Bill Ward and I are starting our read of the first of three Del Rey collections of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, The Coming of Conan. There have been many other collections containing the stories within, so even if you don’t have this particular volume we hope that you’ll join us. This week we’re looking at an essay Robert E. Howard wrote about the world Conan adventured in titled “The Hyborian Age.”
With our completion of Swords in the Mist last week, Bill Ward and I started exchanging final thoughts and ended up mostly just looking ahead for next week’s read from The Coming of Conan.
When we finished Swords Against Death if felt like we had a lot more to talk about, perhaps because there were so many more stories, or perhaps because there was a whole scale of good to great (or occasional average). In Swords In the Mist we had three levels of quality. There were the three excellent short stories (“The Cloud of Hate,” “Lean Times in Lankhmar,” “When The Sea Kings Away,”) and some entertaining linking bits that weren’t quite stories and weren’t entirely satisfying but still had some nice moments. And then there was the unlamented and never-to-be-read by Bill and Howard again “Adept’s Gambit.”