170 Years of Robert Louis Stevenson

Well, if you want to get technical, it isn't for a wee while yet. Mr Stevenson legally waived all rights to 13th of November as his birthday to a Ms Annie Ide:

Most of us -  especially when we are young-look forward to our birthday each year. Greeting cards arrive in the mail. There may be some exciting presents and perhaps a party with friends. It's a special day and it's fun to be the center of attention.

But suppose that special day happened to come on December 25, the biggest holiday of the entire year? Noone would even notice an ordinary birthday in the middle of Christmas.

Annie Ide of SI. Johnsbury had just such a birthday. Annie was born in 1876 and when she was fifteen her father went to the island of Samoa in the South Pacific.  There he met Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author of Treasure Island. The two men became good friends.

One day Annie's father told his friend that because his daughter was born on December 25, she had never had a real birthday celebration. Stevenson offered to give his birthday to Annie so she could have a day all her own. He mailed her a document that said,

"I, Robert Louis Stevenson, ... have attained an age when, 0, we never mention it, and... have no further use for a birthday of any description... do hereby transfer to... (Miss) A.H.Ide, all and whole my rights and privileges in the thirteenth day of November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth the birthday of the said A(nnie) H.Ide, to have, hold, exercise and enjoy the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiments, eating of rich meats and receipt of gifts, compliments and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors."

Well, while I'm sure Annie enjoyed every 13th of November of her life, it would be a most diminished world if only one person could claim a day for their birthday, wouldn't it? I have a post over at DMR books talking about three of Stevenson's most important works, and how they affected me personally.

Fan Entitlement vs Fan Passion

(Once again, many apologies for the dearth of posts recently.)

As a fan of many things, one has to wonder at times where the distinction between tasteful understated nerdrage and entitled whining lies. Being a fan means enjoying things, but unfortunately that amount of enjoyment can sometimes lead to an equal and opposite dislike of things when it eclipses, disreputes, or is otherwise perceived to threaten the thing you like.

Scott Mendelson has chosen the somewhat unusual forum of the Forbes website to discuss what he terms Fan Entitlement Syndrome:

Current fandom doesn’t just get upset when their favorite shows get cancelled, their preferred films flop, or casting choices for their favorite projects go awry. They take to the Internet to absolutely demand that they get their way as a matter of moral principle, damn the business logistics or any other logical obstacles in their way. They swear up and down that not only was John Carter a great movie (debatable) but that it absolutely was a financially successful film that absolutely deserves a sequel. Never mind that it earned $282 million on a $250m budget and lost Disney around $200m, it was merely misunderstood and this time will be totally different. They clamor for sequels to MacGruber, an amusing action-film spoof that couldn’t even match its $10m budget at the worldwide box office. They start online petitions demanding Dredd 2 even though distributor Lionsgate and producer Reliance Big Pictures lost out when the $45m Dredd grossed just $35m at the global box office. I adore Speed Racer, but I and others like me don’t run around pretending that it wasn’t a costly flop that doesn’t justify a sequel. Sometimes one is enough and we should be thankful we got that one. 

Despite Mendelson's tone getting my heckles up a bit, I think it's worth examining a few things.

Creating an Age Undreamed Of, and Video Scholarship

  

My esteemed Cimmerian blog colleague Jeff Shanks has adapted his excellent 2011 ACA/PCA paper that studied Howard's worldbuilding and his likely influences into a video presentation, especially looking to how "Men of the Shadows" and "The Isle of the Eons" led to the development of the Thurian and Hyborian Ages. It's really, really good, and well worth a watch.

I'd spoken before about video reviewers like Doug Walker, Noah Antwiler, Brad Jones and the like, but another favourite of mine is Kyle Kallgren, whose Brows Held High is excellent precisely because he does delve into "proper" criticism: that is, exploring and analysing what makes a work what it is, rather than do it entirely for comic purposes. There are others out there, such as SFDebris, C.G.B. Grey and MrBTongue who favour a more analytical, detailed approach, which shows that there definitely is an audience for people who want to learn something.

It got me thinking about the power of video presentations to disseminate information to those who may not necessarily sit down and read the many articles on The Cimmerian, Two-Gun Raconteur, REHupa.com, REH-e-apa.com and others. I had pondered some sort of REH-related podcast, but that might be thinking too big. But Jeff adapting his exploration, truncated as it is from the mountains of research he's done, led me to think of other REH essays that might benefit from exposure in this matter. There are so many excellent, paradigm-shifting essays out there that just aren't going to reach the Youtube generation.

*Thanks to Taran for pointing out a typographic error in the title, though I'd like to say I intended to use the word "scholarshop."

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.

Just in time for Valentine's Day!

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #16
Brian Wood (W), Davide Gianfelice (A), Dave Stewart (C), and Massimo Carnevale (Cover)
On sale May 15
FC, 32 pages
$3.50
Ongoing
After a series of trials that nearly tore them apart, Conan and Bêlit use a brief respite to embark on a vision quest. But with violence, pain, and death their constant companions, the vision quickly becomes a nightmare!
• New story arc from Northlanders team Brian Wood and Davide Gianfelice!
 - Solititation from Newsarama

Presented entirely without comment. Happy Valentine's!

C.L. Moore, 102

Today marks C.L. Moore's 102nd birthday. Her contributions to the Sword-and-Sorcery genre have been acknowledged at Resources for Science Fiction Writers, Adventures Fantastic, and Swords & Sorcery: a blog. For me, I'll just repost my Cimmerian tribute.

I recently reread Paizo's Black God's Kiss anthology, which is pretty excellent if you bypass Suzy McKee Charnas' dreadful introduction - instead go to Ryan Harvey's splendid piece at Black Gate, which provides most of the necessary information without throwing Moore's literary contemporaries under the bus - and I heartily recommend it.

The only other problem I have is the cover. Now, it's a gorgeously rendered cover, no doubt about that: I adore the evocative, noirish lighting and the sense of weirdness it portrays. Unfortuantely, Jirel's pose is veering slightly towards the sort of sultry pose that would make it a target for Jim C. Hines or the Hawkeye Initiative, and the armour is... well, it sure isn't what Moore described:

She smiled to herself as she slipped a fresh shirt of doeskin over her tousled red head and donned a brief tunic of link-mail. On her legs she buckled the greaves of some forgotten legionary, relic of the not long past days when Rome still ruled the world. She thrust a dagger through her belt and took her own long two-handed sword barebladed in her grip.

We already have plenty of not-safe-for-work Jirel cheesecake that has her borrowing from Red Sonja's wardrobe (even the ones with full or at least decent armour have problematic breast cups, to say nothing of the ever-dependably pulptastic Margaret Brundage's contributions): in this day and age, art of Jirel in the armour she was originally described to be wearing would actually be refreshing. Not to mention she, like Dark Agnes, is frequently given a mane of fiery red hair rather than the shorter cut described (long enough to become tousled and to be able to obscure her face, but short enough to be described as "short upon high, defiant head") Still, at least the bare thighs are in the text, right? And in any case, what's important is that even given her rather fetishy armour, Jirel looks strong and powerful: she has sufficient mass and muscularity to believably heft that (one-handed, argh) sword, and the environment is mysterious and evocative.

This piece by Michael John Morris is probably the most accurate I've seen,
though it falls prey to the long hair trap.

Even so, Paizo produced a fine collection of one of Moore's best creations, I'd encourage anyone interested in Sword-and-Sorcery to seek them out. Even if it doesn't end up your cup of tea, they deserve to be included in the annals of S&S.

Robert E. Howard and Meditations on Manliness

I write about bears with primitive faults and failings and even if I am nothing but a cub writer, still the faulty characters I make are more real than most of the young intellectual fools with their egoist hooey. I mean my characters are more like bears than these real bears are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got paws and they got tummies. They grumble and they hug; break the fur of teddies and you find the bear, roaring and red-pawed. That’s the way teddies are.
- Robeart E. Howard, letter to Teddy Clyde Smith, week of February 20, 1928.

I was planning on doing a post on Robert E. Howard for his birthday, but couldn't think of anything to write. What is there left to say that hasn't been said over the past 107 years? There are some very interesting ones from Jim Cornelius, Todd Vick, SFGateway, Read at Joe's, Kaijuville, Temple of the Sun, and naturally the Robert E. Howard Forums, but I couldn't think of a "hook." Luckily fate intervened and provided an excellent opportunity via a Rob Bricken article on Io9.com: 11 Preposterously Manly Fantasy Series:

What makes a book series manly? Is it the action? The violence? The lack of female characters? Is it male wish-fulfillment? Misogyny? Or a combination of all these things?

What makes a book series manly? Well, I have an idea of that...

Clark Ashton Smith's "The Hashish Eater"

I'm always a bit haphazard observing my favourite writers' birthdays and other days of observation, but luckily I was reminded of Clark Ashton Smith's. I don't have much to say, but I'll link back to John R. Fultz' article on "The Hashish Eater, Or, The Apocalypse of Evil," which was my introduction to Smith's work.

And why not, let's read the entire poem. I've added some illustrations that I think have a little of that Smithian psychedelia. Now let's go on that journey through spaceward-flown horizons infinite...

The Blog That Time Forgot, Bite-Sized: SFX Fantasy - The Ultimate Celebration, Fantasy Author Favourites, and Martin vs Tolkien

(I have a post regarding the comic launch in the works, but until then, here's a quick post)

On a whim, I decided to pick this up back in March:

I guess with John Carter and fantasy/science fiction adaptations being on my mind of late, I wondered what they would have to say about the film before the John Carter Is The Biggest Flop Of All Time meme really went into overdrive. Turns out... not a lot.  And frankly, there's not a lot of many great fantasy authors for a supposed Ultimate Celebration.

What I'm Up To These Days

So I've been making all these vague references to "real life" issues, cryptic allusions to off-internet concerns. Well, I think it's time for me to explain just what I want to do with my life.

The Dweller in the Nasal Cavity

Some might say, sure, Al, everyone gets the cold, it's no big deal. And I'd agree. But this... this is no mere cold. It may have all the symptoms of the common virus, and it feels like it. But I know better: I know that there is something which has taken up residence in my head, and it means to torment and despoil my temperament.

Decription? One might as well ask to paint a picture of "irritation," or "subtle," or "mischief." It does not dwell in our paltry human dimensions, but in a veil between worlds, where it can exude its dripping malfeasance without physically occupying room in my brain: that makes it safe from prying foreceps and particularly violent sneezes. All the while wheezing and squeaking with unspeakable glee at the havoc It is causing.

But fear not: even as I type with my nose simultaneously blocked and running, even as a devilishly faint but maddening tickle in my throat conspires to elicit a coughing fit, even as my eyes stare bloodshot at the world, my forces are marshalling. Around the Lymph Node fortresses great armies are gathering. The fabled White Blood Cells, holy orders of warriors dedicated to driving out the heathen bacteria, the heretical toxin, and the insidiuous virues, have summoned the Immune System: the cunning Lymphocytes detect their foe, and the relentless Phagocytes consume and destroy them. Then a host which seems to encompass the membrane: the serried ranks of dendritic cells, the platelet clans, the bacterial foederati, the wild tribes of antibodies. Soon they shall march upwards to the battle, steel in hand, to expel the invaders...

(This extrapolation of the immune system brought to you by 8-year-old Aly, though by no means the only one) In other words, I have a cold, I'll get back to you, I really think someone could make a fun Sword-and-Sorcery story using the immune system as a setting. Educational and fun!

Bite-Sized Blog: Conan, Theosophy, and Expendables

Iggy Pop dressed as Conan, looking about as depressed as I do looking at this cover to Conan the Barbarian #10.

Well, time for another update: times are interesting indeed, as it turns out I have more time for one project when I was under the impression I had a matter of days, while the other project is still in the womb of creation, waiting to be snatched out. How purposefully vague.

In the meantime, quite a few things have happened in the world of adventure.

In lieu of new posts, some links

Once again, I apologise for the lack of activity on the blog. Essentially, I've been getting ready for a big project not related to Howard. I've been reticent in posting "real life" issues on the blog, since nobody's interested in that sort of thing, but I figure I might as well let you all know I'm still chugging along.

I don't think I realised just how ambitious "80 Years of Conan" really was. I'm only two stories in, and I'm in over my head: if I'm like this for "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," how on earth could I manage such meaty courses as "Beyond the Black River" or "The Tower of the Elephant," let alone the mighty "Hour of the Dragon"? So I'm going to scale it back a bit after this. Future instalments will probably not see quite as much detail as in the final two parts of TF-GD (if they aren't split further!), but will be more like starting points of discussion. Asking the questions without necessarily answering them, if you will. I'll endeavour to make them worthwhile reading, all the same. In the meantime, I offer a few links of interest.

First, I'll give some props to my literary colleague Ross Leonard, whose comic Maximum Alan (the grand saga of Alan Moore battling legions of his alternate universe counterparts, of course) was illustrated by my artistic colleague Brian Rankin. They were barely beaten out by another acquaintance's book, Gordon McLean's No More Heroes, for the top prize at the Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards. I thought it would be expedient of me to mention them since I'm hoping to work with these fine fellows in the future.

Keith Taylor's back in action with the second part of "If Wishes Were Horses." Part one can be found here. Anyone who's been over at The Cimmerian knows that the good Mr Taylor was a fellow blogger, and so it won't surprise anyone that I must admit that fact in any discussion of his fiction. Full disclosure, and all that. Nonetheless, almost despite my appreciation of his Howard scholarship, I can't recommend his fiction highly enough. A number of Howard fans and scholars have also entered the literary field, befitting aficionados of the great yarn-spinner, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their works are my cup of tea. Keith Taylor, dear readers, very much is my cup of tea. It took me a while to track down a copy of his Bard series, but they were well worth the effort, and I think the same could be said for yourselves.

"Gudrun Blackhair has returned."

Men said it all down both sides of the Narrow Sea. The Jutes of Kent said it with violent curses, and looked to their spears and their new king. When he heard the news he did not smile again for a full day.

Watchers on the white cliffs saw a ship pass by, a long swift ship bearing the emblem of a raven with spread wings on its crimson sail. Blackhair was flaunting. It was for show, that sail. She had two plain gray-green ones for business, but it was not in her mind to sneak home. Let them all know!

 - Prologue, Bard III - The Wild Sea

Being your usual stereotypical Scot, I eat stuff like this like salted porridge.

Although the Bard books are criminally out of print, Keith has returned to the realm of fiction with Servant of the Jackal God. Quite a change of pace from post-Roman Britain, but I don't doubt Mr Taylor's usual historical rigour would let up when his scribing hand turns to Egypt.

In a final tiny bit of REH-related news, I noticed that Gary Amdahl lists Conan the Barbarian among his literary pillars:

THE PILLARS OF ADOLESCENCE:
Conan the Barbarian
Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

Would've been nice to mention Howard's name, and while I instinctively rankled at putting Conan in the "adolescent" category, it's alongside the works of Capote, Ellison and blasted Dostoevsky. How could I possibly fault REH's proxy inclusion among such individuals?

Connor Coyne's Oberservations on Conan

I thought I'd share this interesting little link by author Connor Coyne (what a name!) which discusses Howard in context with Tolkien. I can't seem to log in to comment, so I'm going to take the liberty of doing so here.
Of course, Connor is only discussing The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, and so he still has some great stories to look forward to should he wish to go on to the next stories.

In terms of the writing: Tolkien’s epics took place in “Middle-Earth” which had hints of but little direct connection to the present world, while Howard’s Conan stories took place in the Hyborian Age which was explicitly placed in a period of barbarism and empire-building that occurred between the fall of the continent of Atlantis and the rise of the ancient civilizations we know; these explicit references are most conspicuous in names we recognize from legend and history: Argos, Corinthia, Himaleya, Zimbabwe, and others.  Not only did Tolkien write novels, but he envisioned all of these novels being joined by subject matter and common history into an organic whole. Howard works were almost uniformly short stories, and while it is possible to read these as part of an organic whole, he preferred an episodic presentation that emphasized narrative unreliability.  Tolkien was quite comfortable deferring to magic as accounting for miraculous events; Howard posits a sort of invisible cosmic ground-state which makes magic-seeming events possible. Tolkien’s gods are unassailable, unreachable, and in fact, only angelic (and demoniac) messengers for a higher power that is only mentioned by name once. Howard’s gods intrude upon the world, and do battle with mortals in a way that is not only corporeal, but which expands the definition of the physical rather than constricting that of the spiritual. And so forth.  There are many differences.

 While it is indeed not as explicit as in the Hyborian Age, Tolkien's Middle-earth is indeed set in the distant past of this world. Also, it's the Himelian mountains, not "Himaleya," and Zimbabwe was later rendered Zembabwei in "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," but I left my pedant-lock key on as I was typing.

The most significant difference, however, I thought, is the different take on morality. I recall Carpenter’s biography of Tolkien, at least, saw much significance in his Catholicism, and that the various ranks and orders of beings, good and evil, in Middle Earth, was a validation of the Catholic cosmological order via Tolkien’s own thoroughly British upbringing.  Whereas in Conan, while morality is present, it is subjective, in flux, and almost post-modern.  The main conflict is not so much good vs. evil as barbarism vs. civilization.  The chief difference here between barbarism and civilization isn’t any notion of mercy, or compassion, or empathy, or cooperation; it is a difference of regimentation, and as a result, barbarism doesn’t dissemble. So we are meant to relate to the barbarian, and not the sorcerers, monarchs, pirates, and monsters with whom he contends.

In fact, Conan himself is often not sympathetic, although he probably has something closer to what we’d call a “conventional” morality than most of the other characters. But he’s not above, say, genocide (as in “Vale of the Lost Women”).

I definitely disagree that Conan was advocating genocide in "Vale." Obviously Conan's at his most dastardly in this story, but the destruction of the Bakalah by the Bamula is really little different from the endemic warfare of countless historical tribes throughout history. Obviously hardly morally defensible, but there's a difference in degree here. Conan hates the Picts more than any other people, but you never hear him call for their extermination as king despite him being entirely capable of doing so.

Curiously, this solved a big problem I have with most high fantasy: How is it that characters meant to embody all that is good and pure — to the extent of making huge personal sacrifices to save the world — are grim killing machines. And I don’t even mean “the good soldier” so much; you don’t see hints of pathos or PTSD after Aragorn, or Drizzt Do’Urden, or Aslan, or whoever kills their 999th orc. This is most often explained away as “all members of X race are evil,” and maybe that passed as acceptable in the decades surrounding the Civil Rights era, but in 2012 it seems deeply troubling on even casual examination. Other high fantasy strategies to reconcile this seem equally wanting.

Tolkien wrestled with the matter of the orcs all his life, but the reason you don't see hints of pathos or PTSD after Aragorn because this is a world where evil is practically a quantifiable matter, and an entire race is evil explicitly because they were "created" (or rather, abducted and raised en masse) by a supremely evil being, that perversion of life and robbing of free choice being considered one of Morgoth and Sauron's greatest crimes. Aragorn can sleep at night because he knows that if he doesn't, all he loves will be lost or destroyed. That said, there's definitely an element of regret when it came to the Haradrim and Easterlings, who were either deceived or actively enthralled to Sauron.

Conan partially solves this problem by making the protagonist consistently erratic and violent (though surprisingly, never amoral). I never see him as embodying all that is good and pure, but rather all that is barbaric and pure, and this makes his internal logic plausible. It also gives some measure of cover to Howard writing as a product of his time and place, which is to say, often much more explicitly racist than Tolkien ever was (we’re talking about a man who grew up in rural Texas boom-towns, and witnessed lynchings).

There is no evidence Howard ever personally witnessed a lynching, but the sheer pervasiveness and virulence of racism in the world during that time period and environment means that Howard's views must be properly contextualised.

However, the real reason I'm doing this post is to give proper praise to this:

...this being “low fantasy” did not prevent it from engaging in poetic, powerful language and grand philosophical themes. Although action-oriented in the manner of (though with much better craft than) TSR-fare, there is a tightly controlled correspondence between the words and actions of the characters.  Conan typically prevails because he is typically direct and straightforward; his battle prowess is as much a symptom of this transparency of character as it is his upbringing. Other characters weave byzantine plots only to dramatically fail when they learn that the realities the universe has created for the villains are no more stable than the “realities” they use to trap their victims. A sort of cosmic version of “getting caught in a lie.” There’s a lot of lush, powerful, rich, almost pungent imagery here, but beneath the beautiful writing is an ongoing discussion of Things That Matter.  And also interestingly (I’m using that word a lot) this comes forth all the clearer in the “weaker” Conan stories — those featuring little plot except an extra-dimensional monster and a naked damsel — because the Big Questions continue to get play even when the pulp clichès ride heavy.  So the lesson there, I suppose, is that I can depart from a “high fantasy” writing style without abandoning, or even mitigating, thematic depth.

Couldn't agree more, Mr Coyne.

Bite-Sized Blog: Prometheus, Frost-Giants and Indo-Europeans

"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" may be only 9 pages long, but it's one of Howard's biggest stories, tying in an awful lot of themes and ideas from across multiple stories and mythic inspirations. It's one of the stories that I feel is really important to do justice to, which is why it's taken such a blasted long time to finish: I could've skipped ahead to "The God in the Bowl," but I really want to do everything in the order Howard wrote the stories, since that in itself takes up a big chunk of proceedings. Probably should've split it into multiple parts a while ago. So, in lieu of the next 80 Years of Conan, here's a round-up of links I found of interest.

A Word on Female Fans, Femininity and Fandom

 Yes, this is an actual cover for an actual upcoming monthly for Conan the Barbarian. My thoughts? It's the most amazing troll I've seen since the Darrow cover. Fantastic job, Dark Horse.

I've been holding off on "80 Years of Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter" because I've been wrestling with one of the key issues with the story.  I've been conversing with a number of individuals I believe to be more experienced and authoritative in said issue, because while I really don't want to talk about the deeply unpleasant subject, I also think it's important to acknowledge it. In any case, I'll be providing links to places that do talk about it, even if my take is going to be quite limited. However, there's another reason.

Lost Howard Manuscript Discovered?

This is just too incredible not to share.  Truly it turns our perspective of Howard and his work completely on its head!

At the time of his death in 1936, thirty-year-old Robert E. Howard had published hundreds of works of fiction across an astonishingly broad swath of genres. His voluminous output, according to Paul Herman of the Robert E. Howard Foundation, is estimated to have been “approximately 3.5 million words of fiction, poetry, letters and articles.” Among those millions of words were the iconic stories of Conan the Cimmerian, a character whose popularity has firmly established Howard’s reputation as the father of heroic fantasy, parallel to J.R.R. Tolkien’s place as father of epic fantasy.

But while Howard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, he was also a somewhat disorganized one and left behind a trunk of unpublished works. The so-called “Howard Trunk” contained thousands of typewritten pages by Howard. These abandoned stories and early drafts were collected and published in 2007 by The REH Foundation Press as The Last of the Trunk.

One manuscript, however, baffled the Howard estate. The handwriting was not Howard’s. “Not even close,” laughs George Angell, professor emeritus at Brown University, who was asked to authenticate the manuscript. “I could see at a glance that it was one-hundred percent positively not his. Howard’s hand is tight and masculine. This was a beautiful script, almost calligraphic, and my gut told me it was English, about two hundred years old.”

Well, I'll be a bumblebee's ombudsman!  You know, this'd make a great piece for an upcoming Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword...

Clark Ashton Smith, The Man Who Brought You Ghost Dinosaurs

To his further disconcertion, he soon found that he had attracted the attention of a huge foggy monster with the rough outlines of a tyrannosaurus. This creature chased him amid the archetypal ferns and clubmosses; and overtaking him after five or six bounds, it proceeded to ingest him with the celerity of any latter-day saurian of the same species. Luckily, the ingestment was not permanent for the tyrannosaurus' body-plasm, though fairly opaque, was more astral than material; and Ralibar Vooz, protesting stoutly against his confinement in its maw, felt the dark walls give way before him and tumbled out on the ground. After its third attempt to devour him, the monster must have decided that he was inedible. It turned and went away with immense leapings in search of comestibles on its own plane of matter. Ralibar Vooz continued his progress through the Cavern of the Archetypes: a progress often delayed by the alimentary designs of crude, misty-stomached allosaurs, pterodactyls, pterandons, stegosaurs, and other carnivora of the prime.
- "The Seven Geases," in which Ralibar Vooz has to contend with ghost dinosaurs. Ghost. Dinosaurs. Also a carnivorous stegosaurus, apparently predating "Red Nails" by a few years.

What I'd really like for Blogger is a widget which allows you to post certain things on certain days which are relevant to the subject of your blog. Like This Day in History, but with specific events, rather than bringing up things like Orlando Bloom's birthday.  That way I won't miss someone's birthday, deathday, publication, or other important events. REH's birthday's on the 22nd of January, and Conan's 80th comes this December.

Today's the 119th birthday of the criminally underexposed third man of the Weird Musketeers, Clark Ashton Smith. Hilobrow, Grognardia, and the Greenbelt all have tributes. Unfortunately, just like last year, I'm just going to have to relink to my Cimmerian tribute, and echo James' desire to reread "The Empire of the Necromancers."  For now, I just wanted to provide my favourite passage from "The Seven Geases," for clearly discernible reasons. Hopefully Clark Ashton Smith was received by the Originals of Mankind in the Cavern of the Archetypes with pomp and circumstance, and didn't run into too many persistent megalosaurs.

On Reviewing, Critiquing, Analysing and So Forth

Mark Finn posted a most intriguing piece on the art of reviewing.  I'm glad I missed the kerfuffle on Good Reads, as it's exactly the sort of thing that would have me spluttering in disbelief and indignation, but Mark uses it as a background to an issue I'd been pondering:

When I was a book seller (for years and years) I was called upon to give my opinion about books on a daily basis. Now, this can be tricky. If I tell someone about a book that I hated, that I think sucked, and I say it's the greatest thing ever, then that's a lie. And if they buy that book based on my lie, and hate the book, then guess what? I've lost all of my credibility.

Over the years, I learned the value of tact. It's perfectly okay to say to someone asking about, say, Henry Miller, that "I'm not the best person to ask for a recommendation. I don't personally care for him. I think he's a little too gimmicky." If they asked for more, I'd tell them what made Miller's writing more of a blog trick than actual prose. But I'd always end with, "But that's just me. Other folks here love Miller and can tell you why he's great." I'm not putting down anyone who likes Miller. I'm just explaining why I don't. See how that works? Let me say this out loud, so there can be no misunderstanding: if you're not capable of doing that every time you hit a movie, or book, or record that you don't like, then you're not going to be an effective critic. You're just going to be another nameless, faceless voice in an already crowded Internet yelling "IT SUCKS" from the other side of the lake.

Take a moment to decide if you're a reviewer, or if you're just a reader. If you want to be a reviewer, then you've got to be brilliant. Or gifted. Or both. But if you just want to be a reader, and just want to be able to say what you think, without all of that other stuff getting in the way, then make the effort to say what you mean and mean what you say. Use your words. You're a reader. You of all people should know the value of written communication.

An issue I'd been wrestling with a bit: am I a reader, or a critic?  I've done a bit of both: I've offered my opinions on things without necessarily critiquing them, and I've also done breakdowns and analyses. But which of the two am I aiming for? In fact, why choose?

If you like flashes of brilliance hidden amidst filth and smut, we recommend Oglaf.com

WARNING: DO NOT CLICK ANY OF THE LINKS IN THIS PAGE UNLESS YOU HAVE NO ISSUES WITH NUDITY, SEX, GORE, PROFANITY, FILTH, OR ACERBIC WIT. I'M BEING VERY SERIOUS. THIS MEANS YOU, GRAN.*

Oglaf.com is a webcomic which features some genuinely brilliant humour, but it's definitely not for the faint of heart. Full of frank depictions of nudity, sexual acts, gore, profanity and mild peril, it's still a webcomic I brave every so often.  Sometimes you get something truly inspired, like the tale of Kronar's son, which takes the idea of a gay Conan (the very idea of which was a reason for De Camp's strict control over pastiches) and runs with it, even though Kronar still ends up being pretty masculine in the process. No doubt the silly people who accuse Conan and Howard of homoeroticism will feel vindicated, but I find it fun to just think their misplaced jibes are projecting things that aren't there. But, as was the case with Your Highness, I guess I'm just too much of a prude to have much stomach for this sort of thing on a regular basis.  Ah well.

A recent(ish) comic, "The Weird Woman," features a pastiche on Howard's "Worms of the Earth," making it one of the most perceptive examples of Howard humour out there, considering most attempts at it tend to be repetitive jabs at the 1982 film or the fact Conan shares his name with a popular talk show host.  And best/worst of all, we get an endorsement/backhanded compliment if you move the mouse over the image: "If you like high fantasy or xenophobic jerks, we recommend "Worms of the Earth" by Robert E. Howard."

It's difficult to tell whether they're referring to Bran Man Morn as the xenophobic jerk - frankly, I think he's well within his rights to have a problem with the Romans who are invading his lands, torturing his people and threatening to conquer his home - or Howard, but either irk me.  Something tells me it's not meant to be taken too seriously, but given how long Howard fans have been railing against the popular conception of Howard, it smarts even in jest.  The sad thing is, it does seem like the sort of thing a DeCampista would write.  Still, I get the distinct impression that the folk of Oglaf.com are entirely irreverent, and no-one is sacred to them, so I shouldn't expect any special treatment in regards to Howard. Or perhaps I'm misreading the thing.  Who knows.

*You can, however, look at some of the safe for work comics which show off the sort of delightful humour I love about the comic: Magic Fish, Fountain of Death, Skulls!, Wolf!, King-Shaped, Princess, A Very Deep Chasm, Northerner, Human Women, Labyrinth, Sharks vs Jets, Changeling, Frog 3, Blanket, Use Item, The Huntsman, Scheherazade, Weeping Woods, Kindly Hunter, Gorek the Magnanimous, and the above Fountain of Doubt. For those who don't mind a bit of nudity, there's Ulric the Just, which might be my favourite on the whole site. JUST DON'T CLICK NEXT/PREVIOUS/HOME if you know what's good for ya!