A Brief Subjective Rundown of the Conan Stories

A friend of mine was asking for my opinion on the Conan stories. I thought I'd share my brief response. I've grouped the Conan stories into five categories on a relative scale - that is, the best or worst Conan story in relation to one another, not in relation to the entire Sword-and-Sorcery genre, where another author's 5-star stories might struggle to meet a 2-star Howard in quality & influence.

I've put an asterisk* next to my favourites in each category, as well as a cross+ next to ones I don't particularly recommend for new readers. Howard's original titles are in brackets. 

֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ FIVE STARS - MASTERPIECES ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍

Game-changers. Not only are they some of the finest examples of fantasy literature out there, they practically deconstructed & reconstructed the genre while it was still forming. Deep symbolism, subtlety, & resonance, that while present, never overtakes being cracking good reads.

"Beyond the Black River"

"Queen of the Black Coast"

"Red Nails"

"The Tower of the Elephant"*

"The Hour of the Dragon"

֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ FOUR STARS - CLASSICS ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍

These are the adventures that made Conan, and defined the Sword-and-Sorcery genre. Codifiers of multiple tropes & hallmarks, iconic characters, hugely influential, & enthralling reads. 

"Black Colossus"

"The People of the Black Circle"

"The Phoenix on the Sword"*

"Rogues in the House"

"The Scarlet Citadel"

֍ ֍ ֍ THREE STARS - WORTHIES ֍ ֍ ֍

The Masterpieces & Classics perfectly mix subtext & text. These adventures lean one way or the other, being either intriguing but sometimes obtuse tales, or unpretentious pot-boilers which seek naught beyond a good story. 

"A Witch Shall Be Born"

"The Black Stranger"

"The God in the Bowl"*

"The Devil in Iron"

"Gods of the North" ("The Frost-Giant's Daughter") 

֍֍ TWO STARS - ROTE ֍֍

The adventures Howard knocked out quickly to out food on the table, shrewdly including elements he knew would appeal to editors & cover artists. Yet even mediocre Howard is still better than many other S&S authors' best. 

"Jewels of Gwahlur" ("The Servants of Bit-Yakin")*

"The Pool of the Black One"

"Shadows in the Moonlight" ("Iron Shadows in the Moon") 

"Shadows in Zamboula"+ ("Man-Eaters of Zamboula") 

"The Slithering Shadow" ("Xuthal of the Dusk")

"The Vale of Lost Women"+

֍ ONE STAR - ERRATA ֍

These are incomplete adventures unpublished or unfinished in Howard's lifetime, supplemental notes not intended for publication, or stories that don't feature Conan himself. Either way, it seems unfair to rank them alongside the rest of the actual finished adventures. They do appear in some collections, but usually edited & completed by the writers L. Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter (Mark Finn covered that whole thing in superlative detail)

"Drums of Tombalku" (Untitled Draft & Synopsis)

"The Hyborian Age"

" The Hall of the Dead" (Untitled Fragment)

"The Hand of Nergal" (Untitled Synopsis)

"The Snout in the Dark" (Untitled Draft & Synopsis)

"Wolves Beyond the Border"*

I know this list will be different from many others' personal rankings, which is why Howard's work has stood the test of time almost a century after his work's publication. 

A Robert E. Howard Reader at Fantasy Con Scotland

"The Legend" by George Paul Chalmers (ca 1864),
illustrating a scene from The Pirate (1821) by Walter Scott

Scotland, befitting a land of inventors and innovators inspired by infinite imagination, has long been a fertile realm for the field of fantasy fiction. The enigmatic ruins & monuments of the land's lost peoples conjured tales of Fairies in the hearts & minds of Scots; the deep lochs veiled lurking Kelpies and monsters; the mountains & islands attributed to the work of Giants, or even the bodies of Sea Serpents. Those stories themselves sprouted forth poems, sagas, legends, and myths, clasping round history and geography like flame flowers around a standing stone, with new tales & works continuing to this day. So deeply entwined is our history with our legend, one could be forgiven for mistaking an unbelievable truth for a convincing legend, and the reverse. 

Writers across the world have taken a cutting or two from Scotland's wild garden of myth & history, from Shakespeare subverting & transforming history entwined with supernatural themes in Macbeth, to John William Polidori's Lord Ruthden in The Vampyr; Mary Shelley's time in Dundee & Edinburgh informing Frankenstein, to Bram Stoker's stay at Slains Castle providing a sumptuous visual canvas for Dracula; onward to David Gemmel fashioning his Rigante saga after the Scottish Highlands, Gregory Widen's visit to Scotland inspiring the immortal Highlander, & Diane Gabaldon's love of Scottish history leading to the Outlander series.  Authors as varied as Jules Verne, William Hope Hodgson, A. Merritt, Robert W. Chambers, M.R. James, Edmond Hamilton, Greye La Spina, Manly Wade Wellman, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Morgan Robertson, C. L. Moore, Seabury Quinn, Poul Anderson, Karl Edward Wagner, & many more besides have written stories about Scotland, Scots, or our stories.

Even a 20th century writer all the way in small-town Texas, who himself became founder & codifier of an entire genre within the wider field of fantasy, can trace those roots back to Caledonia.

Conan Across The Multiverse

The darkness hung in the old tomb's nighted halls like tapestries of a ghostly kingdom. Glinting pinpricks of dust flittered to the ground, disturbed for the first time in centuries by some errant gust from a nameless wind. The great jade sarcophagus laid upon a cracked lapiz-lazuli dais untouched for untold years, the silence unbroken since the death of the old dynasty. A thunderstroke cracked; a blast of dust and smoke burst as the sarcophagus lid shuddered open. A withered hand juddered from the gloom: grasping the lid, a skeletal husk heaved into the dim light. A skull wrapped in skin dry and pale as parchment loomed aloft. It gaped and gasped, coughing fitfuls of dessicated beard into the stagnant air like a dandelion clock. The figure looked, squinting its wrinkled eyelids uselessly over the sockets from which eyes once gazed.

"Ach, what are they up to now?"

Robert E. Howard in Scots: "A Song of the Race"

A Sang o’ the Ilk

Screivit by Rabert E. Howard

Heich oan his throne sat Bran Mak Morn
Whan the sun-god sank an the wast wis reid;
He waggit a girl wi’ his wauchtin-horn,
An, "Sing me a sang o’ the ilk," he said.

Her een waur as derk as the seas o’ nicht,
Her lips waur as reid as the settin sun,
As a duskit rose in the dwynin licht,
She let her fingers dreamily rin

Owur the gowden-whispert strings,
Seekin the sowel o’ her auncient lyre;
Bran sate still oan the throne o’ kings,
Bronze face limnit in the dayset's fire

"First o’ the ilk o’ men," she sang,
"Far frae an unco laund we cam,
Frae the rim o’ the waurld whaur muntains hing
An the seas burn reid wi’ the dayset flam."

"First an the lest o’ the ilk are we,
Gane is the auld waurld's gilt an pride,
Mu is a stoil o’ the wastern sea,
Throu haws o’ Atlantis the white shairks glide."

An eemage o’ bronze, the king sate still,
Javelings o’ cramasie shot the wast,
She brushit the strings an curmurt thrill
Soopit up the chords tae the heichest creest.

"Hear ye the yairn that the auncients tell,
Hechtit o’ yore by the god o’ the muin,
Chuckit oan the shuir a deep sea shell,
Cairvit oan the surface a meestic rune:"

" ' As ye war first in the meestic past
Oot o’ the smochs o’ the blee o’ Time,
Sae sall the men o’ yer ilk be lest
Whan the waurld sall crummle,' sae ran the rhyme."

" ' A maun o’ yer ilk, oan kips that clash,
Sall leuk oan the reelin waurld ablo;
Tae spewing smeuk sall he see it crash,
A fleetin smoch o’ the winds that blaw.' "

" 'Starn-dust fawin for aye throu space.
Dirlin aboot in the winds that birl;
Ye that waur first, be the lest-most ilk,
For ane o’ yer men sall be the lest o’ men.' "

Intae the seelence her vyse trailit aff,
Yet it echaed athort the huim,
Owur the heather the nicht-wind saft
Buir the scent o’ the forest's moust.

Reid lips liftit, an derk een dreamit,
Bauchens cam wheelin oan theftie weengs;
But the muin ris gowd an the far starns glimmit,
An the king still sate oan the throne o’ kings.

Requiescat in Pace, Howard Andrew Jones

I wish I could've started the new year on a happier tone.

Howard Andrew Jones was an author whose work exemplified everything this blog was made to extoll: adventure fiction with an eye for historical resonance, eldritch menace, and weird mystery, evoking the works of classic late 19th & early 20th Century ripping yarns, while also bringing his own sensibilities and qualities to the prose. He wrote tales in Pathfinder's world of Golarion, undertook the enormous project to collect Harold Lamb's historical adventures into the Bison Books collection, and created three fantasy cycles of his own.

It was through Robert E. Howard fandom that I first encountered him, and he regularly wrote on that author and the worlds of historic & fantastic adventures on Tor, Black Gate (of which he was managing editor), and on his own website, with an essay in Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures being one of the highlights of the Del Rey Howard collection.

So when Andrew sent out an email enquiring if I would be interested in helping spread the word for his debut fantasy novel, well, I was only too happy to do so.

This is Charles Keegan's magnificent illustration for the UK edition of The Bones of the Old Ones. Andrew told me I would love it: he knew my tastes very well.

Of all Howard's works, it was The Desert of Souls and The Bones of the Old Ones which I loved the most. The "Sword and Sand" stories of stolid guardman Asim & wily rogue Dabir swashbuckling their way through a fantastical veil of the Islamic Golden Age of Persia. Much like the deeply missed fellow Sword-and-Sorcery boundary-breaking aficionado Charles R. Saunders, it is the shift in setting & focus of the Sword and Sand Chronicles which appealed to me the most - Arabian Nights with an earthy grounding to complement the dreamlike magicks and uncanny mysteries, with historical sensibilities supporting it all, like the roots of a tree holding up a cliff-face.

He was always generous, encouraging, and inspirational to me in my all-too-few dealings with him. I was always amazed to see him grace the blog with his presence, and I'm so glad for the correspondences we shared with one another. We cannot know what the future will bring, but if there's any justice in it, then Howard Andrew Jones' books will be on library shelves for many years to come: for just as his appreciation for Lamb brought that author's work to a new generation, I'm certain fans of that Indiana farmboy will make sure his work will live on.

Triangulation: The Land That Time Forgot at 100

I was once again offered the opportunity to write for DMR Books - as this year marks a century since The Land That Time Forgot (or the novel fix-up for "The Land That Time Forgot," "The People That Time Forgot," and "Out of Time's Abyss") was first published, I shared some of my thoughts and observations on the book, the stories, and the world of Caspak.

Robert E. Howard in Scots: Aye Comes Antrum

A small tribute to my eternal inspiration Robert E. Howard, and to an auld freen, who shared his birthday. I am glad to have met and talked with him in person. We had great fun at the poetry slams outside Howard's house. This translation covered some of the themes we talked about the last time we met. No Empire lasts forever.

"Aye Comes Antrum"

Screivit by Rabert E. Howard

Ridin doon the road at antrum wi’ the starns or steed an shoon

I hae haurd an auld maun singin underneth a copper muin;

"God, wha gemmit wi’ cairngorm gloamins, opal portals o’ the day,

"Oan oor amaranthine muntains, why mak human sowels o’ clay?

"For I rade the muin-mare's horses in the glore o’ ma yowth,

"Wrastlit wi’ the braes at dayset— till I met bress-tinterit Trowth.

"Till I saw the temples tottle, till I saw the eedols reel,

"Till ma brain had turnit tae airn, an ma hert had turnit tae steel.

"Sautie, Sautie, brither Sautie, fill ma sowel wi’ frozen fire;

"Feed wi’ herts o’ rose-white wummen ashes o’ ma deid desire.

"For ma road rins oot in thistles an ma dreams hae turnit tae dust.

"An ma pinions fade an faltar tae the corbin weengs o’ rust.

"Trowth has smitten me wi’ airras an her haun is in ma hair—

"Yowth, she hides in thonder muntains — gang an see her, if ye daur!

"Wark yer gramarie, brither Sautie, fill ma brain wi’ fiery spells.

"Sautie, Sautie, brither Sautie, I hiv kent yer faircest Hells."

Ridin doon the road at evening whan the wind wis oan the sea,

I hae heard an auld maun singin, an he sang maist dowiely,

Streenge tae hear, whan derk loch shimmer tae the greetin o’ the loun,

Amatist Oisin singin unner antrum copper muin.

The Word For World Is "West"

Sigh.

I suppose I might as well, eh? 

Almost ten years on, this post is becoming more and more prophetic.

The Road to Acheron, Part Four - "Zukundu of the Twilight" & "The Glacier of Time's Abyss"

(DM's NOTE: The first story is the conclusion of the previous sessions' adventure, and some story elements of Helena Nash's "Devils Under Green Stars" are included... with some significant alterations. The thrilling finale to the Zukundu saga is here at last - and we even had time to fit in the next adventure! Both ripping yarns are included in this post - the question being, who survives? )

The Road to Acheron, Part Three: "The Fall of Zukundu"

(DM's note: In my optimism, I projected that this adventure would be finished in one session. The players, being the wonderful meandering adventurers they are, saw fit to extend this story for another session - so much so, in fact, that the final chapters will take place in the first part of next week's session. I wouldn't have it any other way - though I'm going to take steps to improve my time management for the next set of stories!

As with the previous week, plot elements from Helena Nash's "Devils Under Green Stars" may be spoiled for anyone who wishes to play that adventure in its unadulterated form)

("The Lion's Reign," The Ghost and the Darkness, Jerry Goldsmith)

The Horror in the Greenhouse

Amatagt and Kryxus met each other somewhere outside of Kush. When they learned they shared the same destination, they agreed to work together - for now. Both heard different stories about the lost city of Zukundu, of what may lie behind its great walls, and the dangers that lurk within. The pair brave the jungles of Kush and its denizens, and arrived at the great basin where the city dwelt. They skilfully avoided the monstrous reptiles infesting the lake surrounding the city, and climbed the outer walls.

When they entered the city, they saw a woman. When she noticed them, she froze, before turning and racing into the jungle. The two began a pursuit, and followed her to a doorway leading downwards, overgrown with red vines. They heard a bloodcurdling female scream from below, and ran down into the corridor. They entered a strange greenhouse-like room with green glowing windows, stone planters, and red vines growing over all of them. The woman, standing in the centre, was trembling in terror: she spoke in Kushite, and though Amatagt is not well-versed in the language, he has taken enough slaves to understand "No! Get away! Get away!"

Something grabbed Amatagt by the waist, constricting around him like a snake. Before he can reach for his sword, Kryxus felt more constrictions binding his limbs, and snaked across his chest. Both were jerked backwards into the darkness, their vision swimming in a sea of red...