In this monthly series reviewing classic science fiction books, Alan Brown will look at the front lines and frontiers of science fiction; books about soldiers and spacers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
I’m flexing the format of this series a bit this month to cover a book that isn’t science fiction, but is certainly full of alarums, excursions, and the stuff of excitement. In the late 1960s, a series of paperback books—with dynamic and evocative covers painted by Frank Frazetta at the peak of his talents—gave an old pulp character, Conan the Barbarian, new recognition. The wild success of paperback editions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy had revealed a desire for fantasy stories that publishers were eager to satisfy. And while Robert E. Howard had first written the adventures of Conan back in the 1930s, and the character had a strong cult following for decades, new editions of his adventures appeared on book racks in stores across America and gained wide popularity. Howard’s brand of fantasy stood out from the crowd. There were no elves and fairies in his work. Instead, he offered a lusty and vigorous hero who met all challenges, whether physical or magical, with his mighty strength, fighting skill, and cold steel.
“What are you reading?” I was startled, and looked up. As I remember, it was 1969, and our high school JV soccer team was riding a bus to the State finals. I was one of those team members that would spend most of the game on the bench, “riding pine,” as it was called. I flinched. The question was coming from one of the stars of the team. He was a nice enough guy, but I had learned that attention from the more popular kids could often lead to mockery. I held up the paperback and showed him. “Conan the Warrior. I’ve heard of him,” he replied. “Do you mind if I take a look?” I handed him the book, he went to his seat. Soon he was totally absorbed, and I spent the rest of the ride staring out the window. I was surprised. No one, except a few fellow science fiction fans, liked the same books I did. For once, could I have stumbled on something that was popular?
The Lancer Paperbacks
At the time, paperback publisher Lancer Books was publishing a series of books that collected the adventures of Robert E. Howard’s character Conan, who had appeared in the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the 1930s as well as in books from the small publishing house Gnome Press during the 1950s. After the rights to the Conan stories had passed from hand to hand for many years, they were obtained by noted SF author L. Sprague de Camp, an avid fan of Howard’s work. De Camp arranged the stories in chronological order, showing Conan growing from a young reaver to an aged king. He and other collaborators polished the stories, finished fragments and unpublished work, recast Howard stories featuring other characters as Conan stories, and wrote pastiches that filled holes in Conan’s career. They presented the stories with essays on the history of Howard’s Hyborian Age, and added bridging materials that explained how Conan got from one story to the next. Those Lancer paperbacks were distinctive on book racks not only for the bold Frazetta covers, but because the page edges were dyed with a bright purple. (This was appropriate, because if I could choose one word to describe Howard’s prose, it would be “purple.”)
The tales were not simply brimming with emotion; they seemed to throb and pulsate with barely contained emotion. I will caution modern readers that the stories are marred by the cultural, racial, and gender prejudices of the time, and Howard sometimes used racial stereotypes as a substitute for characterization, especially for minor characters. But Howard also presented admirable characters from a variety of races and cultures, and some remarkably strong female characters. Certainly, the pirate queen Belit and Red Brotherhood mercenary Valeria displayed an impressive degree of agency that many other female characters of the era were lacking.
About the Author
Robert E. (Ervin) Howard (1906-1936) was a writer for pulp magazines who had a short but prolific career before his untimely death by suicide. He is noted for his contributions to Weird Tales, and as an early creator of what became known as the “sword and sorcery” genre, combining fantasy and horror elements with medieval military adventure. Howard was extremely well read, and his knowledge of history gave the mythical Pre-Cataclysmic and Hyborian Ages a realistic foundation that anchored the fantastical elements. He was also influenced by other contributors to the pulps, and corresponded and shared ideas with a number of them, including H. P. Lovecraft. His most notable characters were Conan and Kull, proto-Celtic barbarians who became kings of more civilized countries. Howard reportedly hated authority, which made writing an ideal occupation for him, although the profession’s erratic income may have contributed to his eventual suicide, along with romantic disappointments and grief over his dying mother. His work was known for its energy, passion, and the rapid pace of the plots. His greatest success came after his death, and his work is now widely known and remains a strong influence in popular culture.
Conan the Warrior
Conan the Warrior was my personal favorite of the Lancer Conan books, the second volume in the series. While I didn’t realize it at the time, unlike some other volumes, the stories in this book were written by Howard himself, at the end of his life, when he was at the height of his powers. Only the introduction and bridging materials came from other authors.
“Red Nails” opens from the viewpoint of the swordswoman Valeria, who flees a mercenary camp in the eastern wastelands to escape amorous advances from a superior officer. Conan, attracted to her, has followed her out of camp. This is fortunate for her, because he soon saves her from an attack by a dragon, described by Howard as a magically re-animated dinosaur rather than a creature of fantasy. Concerned that they will be attacked by other creatures, the two make for a city in the distance, a mysterious structure without any working fields or signs of life surrounding it. They enter the city to find it inhabited by two feuding clans, locked in a struggle that had gone on for decades. Encountering an inhabitant of the city, Conan and Valeria rescue the man, slaying a war party that threatens him and evading some sort of monster lurking in the darkness. The man they saved leads them to his home, where they find a faction led by a man named Olmec and the witch Tascela, both of whom are immediately attracted to Valeria. Olmec’s attraction is sexual, while Tascela’s has a more sinister quality and purpose.
In addition to the two warring factions, the ancient wizard Tolkemec lurks in the tunnels beneath the city. Valeria foils a kidnapping attempt, and soon she and Conan find themselves in a struggle to the death between the two factions, the witch, and the ancient wizard. Conan stories are often brutal, but this one is replete with violence and cruelty. After the kidnapping attempt, Valeria not only beats a maid to get information, but the narrative makes a point of describing how she strips the maid naked and ties her down before the beating. There is treachery and betrayal at every turn. There are monstrous creatures in the story, but the real monsters are the inhabitants of the city, warped by hatred. The story offers a bleak view of a civilization decaying into decadence and death.
“Jewels of Gwahlur” is a more straightforward narrative. Conan is working as a mercenary in Keshan, a nation located in lands roughly analogous to modern Africa. Another mercenary, Thutmekri, has gotten the ear of Conan’s employer, the high priest Gorulga, and convinced him to seek guidance from an ancient oracle, the dead priestess Yelaya, located in a lost city where the legendary jewels of the title are hidden. To salvage something from the situation, Conan decides to beat them to the city and steal the jewels. He arrives to find the mummified body of the ancient priestess replaced by a young dancing girl, who has been coached by his rival to tell Gorgula to slay Conan and give Thutmekri the jewels. Conan convinces the girl to turn this situation around to his advantage, but everyone’s plans are foiled by the mysterious guardians of the jewels, fierce apelike creatures who wreak havok among the interlopers. This story does not rank among Howard’s best, with a predictable plot; its main attraction is the evocative description of the lost city, the crater-like valley that contains it, and the mysterious and vicious creatures that inhabit it, which gives the story a strong sense of place and setting.
“Beyond the Black River” is set on the western border of the Bossonian marches, which separate the kingdom of Aquilonia from the lands of the savage Picts. The story is told from the viewpoint of a Tauran woodsman, Balthus, seeking opportunity on the frontier, who is saved by Conan from a Pictish ambush. Conan is operating as a mercenary scout out of Fort Tuscelan, and warns Balthus that a Pictish wizard and master of magical beasts, Zogar Sag, is uniting the tribes to drive out the settlers who are pushing into disputed border lands. The fort’s commandant tasks Conan to lead an expedition to assassinate Zogar Sag and thwart the enemy attack. Balthus joins the expedition, and they head off into the Pictish wilderness beyond the river, where things do not go as planned.
This story is one of Howard’s best, fast-paced and gripping. It is blunt and brutal, the literary equivalent of a punch in the nose. It is also a uniquely American story, with its settlers contesting natives for control of a forested frontier. Drop the magical beasts, substitute Native Americans for Picts, rifles for bows, tomahawks for swords, and Natty Bumpo and Chingachgook for Balthus and Conan, and it could be a tale written by James Fenimore Cooper. You can see Howard taking Conan in a different direction here than in earlier tales. The story ends with a statement that is often quoted, as it seems to sum up Howard’s bleak views on mankind. “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind… Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”
Conan in Other Books and Media
The Lancer paperbacks sparked a new level of interest in Conan that has continued to this day. Over the years, many publishers and authors have created new adventures for Conan. The most prolific of these was Tor Books, publishing over 40 Conan books beginning in the early 80s, many written by Robert Jordan. But while the new adventures were popular, there are also many fans of Howard’s work in its original form who view what de Camp and other authors had done as meddling. The original works were unavailable for decades until the 2000s, when Howard’s original manuscripts were finally collected by Del Rey Books in a three-volume set that includes The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, The Conquering Sword of Conan, and The Bloody Crown of Conan. Because the pages of my original Lancer paperback version of Conan the Warrior are so fragile, while I read the introduction and bridging materials from that book to prepare this essay, I read the actual stories from those newer Del Rey editions.
Rights to publish Conan’s adventures were obtained by Marvel Comics in the 1970s. These comics were given a lot of attention by the publisher, and were very successful. The adaptations were primarily written by senior editor Roy Thomas, and the first issues were drawn by Barry Windsor Smith in a distinctive and intricate style unlike that of most comic books of the day. Later, legendary artist and Marvel mainstay John Buscema took over the art, and spent many years with the character. Eventually, after Marvel lost interest in the character, new versions of the Conan tales appeared in Dark Horse Comics versions.
There were two movies in the 1980s that featured Conan, and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, but the second movie was less popular than the first, and the series ended there. In 2011, there was another attempt to revive the Conan movie franchise, Conan the Barbarian, starring Jason Momoa, but the movie did not do well critically or financially. Over the years, there have been three TV series featuring Conan (two animated series, and one live-action show), and Conan has also appeared in many video games, board games, and roleplaying games.
Final Thoughts
At the end of that high school bus ride, I got Conan the Warrior back. “This is awesome,” said the borrower. “And there are more of these?” I nodded and he said, “I’m going to have to look for them.” And just like that, a barrier had been broken. Conan appealed not just to SF and fantasy fans, but to anyone who liked a gripping adventure story. The 1960s initiated a flood of entertainment that spilled outside the bounds of SF fandom—not just Conan, but the The Lord of the Rings, the original Star Trek and other SF TV shows. And with the 70s came even more wildly popular, mainstreamed SFF, the most notable example being Star Wars. In contrast with my youth, formerly insular geek culture has now become popular culture, with so much of our entertainment infused with concepts from science fiction and fantasy. I will always remember, because of my personal experience, the way Conan opened doors. Thanks to the evocative tales of Robert E. Howard, Conan smashed down the gates of geekdom in the real world, just like he destroyed so many barriers during the Hyborean Age.
Now, I’m interested in your thoughts. What do you think about the Conan tales? Have they aged well? Which of them are your favorites? And do you see the success of the Conan tales as one of the factors that helped bring science fiction and fantasy to a larger audience?
Alan Brown has been a science fiction fan for five decades, especially science fiction that deals with military matters, exploration and adventure. He is also a retired reserve officer with a background in military history and strategy
Yes. Flex the format, the way Hyborian heroes flex their mighty thews… (Sorry, this episode will pass.)
I don’t have a tremendous amount of nostalgia for the days of the penny-a-word pulpsters but every once in a while, someone cropped up who had a spark of inspiration resembling divine madness: Howard aims for the gut but when his aim is true, you’re gasping for the air of another world. I think that the Conan series generally got better as it went on: all of these stories are pretty good, though I still anticipate outraged letters about de Camp’s meddling in this volume. Of course, another generation of hacks turned up who tried to emulate the surface details without ever genuinely feeling it but they are far outweighed by the greats who followed Howard’s trail: Leigh Brackett, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock and so many more.
The Conan stories definitely helped widen the audience but I suspect Frank Frazetta needs about half of the credit for luring in the punters in the first place. (I will hold my opinion on whether certain aspects of the cultural shift mentioned were a good thing…)
I recall seeing David Drake discussing some of the great fantasy authors, and he mentioned that Robert E. Howard’s stories of barbarians and savage warriors are convincing in a way that most writers’ efforts in that direction weren’t. Mr. Drake’s explanation was that for the others, depicting savagery was a kind of parlor game, but Howard believed in it.
By the way, there’s a reason “Beyond the Black River” reads like a tale of frontier America: according to the notes in the Del Rey edition, it started out as a story of the fighting between English settlers and Mohawks in upstate New York — a Cooper pastiche, in other words.
The original Lancer paperbacks are among my prized possessions.
No one wrote of dead cities and ancient civilizations like Bob Howard, and L. Sprague de Camp deserves praise for bringing him to several generations of new readers.
I haven’t read the Conan stories in many years, but recently re-read Worms of the Earth. Parts of it are dated, but REH’s powerful storytelling still shines.
I remember boiling down Conan’s dialog when dealing with effete non-barbarian city dwellers: “You can look at black marks on parchment and know what they say? Foul, black wizardry!!! Die!”
Almost as funny as Arnold’s version…
This is sure takes me back to the 60’s! I too had an incident on a school bus- I had the “Conan” paperback, the one with Conan fighting the gorilla in the sweeping crimson cape on the top of my folders and school books and a friend of my girlfriend saw it and started shrieking with laughter. I defended my choice of reading material as best as I could.
I arrived at TLOTR later based on being put off by the Ballantine covers (were those ostriches ?… and I didn’t see the Ace paperbacks until some years later) and a comment from a fellow SF fan about Tolkien. He said his mother had read them and they were about something called hobbits who were small and had hairy feet. His mother? Small with hairy feet? It took some months for someone else to tell me they really were swords and sorcery.
The thing about Howard stories is how powerful they are, even when they are not artful – it’s the power that sticks with you, even as you find yourself later apologizing for the overwrought prose, the racism, the sadism.
A few things that stuck out to me in Conan stories – one was the sense of adventure, even when I didn’t much care for Conan as a hero, I was along for the ride. The second was this strange world he lived in. It’s what I liked about the Barsoom stories, only more so, deeply evocative, but never really explained.
I never read far enough along to get to stories with Conan as king, but I was always curious to see how Howard would take that guy and put him in that role and still manage to tell a story. I was also consistently surprised at the nature of Conan the character – I expected a big dumb bruiser, but he was always smarter than the Frazetta covers implied.
With all of those elements playing together, it’s unsurprising that fellows like Leiber and Moorcock could pick it up and go in different directions with it.
I am very fond of Conan the Unmessed-Around-With, to the point that my dog was Conan of Labrador. However, I could not STAND the average Conan pastiche by authors who weren’t Howard. They kept trying to make the mighty Cimmerian into the boy next door. No, by Crom! This shall not be read! (At least not by me). I was thrilled with the Del Rey reissues.
If you wonder who here is in the least-likely-to-like-sword&sorcery demographic, I am a nice old lady, an artist, and a grandmother. My granchildren like sword&sorcery too.
Thanks for the comments. I always enjoy hearing how other people encountered books that I count among my favorites, and what they think of them.
A few tidbits that didn’t fit into the article:
1. Having written about H. Beam Piper a few months ago, I couldn’t help but notice similarities between his life and Howard’s. I often wonder if the passions they brought to their writing were intertwined with whatever it was that drove them to take their own lives.
2. Former President Barack Obama was a comic book fan, and when asked, identified two characters as his favorites. The first was Spider-Man. And the second was Conan.
3. While I love the stories of Conan, I must admit that my all-time favorite Howard story is “The Shadow Kingdom,” which featured the character Kull. That story had it all; well drawn characters, mystery, setting, atmosphere, horror, and a plot that just barreled along.
The Lancer/Ace books “edited” by Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and Bjorn Nyberg were my (poor) introduction to Conan, but the stories and the character seemed very inconsistent. No surprise as the “editors” were completing unfinished fragments and re-purposing non-Conan material to “fill out” the Hyborean timeline and setting.
It was when I found one of the Donald Grant editions and the Berkley series edited by Karl Edward Wagner that I really “met” Conan and was much more impressed with REH’s work.
Robert E. Howard, Conan, and Frazetta, -along with Marvel Comics too- will always hold a special place for me. After Tarzan, the Ace printing of this series in the 80’s was the first real novels I ever read, so I have them to thank for my introduction, not only the fantasy genre, but also to the wonders of reading books for fun.
Back in the early 80’s, on a trip to the local mall at B. Dalton’s Booksellers, I was looking for the next Tarzan book when I spotted the iconic Frazetta’s Conan on the shelf. I was already familiar with Conan from Marvel Comics but hadn’t really read any -my mother didn’t like me buying comics that had scantily clad women in them, but I guess a non-illustrated novel was ok, also book 1 of this series didn’t not feature any of Frazetta’s hotties either). I was hooked immediately.
For some reason, I’ve always felt a strange kinship with Howard ever since.
Howard managed to throw in just the right details–moonlight striking icy fire from jewels, and so on. He shared this with Leigh Brackett, who I discovered about the same time.
Favorite Conan story by Howard, The Scarlet Citadel. By anyone else, The Castle of Terror, by Lin Carter, who otherwise mostly sucked. It’s in “Conan of Cimmeria”. I recall seeing that in a store and pedaling clear back home to get the dough to buy it. Favorite other Howard story–Worms of the Earth.
Any fans of Jason Momoa as Conan? The film isn’t good but i think Monoa did a good performance there.
@12 Because it got such hideous reviews, I haven’t seen the new Conan film yet; but I will look for it on TV, as I have enjoyed Momoa’s other work, and think he is will suited for the role. Although I like Arnold Schwarzenegger as an actor, I very much disliked his Conan movies. Conan came off too muscle-bound, and too unintelligent, in those films, and they didn’t capture the atmosphere of the original stories.
Momoa was a great Conan, and the movie had great visuals that was spot-on for Howard’s Hyborian Age, but the story was a big sux. It was one of those movies where it’s like the director figured if he made it look good enough, he could sucker in the fans and they wouldn’t notice the sucky story.
Kinda pissed me off.
Just for a bit of clarity the Gnome Press Conan books were edited by L. Sprague de Camp. I read these in the late 50’s long before Conan showed in paperback. The best was “Conan the Conqueror” which was derived from “The Hour of the Dragon”.
Yeah, Momoa was all kinds of great in Conan. The movie itself? Not so great.
@15: Conan the Conqueror has the additional distinction of making it into the second-ever all-SFF Ace Double:
“Beyond the Black River” is one of my favorite stories of all time, hands-down. I love Howard and I always have.
Wow, I have everyone of these books. As a teen, I loved them so much that I read each one over and over and wanted to be Robert E. Howard (except for the early death, of course.) I dug them out of my library last year and they were so dog eared that they fell apart.
Conan’s great and all, but he doesn’t hold a candle to Grignr of Ecordia, who would glare lustfully as he disemboweled Conan’s internal organs, were the two of them to meet.
@Michael- Beyond the Black River is my all time favorite Conan story too!
kattw (@20): Yes, but you can read many Conan stories without once cracking a smile or just out-loud laughing. Can we say the same of the adventures of Grignr? Eye doubt it.
Conan stories were a mainstay of my reading during my teenage years. I loved the world Howard created. It kept me entertained and even now I still pick up one of those Conan books I still have in my library and follow the brooding Cimmerian on his adventures. My grandson who is in his teens enjoys them as much as I did.
I think ‘The God in the Bowl’ and ‘Rogues in the House’ would be my equal favourite REH Conans, followed by ‘Red Nails’ and then ‘Beyond the Black River’ in 3rd place. But there are so many damned good stories to choose from…
My favourites of RE Howard are the Skull Faced Omnibus. Some great short stories and epic images. I shared your blog to my fb page. I have been a long time Conan fan, and find RE Howards writing and poetry an inspiration in my own writing.
I loved Conan when I was a teenager. Howard and Heinlein were the two authors I pursued with something like monomania. I can’t read Heinlein as an adult, though. Howard? Yeah, I can still read Howard. I love “Beyond the Black River”, but my favorite of the Howard originals is “Iron Shadows in the Moon” (renamed Shadows in the Moonlight by later editors). It has a weird kind of poetry and existential dread, plus pirates. Pirates are always a plus. My favorite non-Conan Howard story is probably “Wings in the Night,” one of the Solomon Kane stories. I like the Kane stories as much as the Conan stories. The movie version of Solomon Kane wasn’t awful by any means, though it only barely resembled Howard’s character. My favorite Conan story by other hands is The Road of Kings by Karl Edward Wagner. Wagner I think understood Conan best of Howard’s inheritors, and his own creation, Kane, is like Howard on acid.
Oh, and I like the Momoa Conan well enough. Rose McGowan’s evil sorceress is visually arresting, while Ron Perlman, playing Conan’s dad, gets the line “A Cimmerian never thirsts, unless it is the thirst for blood!” Priceless.
I admit I never read Howard when I was young (well, aside from a few scattered stories in anthologies) — I was always more of a John Carter of Mars man. Checked out some of the comics, but they didn’t do much for me either. But my freshman year in college, the local public library had a copy of Conan (the first Ace paperback) which I checked out, read, and then as soon as I was home over holiday break I was picking up the rest of the Ace series. Even then, I knew some of the stories were better than others, although I didn’t know the whole story at the time. And I still hold some fondness for the whole Ace series, de Camp & Carter meddling and all. But I probably won’t ever read anything at this point except the Del Rey Howards and maybe Wagner’s Road of Kings — I revisited a couple of de Camp & Carter novels last year and was less than impressed.
I discovered REH during the early 70s when I think Ballentine (maybe?) reprinted the Lancer series. Seems like they sold for about 75 cents. I tried to find everything Howard wrote. Actually, I liked Kull better than Conan–Kull’s sidekick Brule the Spearslayer was a pretty cool character, and Kull had more depth of character than Conan. Favorite Conan story was “The God in the Bowl”. I remember being puzzled when I read the Conan story “By This Axe I Rule!” because I had previously read the similar story set in Kull’s Valusia. I didn’t realize at the time that someone else (editor) rewrote the Kull story and placed it in the Conan universe–thought Howard had had a brain f**t! My favorite non-Conan, non-Kull story is “Pigeons From Hell”, which I think is very Lovecraftian. The Solomon Kane stories are excellent as well. Bottom line–when I think of sword & sorcery, I think of Howard. He is missed.
Conan stories are often brutal, but this one is replete with violence and cruelty. After the kidnapping attempt, Valeria not only beats a maid to get information, but the narrative makes a point of describing how she strips the maid naked and ties her down before the beating.
Ahhhhh, yes… the term used to refer to this trope in Weird Tales is Brundage-bait. Margaret Brundage specialized in titillating magazine covers featuring scantily-clad damsels in distress and the evil ladies who distress them. By writing stories involving strippings and whippings (I need a ‘Gurgi’ tag), authors stood a good chance to get a cover story. Here’s her cover for Red Nails.
While “Jewels of Gwahlur” is far from my favorite ‘Conan’ tale, it does have my favorite passage in all of Howard’s oeuvre:
He ran out on the span, straight toward the oncoming monster. It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot.
Reading this as an adolescent, I immediately thought, “this reads like an awesome collaboration between ERB and HPL.”
Could someone please please post a comprehensive list of stories and where/how to find them? I’d be eternally grateful.
I’ve only read Red Nails (on Project Gutenberg) but somehow Conan is my literary spirit animal.
Kthanksbye!
@30 — This looks pretty comprehensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard_bibliography#Conan_the_Barbarian
Having said which, my recommendation is always to get the Del Rey collections — they’re by far the most authoritative versions of the stories, going back to Howard’s original manuscripts and/or the original magazine publications.
@28 — Actually, Howard was the one who rewrote “By This Axe I Rule!” into “The Phoenix on the Sword” — for whatever reason, he couldn’t sell Axe at the time, so he made some changes and turned it into the first Conan story. (And I admit that I also have a soft spot for the Kull stories.)
I can well remember finding the Lancer edition of Conan the Warrior in a used book store when I was pretty young. I devoured it. So much so, and so loud were my cries to go back and buy more, that my father picked it up to see what I was reading. Now he had been born in upstate New York early in the century, and had been raised on various tales of Indian Wars in that area. After reading it, he told me he was amused because ‘Beyond the Black River’ was the same kind of ‘Drums along the Mohawk’ he had read as a kid. Needless to say, I continued with the Conan books until it seemed they were just cranking them out without much thought.
I can see now how someone might find them a bit cliché, but at the time there was not a lot of S&S around (no D&D), but they were very important at the time. I still have my old Lancers, and picked up the recent hardbacks for old times sake. But every time I try and read a modern S&S book they just seem to feel derivative and fall flat.
My dad had some of the lancer/ace paperbacks in the basement. After I saw Conan the destroyer I went down stairs and read every Conan book he owned. Parents were happy I was reading. Not necessarily the content but my brothers didn’t really care to read anything other than goosebumps so 1 out of 3 was better then none. I get some people don’t like the none Howard material but when I started I didn’t know any better. The first time I read the thing in the crypt I was hooked. The city of skulls basically has 2 Conan’s in it. Twice the action. I found the Robert Jordan book Conan the Magnificent at a garage sale. Loved it. Now I had to find all 40+ Tor books. My library grew. I’m not picky. I enjoyed the stories because they were fiction. I wasn’t concerned with inconsistencies in the writing. I wanted to read stories about Conan and that’s what was out there. I have all 12 lancer/ace novels, all 40+ Tor novels, and plenty other Conan novels. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say I have every Conan story every printed excluding the comics. And I’d like to re-read them but I’m afraid they’d fall apart. I want all these in ebook format so I can read them whenever I want without possible destruction of my novels. But finding the early non Howard material in digital format is damn near impossible. If anyone knows where to find it please let me know. And with that I’ll say the Momoa story sucked and his eyes weren’t blue but I thought he pulled off a great Conan. I mean with all the stories in print how hard would it have to turn one into a movie. Finally “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” awesome!!!
@29 – Yes, while I have lost almost all my Conan books over several decades of house moves, I can’t offhand remember any Conan story where at least one female character didn’t lose her clothing at some point.
@34 Well, for starters the very first one he wrote “The Phoenix on the Sword”. Also “The Tower of the Elephant”, “The God in the Bowl”, “Rogues in the House” etc. I don’t think any of them made the cover though.