Archives: Heroic Fiction

Conan Re-Read: “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula”

Today, on the 110th anniversary of Robert E. Howard’s birth, Bill Ward and I are reading through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Conquering Sword of Conan. This week we’re discussing “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula,” sometimes known as “Shadows in Zamboula.” We hope you’ll join in!

Howard: Last week I suggested that this one was a bit of a dud, and while that might not have been entirely fair, I still don’t think it’s likely to be anyone’s favorite Conan story. Unlike “The Black Stranger,” though, it was published in Robert E. Howard’s lifetime in the pages of Weird Tales, by its editor Farnsworth Wright. And you can surely feel Howard playing to Wright’s favorite themes. Namely the sexy damsel in distress. You’ll note that she begins the story entirely naked and never once dons a stitch of clothing. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so gratuitous. You add that to some rather uncomfortable descriptions of the cannibals, the somewhat stilted opening, and the inn/cannibal trap and the result is less than stellar. 

Conan Re-Read: “The Black Stranger”

Bill Ward and I are reading through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Conquering Sword of Conan. This week we’re discussing “The Black Stranger.” We hope you’ll join in!

Bill: Like “Beyond the Black River” which precedes it, “The Black Stranger” is a tale set in the Pictish wilderness of Hyboria that sees a vulnerable outpost of civilization overrun by the wild men of the wood. But this time around the threat of the Picts — still an Amerindian analog — serve as more of a backdrop to the infighting and machinations of pirate captains, an exiled nobleman, and a cagey Conan. Again REH draws on the American frontier for inspiration, but it isn’t the dominant theme of the piece, which also manages to end on a far more up tempo note despite the carnage. Wild battles, double-crossing, pirate treasure, and a mysterious demonic stranger are all skillfully woven together into a complex but nonetheless fast-paced adventure that stands solidly alongside the better Conan stories.

Conan Re-Read: “Beyond the Black River”

Bill Ward and I are reading through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Conquering Sword of Conan. This week we’re discussing “Beyond the Black River.” We hope you’ll join in!

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still starring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarism must ultimately triumph.”

Bill: So concludes “Beyond the Black River,” a story that might almost be REH’s thesis on his philosophy of civilization. It is a story that introduces new elements to Conan’s world, demonstrating again how flexible and expandable REH’s Hyborian blueprint was even after sixteen complete short (and not so short) stories and a novel. But it also maintains a continuity with what has come before, giving us perilous adventure with supernatural antagonists and, of course, Conan being Conan.

The New Year Begins

Bill Ward and I will return next Friday with a look at one of the most famous Conan stories of all, “Beyond the Black River.”

For now, here’s hoping that we have a good New Year lying before us.

A week or so back, fellow writers Chris Jackson, Jeff Grubb, Stephan Sullivan and myself joined Dave Gross to discuss Heroic Fantasy. I hope you’ll swing by and take a look!

Conan Re-Read: “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”

Bill Ward and I are starting our read through of the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Conquering Sword of Conan. This week we’re discussing “The Servants of Bit-Yakin,” occasionally known as “Jewels of Gwahlur.” We hope you’ll join in!

Howard: I expected to like this one less. I try to walk into reading these stories with a pretty open mind, but in the case of Bit-Yakin I recently caught a few articulate REH fans writing about how it was their least favorite, and of course Patrice Louinet mentions, in the concluding essay to the book, that it was probably written quickly to help build up the stock of Conan stories in the Weird Tales inventory. With that in mind I thought I’d be reading more filler. Yet I ended up enjoying it a lot more than “A Witch Shall be Born” — apart from that one great scene we discussed last week — and there’s nothing in this story that touches that.

Conan Re-Read: “A Witch Shall Be Born”

Bill Ward and I are continuing our read through of the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Bloody Crown of Conan. This week we’re discussing “A Witch Shall be Born.” We hope you’ll join in!

Howard: I had hoped to like this one more. I’ve only read it once before, and I hadn’t remembered it being quite so frustrating. Coming as it does on the heels of a sword-and-sorcery masterpiece it’s even more of a let down, and it seems hard to believe that the man who just gave us such a spellbinding story should trip this way.

Bill: It’s like the steep initial drop on a roller-coaster, minus the exhilaration.

Conan Re-Read: The Hour of the Dragon, Part 2

Bill Ward and I are continuing our read through of the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Bloody Crown of Conan. This week we’re discussing the second half of “The Hour of the Dragon.” We hope you’ll join in!

Bill: It is only at the midpoint of The Hour of the Dragon that Conan learns the full significance of the Heart of Ahriman, the terrible jewel with the intrinsic power to recall the dead to life or enhance sorcery beyond the bounds of mortal power. He learns this from the priests of Asura, a cult that he has shielded from persecution during his reign, and the same priests not only shelter him and the recently rescued princess Albiona, but they also facilitate his journey southward. From this point until its conclusion, the novel is a race for the jewel as Conan travels not only through the Hyborian Age landscape, but through his own past lives as mercenary, pirate, and thief.

Celebrating Leigh Brackett

The 100th birthday of the late, great Leigh Brackett is coming up next Monday, and to celebrate, Bill Ward and I our doing a read-through of one of her great stories set on a Venus that never was.

Brackett was a phenomenal writer. She’s been called the Queen of Space Opera, but I think a better-named crown was probably Queen of Planetary Adventure.

She wrote screenplays with Faulkner  AND mentored Ray Bradbury AND wrote the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back. She was writing about heroes who would have been comfortable plying the space lanes beside Han Solo and Malcolm Reynolds decades before those characters were ever conceived. Most importantly, though, she was simply an incredibly gifted adventure writer who wrote with fantastic atmosphere, wonderful pacing, and dynamic characters. She’s one of my very favorite writers, and she’s had a tremendous influence that (unfortunately) has often gone unsung.

We hope you’ll join in our re-read. To make things extra simple, here’s a link to an extremely affordable e-collection of her work from BAEN, The Swamps of Venus. From that collection Bill and I will be reading “The Moon that Vanished.”

This e-book is only $4.00, and I have to say, if you’re going to invest that, you probably ought to simply get Brackett’s Solar System collection for $20.00 so you can read her even more (and justly) famed stories set on Mars. Bill and I are reading “The Moon that Vanished” because it’s a great one that gets passed over because she has so many more stories set on Mars.

Anyway, hope to see you here, and I hope you’ll trust my recommendation if you’ve never read Brackett.

 

Conan Re-Read: The Hour of the Dragon, Part 1

Bill Ward and I are continuing our read through of the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Bloody Crown of Conan. This week we’re discussing the first nine chapters of “The Hour of the Dragon.” We hope you’ll join in!

Conan Re-Read: “The People of the Black Circle”

Bill Ward and I are starting our read through of the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Bloody Crown of Conan. This week we’re discussing “The People of the Black Circle.” We hope you’ll join in!