The Encyclopaedia Is Changing

So that's been quite a while since my official announcement, and there's been precious little information about what's going on.

Well, I've taken the first step in the next phase of the project, and I've overcome three significant barriers.  The most important is the final acknowledgement of the enormousness of the project, which had been one barrier: now that I have a better idea of how huge it all is, I have a better handle on it.  I was always aware that many people have helped me get where I am today, but I was adamant on not relying on them at the same time. Now I realise that, really, it's not that I'm putting a burden on them, it's sharing it. So rather than this being another "what could have been," I've taken measures which ensure that the Encyclopaedia will move forward - whether I like it or not!

The next is more personal: I've been working on it so much that it's taken a life of its own, and it's gotten too personal. I became so invested and attached that I started to become afraid of letting anyone see it.  I convinced myself that errors, typos, mistakes and other undesirables littered the work like autumn leaves on the road, dreading the time when the avalanche of corrections would come through. This is something I have to deal with too often, and why I don't do nearly as many commissions as I probably could.

The third is most personal of all. There is someone within the Howard community which I consider more important than any save Howard himself in terms of getting me established, encouraging me, and keeping me on the straight and narrow. He's the reason I was confident enough to post on the Robert E. Howard Forums, which remain the best, most accessible online discussion for Howard and essential for anyone remotely interested in Howard and Conan to peruse at least once. He gave me the spirit and advice I needed to ask Leo Grin to join The Cimmerian, and I doubt I would even have tried were it not for his support. And I'm pretty sure The Blog That Time Forgot would be very different without everything I've learned from him. Yet after knowing him all these years, I've lately felt intimidated by his knowledge, to the point where I was deathly afraid of disappointing him. I eventually bit the bullet and did what had to be done.

For the truth is, the Encyclopaedia was never a solo project - not really. Every Howard fan, scholar, critic, and collector I've talked to has welcomed me, even after initially hostile receptions. I know that I could send them an email with any sort of a query, and if they don't respond with an answer, they'll suggest exactly who might know. And of course, there are countless essays and articles which opened the way for entirely new ways of thinking about Conan and the Hyborian Age. All about the work of an author who's been dead over 75 years - a world he created in two dozen stories.

I hate to be a tease: I've told you about the changes, but not said what they are. Once everything's in place and collated, I'm sure an announcement will come in due course, but for now, I'll just say this: the Encyclopaedia is changing, and the change is good.

It's a New Year...

My New Year's Resolution is to contain and stifle the great dragon which has been smothering my creativity: Procrastinatrax pejorative. A lot of the time, I'd be working on something, and just never post it: "it just needs more polishing, more work, more tinkering and tweaking." But no amount of tinkering or tweaking ever fully satisfied me. It's a wonder I post anything at all.

I recently put up a post on the Aquiromians. Originally it was much longer, before I decided to split it into parts. I started working on it in April. April 2010. I had a big post on my thoughts on the upcoming Hobbit film's dwarves. I still have tons of reviews of comics, books and the like that I just wasn't happy posting. Well, no more.

And, of course, there's the Encyclopedia. I've amassed tons and tons of notes over the years, but I keep second-guessing myself, so much of the EH as it is now is written from scratch. The temptation was to just take posts I'd made on the REH Forums, The Cimmerian, Hyborian Age Gazetteers, even Conan: Total War previews, and make them fit. That was the original plan. But every so often, I came across some little detail that I had reconsidered. It might've been a pastiche element that slipped through the cracks (Shamar being a pre-Cataclysmic city was one), or a new take (my view of Corinthia had changed dramatically), or even just some weird thing that didn't work out. So I eventually stopped, and decided to just go back to the stories.

But that's been problematic too. The way my mind works, I take time to remember. I can't just draw it forth like CTRL-F on a file: I have to delve through filing cabinets. So this has slowed things down too. But, again, I'm reconsidering my approach.

Hopefully I'll have at least one post a week up, either Encyclopaedia related, or one of those reviews I haven't finished. In any case, Happy Hogmanay, one and all!

Hyborian Musings: Mappa Mundi

A quickly-rendered composite utilizing the two maps included in Del Rey's Conan collections

The subject of maps for the Encyclopaedia.  On the one hand, I'd really like to have a big grand map of the Hyborian Age just to show the breadth and depth of Howard's creation, based upon the best suggestions, ideas and hypotheses.  On the other, it seems contradictory to try to separate pastiche from Howard, only to introduce my own theories in the process, muddying the waters.

From a strict "REH-only, nowt but" perspective, the only satisfying answer would be to just use Howard's own maps.  The problem is... well, they aren't very detailed, or photogenic.  They weren't intended to be either.  Howard's maps were his own sketches, drawn in his own time, so he could get a feel for the Hyborian Kingdoms' geopolitical structure while writing the stories.  In this, they obviously succeeded - but they weren't intended for publication by Howard himself, since they're just a series of lines overlaid on a map of Europe.  Many landmarks, cities, rivers, mountains, and other features are missing, and a good portion of the landmass is left off in the south and east.

Part of me wants to honour Howard's desire to keep the Black Kingdoms and the Blue East vague, mysterious and unknown to the reader.  However, another part feels that any future pasticheurs may feel that the lack of a map, even a speculative one, of any given area gives them carte blanche to do whatever they like. So in leaving out any depictions of Vendhya, Hyrkania, Zembabwei, Khemu and beyond, a future comic or book author might get the impression "well, that means I can just stick in a super-advanced kingdom the size of Aquilonia ruled by dragonfly-riding people in the middle of the Black Kingdoms - after all, there's nothing to say there couldn't be such a place, right?"

Thus the dilemma.

I think the best solution is to do both: provide a map based only on Howard's documents, and an expanded map based on current theories - and make sure it's delineated as such.  The map based on REH's map is described as being based on REH's map, and thus set in stone, as it were.  The map based on various theories, such as the outstanding work by Dale Rippke in the Blue East and Black Kingdoms, however, has a bit of leeway, within reason, and is defined as theoretical.  I might have fun with the literary agent hypothesis here.

Hyborian Musings: The Conan Calendar

I've been wrestling with dates in regards to the Encyclopedia. "Three thousand years before the time of Conan," "nine hundred years before Conan's time," and whatnot.  While correct enough, it also seemed a bit clumsy and redundant.  But what could replace it?  Initially I was wanting to knock out a hard timeline, where every major event of the Hyborian Age was listed and put in context, like this one for the Cthulhu Mythos, or this for Tolkien's mythos.  My initial thought for the reckoning was using the Cataclysm: after all, what more profound and earth-shattering event could one choose for the timeline than the one which rocked the foundations of the earth?  Unfortunately, "The Hyborian Age" has proven immensely difficult to work with due to later stories' contradictions.  Published stories take precedents over private notes, true, but so much Hyborian history is found in the essay, one wonders what to do with it.

Then it hit me: I was using the wrong reckoning.  Instead of using the cataclysm, why not use the one element which is most constantly used as a marker between events of the Hyborian past and present?

My proposal is to organise everything around Conan.  Of course, I thought, it's so simple!  We could even include the traditional B.C. to serve as the "ancient time," and the succeeding period starting with A:

B.C. = Before Conan
A.C. = After Conan

The next question is shrinking it down: what time in Conan's life should serve as the reckoning?  The traditional Gregorian calendar immediately made me think of using Conan's birth, but many cultures use the start of a ruler's reign.  Conan is clearly one of the most important historical figures of the Hyborian Age, if not quite the religious figure Jesus turned out to be, but in any case, it's the perfect marriage of accessibility and simplicity.  So perhaps...

B.C. =  Before (the reign of) Conan
A.C. = Age of Conan

Using this system, we can then say (for example):

• 10,000 BC Birth of Akivasha
• 3,000 BC   Fall of Acheron
                    Fall of Kuthchemes
                    Foundation of Khorshemish
• 1,500 BC   Death of Epemitreus the Sage
• 1,000 BC   Bossonian Marches first established
• 900 BC      Death of Epeus of Aquilonia
                    Gazali migrate from Koth
• 500 BC      First of five-hundred-year period of intermittent war between Aquilonia and Nemedia
• 300 BC      Yara captures and enslaves Yogah
• 100 BC      Bloody Tranicos disappears
• 40 BC        Birth of Conan
• 26 BC        Battle of Venarium
• 23 BC        Disappearance of Yara and destruction of the Elephant's Tower
• 10 BC        War of the Barons in Aquilonia
• 0 AC          Age of Conan begins
• 5 AC          Aquilonian-Nemedian War
• 500 AC      Pictish Empire destroys Aquilonia

By Crom, I think this could work.

Hyborian Musings: Yes, We Have No Dragons

Yes, I've been playing Skyrim.  No, it hasn't conquered my life, though it isn't for want of trying: I just don't really have the energy or interest for marathon gaming sessions any more. The quests have been dull and lifeless compared to the best stories in Morrowind and Oblivion, the glitches are bad even for Bethesda, and I cannot understand why they don't go the Bioware/Obsidian approach to character animation - but I don't care, because the realm of Skyrim itself, the game world, makes up for it in every way.  The scenery, by Crom! The creatures!  The dungeons, mountains, forests, skies!  I spend most of my time in Skyrim simply wandering about the lovely landscape, watching the sabertooths prowl after elk, giants herding mammoths, the occasional dragon soar overhead, waiting for the Northern Lights to ripple across the night sky, Tamriel's twin moons looming above.  But in a way, it helps, since so much of Skyrim is influenced by the "Northern Thing" as Tolkien liked to call it, which naturally led me to consider those elements in REH, and so, the Encyclopedia.  Thinking about the dragons in the game led me to ponder dragons in Conan.

Dragons in Howard are a wide subject that warrants further study, but dragons of the Hyborian Age are naturally something I've been delving into for the Encyclopedia. While dragons rarely make an on-stage appearance in the Conan stories - only "The Scarlet Citadel" and "Red Nails" have living, breathing ones drop by - thematic and symbolic dragons are all over the place, be they dragons in heraldry, or colourful metaphors for characters. Nowhere is this more evident than in the singular Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon.

It has been remarked upon that P.S. Miller changing The Hour of the Dragon to Conan the Conqueror for the tale's single-volume publication debut was, in diplomatic terms, a blasted stupid idea. Like the esteemed Mr Rippke, I think The Hour of the Dragon is a strong, poetic, evocative title heaving with mythic resonance and symbolism. Conan the Conqueror may have alliteration on its side, but it's painfully dull in comparison - not to mention misleading in itself, since Conan doesn't conquer so much as regain what was already his. The reason behind  this change, of course, was that the man thought the title was misleading due to the lack of dragons in the text.

Confucius, he say: Whaaaaa?

Hyborian Musings: Of Iberians and Cloods

I've decided I'm going to periodically share a few random musings in regards to the Encyclopedia, both as a form of soundboard, and to let you all know that yes, I am still typing away and tearing my hair out (that list of Cimmerian names is driving me berserkamad), though hopefully some of my theories won't sound quite so insane as they might in my head.

One valuable resource I've been utilizing is de Camp's "Hyborian Names," which appeared in Conan the Swordsman: lest you think I've gone soft on the Spraguester, I find myself disagreeing as often as agreeing when it comes to derivations that aren't crystal-clear like Khorshemish.  A perfect example is in regards to the etymology of Belesa. Here's what de Camp thinks:

Belesa, Beloso Respectively, the Zingaran heroine of TT and a Zingaran man-at-arms in CC. Origin uncertain; remote possibilities are Belesis, a Babylonian priest of -VII mentioned by Ktesias; a Belesa River in Ethiopia; and Berosos (or Berossus, &c.), a Hellenized Babylonian priest and writer of early -III.

It's been remarked upon that de Camp was an extremely intelligent, erudite and well-informed man who has a curious habit of utterly failing to see the simplest of things. As such, while de Camp was struggling to draw comparisons between a fantastical-Spanish noblewoman and Babylonian priests, I think there's a far simpler origin for Belesa.

A message!

First, a sincere apology for the lack of updates.  A series of events behind-the-scenes have been mounting, particularly one situation which started in August (not what you think) but didn't really escalate until a few months ago.  It's a deeply personal family matter, so I won't get all morose or maudlin, but suffice to say I've been in a somewhat erratic and unpleasant state of mind.  I had hoped to keep this off the blog, but it spilled out in some unpredictable ways: again, I can only apologise.
Secondly, and more pleasantly, I have a renewed sense of purpose.  This is going to be the final post I make regarding the film for the foreseeable future.  I've said before that I felt a tremendous sense of futility when the film came out: all that time analysing screen captures, set photos, cast documents, script pages and magazine interviews.  Thousands of words of analysis and conjecture based on every morsel of detail I could get.  I must've written something like a hundred thousand words at the end of it all.  All for a film that I personally considered barely a Conan film at all.

I was distraught. Actually, it was worse than that: I felt destroyed. I felt like I had wasted over a year of my time on something that didn't deserve all that effort.  Look at all the things that fell by the wayside: my look at Almuric, the Hyborian Age Gazetteers, Barbarians of Middle-Earth, Frazetta & Howard, the Newcomer's Guide - how much more work could I have done in those series?  The Encyclopedia didn't suffer as badly since I was determined to work bit by bit on that every spare moment, but I certainly would've spent more time on it without the film.  All those posts, articles, essays, drawings and projects took a back seat to The Wrath of Zym.

If I found the film good enough on its own merits, that may have helped; if it was at least a box office success, I could take solace in the fact that many more potential Howard fans may use it as a gateway.  But it was a disaster critically and commercially.  It didn't matter that Howard fans and scholars whose opinions I respected enjoyed it, found it an enjoyable enough film, even found it better than the 1982 film - I didn't enjoy it.  I didn't see what they're seeing.  For all the good it did in being freer from the 1982 film's influence than the series or films before it, and for Jason Momoa being closer to Howard's creation than Arnold could ever be, I couldn't help but think: just how many people are going to go out and buy a Howard collection?

It may be that I'm being unfair on the film. The filmmakers seemed to be happy enough with the product despite the problems in the production.  I don't doubt that they thought they were making the best film they could.  Yet, well, the numbers speak for themselves.  If there's anything good I can glean from the experience, it's the knowledge that I felt I did my best.  I sought to mention or bring up Robert E. Howard as often as possible, explaining the divergences and similarities to his work, and bringing up all the books and essays I could.  I met a lot of new Howard and Conan fans, and I feel I must've done some good being one of the few blogs reporting on the film from a different point of view from the Remake Brigade.

But, as they say, onwards and upwards.  There isn't any upcoming news apart from the Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital release.  If a sequel's coming out, it won't be for a long time - and I honestly don't know if I'll be covering it if it does.  Solomon Kane fooled me once.  Conan fooled me twice.  I have serious concerns about Kull and Bran Mak Morn (if the latter's still coming).  And I'm absolutely terrified by what Christophe Gans might have in store for Sword Woman.  I just don't think I could muster the enthusiasm, knowing that any or all of those films could be at best as "good" as Solomon Kane, and at worst as bad as Conan.

But that's in the future.  For now, I have more time to dedicate to the Encyclopaedia, and I'm going to use the blog as the central news network: previews, sketches, queries, the works.  I may do cross-posts on other sites to maximise saturation and get the most possible feedback.  Since I'm kicking the Encyclopedia into overdrive, however, this means that the Blog may not be updated as often: I'll endeavour to keep you all informed, but if you don't see new posts for long stretches, know that this is because I'm hard at work on the Encyclopedia behind the scenes.

I may be knocked for six, but I'm not licked yet.  Conan didn't kill me, and it isn't going to kill the Encyclopaedia.

The things you learn in research...

Work on the Encyclopaedia Hyboriana is getting back on track, while Deuce Richardson's suggestion of Hyborica is starting to intrigue me. However, I feel I might've left you all in the dark. So I thought I'd give you an idea of the sort of things which cause me to constantly reassess my work.

I've said before that I find something new in every rereading of Howard, and nowhere has that been more prevalent than my research for the Encyclopaedia. As I go through the tales finding every instance of Conan's utterance of "Crom," correlations between story titles and metaphors in preceding tales, and the plethora of allusions, sometimes something completely unrelated pops out at me.  Sometimes it's just a little extra detail, other times it forces me to totally change entire entries.  Each time, I wonder if it's worth including in the main body of the text, or whether it should be delineated strictly as conjecture. It can lead to me wandering far from the path.

Here are a few of those observations.

Encyclopædia Hyboriana FAQ

Right, lads and lasses, I figure I might as well post a few factoids about my intentions for the Encyclopædia, just to give you a better idea of what it'll entail.

How many separate entries are there?

As of right now, 1,052. This may change as entries are conflated or divided, based on whether a given entry deserves its own spot, or should be absorbed into another.

What's the word count so far?

The master document, which has a fair portion of the information on it, is almost 54,000 words: out of that, about 10,000 is completely neat and tidy. There's still a metric boatload of information spread across dozens of files which hasn't been collated and applied, though.

In sculpting analogy, the 54,000 is the giant block of clay, with the 10,000 representing the completely carved sections -- but there's still a lot of clay in the studio to pile on.

Will it be as extensive as the Hyborian Age Gazetteers?

If they were, I'd never get the thing done!  The average length for each entry is about 200 words, though that can vary from as little as 100 to as much as 2,000. So while it'd be awesome to do something like a Hyborian Age Gazetteer in book form, it would take a lot longer.

Does the world really need an Age of Conan Encyclopædia?

I think it does, and I think it's been a long time coming too.  There are Hyborian Age resources out there, but they all utilize the work of other authors, leading to confusion.  There are times when one can easily believe, for example, that Howard called the City of Thieves "Arenjun," or called the tribes allied with Tombalku "Mindango," and "Bigharma." There have been calls for such a resource on the Conan Forums, and such great Howard minds as Steve Tompkins believe it to be necessary.  Indeed, there have been previous attempts, the most recent being Scott Oden's, but he eventually decided to concentrate on his historical fiction.

So you're essentially doing this because you hate pastiches?

Not at all - in fact, I hope this will make better pastiches.  The pastiches which have come before have persisted through to new continuities, and this leads to its own problems.  Let's take Age of Conan as an example.  The developers say that their aim is to use mostly Robert E. Howard material, and use elements from the comics and pastiches only to fill out the world.  However, where does the line between using some pastiches stop?  In filling out the north, they use elements of de Camp stories, such as the Yakhmar of "The Lair of the Ice Worm."  But if "The Lair of the Ice Worm" is canon, does this mean other de Camp stories - like the hated Conan the Liberator - are canon too?  If not, why not?  And if de Camp stories are canon, does this mean other pastiches are canon - even the very bad ones? This is bad enough when one considers quality, but then there are the cases where pastiches conflict with the game itself.  A famous example is the use of a quote describing Cimmeria as "a treeless land"... which kinda contradicts the very wooded hills of the game, not to mention Howard's description.

So many RPGs, games, books and other pastiches have been influenced by the pastiches that have gone before. The Encyclopædia will allow new pasticheurs to start from the ground up: just Howard, nothing from anywhere else.  No more Brylukas, Hydragons, Giant Mantids, and Spider-Things of Poitain running about the wilds of "Hyboria"; no more Arenjun, Haloga, Ianthe, Pathenia, or Uttara Kuru muddling up the map; no more Queen Vammatar, King Ferdrugo, Jenna, Thulandra Thuu or Sigurd of Vanaheim photobombing group photos; no more Cobra Crown, Herat of Tammuz, Atlantean Sword, or Mamajambo's War Club littering the treasuries of the age.

Besides, I'm sick of the Yakhmar turning up everywhere, and I even think it's one of the cooler* de Camp creations.

Are you going to publish it through Hulu, the REH Foundation, or another publisher?

That all depends on how Paradox/CPI want to do it (assuming they let me!): hopefully I can get a license and permission to do so.

Will the Encyclopædia be a super-elite-collector's-limited-extended edition hardback, or an affordable paperback?

Given the choice, the latter.  I'd rather take after Barbara Barrett's Wordbook or Paul Herman's The Neverending Hunt than the lavish, gorgeous tomes A Means to Freedom and Collected Poetry.

Why "Encyclopædia" instead of "Encyclopedia"?

It's a tip to the hat towards the Encyclopædia Britannica and other tomes using the spelling. Besides, I love the æ ligature. I played about with different ideas: Lebor Hyborianach, Codex Hyboriana, The Hyborian Lexicon, even something quirky like Cyclopedia Hyboriana. I wasn't sure whether to go with Nemedian Chronicles or not, but I'm fairly satisfied with Encyclopædia Hyboriana.

Why "Encyclopædia Hyboriana" instead of "Encyclopædia Hyboria"?

Hyboria is a pastiche term, and is loaded with all sorts of possible misinterpretations: the idea of the land, or even the planet, being called "Hyboria" paramount among them.  Rather than contribute to any possible misinterpretation, I decided to use a cod-Latin term with the "-a" suffix to give a general feel without using "Hyboria."

Anyone else with any questions, feel free to fling them over!

*I never apologise for puns.

Looks like the Encyclopaedia Hyboriana has company!

I got a surprising link from Google Alerts: as of yesterday, it appears there's going to be another reference guide to the Hyborian Age, using only Howardian sources.

A reference guide to the world of Conan the Cimmerian. Using only the original works of Robert E. Howard.

I hope to index all places, peoples, objects and creatures unique to Conan's time in the Hyborian Age.

No information will be used from books or comics from other authors over the years. Though I will provide a list of them.

Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age is also tied with the Thurian Age of Kull the Atlantean, and also other characters in other time periods in recorded history. Information from other yarns with Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Turlogh Dubh O'Brien, Solomon Kane, James Allison, Cormac Mac Art, and other miscelleaneous stories will be indexed eventually as well. Providing ultimately a handy concordance of Robert E. Howards' fantasy tales.

Now, I'm definitely glad to see another Conan reference out there that doesn't include the work of other authors. The Conan Wikia is great, with tons of good info, but it isn't exclusive to Howard: the Conan the Cimmerian wiki, on the other hand, seems to have the same goals as the Encyclopaedia Hyboriana.  The fact that this wiki appears to have been created on the same day as my announcement... Well, I'm just going to treat it as a happy coincidence.

I've no intention of engaging in any sort of competition with the Conan the Cimmerian Wiki: both the Encyclopaedia and the Wiki share the same goals, and the energy is better spent in concordance than contention.  So, best of luck to Drush9999!

The Encyclopaedia Hyboriana: A Reference Guide to Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age of Conan the Cimmerian

Ever since I got really into Robert E. Howard after my second gateway via Conan, I've wondered just why there isn't a counterpart to Robert Foster's Middle-earth Encyclopaedia.  Here, I thought, was a world rich in atmosphere, facination and delight, with all the characters, places, events, relics and wonders one could possibly want. It seemed every line of exposition was pregnant with a story in itself. A character who appeared in a single sentence would have the foundations of their entire history encapsulated within a few words.  A mere phrase opened up whole worlds of possibilities.

So where is that Hyborian Age Encyclopaedia?

Well, Deuce let the Smilodon fatalis out of the bag over at the REH Forums, so I figure there's no time like the present to announce The Big Secret.  All those wondering what happened to Conan: Total War and the many other projects I've been working on can finally know the truth: all my effort over the past year has been put into a reference book for the Hyborian Age.