| Title | : | The Conquering Sword of Conan (Conan the Cimmerian, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0345461533 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780345461537 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 416 |
| Publication | : | First published November 29, 2005 |
Witness, then, Howard at his finest, and Conan at his most savage, in the latest volume featuring the collected works of Robert E. Howard, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Greg Manchess. Prepared directly from the earliest known versions—often Howard’s own manuscripts—are such sword-and-sorcery classics as “The Servants of Bit-Yakin” (formerly published as “Jewels of Gwahlur”), “Beyond the Black River,” “The Black Stranger,” “Man-Eaters of Zamboula” (formerly published as “Shadows in Zamboula”), and, perhaps his most famous adventure of all, “Red Nails.”
The Conquering Sword of Conan includes never-before-published outlines, notes, and story drafts, plus a new introduction, personal correspondence, and the revealing essay “Hyborian Genesis”—which chronicles the history of the creation of the Conan series. Truly, this is heroic fantasy at its finest.
The Conquering Sword of Conan (Conan the Cimmerian, #3) Reviews
-
It's disappointing the way modern critics often fail to address issues of race as they are presented in books from earlier time periods. Sure, when writing of Howard and Lovecraft (or even Twain and Poe) critics will not fail to repeat some notion that their racism is 'an unfortunate artifact of that time and culture'--but that is not the same as actually meeting the issue of race head on and dealing with what it means in a text.
The way an author approaches race is an integral part of their worldview, of the philosophies they explore and the ideas they present. But, it is also an issue that continues to be contentious, and critics rightly fear the harsh response that often comes when we open up that Pandoran box. So instead, we excuse it, or condemn it (it amounts to the same thing), as if by merely pointing it out we can diffuse it, absolve ourselves of actually doing the dirty work of unpacking it: 'I acknowledge that the author was Racist, and that it was Bad--so having got that out of the way, let's move on to my real analysis ...'
But critics cannot be allowed to let themselves off so easily--we much be brave, and push on. In talking about Howard's racism, it's not with the notion that I should defend him , or repair him--or least meaningfully, condemn him--but that, in order to understand Howard, it is necessary to understand how he conceptualized race, how he used it, and what it means to his stories.
As ever, with Howard (not only with his presentation of race, but also sexuality and politics) the surface tends to be grim, resembling familiar forms of prejudice: dark-skinned, menacing foreigners, scanty-clad maidens to be rescued, all problems solvable by a combination of fascist force and Nietzschean will--but beneath that, there is always more subtlety, more awareness, and more irony than Howard tends to get credit for.
In this collection, the racist hypocrisy is actually laid bare in a single narrative moment:
“The Picts were a white race, though swarthy, but the border men never spoke of them as such.”
This is not race as some inescapable, god-given aspect of identity, an inherent piece of the human soul, but as self-identity, self-creation, an act undertaken by men to separate themselves from one another. Conan himself makes the same separation, both in his own words:
“... we can’t have the cursed devils making so free with white men’s heads”
and in the view of others:
“These barbarians live by their own particular code of honor, and Conan would never desert men of his own complection to be slaughtered by people of another race. He’ll help us against the Picts, even though he plans to murder us himself ...”
Yet again and again, Conan’s own cultural background is equated with that of the Picts: he is a barbarian, like them, a wild creature born in the wilderness. The events of Beyond the Black River show Pictish lands being colonized, the natives driven out and replaced by Aquilonian farms and forts--until finally, civilization pushes too far, and the Picts unite and fight back. The Picts are then compared to Conan’s people, the Cimmerians, who also eventually rose up and attacked the Aquilonian fort built in their own lands, destroying all the settlers--a battle where a young Conan fought against the White invaders.
So Conan shares a great deal with the Picts: he is wild like them, not tame like the Aquilonians, and yet he goes to great lengths to differentiate himself from them--using the tool of race to ally himself not with his fellow barbarians, but with ‘civilized men’--while at the same time scorning the softness and ineptitude of the city-born.
Though built in the same mold of
‘Mighty Whitey’ characters like Natty Bummpo or Tarzan--the White man who is both better at woodcraft than the natives and able to outsmart the civilized men--Conan is actually born to it, actually a tribesman who has ‘lifted himself up’. It is unfortunate that Howard does not do more to explore what is clearly a deep internal conflict for Conan, trapped between these worlds, competent in both, and yet unsure of his own racial and cultural loyalties.
The conclusion of the story does provide a kind of resolution, and one which should surprise no fan of Howard's--in his work, it is always barbarism that wins, because barbarism is the more pure, the more natural state of man. For Conan, as much as the trappings of civilization might tempt him, as much as he lives off of it as a scavenger, as a predator, the civilizing influence is always tainted, always stagnating, rotting away at the core, unable to sustain itself against animal man.
It might seem an odd tack to take, for a modern White writer in post-Colonial America--in many ways, civilization had already won, and won big--but that's precisely the point, and Howard's portrayal of this romantic, somewhat tragic figure of the noble primitive adds another wrinkle altogether to his portrayal of race.
By the time of these later tales, Howard was having trouble keeping himself interested in Conan stories. This tended to happen with all his characters as he went on: he would gradually find himself more drawn to the supporting characters, or the politics of the world, or just telling a different kind of story altogether. Hence, these final Conan stories mark a deliberate change on Howard’s part. In his own words, he’d ‘abandoned the exotic settings of lost cities, decaying civilizations, golden domes, marble palaces, silk-clad dancing girls, etc., and thrown my story against a background of rivers, log cabins, frontier outposts, buckskin-clad settlers, and painted tribesmen’.
In short, he was trying to write tales of the American frontier, with the Picts and Cimmerians as the native tribes, and the Aquilonians and Zingarans as then English and Spanish, respectively. Of course, choosing the painted Picts is natural, since they were the rebellious natives whom the Romans pushed out, clearing the forests for lumber and building farms and forts in their place. There is certainly a place for such stories in the ancient world, but unfortunately, Howard’s attempts don’t draw on those earlier portrayals--they are too modern, too American, and the character and world of Conan seem to be a bit lost in this fresh setting.
The ancient empires, strange magics, cosmic horrors, crumbling temples, immortal priests, sensuous ports, and Atlantean curses of Ashton Smith are left behind, as are the stoic Norse sagas which mark Conan's origins--and along with them, the majority of the tone and depth of Hyboria also dissipates, until we’re left with Howardian versions of Hawthorn’s Leatherstocking tales or Sabatini's Captain Blood, inexplicably featuring Conan at their center--well, perhaps not inexplicably: after all, Howard knew that Conan stories would sell.
Indeed, The Black Stranger is actually written along the lines of a Gothic novel--a disgraced count in exile on a desolate island with his beautiful niece, a roguish courtier-turned-pirate after a lost treasure, a deadly and unseasonable storm, and that shadowy threat, looming over all, of the stranger, himself. Conan himself barely shows up through the first half of the story--and when he does, he's dressed in full 17th Century pirate regalia. Perhaps sensing the ill fit, Howard later changed out Conan for a different lead character and updated the setting.
These stories are considered some of Howard's best by a number of critics, as the essays included in the Del Rey edition demonstrate, and they certainly do have some things going for them. As he enters his thirties, Howard's prose becomes tighter, his vocabulary both more varied and more specific--no longer do we see the same crutch words and repetitions that marked the earlier tales. But also gone are the tone and vibrance which set the Conan stories apart.
The actual structure of the stories also leaves something to be desired--they are somewhat piecemeal and meandering, the conflicts often solved by convenient interruptions, and with a general lack of interesting set pieces and stand-out scenes. In quite a few instances, characters act in ways that make little sense in context--in the last story, for example, Conan and others keep switching sides in the middle of combat.
That isn't to say that this new, crisp style of prose couldn't have worked for Howard, were he just writing pirate tales and frontier stories, but adding the additional layers of ancient Hyborea and Conan stretch them too thin, setting them tonally at odds with themselves. Certainly, there is much more of Howard the American in them--the stories are more personal to his experiences, but mixing them with the Conan mythos does them no favors.
Beyond that, the wild Picts, a 'White race who are not called White' become
just another example of over-romanticized natives, that White-guilt urge to go 'back to nature', while at the same time painting the natives as both less and more than human, both pitied and put on a pedestal, but never actually considered as more than an image, a grand symbol for the spiritual enrichment of Whiteness.
The sexual politics are likewise troubled: though Valeria is in some ways a refreshing figure--she is actually competent, seeks her own equality, is skilled with a sword--in other ways she’s more constrained than many of the other female figures in Conan stories. Simply being strong of arm and having masculine traits
does not make a female figure a strong character--and beyond that, it takes for granted that the only way to add strength to a female character is by making her more like a man.
What is missing in the romances of these stories is the woman’s point-of-view which made earlier Conan stories intriguing: that we got to see those women from the inside. They may have been constrained socially, they may not have been physically powerful, but they still chose to act out despite this--what made them strong was the fact that they were willing to question their society and to oppose it. What attracts such a woman to Conan is that he is outside civilization, he is not simply another man who leers over her, seeking to control or purchase her. He is interested in women in a more mutual way.
Unfortunately, with Valeria and dancing-girl Zabibi, we instead get only Conan’s point of view, and he leers and gropes after them unpleasantly as they try to avoid his advances--he even agrees to help Zabibi in exchange for sexual favors, thereby fulfilling the cliche which
Howard earlier subverted in ‘The Vale of the Lost Women’ (though given the conclusion, it’s hinted that he never intended to collect on the bargain, and that it was likely just a ploy on his part to put her off guard). These later stories are less subversive and more cliche--the sort of thing you’d expect from a piece of unremarkable sword & sorcery.
It seems that,
much like Leiber, the later, personal experiments Howard made with his best-known series were much less effective than his early outings. Perhaps it has something to do with the freshness, the wildness of an early writer being a better match for the rollicking adventures of Sword & Sorcery. With time comes polish and ponderousness, which do not match well with the genre, and even in the few examples where Howard does return to the earlier themes, the presentation is lacking--it just feels like old ground retread.
I guess that, for me, the earliest Conan stories are the best--perhaps because, like Conan himself, Howard was still finding his way, still discovering new places, still capable of surprising himself, of being delighted merely to be on the road, weapon in hand, unsure of what might be found over the next hill.
My Suggested Readings in Fantasy -
I knew I had to finish my way through Howard's original Conan stories, (not to be mistaken with any of the future knock-offs in his name, nor mistaken for the comic book OR the ****ing movies, cartoons, or remakes.)
The fact is, Howard, who committed suicide when he was only 30 years old, way back in the mid-30s, has become a legend. His writing is superb despite the number of encroaching racist elements that were so obvious and universal of the time. The descriptions are something quite awesome, on par and with the same kind of energy as any of our modern fantasies, the ones we label epic fantasy, the ones that come in huge tomes with grimdark tones.
Indeed, it is the imaginative feast that comes out of Robert E. Howard's tales, overflowing with real history stirred together into an immense, barbaric soup, that STILL continues to spark our imaginations even today.
Of course, it's not the uber-manly Arnold that is displayed in these pages. I see something more of an Ayn Rand hero or a Heinlein can-do man that spurns all conventions to follow the deepest spirit of Freedom. Freedom from expectation, freedom from custom, freedom from accountability.
This CAN be a noble ideal. It can also be turned utterly dark and nasty. And when Conan comes up against wizards and witches who are the epitome of the other side of this coin, we're never really given a choice in whom we ought to root for. Serial murderers for self-aggrandizement ARE fundamentally different from raids, conquests, and plunders.
Right?
But at least Conan was never a rapist. So it's all okay, right? Nevermind.
I do have one other thing to say, however. I re-watched the original Conan with Arnold and it really set my stomach on edge. It was NOT the real Conan. The real Conan might not have been educated, but he was smart and cunning and lived by values of strength and freedom, and wherever whim and entertainment took him. He never tried to hold on to anything. He was never the idiot oaf of the movie.
Sigh.
If America was supposed to be following a grand idealized freedom, enraptured by the glorious idea of Conan, the American hero, then what we got, almost a hundred years later, was an idiotic ignorant oaf with a beer gut, spouting racial slurs and demanding his entitlements while encouraging the rest of the uneducated hoard to loot their own homes, burn it down, and then congratulate themselves on being the freest society in the world.
*slow clap*
Maybe they ought to read the original Conan and see how he'd treat THEM. -
The third volume of the collection of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories includes the five final Conan stories (listed below along with a rating for each):
The Servants of Bit-Yakin (also published as "Jewels of Gwahlur") - 3/5 - one of the shorter stories in the collection but a fairly good effort overall, featuring Howard's more mature prose and pacing and developing the Conan character in a manner not dissimilar to that of a spaghetti western protagonist
Beyond the Black River - 3/5 - a solid adventure story, well written, but it's hard to shake the feeling that this started as a wild west story and somewhere along the lines got moved to the jungles of the Hyborian Age
The Black Stranger - 4/5 - Conan in the jungle versus the savage Picts, also pirates, lost treasure, and oh yeah a demon too.
The Man-Eaters of Zamboula - 3/5 - this one may not have aged too well: Conan loses money gambling, kills some cannibalistic black guys, and makes a deal with a naked woman to assassinate a priest in exchange for sex
Red Nails - 4/5 -Like "A Fistful of Dollars" - Xotalanc's over there, Tecuhltli's there, me right smack in the middle...
Included also are a Forward and many illustrations by
Gregory Manchess, an Introduction by Editor
Patrice Louinet, several of Howard's unpublished notes, drafts and synopses, the third installment in the "Hyborean Genesis" biography of Howard and Conan, and plenty of other goodies. -
The Conquering Sword of Conan is the third and final volume in Wandering Star's Robert E. Howard collection of Conan stories. I'll be reviewing them as I read them. That's the plan, anyway.
The Servants of Bit-Yatkin: The Servants of Bit-Yatkin is a story about Conan scouring a ruined temple in the jungle for the Teeth of Gwahlur, a cache of priceless jewels. Complicating matters are the priests who have come to the temple to consult the oracle, as well as the deceased Bit-Yatkin's servants.
I always forget how flowery Howard's descriptions are compared to other pulp writers. The man can paint a picture with words. Servants is a pretty good story with a good amount of action and a twist or two. On a side note, are their any Conan stories that don't involve a giant snake and/or an ape man of some sort?
Beyond the Black River: Conan leads a foray into Pictish territory in order to defend a fort. Unfortunately, his raiding party runs afoul of a Pictish shaman who's unifying the local tribes in order to overrun the fort.
BBR reads like a story of white settlers against the Indians. I liked some of the ideas regarding the Pictish shaman and his speaking with the animals. The suspense around Balthus trying to warn the people at the fort was well done.
The Black Stranger: Two pirate factions come to a secluded island for lost treasure and a self-exiled noble is caught in the middle. Unfortunately for the pirates, a certain Cimmerian has already found the treasure...
The Black Stranger was well written but didn't grab me like the previous two stories. For a Conan story, there was a noticeable lack of Conan for a long stretch of it.
The Man-Eaters of Zamboula: Conan stays at an inn where the guests regularly disappear, only to find cannibals kidnap the occupants. Conan's on the trail of said cannibals when he rescues a woman from a gang of them. It seems she has a job for the Cimmerian to undertake for her...
The Man-Eaters of Zamboula is an action-packed tale of wizards, cannibals, and a damsel in distress. While I enjoyed it, never has it been more apparent that Conan is very much a product of the time it was written. There is an undercurrent of racism and sexism that might be hard for modern readers to get past.
Red Nails: Conan and Valeria fight a dinosaur-like monster, then take refuge from it inside a nearly deserted city where the inhabitants have been butchering one another for a century in a pointless war. Little do they know that the queen of one of the factions isn't what she seems...
Red Nails was easily the best story in the book with intrigue, violence, and plot twists a plenty.
Thus concludes my reading of the Wandering Star series of Robert E. Howard Conan stories. I recommend them to all fans of pulp fantasy with two caveats. First, Howard's prose isn't as breezy as people might speculate due to it's pulp origins. Secondly, they are very much a product of the time in which they were written, sexism and racism being what they were in the 30's. Still, Howard writes stories of adventure like no other. -
"I have lived in the Southwest all my life, yet most of my dreams are laid in cold, giant lands of icy wastes and gloomy skies, and of wild, wind-swept fens and wilderness over which sweep great sea-winds, and which are inhabited by shock-headed savages with light fierce eyes. With the exception of one dream, I am never, in these dreams of ancient times, a civilized man. Always am I the barbarian, the skin-clad, tousle-haired, light-eyed wild man, armed with a rude ax or sword, fighting the elements and wild beasts, or grappling with armored hosts marching with the tread of civilized discipline, from fallow fruitful lands and walled cities. This is reflected in my writings."
-Robert E. Howard
"All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over and the lamps expire."
-Suicide note of Robert E. Howard
Enough said. Go read some Conan! -
· Introduction to the world:
The Hyborian Age ★★★★
· Book 1:
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian ★★★★
· Book 2:
The Bloody Crown of Conan ★★★★ -
Farewell Conan, it's been a ride of soul and sorcery and I've loved every story within these collections. I'll inevitable re-read them one day when I am again in the mood for a beefed up, raven-haired maniac with a giant sword. These stories are so much fun, Conan may take himself a little seriously but the writing is superb and each story is individual and unique.
-
The back handful of REH Conan stories are presented in this book and among the best of the Conan stories highlighted by "Red Nails" which features the female swashbuckler Valeria to tag-team with Conan. The story essentially involves warring factions amidst a decayed civilization waging constant battle amidst a city out in the wilderness cutoff from the world for the most part.
"Beyond The Black River" takes place in Conajohara opening with Balthus, a young frontiersman, who soon meets Conan amidst attacking Picts and a supernatural threat from a swamp demon collecting heads. Conan, by this point, is a ranger and takes Batlhus back to Fort Tuscelan near the Black River. A group led by Conan is assigned to remove Pict shaman Zogar Sag before all the Pict tribes can be united in an attack on the fort. Howard creates an cloying and dangerous atmosphere in this story easily among the best.
Quite a good collection including a reprint of REH's map of Hyboria made for two young fans along with an essay. -
Presenting the last of Howard's original Conan stories, from Hyborian lands long, long ago, before "clothing for women" was a thing, these tales are so good . . . and so racist.
The stories in the prior volumes of this complete, writing-order collection of Howard's Conan stories struck me as significantly more openly racist and sexist than the prior ones. Was I simply less sensitive to it previously, or did Howard increasingly let it all hang out over time? I suspect the latter.
The Servants of Bit-Yakin: A multi-layered backstory supports this story, in which a mid-career Conan (post-piracy, but pre-kingship) attempts to solve multiple mysteries affecting his scheme to retrieve a fabled treasure from a long-abandoned temple, isolated from the world in the middle of a huge crater surrounded by dense jungle. It is definitely the most sexist Howard Conan story to date. As usual, there is exactly one female character. Conan, in the process of rescuing her, calls her variously "slut," "trollop," "hussy," and worst of all, "actress". And we're supposed to be impressed when, without hesitation, he gives up the fortune of ten lifetimes to save her. I found the prose less poetic and more purple in places than in Howard's earlier stories.
Beyond the Black River: A very good story if you can ignore the racism, which is a big ask. The primary theme is the clash between barbarism and civilization. Of course Conan is a barbarian and everyone benefits from his nature in this situation, but he's the white kind of barbarian, not like those Picts in the jungle, who the text takes the time to state are not Black, but sufficiently dark-skinned that they are mere savages, not like the noble savage of Conan's ilk. Ugh. Telling the story through Balthus's eyes was effective; even though he was brawny and a woodsman, he of course could not compare to the panther-like Conan's stealth and instincts.
The Black Stranger: (p. 159) "But I'm not going to do that!" Conan roared. "Not because I have any love for you dogs, but because a white man doesn't leave white men, even his enemies, to be butchered by Picts." Also, a child is whipped and called "slut" during the abuse and again afterwards. Other than that, it's a good story with several conflicting factions.
The Man-Eaters of Zamboula: a thrilling, basic Conan story. I loved his confrontation with Baal-pteor; an amazing Conan moment featuring nothing but his raw strength. But again, so racist! There are paragraphs where the every sentence feels the need to emphasize the color of Conan's opponents, as they are painted as savage beasts with "kinky hair".
Red Nails: the last Conan story written by his creator, and one of the best, certainly the most unique. Conan faces a dinosaur-like beast, discovers a lost indoor city, and sees a generations-old conflict through to its end, with Aztec flavor, madmen and monsters, a villain reminescent of H.R. Haggard's She, and one of the few women in Hyboria who holds her own in these stories.
And then
Robert E. Howard died of self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, outside the hospital where his mother lay dying.
I deferred reading the supplementary material in this collection on this pass; it includes Howard's letters, drafts, synopses, hand-drawn maps, and a running essay providing detailed context for the entire span of Howard's career and the setting from which Conan's stories sprung. I will revisit those in some later year. -
Howard's "Conan" stories have a legendary aura around them, but some of their mystique comes from the horrible pastiches written like Conan - and later stuff like DeCamp's actual Conan stories themselves, most of which are sub-par. DAW's third book concludes the Conan cycle with the last bits of uncut, completely raw stories, all as Howard would want them.
Conan stories are best when they capture and magify the gloomy, headstrong personality of the creator, and two of the stories in here, "Beyond the Black River" and "Red Nails" do it perfectly. But the name of Howard's game is passion and lust for life, and since it's something none of his emulators even come close to achieving, the source is the only way to go. -
Red Nails - 4/5
Wandering across the scorching desert in search of adventure, Conan stumbles upon the beautiful and fearsome pirate Valeria. After narrowly escaping from a dragon by making clever use of a poison fruit, Conan and Valeria take refuge in an entirely walled and enclosed city named Xuchotl where generations of inhabitants have waged war against each other for hundreds of years. Conan and Valeria get swept up into some nasty affairs between the two warring clans, a storm of swords and demonic sorcerey rages throughout the city until the warriors put an end to the insane clans war once and for all. It's a haunting and visceral story with lots of bloody action on par with Hour of the Dragon.
***
Jewels of Gwahlur - 3/5
Conan battles his way through Gwahlur in search of ancient jewels and riches but ends up empty handed. Although his original mission ended in failure, he got to experience the thrill of bloodshed and brought a girl that resembled a real goddess back home with him, so perhaps his journey for treasure wasn't a total waste after all. Not the best of Conan, but still a fun and quick read.
***
Beyond the Black River - 3.5/5
Conan teams up with a warrior named Balthus in an attempt to thwart the conquests of the Pictish sorcerer Zogar Sag. Just like People of the Black Circle, it's a nonstop adrenaline fest with lots of blood and guts.
***
The Black Stranger - 3/5
The story begins with Conan fleeing for the hills after being pursued by a flock of angered tribesman. While fleeing, the tribesman give up their chase upon reaching a peculiar hill that stands out from all the others. The hill turns out to hold a treasure cave along with the preserved bodies of a pirate captain, Tranicos. Conan's attempt to remove the treasure proves futile, as a demon of mist appears and attempts to strangle him. He barely escapes with his life, leaving the treasure undisturbed.
After getting away, Conan forms a thieves pact with several groups of feuding pirates to steal the forbidden treasure. Little do they know however, each person involved in the pact are manipulating each other and have a plan to dispose of each of the opposing groups once they've gotten their hands on the treasure. Debauchery, betrayal and cunning pirate trickery ensue until the last man gets away with what they came for.
***
Shadows in Zamboula - 3/5
Conan helps a dancer named Zabibi save her insane lover from a flock of cannibals and evil priests that are terrorizing her desert town. Conan fights his way through the cannibal horde does what he does best. The action was good and the setting was interesting, but the story was often ruined by a lot of unnecessary racist undertones. -
A leader, a barbarian with moral compass and principles of honor, guiding civilized but inferior men while saving women in peril. A symbol of the great past of the human race during primordial times in contrast with curent degradation of society straying away from the roots.
-
After reading this book, I have now read all 21 of the original Robert E. Howard-penned Conan stories. Some were good, some were bad, and some were excellent. I'll review the stories from this volume individually.
The Servants Of Bit-Yakin: A mediocre-at-best Conan story, and one which I've read a number of times over the years, usually under the title "Jewels Of Gwahlur". It contains the usual Howard racism and simperingly idiotic female companion without much of Howard's typically highly charged action. Some of the early scenes in the temple were the best of the story, as Howard by this point in his career had really developed a fairly lush prose style (well, as lush as the pulp medium would allow, anyway). At the end of the story, Conan is forced to choose between saving his new-found lady friend and saving the priceless Teeth Of Gwahlur and, rather surprisingly, he chooses to save the woman, somewhat redeeming an otherwise lacklustre story.
Beyond The Black River: This is a really great Conan tale. It was my second time reading it, and I think I enjoyed it more this time around. The scenery is well-described and yet not overdone, and the combat is some of Howard's best. One of the main characters in this story is an Aquilonian named Balthus who tags along with Conan, and I find that the Conan stories of this type tend to be my favourites - the ones where Conan and his deeds are seen through the eyes of others who stand in awe of his prowess. I also liked the undercurrent of Lovecraftian influence as seen in Jhebbal Sag, the forgotten god.
The Black Stranger: This one was a lot better than I thought it would be, as I had heard that it was originally written as a Conan story and later rewritten as a story about another character in order to find publication. I was therefore expecting a rather sub-par and forgettable Conan outing, but The Black Stranger was fairly strong, with a siege, some piratical backstabbing, demons, and even a female character who isn't a sex symbol (a rarity for Howard). It starts with Conan fleeing the Picts, having crossed a vast expanse of Pictish wilderness (a tie-in to Beyond The Black River) and ends with Conan most likely becoming a pirate again, this time with a little girl in tow. Too bad Howard never got to expand on that plotline.
The Man-Eaters Of Zamboula: This is one I had previously read under the title "Shadows In Zamboula," and it hasn't really gotten any better in the time between readings. This story simply doesn't do anything really unique or memorable, which unfortunately allows Howard's racism to come through loud and clear. Conan fights a professional strangler at the end, which lacks the gravitas of fighting giant snakes, iron golems, or swamp demons.
Red Nails: This is another classic Conan yarn, and possibly one of the darkest and most violent. It features not just the decay of a civilization, but the actual annihilation of the last members of an isolated society. Howard really goes full-out in this one, making it his definitive statement on societal decay, and whether you agree with Howard's conclusions or not, it makes for a very compelling story. It also has the benefit of being told for the most part from the point of view of a female warrior character named Valeria, which as I said before, I believe adds to the mystique and majesty of Conan.
There was also a lot of bonus material at the end of this volume, but I'll admit that I skipped the majority of it after reading through some of the miscellanea and finding that it wasn't really holding my interest. All told, some great stories in this one, making it definitely worth the time of any true Conan fan. -
The Conquering Sword of Conan is the final volume in Del Rey’s three-volume collection of every Robert E. Howard Conan story. Gregory Manchess provides the illustrations for this volume, and they may be my favorite of the three. There is again a foreword by the illustration, as well as an introduction (by Patrice Louinet), notes, synopses, and drafts, a letter, and the final part of Louinet’s Genesis of the Hyborian Age essay. The letter, in particular, is interesting. It tells us essentially everything we know about Conan’s early and later years.
The Conquering Sword of Conan is probably the strongest volume of the three. At least two stories—Beyond the Black River and Red Nails—are frequently cited among Conan’s best, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. But Howard was growing tired of writing Conan stories, or at least disassociated with the character. He wanted to write stories in new settings and it shows. Beyond the Black River could have been set on the Texas frontier, The Black Stranger the coast of North Carolina during the Golden Age of Piracy, Red Nails Aztec Mexico at the discovery of the New World.
George R.R. Martin has been called the American Tolkien. He isn’t, but if he were, Robert E. Howard would be the Texan Tolkien. I don’t say that because of how good he was, or because of his influence, though, if you were to name a “Big Three” of fantasy, the list has to include Burroughs, Tolkien, and Howard. I say that because Tolkien’s work was quintessentially English and created an English mythology of sorts. He isn’t acting nearly as intentionally as Tolkien was, but Howard does something much the same for Texas.
Take Conan’s love interests. If Conan fills the American archetype of the backwoodsman, his love interests tend toward the pioneer woman. In Beyond the Black River it isn’t just the love interest.
Warning settlers of the impending Pict invasion, the first cabin just holds one woman. She answers the door in nothing but a shift, holding a candle in one hand and an axe in the other. She is terrified but wants to hold the cabin and fight. At the next cabin, an old woman puts a young woman on a horse before her. She explains that the woman is pregnant, and that she “can walk—and fight, too, if it comes to that.”
Table of Stories
The Servants of Bit-Yakin, first published in Weird Tales, March 1935
Beyond the Black River, first published in Weird Tales, May and June 1935
The Black Stranger, original version first published in Echoes of Valor, Tor, 1987
The Man-Eaters of Zamboula, first published Weird Tales, November 1935
Red Nails, first published Weird Tales, July, August-September, and October 1936 -
By finishing this book, I have now read all of the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. It was not always the easiest journey as some tales are certainly better than others. But the publisher’s decision to present these stories over three volumes in the order they were written instead of chronological order was the right one, I believe, as it is wonderful to see Howard’s skills as a writer grow.
This volume, the final set of the Conan saga, includes only five stories, evidence of the lengthening and growing complexity of the plots and character. The final story, a short novella really, is
Red Nails, considered by many to be the finest Conan tale ever penned by Robert E. Howard. I would agree, and not just because it is the longest (and bloodiest and sexiest) story of all, but it is also the most satisfactory. Howard’s suicide just prior to Red Nails being published in serial form in “Weird Tales” just adds to the mystique of the tale. -
This series was considerably better than I thought it would be. Definitely a staple for fantasy readers.
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Robert E. Howard é de fato um escritor invoador. Sabe como te prender e criar um mundo imaginativo com guerreiros, monstros e mistérios imemoriais. Além disso, é também um mestre em descrever batalhas com uma brutalidade sincera digna de seu Conan.
Mas que todos saibam que o texto tem grandes problemas com relação principalmente ao racismo. Em alguns de seus contos ele até mesmo consegue se esquivar, mas de fato a forma como todos os personagens negros são descritos como em algum nível ignorantes ou perversos é algo que deve ser colocado como variável negativa em seus textos. Nos textos desse volume é absurdamente explícito.
Acredito que notas explicativas deveriam ser adicionadas em edições futuras sobre esses temas com o intuito de contextualizar a obra para além de sua narrativa de fato bem escrita, mas que não pode servir de meio para se naturalizar temas tão problemáticos. -
I don't know, I have the hard back but it wasn't listed...
This is the third volume of the three volume set of Howard's versions of the Conan stories. It contains:
"The Servants of Bit-Yakin"
Beyond the Black River
The Black Stranger
"The Man-Eaters of Zamboula"
Red Nails
Untitled Notes: "The Westermark: ..."
"Wolves Beyond the Border", Draft A
"Wolves Beyond the Border", Draft B
The Black Stranger, Synopsis A
The Black Stranger, Synopsis B
"The Man-Eaters of Zamboula", Synopsis
Red Nails, Draft
Plus other writings of interest. Conan was good when he was first published he's still good today. -
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 a lot of what he encounters. But then when that doesn't work he can swing a sword with the best of them. Highly recommended
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For one reason or another, Robert Howard had some fascination with the Picts, who make a case for being Conan's best recurring villain, which is impressive considering how many antagonists who are thought to be constant foils for Conan only really appeared in one story (I'm looking at you, Thoth-Amon). Either the Picts either came to Howard in a dream and ticked him off, or they just caught his eye to stand in for a general lack of civilization. Whatever the case is, they massed and painted presences help make this final run of Conan stories among the most memorable.
Howard's Conan stories do seem to have emerged fully formed and he seems to have found a handle on the character more or less immediately, despite writing him at random parts of his life. Yet as we progress through the volumes to reach the final five stories that he wrote in his lifetime you can definitely see him getting a handle on his themes and being able to portray them in ways that didn't involve characters decrying civilization in between beheadings. While events tend to stay on the side of action/adventure with a dash of sorcery, there's a new realism creeping into the stories where the fantastical magical elements are gradually downplayed and the crazy people actually seem crazier in comparison. This makes Conan look like the only sane person in a world of lunatics (the world mostly divided into the crazy, the deluded, and Conan, with a separate sub-category for hot warrior women) and where before that led to stories that were rich in entertainment, now they start to feel actually menacing, like a mirror tilted just the wrong way, showing you stuff you didn't intend to see.
The last Conan story was written less than a year before Howard's suicide, but there's absolutely no sense of that here and on a lot of levels this is the most satisfying volume of the three, containing at least two masterpieces and one other that can be argued as ranking just below it.
As seems typical with Conan stories, the ones that hew closest to what everyone imagines a Conan story to be like wind up being the weakest ones in the collection. "The Servants of Bit-Yankin" gets points for setting it in his version of Africa and for containing a plot that turns on itself enough times to make you dizzy (the titular Bit-Yankin's contribution is a bit of a left field shift) but it generally focuses on yet another lost city and treasure and a scantily clad helpless woman for Conan to impress with his barbarian manliness. There's so much going on in the plot you can generally ignore the "Haven't we done this already?" vibe but it's most notable for reminding us that Conan isn't exactly a dumb barbarian after all (he at least has a working proficiency in several languages, useful when you refuse to stay in one place for less than a few days).
"The Man-Eaters of Zamboula" has a missed opportunity in not milking the roaming cannibal concept for all its worth and instead focusing on a somewhat helpless woman again, but it does get credit for giving us plenty of intrigue and a foe who's nearly a match for Conan in the brawn department. But especially here you start to get a sense that Conan is nearly invincible and way smarter than everyone else, which means that any outcome is rarely in doubt at any point. Howard's prose tends toward breathless hyperbole at times, describing Conan's every bulging sinew with a heated glee and while it's fun to watch him always come out ahead, I want him to sweat for it a little bit (here someone pretends to be someone else but after they're gone Conan reveals to us that he knew it all along . . . well, good for you).
"The Black Stranger" starts the leap upward in quality. On some level we've been here before as well, with pirates and two helpless women this time but with this story Howard goes full pirate and turns Conan into Blackbeard. What works here is that Conan straddles the space between bystander and agitator. The feud that exists between the pirates has been going on long before Conan enters the scene (and he is absent for a good chunk of the story) but Howard gives them plenty of room to develop their characters before Conan arrives and starts messing everything up by tilting the balance and not playing for any side but his own. His gambit to lure someone to their death borders on the diabolical and with the menace of the Picts always lurking about, it gives the story a sense of urgency and a deadline . . . either they all kill each other, or the Picts decide for them by overrunning the whole camp. What makes this work is the chamber opera feel of the setting, with everyone trapped in a limited space, and the fact that Howard has created several well defined characters who spend most of the story plotting to kill each other in various ways. If you wrap your mind around Conan going all "Yo ho ho", you won't even notice the almost complete lack of magical elements.
"Red Nails" is the first masterpiece and it takes a bit for the full impact of it to sink in. Having a feeling that this was the last Conan story he'd write for a while, he went all out in ensuring it made a statement and spared himself nothing in the depiction. Indeed, it feels like all the sword and sorcery tales taken to their logical extremes, as Conan and the warrior-pirate Valeria coming across a lost city that turns out to be steeped in violence and decadence, the result of a civilization crumbling and everyone else slowly devolving in the ruins. Two tribes still exist in the city at opposite ends and spend most of their time figuring out ways to kill each other, while a woman keeps her skin fresh with the best moisturizer of all. Howard felt this was among his most realistic of stories, though it helps that pretty much everyone but Conan and Valeria are completely out of their minds and as such there's a lot of wading through the crazy, often with swords, that feels like a natural byproduct of civilization being leached out of things, like if "Lord of the Flies" had involved adults instead of kids and all those adults were a little too into S&M. Rather disturbing set pieces abound (my favorite being the room of severed heads) and it all operates along its own twisted internal logic, where hammering red nails into a pillar once you've killed an enemy makes horrifyingly perfect sense. This is probably the Conan story that everyone remembers (the black and white Marvel adaptation is a thing of beauty) because of that blend of the fantastic and realistic and insane, all pushed into the red and steeped in an atmosphere that feels smothering. For me, I acknowledge its genius and if not for the existence of one other Conan story would probably feel this is the ultimate Conan story, despite my misgivings about the whole dragon thing and that climax (magic wands solve everything that swords can't!).
Still, I have to leave the best for last and "Beyond the Black River" to me is THE Conan story. It's the only one I read and felt a chill upon finishing it, where I had become immersed in a smothering and completely alien world that only relented when it was finally over. It takes everything that was ever in a Conan story and strips it away, putting our sword slinging hero in a frontier setting at the edge of civilization where a group of settlers are trying to maintain their existence. Except in the forest just beyond the river lurk the Picts and they aren't too keen on any of the civilization bunk coming by. For the first time Howard takes his theme of civilization versus barbarian and turns into a physical thing, bending the very landscape to the theme as the river becomes a border between the lands that are honest and the lands where people pretend to have logic, something only Conan can easily walk between. This is only time for me that a Conan story actually felt dangerous and full of menace, with the obscuring forest lurking on all sides hiding hordes of people who will fight to avoid the encroachment of civilization, where the old stories are still true. It becomes a race against time as the Pictish threat increases, infusing the story with a rare urgency as the settlers try to hold the line and failing that, have to get the heck out of Dodge before everything gets destroyed. It depicts a clash between two lifestyles that are utterly incompatible, one where no rules exist and one where the rules are only a veneer. It frighteningly displays Howard's belief that civilization is just a nice story we tell each other at night, framed as a losing struggle where losing is the best outcome, for no one can seriously hope to win here. For once, the magical elements feel as weird and alien as they should, steeped in a myth that is truer than stories and an entrance into a world that otherwise has been covered up. Placing Conan in such a realistic setting it only heightens the stakes at play here. It never puts a foot wrong and is so confident in itself that it tosses off the best line in the story to some nameless incidental character. At the end, no less.
The twin strokes of "Red Nails" and "Beyond the Black River" could have cemented any pulp writer's legacy, but when you add in the other nineteen tales it only makes Howard's achievement that much more extraordinary. It's hard to say where he would have gone from "Red Nails", if he even would have revisited the barbarian and not moved into other types of stories that paid better or were more attuned to his newer interests. Maybe if he had lived longer Conan would have faded out with a string of interchangeable sword and sorcery cliches, dulling the impact of what we did get. It still would have been nice to have Howard around for longer to find out anyway. -
"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind," the borderer said, staring somberly at the Cimmerian. "Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph."
I started this last volume with trepidation, since my experiences with
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Robert E. Howard, "Beyond the Black River"
Clark Ashton Smith and
Fritz Leiber had taught me to expect a decline over the course of the writer's oeuvre culminating in either mediocrity or active disgust on my part, but my expectations were not met at all. They were completely inverted, actually--The Conquering Sword of Conan is absolutely the best of the three Conan collections I've read so far.
There's only a few stories here, and two of them are on the same subject, but each of those stories is great. My favorite is probably
Beyond the Black River, which I know I've read before somewhere, probably in one of the many edited Conan collections floating around out there, but only vaguely remembered it. I've been looking forward to "that story with the Picts" since I first started reading this collection, and it definitely held up to the image I had in my memories.
There's a section in the end of the book where one of the essays talks about Howard's turn towards drawing from his Texan surroundings to make materials for stories, and that's definitely evident in "Beyond the Black River." When I was reading the story, I kept thinking that Howard's Picts are pretty much the textbook settler picture of Native Americans, with the eagle feathers and the painted faces and the savage rites and the murdering everyone for no reason. The area past the Black River is the American West transplanted to the Hyborian Age, with forests instead of plains and distant uncaring feudal lords instead of a distant uncaring central government. The main difference is that while in America the drama was a foregone conclusion and the Native American way of life was ultimately doomed, in the Hyborian Age the fact that barbarism is superior to civilization (see opening quote) is what dooms the Aquilonian attempt at colonization.
It does seem a little ridiculous that all these barbarian tribes can coexist next to advanced nations based on what happens in our own world's history in those situations, but with the authorial conceits of the Conan stories, it wouldn't happen any other way. I guess it's just another aspect of how European culture has never gotten over the fall of Rome.
Oh, and random fun fact: just like how
Vampire's
Followers of Set are based on Howard's version of the deity,
Werewolf's
Black Spiral Dancers are based on Howard's version of the Picts.
This is also the book that has
Red Nails, which I've heard a lot about from various places but never read until now. I can see why people like it so much. I personally loved the use of a dinosaur as a dragon--though admittedly, I liked the draft where the dragon herds had come ranging up from the south when the climate changed rather than the published version where they were extinct but raised through black necromancy to guard Xuchotl--and the way that Xuchotl is a city that's also a single contiguous building. That's not a particularly common trope in fiction, but it's one I'm quite fond of. Maybe because I sunburn so easily.
"Red Nails" is also the story where we finally get a female character that can fight as well as Conan can. That's not to say that earlier stories have women who are just scenery--for one thing, several of those stories take place from the woman's point of view instead of Conan's, which complicates the subject/objectification discussion--but in "Red Nails," Valeria takes a much more active role in the action than previously. It's still written by a man born in 1906, so the story swerves between treating Valeria as a warrior worthy of respect for her combat prowess or a beautiful woman who's going through some kind of silly phase, but it at least represents a kind of progress. It makes me wonder what else we would have seen in further Conan stories if Howard had lived.
The essays at the end also make a good point about "Red Nails"--it's the ultimate example of Howard's view of civilization. The inhabitants of Xuchotl live in a single structure without ever stepping outside or seeing the naked sky. Their food comes from fruits that feed on the air, and they have no connection with the world at all. In the end, the fall into horrific decadence and war amongst each other over minor slights, commit hideous tortures that take even Conan aback, and eventually kill themselves in an orgy of self-destruction. Civilization here is literally unnatural in its total separation from nature.
The other three stories, "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," "The Black Stranger" (the other story involving the Picts), and "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula" didn't stand out quite so much in my mind, but that's not to say they're bad stories. Well, "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula" isn't much to write home about honestly, but it's not bad enough to drag down my appreciation of the rest of the book. However, “The Black Stranger” is another story that maps really well to American history on the frontier, though this time to early settlements on the East Coast before the colonies had become more than islands of European civilization surrounded by, to them, alien and hostile powers.
That's not to say there's nothing wrong with The Conquerering Sword of Conan. Howard's racial politics, already pretty uncomfortable in the previous stories, get worse here. Previously, while Howard lumped everyone south of Stygia in as "a black," he tended to make distinctions between the other countries in a more Victorian sense, the way people would write about "the Irish race" or "the German race" and talk about their essentially characteristics. In these stories, pretty much everyone gets divided into white, brown, or black, with scarcely a mention made of nationality. And of course, Conan saves people just because they're white and obviously he can't leave a white person behind to be killed by black people and blech. Sure, you can make an argument that Howard is a product of his time, but it falls down because it's not this bad in previous Conan stories. If there's a reason not to read this book, it's that one.
Also, part of the reason I liked the book so much is because of the various drafts and story ideas that are placed at the end of the book. Some of them are for stories that appear in the book, like "Red Nails," but there's also one called
Wolves Beyond the Border that was never published during Howard's lifetime. There's a first draft and a second draft, and the first draft is very rough. It definitely didn't feel like any of the other Howard stories I read, but the second draft was a lot more polished and had a lot more of the...uh, Howardian language I'm used to, with the the square-cutting of manes and the mightying of thews and the dashing of brains and so on.
That's glib, yeah, but the main reason I found this so encouraging is that, like a lot of people on the internet, I have a mostly-finished novel sitting on my hard drive and I often find it hard to work on writing more of it instead of spending an endless amount of time editing what I already have. Reading novels and then looking at what I've written is almost enough to make me just rip the whole thing up, and it's really encouraging to get another reminder that good writing is made, not born. It almost never springs forth fully-formed from the writer's brow, but has to be coaxed and molded over time and through draft after draft until it reaches its final form.
It's not really clear that we would have ever gotten another Conan story, since Howard hadn't written one in almost a year before he died and had written about how his thoughts were turning more towards Westerns instead. If "Red Nails" had been the last one, though, it would have been a fitting ending to the barbarian's stories, and going out like that I'm not surprised that Conan has been so popular to write about in the decades since then. As the ending of the book puts it:Conan the Cimmerian, however, is still with us. In spite of some difficult years, he has managed to survive, and shows no signs of weakness.
And indeed, he has.
The barbarian's longevity wouldn't have surprised Howard.
The barbarian must always ultimately triumph.
Previous review:
The Bloody Crown of Conan. -
This was the third volume of REH's Conan writings. It was enjoyable to read them in the order they were written, and for me, the first time. I quite enjoyed the first two volumes in the series, and, based on the gushing introduction, I had high expectations for this volume as it was said to contain some of Howard's most lauded Conan stories written. Seriously? Certainly, the frameworks of the stories were interesting, but as I read them, I kept thinking how badly they needed an editor. Or perhaps that was the problem (as I saw it): an author being persuaded by his publishers to be more accommodating to a wider readership.
I barely made it through Red Nails, and gave up after the first unpublished draft. If you are a fan of the character, as I am, and just want to know the true original core of the Conan legend (and have a strong stomach for sometimes ridiculous radio-serial-era dialogue), by all means, this is worth finishing - but if you're not a big Conan fan to begin with, and you have a taste for characters with several dimensions, leave this one to the REH cheerleaders.
All that moaning aside: I really did enjoy the first two volumes, so I am not just bashing the author, or character. That said, it's not surprising Conan stories have done so well in comic/magazine format, which are a far more acceptable format for dialogue like this:
"Do not look at the skull! Do not look at the skull!" It was a far cry
from across unreckoned voids.
Valeria shook herself like a lion shaking his mane. Her vision
cleared. Techotl was chattering: "In life it housed the awful brain of
a king of magicians! It holds still the life and fire of magic drawn
from outer spaces!"
With a curse Valeria leaped, lithe as a panther, and the skull crashed
to flaming bits under her swinging sword. Somewhere in the room, or in
the void, or in the dim reaches of her consciousness, an inhuman voice
cried out in pain and rage.
Techotl's hand was plucking at her arm and he was gibbering: "You have
broken it! You have destroyed it! Not all the black arts of Xotalanc
can rebuild it! Come away! Come away quickly, now!"
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Having read the old 1-12 series of Conan paperbacks religiously when I was teenager and going back to re-read the stories from time to time I was VERY happy when these were put back into print in nice and inexpensive volumes that were unedited pure Robert E. Howard written versions of the stories. Conan is a much deeper character than the public, even those that have read Conan, seem to understand. As well as Howard does not get the credit he deserves from the mainstream. As I have said before these stories are sometimes as much horror stories in the Lovecraft veign as they are sword and sorcery tales as well as being VERY politically incorrect.
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So, confession, I love the Schwarzenegger Conan movie. Seriously, love it. But that was really my only exposure to the Conan stories until this collection came into my hands. Howard is brilliant in these longer stories. His use of language and imagery is brilliant, his characters are well-crafted, and the stories are perfectly paced adventures. They're very much a product of their time, but also timeless in their commentary on the nature of humanity, monsters, and the line between civilization and barbarism.
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Wow! I've never read anything quite like Conan. It was so much different - and *so* much better - than the dumbed down brutish pop culture interpretations of the barbarian character that I'd seen. Honestly, Howard's writing style is so explosive that I think the writing alone is some of the best I've ever read. Even when a story may be leading to a somewhat predictable end, Howard's descriptions and detail make these weird tales more exciting than most movies.
I will be eagerly looking for more Howard books and collections after this. Fantastic book. -
Excellent, of course. Some of Howard's best Conan stories, including "Red Nails" and "Beyond the Black River," as Howard intended them. Also contains various outlines and synopses, and another pice of the excellent essay "Hyborian Genesis" by Patrice Louinet.
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This collection contains longer Conan works, including "By the Black River", in which Howard laid out many of his theories and thoughts about the decadence of the civilized world.
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And, with the third and final installment of the complete, unadulterated Robert E. Howard Conan stories, we have the final piece of proof, should any more be needed, that this is how anyone and everyone interested in reading Conan should do so.
I could leave this review right there but reading these books lead to research and contemplation, which leads to the following…
Speaking to the “coauthored” Conan stories and the dozens of pastiches, I present a fine article by Dashiell Hammett Tour leader, Don Herron:
http://www.donherron.com/?page_id=1539
Written all the way back in 1977, this article does the right thing by running L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter through the ringer for being both mediocre writers and heartless butchers. ‘Nuff said.
I had this idea, when I first started picking up these three Conan volumes, that I would re-read ALL of the Conan novels and stoies in the chronology as laid out by William Gray:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_Ch...
Even throwing out the four books that contradict events of Conan’s early life as detailed by Howard himself (Conan Of Venarium, Conan The Bold and the novelizations of the films Conan The Barbarian and Conan The Destroyer), this would have involved purchasing some sixty books, most of which I have read before and reading them. Reading sixty Conan novels. Even spread out over a year or two and reading other sorts of things in between, I don’t think that’s healthy. Having read the unedited Howard versions, I’m certain the de Camp and Carter abominations featured in the Lancer/Ace series would have both cracked me up and pissed me off. I remember enjoying all of them and the Robert Jordan, etc. pastiches as a kid, but I was a kid. I was ten or twelve or fourteen as I read and re-read these books. I was unable to think critically about the quality of what I was reading past whether or not it was interesting enough for me to keep reading.
I’m disappointed that Howard didn’t write more Conan stories, but I don’t think I need more Conan stories enough to read every damned one of them in existence. I may as well finish my collection of the original Marvel Conan comic, get all the issues of Savage Sword Of Conan, get all the new comics, watch all the cartoons, re-watch the movies… you see where I’m going with this. It’s just not worth my time. And it feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders!
I do already have some of the pastiches, however. I may just go ahead and read what I have to spite myself.
Robert E. Howard was a RACIST. Sure, he was one of many, many, many bigots of his time, but he was, without a doubt, racist. So it goes. I suppose we have to accept that a significant number of authors of the early 20th century were confused, misguided and ignorant when it came to issues of “race” and I suppose anyone setting out to read popular fiction from the 20’s or 30’s (or 40’s or 50’s or 60’s or 70’s) is going to have to expect the possibility of writing shaped by the racism of the author.
Let’s talk about artists. Gregory Manchess paints very well. His paintings in this volume are wonderfully executed. However, they fail almost completely to capture the character Howard created. I think this stems from the use of models in creating images, which I feel I can safely assume Manchess is guilty of. “Wait,” you say. “Artists have used models in drawing, painting and sculpting for hundreds of years.” Yes. True. So what? It may improve the artist’s chances of correctly rendering lighting, anatomy, etc. but it doesn’t necessarily make a good painting. Frank Frazetta, arguably the artist most successful at creating images of Conan, brought a sense of action, movement and life into his paintings. What he rarely did was use models. Boris Vallejo, a fine painter in his own right, used models for many of his paintings and there is none of the explosive, action packed feeling of Frazetta’s paintings in Vallejo’s work. Manchess’ cover painting of Conan fighting a Pict is easily the best piece of art in The Conquering Sword Of Conan and it’s about the only one in which Conan looks like Conan. If you’re going to use models, you can’t just get your buddies or hire some local agency models. If you do this, your paintings will look like you did this. Always.
I do love Manchess’ oil painting technique, however. These paintings are, at least, pretty.
But wait, there’s more…
Manchess said in his forward that he “never knew Conan” and, in acknowledging that the “words with which [Howard] chose to describe certain passages were themselves descriptive and visual,” admits he was sent “running for the dictionary.”
Let’s examine the dictionary thing first. Maybe I’m being a horrible snob but, really? This is what sent you running for a dictionary? Yes, okay, I am being an *sshole. I see it now. But I don’t care. If English were a fourth or fifth language for Manchess, I would understand the dictionary thing. As it is… I am at a loss.
Then, having spent some time with a dictionary (not his, I would have to assume), Manchess, like Mark Schultz, is guilty of not painting what Howard wrote. Y’know, chainmail in the story, no chainmail in the painting, stuff like that. Maybe I’m being horribly anal but it seems so, so, so very simple. The worst is his portrayal of Olmec in Red Nails as clean shaven when Howard’s text clearly makes several references to Olmec’s enormous beard. Oops.
To the more important point, the one massive failure of Del Rey in these Conan volumes was to not find artists for whom the idea of illustrating a collection of Howard’s unadulterated Conan stories was not akin to the ultimate dream of their life coming true. Del Rey should have bent over backwards to find artists who had been drawing and painting Conan since they were children. Manchess is talented but he was not familiar with the character he was chosen to illustrate, therefore he was not even remotely qualified to illustrate this character. I’m sure there are those who would argue this but they would be wrong. Would Peter Jackson have been qualified to make them Hobbit movies if he had never read The Lord Of The Rings? No, absolutely not.
I know I have been super picky about the art in all three Del Rey Conan volumes but I won’t apologize for it. Frazetta. Buscema.
Conan has been diluted from Howard’s original vision, watered down, cleansed, manipulated, simplified and exploited. As much as I liked the Schwarzenegger films at the time, they’re pretty bad. The 2011 film was vile. Those films are not of what I might call “Howard Quality,” nor are the Conan stories and novels of those who are not Robert E. Howard. That’s just the way it is. Regardless of my low opinion of the art in these three Del Rey volumes, they are truly the best and, in my opinion, only way to read Conan. I am forever grateful to Del Rey and those involved for making this project a reality. -
Conan é o gênero de feitiçaria e espada raiz. Todos os elementos estão ali de forma descarada, sem detalhismos exagerados, da maneira mais simples possível. O Robert E. Howard, por muitos chamado o pai desse gênero, consegue trazer todo ambiente diverso de Conan nesse último livro e da pra notar uma evolução grande entre o primeiro livro e esse.
