think I hated Conan stories. That was before I realized that what I had read were in fact imperfect pastiches written by other writers in the 60's and 70's who hoped to cash in on the iconic popularity of the character.
This volume presents the stories of Conan the Cimmerian as they were written by his creator, Robert E. Howard, and a better group of dashing, creepy, brooding sword & sorcery tales couldn't be wished for. The stories are presented in the order they were written by Howard, which give us glimpses into various parts of his career: from King to freebooter, from thief to warrior, we see Conan forging his way through the Hyborian Age after Atlantis fell.
There are a load of classics in this volume from "The Phoenix on the Sword", a tale of King Conan fighting against rebellion; "The Tower of the Elephant" where Conan, a young thief, meets an otherworldy prisoner when trying to steal a fabled treasure; and "Queen of the Black Coast" a rousing pirate tale in which Conan meets his match (and more besides) in the female captain Bêlit.
It's great stuff. Howard's talent proves to be much greater than many of his pulp contemporaries, and while these stories may not win the pulitzer prize any day soon, they give an excellent dose of adventure and fantasy when you're in the mood. Conan might even surprise you with a few philosophical words of wisdom, by Crom!
This volume presents the stories of Conan the Cimmerian as they were written by his creator, Robert E. Howard, and a better group of dashing, creepy, brooding sword & sorcery tales couldn't be wished for. The stories are presented in the order they were written by Howard, which give us glimpses into various parts of his career: from King to freebooter, from thief to warrior, we see Conan forging his way through the Hyborian Age after Atlantis fell.
There are a load of classics in this volume from "The Phoenix on the Sword", a tale of King Conan fighting against rebellion; "The Tower of the Elephant" where Conan, a young thief, meets an otherworldy prisoner when trying to steal a fabled treasure; and "Queen of the Black Coast" a rousing pirate tale in which Conan meets his match (and more besides) in the female captain Bêlit.
It's great stuff. Howard's talent proves to be much greater than many of his pulp contemporaries, and while these stories may not win the pulitzer prize any day soon, they give an excellent dose of adventure and fantasy when you're in the mood. Conan might even surprise you with a few philosophical words of wisdom, by Crom!
February 2, 2022
Just fantastic, original fantasy that has so obviously inspired so many writers ever since. You cannot help but be immersed totally in these stories that span the long life of Conan. Robert E. Howard is undeniably a brilliant writer and his effective prose is so smooth and riveting. Can't wait to get to the next volume.
April 13, 2018
Great series of books. I love the Conan character. Conan what is best in life...I'll be back!
Oops! Right actor wrong character. My two favourite characters Arnie played on screen. I love the Conan books and the first film; not the rubbish remake with the Game Of Thrones actor in it; Conan The Barbarian starring Arnold Swartzenegga in it was brilliant. Shame he never made a third film before he got all wrinkly like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky 37. Oh! That was a pun in the film aeroplane 2. Showing my age now.🐯👍
Oops! Right actor wrong character. My two favourite characters Arnie played on screen. I love the Conan books and the first film; not the rubbish remake with the Game Of Thrones actor in it; Conan The Barbarian starring Arnold Swartzenegga in it was brilliant. Shame he never made a third film before he got all wrinkly like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky 37. Oh! That was a pun in the film aeroplane 2. Showing my age now.🐯👍
March 25, 2019
Buddy Read with ✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ and Evgeny, with some occasional guest appearances by other friends (we spread this out over the course of about 6 months).
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is the first of a definitive three-volume set featuring Robert E. Howard's stories about the titular barbarian, arranged in the order they were written (not necessarily the same order in which they were originally published). The stories in this particular volume were written between approximately March 1932 (technically 1929 if you consider the fact that The Phoenix on the Sword was a rewrite of a story featuring a different character, Kull of Atlantis) and October 1933.
If all you know is the Conan from the 1980's movies or the 1960's-1990's literary pastiches...you are in for a surprise (and a treat!) with Robert E. Howard's original tales.
Howard wrote with an intensity and passion that propelled his narratives forward; and yet, there was the spirit of a poet within him, as well. Although published in pulp magazines, Howard's technical writing abilities were surprisingly strong. His descriptions of setting and the feeling of atmosphere he could evoke were impressive...it's almost cliche to say this, but many authors have tried to copy his style over the decades, and very few have succeeded.
There are plenty of themes to be found in this stories, most prominently the nature of "civilization vs. barbarism." But, of course, there is also plenty of bloody, sword-swinging action!
I recommend reading these stories spread out over time, as I did. Otherwise, some of them could start to feel repetitive, especially in the second half of this collection. The beauty of the Conan tales is that, while there are some interconnecting references, there is no overarching plot-line that carries across the entire series; you don't have to read them in any particular order, and you can pick up almost any story at random and enjoy it at face value. There are some true fantasy classics here (particularly Queen of the Black Coast), but there are also a few more forgettable tales.
My individual ratings for the stories are below. I would recommend this to any fan of fast-paced fantasy adventures, or anyone simply interested in learning about one of the genre's most influential pioneers.
- Cimmeria (poem): 5 stars
- The Phoenix on the Sword: 5 stars
- The Frost-Giant’s Daughter: 3 stars
- The God in the Bowl: 3 stars
- The Tower of the Elephant: 4 stars
- The Scarlet Citadel: 4 stars
- Queen of the Black Coast: 5 stars
- Black Colossus: 4 stars
- Iron Shadows in the Moon: 4 stars
- Xuthal of the Dusk: 5 stars
- The Pool of the Black One: 4 stars
- Rogues in the House: 3 stars
- The Vale of Lost Women: 2 stars
- The Devil in Iron: 4 stars
- Miscellanea/Appendices: 3 stars
The other two volumes in this series are The Bloody Crown of Conan and The Conquering Sword of Conan.
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is the first of a definitive three-volume set featuring Robert E. Howard's stories about the titular barbarian, arranged in the order they were written (not necessarily the same order in which they were originally published). The stories in this particular volume were written between approximately March 1932 (technically 1929 if you consider the fact that The Phoenix on the Sword was a rewrite of a story featuring a different character, Kull of Atlantis) and October 1933.
If all you know is the Conan from the 1980's movies or the 1960's-1990's literary pastiches...you are in for a surprise (and a treat!) with Robert E. Howard's original tales.
Howard wrote with an intensity and passion that propelled his narratives forward; and yet, there was the spirit of a poet within him, as well. Although published in pulp magazines, Howard's technical writing abilities were surprisingly strong. His descriptions of setting and the feeling of atmosphere he could evoke were impressive...it's almost cliche to say this, but many authors have tried to copy his style over the decades, and very few have succeeded.
There are plenty of themes to be found in this stories, most prominently the nature of "civilization vs. barbarism." But, of course, there is also plenty of bloody, sword-swinging action!
I recommend reading these stories spread out over time, as I did. Otherwise, some of them could start to feel repetitive, especially in the second half of this collection. The beauty of the Conan tales is that, while there are some interconnecting references, there is no overarching plot-line that carries across the entire series; you don't have to read them in any particular order, and you can pick up almost any story at random and enjoy it at face value. There are some true fantasy classics here (particularly Queen of the Black Coast), but there are also a few more forgettable tales.
My individual ratings for the stories are below. I would recommend this to any fan of fast-paced fantasy adventures, or anyone simply interested in learning about one of the genre's most influential pioneers.
- Cimmeria (poem): 5 stars
- The Phoenix on the Sword: 5 stars
- The Frost-Giant’s Daughter: 3 stars
- The God in the Bowl: 3 stars
- The Tower of the Elephant: 4 stars
- The Scarlet Citadel: 4 stars
- Queen of the Black Coast: 5 stars
- Black Colossus: 4 stars
- Iron Shadows in the Moon: 4 stars
- Xuthal of the Dusk: 5 stars
- The Pool of the Black One: 4 stars
- Rogues in the House: 3 stars
- The Vale of Lost Women: 2 stars
- The Devil in Iron: 4 stars
- Miscellanea/Appendices: 3 stars
The other two volumes in this series are The Bloody Crown of Conan and The Conquering Sword of Conan.
December 8, 2016
Oh Conan. I was wrong about you, and I am so very thrilled that I was.
You're not a macho fantasy devoid of interesting ideas that I'd always cast you as. Instead you're the meeting point between the childhood hot cocoa of sword and sorcery tales, and some dark and strange new way of telling stories. You lulled me with a world full of ancient mysterious ruins, bustling desert towns, and cosmic glittering treasure. Around every corner lurks another pretty girl, or evil sorcerer, or a band of ruthless pirates.
Howard's language is as rich as his world. From the first quote - which eloquently described our titular Cimmerian literally squashing civilisation under his big fat sandalled foot - I was totally on board. There's a sombreness in these stories that never rings false. There's surprises in these pages too - concepts such as alternate dimensions, the illusion of civilised power, and the nature of death - and I was pleasantly surprised to find Conan's world holding up as a pulpy reflection of my own.
Conan himself was another surprise. I was prepared not to hate him, but worse, to be bored by him. And there is truth to this prediction. Conan is a character built out of repetition. Howard tells me that he's strong. Howard tells me that he's uncivilised. Howard tells me that he is better than his civilised foe. On the whole it works like a mantra, or a myth. It's almost like a herald chanting the particular truths of this universe.
And it's satisfying watching it come true. When Conan survives his foes and outsmarts his enemies (and SPOILER he does, every time in this book) it's not dull at all. In fact it's wonderful. Conan's world bends to him continually, and how often in this post-modern world does that happen to a character outside of Forrest Gump?
The only story I did not like in this collection was 'The Vale of Lost Women'. I've read Keely's review, and I think he makes a fair intellectual point about modern political correctness, but everything in me loathes that story. I hold no grudge towards the author for writing it - other people have mentioned the time and the norms of Howard's age - but I firmly believe it's something I did not particularly want staining my mind. I know if I ever were to buy a copy of this book, I'd cut that section out with a scalpel. Sorry not sorry guys.
You're not a macho fantasy devoid of interesting ideas that I'd always cast you as. Instead you're the meeting point between the childhood hot cocoa of sword and sorcery tales, and some dark and strange new way of telling stories. You lulled me with a world full of ancient mysterious ruins, bustling desert towns, and cosmic glittering treasure. Around every corner lurks another pretty girl, or evil sorcerer, or a band of ruthless pirates.
Howard's language is as rich as his world. From the first quote - which eloquently described our titular Cimmerian literally squashing civilisation under his big fat sandalled foot - I was totally on board. There's a sombreness in these stories that never rings false. There's surprises in these pages too - concepts such as alternate dimensions, the illusion of civilised power, and the nature of death - and I was pleasantly surprised to find Conan's world holding up as a pulpy reflection of my own.
Conan himself was another surprise. I was prepared not to hate him, but worse, to be bored by him. And there is truth to this prediction. Conan is a character built out of repetition. Howard tells me that he's strong. Howard tells me that he's uncivilised. Howard tells me that he is better than his civilised foe. On the whole it works like a mantra, or a myth. It's almost like a herald chanting the particular truths of this universe.
And it's satisfying watching it come true. When Conan survives his foes and outsmarts his enemies (and SPOILER he does, every time in this book) it's not dull at all. In fact it's wonderful. Conan's world bends to him continually, and how often in this post-modern world does that happen to a character outside of Forrest Gump?
The only story I did not like in this collection was 'The Vale of Lost Women'. I've read Keely's review, and I think he makes a fair intellectual point about modern political correctness, but everything in me loathes that story. I hold no grudge towards the author for writing it - other people have mentioned the time and the norms of Howard's age - but I firmly believe it's something I did not particularly want staining my mind. I know if I ever were to buy a copy of this book, I'd cut that section out with a scalpel. Sorry not sorry guys.
January 2, 2021
It just goes to show, things are not always as they seem. My conception of Conan the Barbarian came from Arnold and a long line of imitators using the name in the franchise for the cheapening of literature for the sake of nude, panting women in print.
Robert E. Howard, the original prolific writer who had died VERY young, had kept food on the table by writing these stories, and while he sometimes did the market thing, he was very conscious of and headstrong in his craft. He was about the farthest thing from being a hack. His prose, alone, is all kinds of gorgeous and erudite. The titular character may not be educated, but he is quite smart and cunning, trying his hands at being a thief, a mercenary, a king, and above all, a barbarian. He has a lust for life that cannot be denied and it shows.
In the background of these tales, I was endlessly fascinated with the conscious and complex mixtures of history, myth, religion, and cultures. When we think of an ancient, post-Atlantean world with already ancient ruins, strange but familiar gods, and enough tidbits and hints to keep any comparative myth scholar busy for a month, we know we've got something truly special going on.
Indeed, I read this and then I look at another later writer, a certain J.R.R. Tolkein, and gasp in alarm and surprise and joy and suspicion. Howard made something DEEP and RICH. He paved the way in a very specific manner. A huge manner. I'm not saying J.R.R.T is worse, but Howard sparked more than just a generation of imaginations, but the whole Sword and Sorcery genre and that guy, as well.
Credit where credit is due.
Halfway through the roaring twenties until his untimely death at 30 in 1936, he became the godfather of the fantasy tradition in much the same way as his friend, Lovecraft, became the godfather of the horror tradition.
These collected short stories (and even poetry) are something quite special. Conan is complex, dark and light, sometimes cruel and sometimes merciful, but he's always a man's man. I wanted to find some fault in a particular story that seemed to confirm a huge bushel of racism, but the more I thought about it, the muddier it got. Skin color and barbarianism did seem to go together, but it wasn't a fast rule. A noble black justly called Conan out for being a dog and scum and the kinds of complexities in the mercenary corps transcended normal caricatures. In other words, it was complex and felt real and it was a brawling muddy mess from hell. But it also felt true. All sides want justice.
To be sure, my conception of Conan had to get realigned as I read this, and all for the better. Arnold might have been very fascinating in this role, but even this was a caricature compared to the complex original. I'm very happy to get to read the subtleties at long last.
Robert E. Howard, the original prolific writer who had died VERY young, had kept food on the table by writing these stories, and while he sometimes did the market thing, he was very conscious of and headstrong in his craft. He was about the farthest thing from being a hack. His prose, alone, is all kinds of gorgeous and erudite. The titular character may not be educated, but he is quite smart and cunning, trying his hands at being a thief, a mercenary, a king, and above all, a barbarian. He has a lust for life that cannot be denied and it shows.
In the background of these tales, I was endlessly fascinated with the conscious and complex mixtures of history, myth, religion, and cultures. When we think of an ancient, post-Atlantean world with already ancient ruins, strange but familiar gods, and enough tidbits and hints to keep any comparative myth scholar busy for a month, we know we've got something truly special going on.
Indeed, I read this and then I look at another later writer, a certain J.R.R. Tolkein, and gasp in alarm and surprise and joy and suspicion. Howard made something DEEP and RICH. He paved the way in a very specific manner. A huge manner. I'm not saying J.R.R.T is worse, but Howard sparked more than just a generation of imaginations, but the whole Sword and Sorcery genre and that guy, as well.
Credit where credit is due.
Halfway through the roaring twenties until his untimely death at 30 in 1936, he became the godfather of the fantasy tradition in much the same way as his friend, Lovecraft, became the godfather of the horror tradition.
These collected short stories (and even poetry) are something quite special. Conan is complex, dark and light, sometimes cruel and sometimes merciful, but he's always a man's man. I wanted to find some fault in a particular story that seemed to confirm a huge bushel of racism, but the more I thought about it, the muddier it got. Skin color and barbarianism did seem to go together, but it wasn't a fast rule. A noble black justly called Conan out for being a dog and scum and the kinds of complexities in the mercenary corps transcended normal caricatures. In other words, it was complex and felt real and it was a brawling muddy mess from hell. But it also felt true. All sides want justice.
To be sure, my conception of Conan had to get realigned as I read this, and all for the better. Arnold might have been very fascinating in this role, but even this was a caricature compared to the complex original. I'm very happy to get to read the subtleties at long last.
August 31, 2019
- Keldon Warcaller - Aaron Miller (MTG, Wizards of the Coast, 2018)
In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity. (...) I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
Now mercenary, then pirate, sailor, and thief, and king, Conan gives the reader an excellent excuse to marvel at the kingdoms of the Hyborian era while visiting them observing them from every angle. The embodiment of the Adventurer, Conan escapes from it given his acute awareness of the absurdity of mortal life in an indifferent universe as he laughs at it occasionally.
-------------
Dans ce monde, les hommes se battent et souffrent en vain, ne trouvant du plaisir que dans la folle ardeur de la bataille, et lorsqu'ils meurent, leurs âmes pénètrent dans une contrée grise et brumeuse, balayée par les nuages et des vents glacés, où elles erreront sans joie pour l'éternité. (...) Je laisse les professeurs, les prêtres et les philosophes méditer sur la question de la réalité et de l'illusion. Je sais ceci : si la vie est une illusion, alors je suis moi aussi une illusion, et par conséquent, l'illusion est réelle pour moi. Je vis, je brûle de l'ardeur de vivre, j'aime, je tue, et je suis satisfait.
Tour à tour mercenaire, pirate, marin, voleur, roi, Conan donne un excellent prétexte à voir les royaumes de l'âge hyborien sous toutes les coutures. Il incarne l'archétype de l'aventurier en même temps qu'il y échappe par sa conscience aigüe de l'absurdité de la vie mortelle dans un univers indifférent, et il en rit à l'occasion.
April 16, 2018
Dado que las historias de Conan son todas cuentos largos ('novelettes') conviene hacer esta resena en una serie de puntos:
a) Las historias de Conan son profundamente agiles y vivaces. En uno, dos, ya tenemos a nuestro conocido heroe entrando en calabozos, librandose de conspiraciones, rompiendo craneos y atravesando cotas de malla con su particular desgano hacia el concepto de civilizacion. Salvo subtramas anadidas a proposito para poner mas 'picante' (algo deseado en un formato tan vulgar y escandaloso como eran las historias de pulpa), parece que no hay detalles que sobran. El unico pecado en cuanto a trama es que cuando uno termina el libro le parece que la estructura basica de las historias y sus ideas principales se repiten una y otra vez.
b) La gran virtud de Howard, un escritor autodidacta, es como han mencionado otros resenadores la capacidad de pintar una escena evocadora con apenas unas cuantas palabras. No fue necesario para el autor embrollarse en kilos de prosa para detallar un 'worldbuilding', pues en lo corto de sus historias con muy poco tenemos una pintura bien hecha de las costumbres de tal o cual civilizacion en donde se desarrollan las descollantes aventuras de nuestro querido bruto. Al igual que la mayoria de los escritores de fantasia, Howard crea mundos fantasticos a partir de costumbres, climas y civilizaciones identificables, lo que nos ayuda a pintarnos mejor esta idea. Esto hace de Howard un 'gran' escritor. No. Lo hace un escritor ligeramente por encima del promedio escribiendo en un formato y en un medio que producia historias de calidad irrisoria.
c) Los puentes narrativos y estilisticos entre Howard y Lovecraft son muy notorios. Ambos autores sostenian correspondencia y creo que aqui es facil darse cuenta de ello. A diferencia de Tolkien cuyas bestias son miticas, muchas de las creaturas y monstruos de Howard son mas bien cosmicos, muy al estilo de los tenebrosos y desdenosos de la humanidad dioses lovecraftianos: criaturas de horror y espanto de dimensiones mas alla. Por esto, no es de extranarnos que algunos monstruos de Calabozos y Dragones, los llamados 'aberrantes' tengan una semejanza mas que obvia con cualquier tipo de invencion del solitario de Providence.
d) Creo que es bastante necio recordarlo y mencionarlo, pero en estas historias de los 30s Howard es bastante culpable de un par de -ismos mas o menos consistentes con los de los autores de pulp y hombres blancos de su generacion. Se notan a simple vista bastante mas que con, digamos, Rice Burroughs, y mas o menos en consonancia con el propio Lovecraft. Decidir que tanto estas fallas hacen irremediablemente perdida la obra de Howard es un tema de debate que no voy a abrir. Basta con que el lector no estadounidense frunza el ceno ante estos aspectos y siga leyendo.
e) La influencia de Robert E. Howard en la fantasia es incalculable. Es la otra gran pata, la de espada y hechiceria, de la que proviene el canon del genero en la actualidad. Ciudades fantasticas llenas de porqueria y ladrones, tortuosos inquisidores que se convierten en detectives de facto, calabozos de los que hay que escapar y matar al monstruo. Nada de esto es fantasia epica y si viene de esta gran tradicion.
f) Y ante todo, descubrir la intrigante y tragica figura de Robert E. Howard. Un hombre que crecio de ser un nino solitario y bulleado, que bebio hasta emborracharse de la mitologia de Bullfinch, que se obsesiono con la idea de la fuerza fisica hasta el punto de hacerse boxeador, que en medio de un ambiente rural intento ganarse la vida solo de escribir y que en un arrebato de depresion por la inminente muerte de su madre termino pegandose un tiro en la cabeza. El retrato de una epoca completa y de influencias que bien o mal han perdurado al dia de hoy.
a) Las historias de Conan son profundamente agiles y vivaces. En uno, dos, ya tenemos a nuestro conocido heroe entrando en calabozos, librandose de conspiraciones, rompiendo craneos y atravesando cotas de malla con su particular desgano hacia el concepto de civilizacion. Salvo subtramas anadidas a proposito para poner mas 'picante' (algo deseado en un formato tan vulgar y escandaloso como eran las historias de pulpa), parece que no hay detalles que sobran. El unico pecado en cuanto a trama es que cuando uno termina el libro le parece que la estructura basica de las historias y sus ideas principales se repiten una y otra vez.
b) La gran virtud de Howard, un escritor autodidacta, es como han mencionado otros resenadores la capacidad de pintar una escena evocadora con apenas unas cuantas palabras. No fue necesario para el autor embrollarse en kilos de prosa para detallar un 'worldbuilding', pues en lo corto de sus historias con muy poco tenemos una pintura bien hecha de las costumbres de tal o cual civilizacion en donde se desarrollan las descollantes aventuras de nuestro querido bruto. Al igual que la mayoria de los escritores de fantasia, Howard crea mundos fantasticos a partir de costumbres, climas y civilizaciones identificables, lo que nos ayuda a pintarnos mejor esta idea. Esto hace de Howard un 'gran' escritor. No. Lo hace un escritor ligeramente por encima del promedio escribiendo en un formato y en un medio que producia historias de calidad irrisoria.
c) Los puentes narrativos y estilisticos entre Howard y Lovecraft son muy notorios. Ambos autores sostenian correspondencia y creo que aqui es facil darse cuenta de ello. A diferencia de Tolkien cuyas bestias son miticas, muchas de las creaturas y monstruos de Howard son mas bien cosmicos, muy al estilo de los tenebrosos y desdenosos de la humanidad dioses lovecraftianos: criaturas de horror y espanto de dimensiones mas alla. Por esto, no es de extranarnos que algunos monstruos de Calabozos y Dragones, los llamados 'aberrantes' tengan una semejanza mas que obvia con cualquier tipo de invencion del solitario de Providence.
d) Creo que es bastante necio recordarlo y mencionarlo, pero en estas historias de los 30s Howard es bastante culpable de un par de -ismos mas o menos consistentes con los de los autores de pulp y hombres blancos de su generacion. Se notan a simple vista bastante mas que con, digamos, Rice Burroughs, y mas o menos en consonancia con el propio Lovecraft. Decidir que tanto estas fallas hacen irremediablemente perdida la obra de Howard es un tema de debate que no voy a abrir. Basta con que el lector no estadounidense frunza el ceno ante estos aspectos y siga leyendo.
e) La influencia de Robert E. Howard en la fantasia es incalculable. Es la otra gran pata, la de espada y hechiceria, de la que proviene el canon del genero en la actualidad. Ciudades fantasticas llenas de porqueria y ladrones, tortuosos inquisidores que se convierten en detectives de facto, calabozos de los que hay que escapar y matar al monstruo. Nada de esto es fantasia epica y si viene de esta gran tradicion.
f) Y ante todo, descubrir la intrigante y tragica figura de Robert E. Howard. Un hombre que crecio de ser un nino solitario y bulleado, que bebio hasta emborracharse de la mitologia de Bullfinch, que se obsesiono con la idea de la fuerza fisica hasta el punto de hacerse boxeador, que en medio de un ambiente rural intento ganarse la vida solo de escribir y que en un arrebato de depresion por la inminente muerte de su madre termino pegandose un tiro en la cabeza. El retrato de una epoca completa y de influencias que bien o mal han perdurado al dia de hoy.
June 23, 2013
This is the first time I have ever read (listened) to a series of Conan stories that were all by Robert E. Howard, undiluted by his imitators and diminishers, and what a revelation. Howard's work was not the pulpy trash of his followers; it was accomplished, vital, deep and rich in characterization, and some of the finest world building ever achieved. It was that thing I love most: a novel in short stories.
Listening to this collection, one gets a full picture of Howard's Cimmerian. Not the "barbarian" his copycats like to present (it's interesting to note that Howard's Conan only ever refers to himself as a Cimmerian), but the man with powerful personal ethics, a good man born of a bellicose tribe in a time of war, a man whose lustiness is lustful rather than rapacious, a man as capable of personal brutality as he is of noble heroism as he is of tactical genius as he is of creeping stealth as he is shocking kindness as he is geniune responsibility. Howard's Conan is a possible man, a realistic man, a man who does great things and travels far -- rising from thief/pirate to general/king -- but a man who, despite his titular status, suffers consequences and faces situations with real stakes.
That Conan, Howard's Conan, disappears in the writing of others, becoming a buffoonish barbarian pseudo-god, a "barbarian" in every caricatured sense of the word, a moron, a being of pure instinct and no intellect, the sort of character Arnold Schwarzenneger might play, rather than a real actor with a real brain (say Tom Hardy).
The stand out stories: "The Tower of the Elephant" (my favourite to teach), "Queen of the Black Coast" (recently adapted and serialized beautifully by Brian Wood for Dark Horse Comics), "Black Colossus," and "The Devil in Iron" are some of the finest short stories ever put to typewriter -- by anyone.
If the only Conan you know is the Conan co-opted by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Robert Jordan et al., and you enjoyed their pulpy goodness well enough, do yourself a favour and read the real thing. Robert E. Howard was the real deal, and I'll be surprised if he disappoints you.
One final word: the narrator of the audiobook -- Todd McClaren -- is excellent. His voice his clear, his feminine voice avoids insipidity, and the way he paces the tales is impeccable. I'll be seeking his voice out in the future.
Listening to this collection, one gets a full picture of Howard's Cimmerian. Not the "barbarian" his copycats like to present (it's interesting to note that Howard's Conan only ever refers to himself as a Cimmerian), but the man with powerful personal ethics, a good man born of a bellicose tribe in a time of war, a man whose lustiness is lustful rather than rapacious, a man as capable of personal brutality as he is of noble heroism as he is of tactical genius as he is of creeping stealth as he is shocking kindness as he is geniune responsibility. Howard's Conan is a possible man, a realistic man, a man who does great things and travels far -- rising from thief/pirate to general/king -- but a man who, despite his titular status, suffers consequences and faces situations with real stakes.
That Conan, Howard's Conan, disappears in the writing of others, becoming a buffoonish barbarian pseudo-god, a "barbarian" in every caricatured sense of the word, a moron, a being of pure instinct and no intellect, the sort of character Arnold Schwarzenneger might play, rather than a real actor with a real brain (say Tom Hardy).
The stand out stories: "The Tower of the Elephant" (my favourite to teach), "Queen of the Black Coast" (recently adapted and serialized beautifully by Brian Wood for Dark Horse Comics), "Black Colossus," and "The Devil in Iron" are some of the finest short stories ever put to typewriter -- by anyone.
If the only Conan you know is the Conan co-opted by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Robert Jordan et al., and you enjoyed their pulpy goodness well enough, do yourself a favour and read the real thing. Robert E. Howard was the real deal, and I'll be surprised if he disappoints you.
One final word: the narrator of the audiobook -- Todd McClaren -- is excellent. His voice his clear, his feminine voice avoids insipidity, and the way he paces the tales is impeccable. I'll be seeking his voice out in the future.
February 22, 2010
What needs to be said? It's Conan. If you've only seen the movie...do yourself a favor and take a look at these pulp greats.
Like many Conan is one of my first introductions into fantasy and Conan personifies the Sword and Sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. He was great to read when Howard came up with him and he's still a great read today.
This is volume one of a three volume set released with Howard's original texts. It contains:
"The Phoenix on the Sword"
"The Frost Giant's Daughter"
"The God in the Bowl"
"The Tower of the Elephant"
"The Scarlet Citadel"
"Queen of the Black Coast"
"Black Colossus"
"Iron Shadows in the Moon"
"Xuthal of the Dusk"
"The Pool of the Black One"
"Rogues in the House"
"The Vale of Lost Women"
"The Devil in Iron"
Like many Conan is one of my first introductions into fantasy and Conan personifies the Sword and Sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. He was great to read when Howard came up with him and he's still a great read today.
This is volume one of a three volume set released with Howard's original texts. It contains:
"The Phoenix on the Sword"
"The Frost Giant's Daughter"
"The God in the Bowl"
"The Tower of the Elephant"
"The Scarlet Citadel"
"Queen of the Black Coast"
"Black Colossus"
"Iron Shadows in the Moon"
"Xuthal of the Dusk"
"The Pool of the Black One"
"Rogues in the House"
"The Vale of Lost Women"
"The Devil in Iron"
January 27, 2016
YES!! The Conan stories restored to their original texts. Read Conan as Howard intended him to be. You will find that Conan is more than just a big semi-naked barbarian with a sword. He speaks and reads many languages and thinks his way through alot of what he encounters. But then when that doesn't work he can swing a sword with the best of them. Highly recommended
March 2, 2021
This is probably considered heresy, but Conan < Solomon Kane
September 10, 2016
Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.
I’ve finally come around to reading sword and sorcery, and by Crom, Conan was the perfect entrance!
Conan has always been synonymous with Arnold Schwarzenegger in my mind, but that’s all been changed now that I’ve read Robert E. Howard’s original creation. I wish I could put down some specific comparisons, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen those movies. All I know is that when I was reading these stories, I had a very different picture in my head than what I was expecting, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked this Conan more than I thought I would.
Interestingly, Conan reminded me of one of my favorite characters of all time, Uhtred of Bebbanburg from Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Series. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed these stories so much. But research as I might I couldn’t confirm my suspicion that Mr. Cornwell may have been influenced by this great barbarian. Not that it matters anyway. It wouldn’t change my view on either character. I guess I just love that they share a freedom from the constraints of civilization without losing basic human decency.
As far as the stories themselves, they were a lot of fun, but since they were written in no particular order they did feel disjointed. Each adventure is from a random moment in Conan’s life - as Howard once explained - “I’ve always felt less as creating them than as if I were chronicling his adventure as he told them to me. That’s why they skip about so much.” At first, I admit I was waiting for a connection between the stories, but the more I read the more I just enjoyed them for what they were. Memories. And although, the stories themselves may seem a bit shallow, a brief history of the world is provided at the end of the book. This gives the reader a better look at the mythological time of Conan, which I was very surprised to see was pretty in depth – making me all the more eager to get my hands on Howard’s only novel ever published, Conan the Conqueror.
I’ll tell you what made these so enjoyable for me - besides my Uhtred connection. Howard’s writing is so beautiful and expressive. Not to mention, for a set of stories written in the 1930’s, they feel fairly current. Here’s a taste of his skillful imagery:
…the allied army moved forward like a shimmering ocean of steel.
The whole plain shook to the rumbling avalanche of hoofs, and the shimmer of gold and steel dazzled the watchers on the towers of Shamar.
Rising above the black denseness of the trees and above the waving fronds, the moon silvered the river, and their wake became a rippling scintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shining road of bursting jewels.
I highlighted many similar lines as I read. They didn’t have any particular relevance – I just loved how wonderfully vivid all his descriptions were. The images were so crisp in my mind I felt like I was right beside Conan in the midst of his adventures. Howard does all the work for you. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy.
Unfortunately, the e-book from my library was missing all the awesome artwork that graces the pages of the paper edition, but I had little choice other than buying it (which I may do anyway), as the only other copy was put into storage – apparently it’s not a very popular book, which is unfortunate. These stories may not get the credit they’re due because of the films, or maybe the fact they were first written in the 1930’s, or maybe even because not everyone enjoys short stories, but I’m here to tell all you adventure loving readers looking for a break from your usual fare– These are worth your time.
April 6, 2008
They've re-released a load of Howard's stuff after it's been out of print for ages, I used to pick it up at bookstalls and second hand bookshops. Great stuff, not very politically correct but hugely enjoyable fast paced stories, mainly all swordfights and heaving bosoms, dark sorcery and cavalry charges, betrayal and lusty gossamer clad dancing girls. He's most famous for these, his "Conan" stories. That was when I was about 14...probably explains a lot. Imprinted with idea that drinking heavily and muttering "Crom" under my breath while oggling tottie...it's a recipe for disaster. It was only a matter of time before I was quaffing mead, reading Beowulf and the Eddas, and wondering why my Neanderthal approach to young fillies was failing miserably. I came this close to joining a re-enactment society, but growing up on Paisley meant that real blade related action was never that far away. Anyway, this early exposure to Howard is maybe why I was never a big Lord Of The Rings fan, what takes Tolkien 50 pages to write Howard does in a paragraph, and there's no elvish poetry to contend with (did I mention the bosoms? Frodo doesn't get much of that action). I read some of the "Conan" books before trying LOTR and, when I did, I think I must have given up somewhere in the first 100 pages during a description of Gandalf's pipe...still in the Shire. Conan would have killed a King, gained a kingdom, been betrayed by a possessed henchman, fought a necromancer, rescued a princess, lost her to said necromancer, led a cavalry charge, "fought against dark sorcery", killed a giant snake, been captured, escaped, killed the wizard, rescued the princess, been back in the castle with a crown on his head in time for page 98.
August 20, 2020
That's it. That's the review.
March 15, 2022
The Phoenix on the Sword - 3/5
Conan is a hardcore badass that loves danger, adventure and beautiful maidens as much as he enjoys bashing in some heads with heavy weapons; man and monster alike. He might not be the deepest in terms of character, but you have to admire the sheer amount of adrenaline, excitement and gory intensity he delivers with nearly every scene he's involved in. Although this is the first tale in the Conan series, it takes place near the very end of his journey in terms of chronology. The prose in this tale is incredibly vivid but it's also a bit messy and hard to follow at times, Robert's writing improved immensely as the series progressed. Hour of the Dragon for example is one of my all time favorite sword & sorcery books. Even though it's not quite up to par with the later Conan tales, it's still an entertaining introduction to the legendary barbarian himself.
***
The Frost-Giant's Daughter - 3/5
A battle between Conan's companions and a war-party of Vanir ends with Conan, the sole survivor of his band, facing the final surviving Vanir, Heimdul. Conan is victorious but so weakened he collapses onto the battlefield. In a dreamlike state, Conan encounters Atali, the daughter of the god Ymir, in the frozen wastes of the north and chases after her as she lures him with demeaning taunts and laughter.
Conan exerts himself from chasing her until he passes out, waking up to discover that quite a few of his companions actually survived and came to his rescue while he was unconscious. Upon being reunited with his companions, Conan tells them the story of his strange encounter with the Frost Giant's Daughter. This tale steers away from action and adventure in favor of a bit of slapstick humor featuring our barbarian Conan.
***
The God in the Bowl - 3/5
Conan plies his trade as a thief in the city of Numalia. He is caught while attempting to steal a valuable object from a museum and becomes the suspect in the death of the museum's owner.
It's a taste of bloody Conan action with a detective fiction twist. The story primarily takes place over a long interrogation scene that's surprisingly well-crafted for an early fantasy tale. The twist at the end was certainly neat, but it was very rushed and could've had more build-up. It was nice to see the unshakable barbarian get a taste of fear.
***
The Tower of the Elephant - 4/5
This story really serves to flesh out the lore and history of Conan's world, adding a ton of context and emotional value to all of the previous stories as well as all that came after it. Conan teams up with the master thief Taurus to climb the Tower of the Elephant in order to obtain a rare jewel that awaits them at the very top. On their way up the tower, they encounter a massive spider and things turn nasty. After dealing with the spider, Conan makes it to the top of the tower and encounters something otherworldly. Conan’s meeting with the Lovecraftian entity is reminiscent to the wonderfully eldritch encounter in Lovecraft's Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. We learn a lot about the lore, the setting and the history of Conan's age which adds a much-needed layer of world-building to make the stories feel more realistic.
***
The Scarlet Citadel - 3/5
Conan teams up with the mysterious sorcerer Pelias who happens to share Conan's desire for revenge against the man threatening his kingdom. After being captured through treachery and thrown into an eldritch dungeon, Conan escapes with Pelias's help and the two unleash chaos against their imprisoners. It's a massive battle sequence, an orgiastic clash of blades and magic. The story was on the weaker side but I enjoyed seeing the sadistic, shapeshifting sorcerer Pelias in action alongside Conan's usual chaotic antics.
***
Queen of the Black Coast - 4/5
Conan joins the pirate crew of Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast, until the exploration of an ancient city and an encounter with the primordial creature that dwells within wreck havoc on the crew. Fun, exciting and the prose is candy for the eyes. It's everything I look for in a Conan story and it's a nice follow-up to Iron Shadows in the Moon which ended abruptly. My only complaint this time around is that the villain/monster felt underwhelming and had no time to develop compared to many other villains in the series. The final battle was flashy and cool, but it lacked emotional substance because of the lack of characterization. Other than that, still Conan at its finest with lots of bloody, sexy action.
***
Black Colossus - 4/5
Princess Yasmela, the city of Khoraja's remaining sovereign, has been haunted by terrifying apparitions of the evil wizard Natohk. When Natohk threatens to bring his demonic hordes to Khoraja, Yasmela prays to the god Mitra for help. Mitra responds and tells her to place the fate of her entire kingdom into the hands of the first man she meets out in the city streets, and that man just so happens to be a drunk and feisty Conan.
Not quite as adventurous or horrific as the best works in the series, but a clean and fun ride with a creepy villain nonetheless. It was also nice seeing Conan show off his skills in front of a bunch of prudish nobles that looked down on him as a savage unworthy of their attention or respect.
***
Iron Shadows in the Moon - 3/5
Escaping a massacre that claimed his army, Conan and an abandoned princess make their way to a haunted and occupied island at the same time as a band of pirates. A fairly fun voyage, but no exciting conclusion happens as the story cuts off very abruptly and sets itself up for the next volume. I feel like both volumes should've just been included in the same story since this is literally just one half of something with no conclusion. Other than that big gripe, the writing and pacing is still superb and I hope the next volume does this one justice for all it has set up. Conan becomes the leader of a pirate crew which could prove to be a fun little escapade.
***
Xuthal of the Dusk - 4/5
Driven by the intense heat of the desert, Conan and his lovely companion seek water and food in a nearby city. Conan and his companion Natala discover the nearly-abandoned city of Xuthal in the desert, occupied only by a Stygian witch and a shadowy demon. The city of Xuthal is full of haunting imagery, as all of its inhabitants are frozen in a state of constant dreaming. Anyone that dares to wake them will be shown no mercy. It's a chilling premise with a strong Lovecraftian horror vibe. Despite how nightmarish the story is, the ending is surprisingly humorous and it left me with a smile on my face after finishing the tale.
***
The Pool of the Black One - 3/5
Conan makes himself the captain of a pirate vessel and travels to a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation. The violence, action and excitement were all on point as usual, but the elements of racism in this particular tale were unnecessary to the point of being uncomfortable to read. I prefer watching Conan wage epic battles against horrifying demons and armies of mad soldiers, not engage in racist drivel.
***
Rogues in the House - 4/5
Conan is drawn into a feud between a priest and a nobleman in Corinthia which leads him to be trapped in a decrepit house that contains a terrifying beast within it. Very simplistic in comparison to many other tales in the series, which is not a bad thing by any means. Instead of focusing on expanding the lore and the development of Conan, we have a straightforward plot about taking down a brutal baddie to settle a deadly dispute. Lots of horrific imagery and badass action scenes. No more, no less. Pure and simple fun.
***
The Devil in Iron - 3/5
While pursuing an enslaved princess, Conan is led into a trap on a seemingly abandoned island. On this island, Conan discovers a slumbered, resurrected city which is watched over by an ancient evil. It reads like several of the older stories stitched together with a few unrealized new ideas. Not bad, but it feels a bit uninspired at times and doesn’t bring anything new to the expanding universe. Just like Queen of the Black Coast, the villain doesn’t offer much either and the ending after Conan saves the girl feels awkward because he forces herself on her a bit too hard. She takes a liking to Conan, but it still feels a bit cringy.
***
The Vale of Lost Women - 1/5
I think this is the absolute worst of the Conan stories. I’ve enjoyed many of them and even gave Hour of the Dragon a 5 Star review, but this one is just scathing with racism, sexism and a lousy plot that can’t save it in any way. A shame.
Conan is a hardcore badass that loves danger, adventure and beautiful maidens as much as he enjoys bashing in some heads with heavy weapons; man and monster alike. He might not be the deepest in terms of character, but you have to admire the sheer amount of adrenaline, excitement and gory intensity he delivers with nearly every scene he's involved in. Although this is the first tale in the Conan series, it takes place near the very end of his journey in terms of chronology. The prose in this tale is incredibly vivid but it's also a bit messy and hard to follow at times, Robert's writing improved immensely as the series progressed. Hour of the Dragon for example is one of my all time favorite sword & sorcery books. Even though it's not quite up to par with the later Conan tales, it's still an entertaining introduction to the legendary barbarian himself.
***
The Frost-Giant's Daughter - 3/5
A battle between Conan's companions and a war-party of Vanir ends with Conan, the sole survivor of his band, facing the final surviving Vanir, Heimdul. Conan is victorious but so weakened he collapses onto the battlefield. In a dreamlike state, Conan encounters Atali, the daughter of the god Ymir, in the frozen wastes of the north and chases after her as she lures him with demeaning taunts and laughter.
Conan exerts himself from chasing her until he passes out, waking up to discover that quite a few of his companions actually survived and came to his rescue while he was unconscious. Upon being reunited with his companions, Conan tells them the story of his strange encounter with the Frost Giant's Daughter. This tale steers away from action and adventure in favor of a bit of slapstick humor featuring our barbarian Conan.
***
The God in the Bowl - 3/5
Conan plies his trade as a thief in the city of Numalia. He is caught while attempting to steal a valuable object from a museum and becomes the suspect in the death of the museum's owner.
It's a taste of bloody Conan action with a detective fiction twist. The story primarily takes place over a long interrogation scene that's surprisingly well-crafted for an early fantasy tale. The twist at the end was certainly neat, but it was very rushed and could've had more build-up. It was nice to see the unshakable barbarian get a taste of fear.
***
The Tower of the Elephant - 4/5
This story really serves to flesh out the lore and history of Conan's world, adding a ton of context and emotional value to all of the previous stories as well as all that came after it. Conan teams up with the master thief Taurus to climb the Tower of the Elephant in order to obtain a rare jewel that awaits them at the very top. On their way up the tower, they encounter a massive spider and things turn nasty. After dealing with the spider, Conan makes it to the top of the tower and encounters something otherworldly. Conan’s meeting with the Lovecraftian entity is reminiscent to the wonderfully eldritch encounter in Lovecraft's Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. We learn a lot about the lore, the setting and the history of Conan's age which adds a much-needed layer of world-building to make the stories feel more realistic.
***
The Scarlet Citadel - 3/5
Conan teams up with the mysterious sorcerer Pelias who happens to share Conan's desire for revenge against the man threatening his kingdom. After being captured through treachery and thrown into an eldritch dungeon, Conan escapes with Pelias's help and the two unleash chaos against their imprisoners. It's a massive battle sequence, an orgiastic clash of blades and magic. The story was on the weaker side but I enjoyed seeing the sadistic, shapeshifting sorcerer Pelias in action alongside Conan's usual chaotic antics.
***
Queen of the Black Coast - 4/5
Conan joins the pirate crew of Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast, until the exploration of an ancient city and an encounter with the primordial creature that dwells within wreck havoc on the crew. Fun, exciting and the prose is candy for the eyes. It's everything I look for in a Conan story and it's a nice follow-up to Iron Shadows in the Moon which ended abruptly. My only complaint this time around is that the villain/monster felt underwhelming and had no time to develop compared to many other villains in the series. The final battle was flashy and cool, but it lacked emotional substance because of the lack of characterization. Other than that, still Conan at its finest with lots of bloody, sexy action.
***
Black Colossus - 4/5
Princess Yasmela, the city of Khoraja's remaining sovereign, has been haunted by terrifying apparitions of the evil wizard Natohk. When Natohk threatens to bring his demonic hordes to Khoraja, Yasmela prays to the god Mitra for help. Mitra responds and tells her to place the fate of her entire kingdom into the hands of the first man she meets out in the city streets, and that man just so happens to be a drunk and feisty Conan.
Not quite as adventurous or horrific as the best works in the series, but a clean and fun ride with a creepy villain nonetheless. It was also nice seeing Conan show off his skills in front of a bunch of prudish nobles that looked down on him as a savage unworthy of their attention or respect.
***
Iron Shadows in the Moon - 3/5
Escaping a massacre that claimed his army, Conan and an abandoned princess make their way to a haunted and occupied island at the same time as a band of pirates. A fairly fun voyage, but no exciting conclusion happens as the story cuts off very abruptly and sets itself up for the next volume. I feel like both volumes should've just been included in the same story since this is literally just one half of something with no conclusion. Other than that big gripe, the writing and pacing is still superb and I hope the next volume does this one justice for all it has set up. Conan becomes the leader of a pirate crew which could prove to be a fun little escapade.
***
Xuthal of the Dusk - 4/5
Driven by the intense heat of the desert, Conan and his lovely companion seek water and food in a nearby city. Conan and his companion Natala discover the nearly-abandoned city of Xuthal in the desert, occupied only by a Stygian witch and a shadowy demon. The city of Xuthal is full of haunting imagery, as all of its inhabitants are frozen in a state of constant dreaming. Anyone that dares to wake them will be shown no mercy. It's a chilling premise with a strong Lovecraftian horror vibe. Despite how nightmarish the story is, the ending is surprisingly humorous and it left me with a smile on my face after finishing the tale.
***
The Pool of the Black One - 3/5
Conan makes himself the captain of a pirate vessel and travels to a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation. The violence, action and excitement were all on point as usual, but the elements of racism in this particular tale were unnecessary to the point of being uncomfortable to read. I prefer watching Conan wage epic battles against horrifying demons and armies of mad soldiers, not engage in racist drivel.
***
Rogues in the House - 4/5
Conan is drawn into a feud between a priest and a nobleman in Corinthia which leads him to be trapped in a decrepit house that contains a terrifying beast within it. Very simplistic in comparison to many other tales in the series, which is not a bad thing by any means. Instead of focusing on expanding the lore and the development of Conan, we have a straightforward plot about taking down a brutal baddie to settle a deadly dispute. Lots of horrific imagery and badass action scenes. No more, no less. Pure and simple fun.
***
The Devil in Iron - 3/5
While pursuing an enslaved princess, Conan is led into a trap on a seemingly abandoned island. On this island, Conan discovers a slumbered, resurrected city which is watched over by an ancient evil. It reads like several of the older stories stitched together with a few unrealized new ideas. Not bad, but it feels a bit uninspired at times and doesn’t bring anything new to the expanding universe. Just like Queen of the Black Coast, the villain doesn’t offer much either and the ending after Conan saves the girl feels awkward because he forces herself on her a bit too hard. She takes a liking to Conan, but it still feels a bit cringy.
***
The Vale of Lost Women - 1/5
I think this is the absolute worst of the Conan stories. I’ve enjoyed many of them and even gave Hour of the Dragon a 5 Star review, but this one is just scathing with racism, sexism and a lousy plot that can’t save it in any way. A shame.
June 19, 2024
I enjoyed this book but I did get tired of reading it part way through. The stories do get repetitive. I think this is due to the fact that they were published separately in magazines and not all as one book. This does not diminish Howard's importance in the sword and sorcery genre. I would prefer to read them in serial form. I will do that in future when I get to the other 2 books. The DelRey books are wonderful, great artwork, and there are unfinished drafts as well as some essays in the back of all the books.
April 24, 2017
At some point in my childhood, I probably would have really enjoyed these stories. They aspire to scratch an itch I definitely had at the time, a militaristic presentation of ancient history with a mythological flair. It reminds me of the days I spent ogling the Atlas of World Military History, devising pantheons that were really just cheap riffs on Classical mythologies, and reading much better fantasy. Later works that built on Howard’s foundation but took it in much better directions: things like David Eddings’ oeuvre, which I think is maybe a fair comparison (insofar as they’re both pulpy genre fiction with no aspirations to raise fantasy into interesting territory, at least).
At that time of my life, I would maybe not have cared about, or even particularly noticed, Conan’s many, deep flaws. It is fantasy’s Worst Self. Its only redeeming factor, the only reason anyone (including me—I had a pretty good idea of how bad it would be) would read it today is for the historical perspective. The only redeeming trait about these stories is that they bear the seed of the modern fantasy genre—though how redeeming that is presumably depends on your opinion of the genre. The historical perspective is valuable, though, if only insofar as it shows how far we’ve come. Comparing Logen Ninefingers to his barbarian precursor shows the nuance and depth of Joe Abercrombie’s work in stark contrast.
I decided to read Conan because of the central place it holds in fantasy history. That impulse is definitely vindicated. It is at once entirely familiar, echoing the dashing heroes, evil sorcerers, gleaming treasure, and stone-built trap-filled orientalist tombs of every fantasy game ever. It’s clear that Conan has as much of an influence on especially games in fantasy, if not novels, as Tolkien. On the other hand, it is surprisingly close to Weird Horror, a marriage of genres I had (quite naively, apparently) thought to be a recent phenomenon. It also provides the most literal point of evidence imaginable for my old (and obv unoriginal) observation that fantasy worlds are drawn up to mimic a (probably fictive) worldview of late medieval Europe: Howard quite literally drew the maps for the Conan world over a map of Europe and North Africa (and god it is so boring, all the countries are squares, there are no oceans between them, ugh).
But I actually had some hope for this book, since it is included in Keely's fantasy recommendations list, along with many other titles I love and respect. It’s insane and deeply suspicious that Game of Thrones and Borges didn’t make the list, but otherwise it’s a good list, and it’s treated me well for recommendations. It got me a lot further into fantasy than I was when I started exploring the genre consciously, at least. I just can’t handle how bad Keely’s review of Conan is, bending over backward to apologize for Howard’s most glaring flaws by doing what seems to me like an irresponsibly shallow read. Though I’ll acknowledge up front that a lot of this may just be accounted for by differences in taste and political bias.
I feel like I’m beating a horse that ought to be long-dead with this, but given how many four and five star reviews there are here, I’m going to tackle some of the ideas in this review.
Howard’s setting, the “Hyborian Age” is an admitted smokescreen for him to play fast and loose with history. I have no problem with that idea. While it seems self-evident that doing the research, integrating your fantasy elements, and owning up to the limitations of the alt-history premise is a recipe for better fiction, I can see why someone who respected history might shy away from that tack. The alternative, of course, is creating your own world, something that has now become blasé in fantasy, though it must have been more of a novelty in Howard’s time, before Middle-Earth was conceived.
What Conan does, instead, is simply draw on historical resonance to populate a largely new world. The geography, the names of places and races are changed, but never enough to distort their recognition by contemporary audiences. Who could mistake the hook-nosed Shemites? Conan consistently leads northern, white armies against southern, non-white foes, often led by sorcerers (who are also literal devil-worshippers in the theology of the north) who can only defeat the stronger but honorable northmen by devious tricks and magic.
Keely tells us that our reaction to these elements is anachronistic “political correctness,” that they’re genuine tidbits of historical verisimilitude. This is an old, tired argument, and it just crumbles on close inspection here. Howard avowed his own disinterest in such faithfulness, and there are more places where he skews history to match racist notions than the opposite. There’s no critical examination of how gender and race were treated in historical societies, no cultural framework that distances the author from the characters (quite the opposite, given Conan’s extreme Gary Stuishness). No, it’s clear that all of the gender and race issues at the core of this series are there because Howard wanted them there—this is his fantasy version of the world. And I see no reason to blame that on his audience—dude was close writing friends with HP Lovecraft, who was ahead of his time on racism, closer to the Nazis than the general public of his day.
In terms of sexual politics, Keely makes a different argument, which on the surface seems a bit more plausible. Conan spends a lot of time bluntly winning over and (implicitly—it’s not even as fun as if it were just smut) fucking (exclusively white, regardless of where the story takes place) beautiful women. And often (not exclusively, as Keely claims) those stories are told from the point of view of the woman herself. This provides a veneer of sexual agency, of mutual enthusiastic consent, but I don’t know how any intelligent reader can take that at face value. The central point, to me, is that the language Howard uses to describe the way these women are attracted to Conan is the same language he uses elsewhere to simply describe Conan as part of the narration. Moreover, while these sexual conquests often have roles of power, their position as Princess of Pirate Queen is not an element of characterization. There is no characterization. Their role is to be a mirror, reflecting Conan’s beauty back at him, providing him an opportunity to emasculate them by comparison as their martial and political strength is reduced to a wilting urge to submit sexually.
All that is not to mention that, while Keely insists that “He doesn't pressure women, or conquer them, or trade for sex,” there is a whole story in here in which Conan chases a teasing ice-lady and would defo have committed some sexual violence if she hadn’t been rescued by a literal deus ex machina. And another scenario in which Conan rips off a woman’s veil in an alley at night to ascertain her social class (or something like that—either way, she was deceiving him!). The language used is about as rapey as you might imagine it to be (although that’s not to say later fantasy authors haven’t done worse).
Perhaps it’s unfair to dissect these stories politically (I obviously don’t think so, but for the sake of argument etc). They were meant to be considered as fun adventure romps. Do they succeed? IMO, they’re terribly dull, full of exposition, light on character and interesting action, shallow in their depictions of monsters (they're all either spooky snakes or ape-men, cmon), with flavor that is at least in retrospect as dull and tired as anything could possibly be.
In his review, Keely insists that there’s something Howard has achieved in his economical plotting that other writers take thousands of pages to fail at. I’m not sure what that would be (though I suppose evidence of absence etc, can’t rule out the possibility I’m just not giving it a fair enough appraisal). The stories genuinely seem to be written around a single end: jerking off the title character. The plot does nothing but create opportunities for him to show off, put him in situations that highlight his various virtues. Other characters barely exist other than for him to contrast himself with (in the case of fat, civilized men), fuck, or murder. The settings are bland unless they’re exoticized, and they are exotic in bland ways. Nothing feels real or particular—it lacks grit, even. Conan’s arc is a smooth rise to power, facilitated by shallow plot devices and fawning comrades and swooning princesses, with no time to stop and reflect.
There is really nothing to these stories other than Conan, and Conan is nothing but an avatar of Howard’s wish fulfillment. They’re a bald-faced paean to racialized anarcho-fascist ultraviolence. They love armies but hate nations and taxes. The nihilist self-aggrandizement might be interesting if it weren’t so oblivious and boring. It’s not a realist depiction of the clashes of nations; it unironically finds glory in the guts and gore of fights it has no investment in. Political structures are exposited to showcase their corruption and lack of honor, as a matter of sort of general ideology, simply to contrast with Conan’s (and presumably Howard’s) respect for simple man-to-man respect or something. The whole worldview is so familiarly political that it’s hard for me to understand anyone mistaking it for subtlety, or anything redeeming. I guess the fact that this Breitbart asshole likes Conan and hates Joe Abercrombie says about as much as I can in what is this, 1600 words? Sheesh, rambled a bit, sorry.
At that time of my life, I would maybe not have cared about, or even particularly noticed, Conan’s many, deep flaws. It is fantasy’s Worst Self. Its only redeeming factor, the only reason anyone (including me—I had a pretty good idea of how bad it would be) would read it today is for the historical perspective. The only redeeming trait about these stories is that they bear the seed of the modern fantasy genre—though how redeeming that is presumably depends on your opinion of the genre. The historical perspective is valuable, though, if only insofar as it shows how far we’ve come. Comparing Logen Ninefingers to his barbarian precursor shows the nuance and depth of Joe Abercrombie’s work in stark contrast.
I decided to read Conan because of the central place it holds in fantasy history. That impulse is definitely vindicated. It is at once entirely familiar, echoing the dashing heroes, evil sorcerers, gleaming treasure, and stone-built trap-filled orientalist tombs of every fantasy game ever. It’s clear that Conan has as much of an influence on especially games in fantasy, if not novels, as Tolkien. On the other hand, it is surprisingly close to Weird Horror, a marriage of genres I had (quite naively, apparently) thought to be a recent phenomenon. It also provides the most literal point of evidence imaginable for my old (and obv unoriginal) observation that fantasy worlds are drawn up to mimic a (probably fictive) worldview of late medieval Europe: Howard quite literally drew the maps for the Conan world over a map of Europe and North Africa (and god it is so boring, all the countries are squares, there are no oceans between them, ugh).
But I actually had some hope for this book, since it is included in Keely's fantasy recommendations list, along with many other titles I love and respect. It’s insane and deeply suspicious that Game of Thrones and Borges didn’t make the list, but otherwise it’s a good list, and it’s treated me well for recommendations. It got me a lot further into fantasy than I was when I started exploring the genre consciously, at least. I just can’t handle how bad Keely’s review of Conan is, bending over backward to apologize for Howard’s most glaring flaws by doing what seems to me like an irresponsibly shallow read. Though I’ll acknowledge up front that a lot of this may just be accounted for by differences in taste and political bias.
I feel like I’m beating a horse that ought to be long-dead with this, but given how many four and five star reviews there are here, I’m going to tackle some of the ideas in this review.
Howard’s setting, the “Hyborian Age” is an admitted smokescreen for him to play fast and loose with history. I have no problem with that idea. While it seems self-evident that doing the research, integrating your fantasy elements, and owning up to the limitations of the alt-history premise is a recipe for better fiction, I can see why someone who respected history might shy away from that tack. The alternative, of course, is creating your own world, something that has now become blasé in fantasy, though it must have been more of a novelty in Howard’s time, before Middle-Earth was conceived.
What Conan does, instead, is simply draw on historical resonance to populate a largely new world. The geography, the names of places and races are changed, but never enough to distort their recognition by contemporary audiences. Who could mistake the hook-nosed Shemites? Conan consistently leads northern, white armies against southern, non-white foes, often led by sorcerers (who are also literal devil-worshippers in the theology of the north) who can only defeat the stronger but honorable northmen by devious tricks and magic.
Keely tells us that our reaction to these elements is anachronistic “political correctness,” that they’re genuine tidbits of historical verisimilitude. This is an old, tired argument, and it just crumbles on close inspection here. Howard avowed his own disinterest in such faithfulness, and there are more places where he skews history to match racist notions than the opposite. There’s no critical examination of how gender and race were treated in historical societies, no cultural framework that distances the author from the characters (quite the opposite, given Conan’s extreme Gary Stuishness). No, it’s clear that all of the gender and race issues at the core of this series are there because Howard wanted them there—this is his fantasy version of the world. And I see no reason to blame that on his audience—dude was close writing friends with HP Lovecraft, who was ahead of his time on racism, closer to the Nazis than the general public of his day.
In terms of sexual politics, Keely makes a different argument, which on the surface seems a bit more plausible. Conan spends a lot of time bluntly winning over and (implicitly—it’s not even as fun as if it were just smut) fucking (exclusively white, regardless of where the story takes place) beautiful women. And often (not exclusively, as Keely claims) those stories are told from the point of view of the woman herself. This provides a veneer of sexual agency, of mutual enthusiastic consent, but I don’t know how any intelligent reader can take that at face value. The central point, to me, is that the language Howard uses to describe the way these women are attracted to Conan is the same language he uses elsewhere to simply describe Conan as part of the narration. Moreover, while these sexual conquests often have roles of power, their position as Princess of Pirate Queen is not an element of characterization. There is no characterization. Their role is to be a mirror, reflecting Conan’s beauty back at him, providing him an opportunity to emasculate them by comparison as their martial and political strength is reduced to a wilting urge to submit sexually.
All that is not to mention that, while Keely insists that “He doesn't pressure women, or conquer them, or trade for sex,” there is a whole story in here in which Conan chases a teasing ice-lady and would defo have committed some sexual violence if she hadn’t been rescued by a literal deus ex machina. And another scenario in which Conan rips off a woman’s veil in an alley at night to ascertain her social class (or something like that—either way, she was deceiving him!). The language used is about as rapey as you might imagine it to be (although that’s not to say later fantasy authors haven’t done worse).
Perhaps it’s unfair to dissect these stories politically (I obviously don’t think so, but for the sake of argument etc). They were meant to be considered as fun adventure romps. Do they succeed? IMO, they’re terribly dull, full of exposition, light on character and interesting action, shallow in their depictions of monsters (they're all either spooky snakes or ape-men, cmon), with flavor that is at least in retrospect as dull and tired as anything could possibly be.
In his review, Keely insists that there’s something Howard has achieved in his economical plotting that other writers take thousands of pages to fail at. I’m not sure what that would be (though I suppose evidence of absence etc, can’t rule out the possibility I’m just not giving it a fair enough appraisal). The stories genuinely seem to be written around a single end: jerking off the title character. The plot does nothing but create opportunities for him to show off, put him in situations that highlight his various virtues. Other characters barely exist other than for him to contrast himself with (in the case of fat, civilized men), fuck, or murder. The settings are bland unless they’re exoticized, and they are exotic in bland ways. Nothing feels real or particular—it lacks grit, even. Conan’s arc is a smooth rise to power, facilitated by shallow plot devices and fawning comrades and swooning princesses, with no time to stop and reflect.
There is really nothing to these stories other than Conan, and Conan is nothing but an avatar of Howard’s wish fulfillment. They’re a bald-faced paean to racialized anarcho-fascist ultraviolence. They love armies but hate nations and taxes. The nihilist self-aggrandizement might be interesting if it weren’t so oblivious and boring. It’s not a realist depiction of the clashes of nations; it unironically finds glory in the guts and gore of fights it has no investment in. Political structures are exposited to showcase their corruption and lack of honor, as a matter of sort of general ideology, simply to contrast with Conan’s (and presumably Howard’s) respect for simple man-to-man respect or something. The whole worldview is so familiarly political that it’s hard for me to understand anyone mistaking it for subtlety, or anything redeeming. I guess the fact that this Breitbart asshole likes Conan and hates Joe Abercrombie says about as much as I can in what is this, 1600 words? Sheesh, rambled a bit, sorry.
April 20, 2012
This is huge, terrific, blood-and-thunder stuff of the highest order. The real Conan, not the sanitised version of De Camp or the movies, even though I enjoy the 1982 film for what it is. While at times unbelievable deeds of heroes in stories can be irritating because of a lack of realism, it was these tales that made me decide the difference is all in the quality of writing rather than the likelihood of the acts themselves. After a while you just get so used to rolling with the style of Howard's voice that you don't even raise a brow at Conan being able to knock down a dozen soldiers or take on a vast toad-like fiend with poison tendrils from another universe. Yes, it's a little surprising to note just how good of a writer Howard is, even though he often works with the same archetypes and displays the same bloodymindedness in most of his work, whether he's writing about prehistoric kingdoms or boxers in the ring. There's a certain catharsis to be had in the violence of Howard's stories, and not everyone will be comfortable with that, it has to be said.
But, and I think this is important, the vioelence is always tempered with a little philosophy, and while you might not really want to be "best buds" with Conan, after a while you simply get to know what he's about, and he earns your respect because you know you'd want to be on his side if your city was besieged or you were lost in a wilderness full of enemies. I think it's also relevant to note that there was more to Howard than just Conan, and that even if his heroes are mostly big warrior archetypes, they didn't all necessarily stand for the same thing or want the same aims. Kane is a religious fanatic on a quest in a pagan world, Kull is an exile trying so hard to be a just and fair ruler, and Conan....well, Conan is just out for himself, trying to make his way in the world with his sword and his wits as only he knows how. His actions aren't always moral and he certainly isn't kind for the sake of kindness. But howard doesn't hide Conan's motives; it is, in fact, his brutal honesty that appeals. Though I never truly understood why he wanted to be king of Aquilonia, it's notable that the kingship stories don't really take up a lot of space in Conan's written history, and that "The Phoenix of the Sword" is basically a cannibalised king Kull tale (yes, I think it does work better as a Kull story, myself).
I recently had a debate with a friend about the merits of Conan, who is, after all, a womanising racist and all that. Well, just because we admire and respect Conan doesn't mean we should idealise him, and I really can hardly believe I would have to say this to anyone. In probably the most contentious Conan tale, which happens to be in this book, "The Vale of Lost Women", Conan is working alongside a tribe of dark-skinned natives who are going to sacrifice a beautiful white girl. In the end Conan turns on his allies and he and his freebooters massacre them, and Conan goes off with the girl, telling her that he basically felt he had to save her because she was white and so was he, and it wasn't right that these savages should have her way with her. Sound horrible? Sure it is. But the story also happens to be an incredibly moody and atmospheric piece of writing, and Conan's words can just as easily be interpreted as, "you're an appealing wench and I just decided on a whim that I was going to have you instead. And you'll get to live...how does that sound?" There are other hints of what we'd term politically incorrect sentiments on display in the Conan stories, but, as another friend of mine once said about Howard, "Small town Texas guy in 1930s who never travelled has some ignorant views about stuff. More exciting news after the film."
But enough of the Howard apologetics. The truth is that these stories are great fun, that Howard is always a pleasure to read (if you like this sort of thing!) and that he puts plenty of modern "action-oriented" writers to shame. he churned out dozens and dozens of stories within the space of a few years and then blew his brains out when he was thirty. I believe if he'd not let life crush him so, he would have refined his craft and become a truly well-respected writer who would have penned novels for big publishers once the end of the Depression marked a growing interest in novel-length genre fiction. We'll never know for certain of course, but I feel intense regret that Howard's legacy was so brief, like a quick, surging flame. It is a glorious legacy, though, isn't it?
By the way, you can read these stories in any order at all, and this book does contain some of my favourite Conan tales: "The God of the Bowl", "Rogues in the House", and "Queen of the Black Coast".
But, and I think this is important, the vioelence is always tempered with a little philosophy, and while you might not really want to be "best buds" with Conan, after a while you simply get to know what he's about, and he earns your respect because you know you'd want to be on his side if your city was besieged or you were lost in a wilderness full of enemies. I think it's also relevant to note that there was more to Howard than just Conan, and that even if his heroes are mostly big warrior archetypes, they didn't all necessarily stand for the same thing or want the same aims. Kane is a religious fanatic on a quest in a pagan world, Kull is an exile trying so hard to be a just and fair ruler, and Conan....well, Conan is just out for himself, trying to make his way in the world with his sword and his wits as only he knows how. His actions aren't always moral and he certainly isn't kind for the sake of kindness. But howard doesn't hide Conan's motives; it is, in fact, his brutal honesty that appeals. Though I never truly understood why he wanted to be king of Aquilonia, it's notable that the kingship stories don't really take up a lot of space in Conan's written history, and that "The Phoenix of the Sword" is basically a cannibalised king Kull tale (yes, I think it does work better as a Kull story, myself).
I recently had a debate with a friend about the merits of Conan, who is, after all, a womanising racist and all that. Well, just because we admire and respect Conan doesn't mean we should idealise him, and I really can hardly believe I would have to say this to anyone. In probably the most contentious Conan tale, which happens to be in this book, "The Vale of Lost Women", Conan is working alongside a tribe of dark-skinned natives who are going to sacrifice a beautiful white girl. In the end Conan turns on his allies and he and his freebooters massacre them, and Conan goes off with the girl, telling her that he basically felt he had to save her because she was white and so was he, and it wasn't right that these savages should have her way with her. Sound horrible? Sure it is. But the story also happens to be an incredibly moody and atmospheric piece of writing, and Conan's words can just as easily be interpreted as, "you're an appealing wench and I just decided on a whim that I was going to have you instead. And you'll get to live...how does that sound?" There are other hints of what we'd term politically incorrect sentiments on display in the Conan stories, but, as another friend of mine once said about Howard, "Small town Texas guy in 1930s who never travelled has some ignorant views about stuff. More exciting news after the film."
But enough of the Howard apologetics. The truth is that these stories are great fun, that Howard is always a pleasure to read (if you like this sort of thing!) and that he puts plenty of modern "action-oriented" writers to shame. he churned out dozens and dozens of stories within the space of a few years and then blew his brains out when he was thirty. I believe if he'd not let life crush him so, he would have refined his craft and become a truly well-respected writer who would have penned novels for big publishers once the end of the Depression marked a growing interest in novel-length genre fiction. We'll never know for certain of course, but I feel intense regret that Howard's legacy was so brief, like a quick, surging flame. It is a glorious legacy, though, isn't it?
By the way, you can read these stories in any order at all, and this book does contain some of my favourite Conan tales: "The God of the Bowl", "Rogues in the House", and "Queen of the Black Coast".
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