I’ the Licht o’ September Sleepin’ (Cimmerian September 2025)

But on they came, driven by the implacable will of Suleyman, and now in September, 1529, over the ruins of Hungary, the Turk swept on Europe, with the Akinji—the Sackmen—ravaging the land like the drift ahead of a storm.
 - Robert E. Howard, "The Shadow of the Vulture," The Magic Carpet Magazine, Volume 4 Number 1, January 1934

It's September... so why not?

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.

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.

Swording With Shadows: The Long Shadow of Robert E. Howard on his 116th

So the 22nd of January once again comes around. Currently I'm researching for a post on Ossian and the Celtic Revival in Scotland (watch this space), and I'm looking into the mythologisation of Scottish historical figures. Macbeth, the Red King, is perhaps the most myth-shrouded of all, famed as he is from Shakespeare's tragedy. For one of Scotland's greatest and most successful kings to be so traduced in the convening centuries - first by his own people, and then by one of the greatest authors in the history of the planet - is a tragedy a thousandfold that of the thrilling fiction.

Blame cannot truly be placed on Shakespeare: he was faithfully adapting the centuries-past recollection of Holinshed's Chronicles, itself based upon the black propaganda first recorded in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland. The notion of Macbeth the murderous usurping tyrant did not begin with Shakespeare. What Shakespeare did contribute, however, is a captivating study into power and humanity, ambition and destiny, with some spooky goings-on for good measure.

And yet, even as I'm deep in Scottish history, I think of Howard.

Robert E. Howard in Scots: Echoes from an Anvil

Echaes frae a Stiddie

Screivit by Rabert E. Howard 

I leave tae pegral makars

The tabor an the lute;

I sing in drums an tom-toms

The bleck bysmal bruit –

Ma vyse is o’ the people,

Thon etin wild an mout.

Wi’ bluid o’ aw the ages

His braken nails are bleck,

The hale waurld wechts an burdens

His birsie beastial back;

He shammles doon ivermair

A blin an fankelt track.

I bring nae sneithit diamants,

Nae gems frae Lunnon toun;

Nae culturt wheem or teevock

Ma rochle varses croun;

You find here nocht but pouer

That braks a ceety doun.

I spill nae wirds o’ beauty,

Cuinyies frae a siller purse,

Ma hauns are built o’ airn,

An airn is in ma varse.

I bring nae luve but fury,

Nae blissin but a curse.

Ma law-fung brou is slentit,

Ma een are burnin reid,

Wi’ fairce bleck primal veesions

That thunner in ma heid;

Ahint ma hert the rivers

An aw the jungles spreid.

I sclaved in starn-girt Babel

An lauboured at the wa’;

I watchit the birth o’ pavies

Aneath ma clourin mell –

An in a frenzied dawin

I saw her tours faw.

I toiled in Tuscan vinyairds,

I brak the beaten laim,

I streend agin the haimer

That drave the clourer haim;

I sweitit in the gaileys

That brak the road tae Roum.

Och, Khan an keeng an pharaoh!

In cauld an drouth an heat

I bled tae build yer glore,

An eemock aneath yer feet –

But aye ris a mornin

Whan bluid ran in the street.

The waurld upon ma shouders

Knee deep in muck an silt,

Ma haun aneath ma tatters

Still grips the hidden hilt –

Wha fed the auncient rivers

Wi’ bluid rebellions spilt?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

I am the symbol of Creation and Destruction
I am the beginning and the end.
With my tail in my mouth
I am the Circle of Eternity.
Wisdom is in my eyes
And the dusk of wisdom lurks amid my coils.
My track circles the world
And I loop my coils around the Universe.
My head waves among the stars
And the nations fall prostrate before me.
Coiled, head upright, I am the spirit of the sea.
The world-shaking dinosaur was my henchman
And the flying dragons were my footmen.
The ancients knew me.
They reared shrines and altars
And I taught them dim, dusky wisdom...
 - Robert E. Howard, "Serpent"

It's obvious why there's such a divide between critics and audiences for Godzilla: King of the Monsters - because it isn't the kind of film most critics would like. This isn't a film you go to see for dialogue, character arcs, or plot points: it's a film to experience spectacle, and ponder what it's about. You will undoubtedly be disappointed by the human characters, the script, and the story - the "people" and "events" which take up the runtime - but that's not the point of a Godzilla film. It's fair to criticise those elements, of course, and there's no real barrier to a monster film having excellent characters, script, & plot: it's just their absense is not a mortal failure. To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt: when it comes to monster movies, great critics discuss themes; average critics discuss plot; small critics discuss characters.

Since this is going to delve deep into the mythology of the Monsterverse, I'd wait until after you've seen the film - and I do recommend you see it - until reading.

The People of the Heather: Robert E. Howard and Scotland

Books dealing on Scottish history were easier for me to obtain than those dealing with Irish history, so in my childhood I knew infinitely more about Scottish history and legendry than Irish. I had a distinct Scottish patriotism, and liked nothing better than reading about the Scotch and English wars. I enacted these wars in my games and galloped full tilt through the mesquite on a bare-backed racing mare, hewing right and left with a Mexican machete and slicing off cactus pears which I pretended were the heads of English knights.
 - Robert E. Howard, letter to H.P. Lovecraft

Robert E. Howard's Irish fascination is well-known and explored among Howard scholars. Nearly every genre and series he wrote had some connection to Ireland and the Irish: several series starred Irishmen in lead roles, and a few of his most famous stories are set in Ireland. But Ireland is not the only Celtic nation Howard wrote about: Scotland too can boast her share of Howardian heroes and histories.

Howard counted Scottish authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert W. Service, and Walter Scott among his very favourites, and plenty of his favourite non-Scottish authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Harold Lamb, Talbot Mundy, and Lord Dunsany wrote a few Scots tales in their time. As seen above, Scottish history was a significant influence on Howard's imagination. The theosophical writings of Scots Lewis Spence & William Scott-Elliot were foundational to the Thurian and Hyborian Ages of Howard's most famous creations, Kull of Atlantis and Conan of Cimmeria. My Floridian pal Jeffrey Shanks goes into great detail here:

Howard was far from alone in setting his Weird Tales in Scotland: Edmond Hamilton's "The Atomic Conquerors" is a wild yarn which supposes a rather otherworldly origin for the mysterious vitrified forts populating the Scottish wilderness; H. Warner Munn's "The Werewolf's Daughter" is a grand trilogy detailing the adventures of the Werewolf of Ponkert; Weird Tales regular Seabury Quinn even got in on the action with "the Bride of Dewer," a Rumpelstiltskin tale with a tartan twist.

So, on Robert E. Howard's 113th birthday, I wonder: what would a "Scottish" anthology of Robert E. Howard stories look like?

Narrative Rebellion: Dark Universe - The Mummy

You know, I think Universal are doing this whole Universal Monsters Shared Universe Reboot backwards: we're thinking of the classical Universal monsters (Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, Gillman), when there are a wealth of characters in classic Universal films that could be introduced too.

My thinking is that everyone is perfectly familiar with the major characters and the original stories, and we've seen them fighting each other all the time. So, rather than build up to something we've already scene dozens of times, why not start with that, and build up to something else? I keep going back to Kong: Skull Island's wonderfully cosmically-horrific quote:

You heard of the U.S.S. Lautmann? Neither did the public. Out of a thousand young men on that ship I was the only survivor. They told my family she was sunk in battle but I know what I saw. It had no conscience. No reasoning. Just destroy. I spent the last 30 year trying to prove the truth of what I learned that day. This planet doesn't belong to us. Ancient species owned this Earth long before mankind, and if we keep our heads buried in the sand they will take it back.
 - Bill Randa, Kong: Skull Island

Howard fans may find that quote tantalisingly familiar:

A Key! Aye, it is a Key, symbol of a forgotten horror. That horror has faded into the limbo from which it crawled, loathsomely, in the black dawn of the earth. But what of the other fiendish possibilities hinted at by Von Junzt--what of the monstrous hand which strangled out his life? Since reading what Selim Bahadur wrote, I can no longer doubt anything in the Black Book. Man was not always master of the earth - and is he now?

And the thought recurs to me - if such a monstrous entity as the Master of the Monolith somehow survived its own unspeakably distant epoch so long - what nameless shapes may even now lurk in the dark places of the world?
 - The Narrator, "The Black Stone," Robert E. Howard

And on the concept of a Universe of Monsters? Well, there's another Howard quote that comes to mind:

“Through the dim corridors of memory those words lurk... For that phrase has come secretly down the grim and bloody eons, since when, uncounted centuries ago, those words were watch-words for the race of men who battled with the grisly beings of the Elder Universe...”

... for an instant he seemed to gaze back through the vastness that spanned life and life; seeing through the vague and ghostly fogs dim shapes reliving dead centuries — men in combat with hideous monsters, vanquishing a planet of frightful terrors. Against a gray, ever-shifting background moved strange nightmare forms, fantasies of lunacy and fear; and man, the jest of the gods, the blind, wisdom-less striver from dust to dust, following the long bloody trail of his destiny, knowing not why, bestial, blundering, like a great murderous child, yet feeling somewhere a spark of divine fire... 

“They are gone,” said Brule, as if scanning his secret mind; “the bird-women, the harpies, the bat-men, the flying fiends, the wolf-people, the demons, the goblins — all save such as this being that lies at our feet, and a few of the wolf-men. Long and terrible was the war, lasting through the bloody centuries, since first the first men, risen from the mire of apedom, turned upon those who then ruled the world.”

“And at last mankind conquered, so long ago that naught but dim legends come to us through the ages. The snake-people were the last to go, yet at last men conquered even them and drove them forth into the waste lands of the world, there to mate with true snakes until some day, say the sages, the horrid breed shall vanish utterly. Yet the Things returned in crafty guise as men grew soft and degenerate, forgetting ancient wars. Ah, that was a grim and secret war! Among the men of the Younger Earth stole the frightful monsters of the Elder Planet, safeguarded by their horrid wisdom and mysticisms, taking all forms and shapes, doing deeds of horror secretly. No man knew who was true man and who false. No man could trust any man. Yet by means of their own craft they formed ways by which the false might be known from the true... So mankind triumphed. Yet again the fiends came after the years of forgetfulness had gone by — for man is still an ape in that he forgets what is not ever before his eyes...
 - Robert E. Howard, "The Shadow Kingdom"

Now, I am by no means an expert on the Universal Monsters canon: I have watched many of them and enjoyed them a great deal, but I hope folk will forgive me for not having the exhaustive knowledge of this wide subject such a project really deserves. Nonetheless, inspired by my fellow Brad Ellison, I knew I had to write something. So, for the purposes of fun, I had some musings over what I would do were I the creative director of a prospective Dark Universe, taking elements from Robert E. Howard, Arthur Conan Doyle, and other classic adventure authors...

Lan' o' Derkness and th' Nicht

110 years ago today, Robert E. Howard was born: as a happy coincidence, it comes only a few days before Burns Night. Like the royal Robert before them both, I find they're never far from my life.

Both the Roberts were self-taught champions of the common man who expressed themselves through poetry, drawing upon the rich history of their lands and telling new tales. Howard had a copy of Harvard Classics' Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, and poems like "Rane of the Sword" clearly show a love for the Scots tongue.

So in that spirit, I thought I'd merge my appreciations for the Twa Rabbies on this day.

Cimmeria

I mynd

Th' derk woods, masking sclent o' oorie braes;

Th' grey cloods’ leaden ayebidin' airch;

Th' duskit burns that flowed wi'oot a sound,

And th' lane wins that whispered doon th' passes.

Sicht on sicht mairching, brae on brae,

Sclent ayont sclent, ilk derk wi' dour trees,

Oor gaunt lan' lay.  So when man speelit up

A rugged peak and leukit, his happit een

Saw but th' endless sicht – brae on brae,

Sclent ayont sclent, ilk hoodit lik its brithers.

It was a dreichit lan' that seemed tae haud

A' wins and cloods and dreams that shun th' sun,

Wi' scud beuchs brattlin' in th' lanely wins,

And th' derk woodlands bruidin' owur a',

Not even lichten by th' rare dim sun

Which made squat shadaes oot o' men; they ca'd it

Cimmeria, lan' of derkness and gey Nicht.

It was so lang syne and hyne awa'

I hae forgot th' verra name men ca'd me.

Th' axe and keezle-stane spear are lik a dream,

And hunts and wars are shadaes.  I mynd

Anely th' stellness o' thon dour lan';

Th' cloods that cloddit ivermair on th' braes,

Th' mirkness o' th' ayebidin' woods.

Cimmeria, lan' o' Derkness and th' Nicht.

Oh, sowel o' mine, born oot o' shadaed braes,

Tae cloods and wins and ghaists that shun th' sun,

How mony deiths shall sair tae brak at lest

This heritage which haps me in th' grey

Brawery o' ghaists?  I sairch my hert and kythe

Cimmeria, lan' o' Derkness and th' Night.

Dinosaurs from the Pulps!

One of the joys of getting into Robert E. Howard fandom is the vast world it opens up before you. Before I got into it, I relied mostly on luck and happenstance to find stories and art that intrigued me, and living in Scotland as I do the availability of those classic American tales could sometimes be hard to come by.

But after years of infiltrating the echelons of Howardom, needling information and hints from the experts and polymaths in funny hats, it's amazing the things you find. On my last Scottish Invasion of Cross Plains, I learned that one of these behatted genii was leaping into the vast sea of pulps in search of one of his other great interests: zombies! And sure enough, he even produced an anthology of twenty classic tales of the undead ripped from the musty yellowing pages of those lurid tomes.

The magic of pulps is that there are just so many different stories and trends out there, you could easily fill a themed anthology with them. Amazons from the Pulps! could feature the likes of "Black Amazon of Mars," "The Golden Amazons of Venus," "Queen of the Panther World," "Slaves of the Jackal Priestess," "Sword of Gimshai," "Black God's Kiss," and other adventures of warrior women. "The Metal Monster," "The War of the Giants," "The Metal Giants," "Between Dimensions," "The Reign of the Robots," "The Ideal," "A Dictator for All Time," and countless more tales of Metal Men could shamble through Robots from the Pulps! Crom knows we have plenty for Stephen Jones' The Mammoth Book Of... series, as he always manages to find at least a few from the Age of Pulps.

And then there were dinosaurs...

Howardian Valentines

This being Valentine Day, I suppose I should make the conventional request for you to go and join the army. That may sound a bit wobbly, but look: Valentine comes from the same word from which “gallant” is derived; a gallant may be a suitor, but is also a cavalier; a cavalier is a knight; a knight is a cavalryman; a cavalryman is a soldier. To ask one to be one’s Valentine is equivalent to asking him, or her, to be a soldier. And one can’t be a soldier without joining the army. So, a request to become a Valentine is approximately a demand to go and join the army.
 - Robert E. Howard, Letter to Novalyne Price, 14th February, 1936

I haven't shied away from being very personal on my blog, but there are some places I wouldn't go. I wouldn't discuss politics or religion, and I'd now decided to add racism, sexism and other "isms" to that lot - not because I don't deem them worthy of discussion, far from it, but because they are so potent and emotive that I simply cannot maintain any degree of impartiality or fairness when I feel my guts twisting in anger, pain or frustration.  There was a time I could discuss those subjects with passion but without too much emotion, but not any more.  Enraged histrionics are funny in parodies or satire, but when someone is truly compromised by their own emotional reaction to something, then it's no use for anyone involved for the affected to continue participating. Perhaps sometime in the future I'll revisit them.

That doesn't mean I've gone soft, of course, or that I subjects I do talk about don't affect me emotionally. War, poverty, love, adventure, injustice, charity - things that tug or tear my heartstrings affect me just as strongly, but for whatever reason, my sense of reasoning and logic are enough to balance that passion into an articulate manner. In addition, if ever someone talks about something they know nothing about, it's very easy to see - and dismiss. So since I'm no expert on world religions, gender mores and whatnot, I decided "you know what? Why should I talk about these things I barely understand?"

But if you'll indulge me, I'd like to get very personal with one story this Valentine's Day, and how I think it may have helped heal a broken heart.

Robert E. Howard's Conan - Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of

I feel a bit like an apostate. I've not been keeping up with REH news and events for a while, though I still pop in at the Robert E. Howard Readers Facebook page and very occassionally at the REH Forums. Things seemed a bit quiet.

Then Jeff Shanks had to go and ruin it all with this announcement.

Modiphius Entertainment announces the definitive sword & sorcery roleplaying game, planned for launch August 2015

KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of....

Modiphius is proud to announce a licensing deal with Conan Properties to publish Robert E. Howard’s CONAN Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of. This is CONAN roleplaying as Robert E. Howard wrote it – savage pulp adventure battling ancient horrors in the Hyborian Age! We plan to bring the game right back to its roots, focusing on the original stories by Robert E. Howard.

Modiphius has scored a leading team of Hyborian Age scribes to chronicle these adventures including Timothy Brown (designer of the Dark Sun setting for Dungeons & Dragons), award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar and essayist Jeffrey Shanks (Conan Meets the Academy, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, Critical Insights: Pulp Fiction, The Dark Man: The Journal of REH Studies, Zombies from the Pulps!), Jason Durall (Basic Roleplaying, Serenity, The Laundry), Chris Lites (Paizo, Savage Worlds, Omni, Slate), and many more to be announced.

Players and GM’s alike will feel the might of the 2d20 game system, the cinematic roleplaying rules devised by Jay Little (Star Wars: Edge of the Empire) for Mutant Chronicles, and sharpened up for intense sword and sorcery action. The 2d20 system lets players experience the true pulp adventure of the CONAN stories.

Howard expert Jeffrey Shanks will approve all content, ensuring it remains true to the spirit of the source material and brings the Hyborian Age to life. World-famous CONAN artist Sanjulian (Conan Ace Paperbacks, Vampirella, Eerie, Creepy) has been commissioned, as well as Carl Critchlow (Batman/Judge Dredd, Anderson: Psi Division). Joining them are other CONAN greats such as Mark Schultz (The Coming of Conan, Xenozoic Tales, Prince Valiant), Tim Truman (Dark Horse Conan, Grimjack, Jonah Hex), Phroilan Gardner (Age of Conan, World of Warcraft), Alex Horley (Blizzard, Heavy Metal, Magic: The Gathering) and many more.

Modiphius is working with other Conan Properties licensing partners including Monolith Board Games, creator of the hit CONAN boardgame which has surpassed $2 million on Kickstarter, and Funcom, creator of the long-running, free-to-play, MMO Age of Conan. Modiphius plans some select supplements including missions designed for the Monolith boardgame, as well as floorplan tile sets allowing you to use Conan miniatures in your roleplaying adventures!

Modiphius is already working on the roleplaying corebook for Robert E. Howard’s CONAN Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of to be released this Fall. A Kickstarter is planned for the summer to fund a larger range of roleplaying supplements, campaigns, and accessories to follow the core book.

Ho, Dog Brothers! (and Sisters) Don your mail, hone your blade, and pray to whatever fickle gods might listen. Harken to the sound of clanging steel, cries of battle, and death curses spat from bloody, frothing lips! Tread the jeweled thrones of the earth at www.modiphius.com/conan or die in towers of spider-haunted mystery. Crom cares not!

So having talked with Jeff about this just after the announcement, it seems that this is going to be something I've been wanting since I got back into Robert E. Howard - a Conan adaptation that just sticks to Howard, with no pastiches whatsoever. No Arenjun, no Serpent Crown, no Spider-Thing of Poitain, no Colossus of Shem, none of that. No ties with the comics, films, or books by other authors. And this isn't just us Howard crumbs - some real stars in that team there from the world of RPGs. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is extremely cool.

This follows up on the tremendous Monolith Conan RPG, which still has some time left on the clock (just over two days as of this posting) to go nuts with stretch goals. I've backed it: it's the first time I can recall when you could have miniatures based on characters other than Conan, Belit or Thoth-Amon - Valeria, Shevatas, Taurus, and my girl Zelata!

Sure, the Aquiromians and Uberboreans are still lingering, but with this new RPG announcement, I feel like we're getting there. The Mongoose Conan RPG was excellent, but I'm of the opinion Conan and the Hyborian Age is easily rich enough to support multiple interpretations, and this extends to RPGs. Perhaps, then, this could be the start of an entirely new generation for Howard and Conan? The Conan license seemed stuck in a sort of limbo: the 2011 film, Mongoose losing the license, Brian Wood and then Fred Van Lente all but rebooting the Dark Horse Conan, Age of Conan going free to play. It seemed Conan was in danger of slumber. Perhaps now, after Conan Meets the Academy broke down the gates of Academia and Howard's status as A Writer Of Real Literary Merit has become normalised, we're going to see a change.

Well, we'll have to see, won't we?

Cinniúint na Déithe: Clontarf 2014

Mr. Bates,
New York City.

Dear Mr. Bates:

You may, or you may not have noticed my work in Weird Tales, Oriental Stories, Ghost Stories, Fight Stories, Action Stories, and Argosy; but that doesnt matter so much. The point is, I’m deeply interested in the intention of your company to bring out a new magazine devoted entirely to historical tales. I want very much to do business with this magazine, and would appreciate any pointers you might give me as to how to make the market [in case this story is not acceptable]._ I realize that editors do not have time to give detailed criticisms; but just a line or a few words scrawled on a rejection slip would help me wonderfully.

I’m hoping you can use this tale – “Spears of Clontarf” which I am enclosing. It deals with a phase in history too much neglected by writers – that of the Dano-Irish wars which culminated in the final shattering of the Viking power at the battle of Clontarf. Those days of war and rapine represent an age crammed with vital drama, enough to supply a hundred thrilling volumes.

Robert E. Howard in Scots

After seeing the fantastic work done by many folk translating REH into French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish and many more, and having also seen many classic authors' work translated into Scots, I'm sorely tempted to translate some REH into my people's language. There are quite a few poems that I think would sound grand in Scots: obviously the ones involving a Scot like "The Rover". Maybe even some stories starring Scots.

Certainly Howard quite liked the Scots language, and he's even written a poem in the tongue.

(The following first appeared in my REHupa 'zine, "Elephants, Figs, & Lobsters With Wigs")

Bite-Sized Blog: Fantasypunk

Ever since Lost Soul Andy introduced me to MrBTongue's series "Tasteful, Understated Nerd Rage" to me, I've been enthralled by his videos, and I may well be using them as starting-off points of discussion in future posts. This one is interesting all on its own, but some of the things he said got me thinking...

A thought came to me watching this video that I might investigate further. An abstract: I'd argue that Howard's brand of Sword-and-Sorcery could be to traditional fantasy what Cyberpunk is to science fiction.

 - Both CP and S&S typically draw from noir styles: Noir is visually styled after German Expressionism, and the typical noir hero could be considered a variation on Nietzche's Übermensch. In this form, the Übermensch is a cynical, magnetic, powerful man who nonetheless operates with a strong internal morality not governed by law, religion, or any other social construct. Sound familiar?

 - The worlds of CP and S&S tend to be full of corruption, oppression and stagnation, the haves treading on the faces of the have-nots. The world is populated with several archetypes: women are downtrodden or trapped by social circumstances, or resort to using their wiles to gain some measure of control over their destiny; brutish thugs carry out the will of craven magnates who earned their fortune either through genetics or villainy; the few genuine law enforcers contend with crooked police and greedy judges as well as outlaws; politicians are in the pocket of some sort of criminal society and more invested in holding onto their station than improving society for the disadvantaged. Over all is hanging a cloud of despair, and a sense of imminent collapse: the world is walking a tightrope between the dominance of a totalitarian regime, and the chaos of all-out anarchy, depending on which part of the world you're in. Sounds rather like the Hyborian Age, does it not? Heck, it sounds like most of Howard's work in general.

 - The "punk" aspect of CP's name suggests youth, impetuousness, the angry young 'un, critical and suspicious of authority, treasuring freedom and self-actualisation. Adding "punk" to something gives a certain sort of impression, of a surly delinquent with a sharp mind, rattling cages, tipping over bins, tearing down campaign posters. Howard began writing professionally in his teens, and his works are certainly full of this sort of thing even as he approached 30.

 - The video alleges that CP operates in a sort of "danger zone": while science fiction operates in the far future and fantasy in the far past/another world analogous to earth's past,* CP is typically set in the Not Too Distant Future, and so the issues of today can be reflected as they are, instead of applied with futuristic/fantastical examples. For example, Cyberpunk could deal with racism directly, instead of alluding to it via fantastic racism between elves and dwarves, or robots and organic life, or aliens and other aliens. You'd think this might fall apart with Howard, but I think there are two very crucial elements: first, Howard's worlds are cyclical. Civilizations rise and fall, peoples flourish and vanish, kingdoms conquer and disappear, and we have no knowledge of them save through smatterings of legends and word cognates finding their way into our languages - to apply a slight reinterpretation on George Santayana's original phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The second is that the Hyborian Age is just as informed by Howard's contemporary world as it is by the past: Mark Finn explains it perfectly in Blood & Thunder, when he discusses how the huge number of migrant workers into the small town of Cross Plains, and subsequent industrialisation and economic upheaval, would have affected Howard's world. Indeed, stories like "Beyond the Black River" are as much about then-modern development as they were about Cowboys & Indians, or Spaniards & Aztecs, or Normans & Gaels, or Romans & Picts (etc), while the much maligned "The Vale of Lost Women" is given much more relevance when compared with the Cynthia Anne Parker story. The Hyborian Age is thus much closer to our modern world than the vast gulfs in time might indicate.

Thoughts?  Am I mad, or just a fool?

*Of course I disagree strongly with this very arbitrary and, frankly, untenable distinction: there's fantasy set in the future, and science fiction set in the past, and plenty of both set in the "danger zone" he discusses. But that's neither here nor there.