It's been a while since I've been there, I lived in Knoxville for almost a decade; went to college (UT) there. I've been to Ft Sanders many times. Thanks for the information.
I’m glad that the character wasn’t lost to history and that others kept the character around. I’m forever grateful to Roy Thomas as the comics were my introduction to the character and got me to seek out those paperbacks. Now I get to read the Del Rey editions with pure REH. Exciting!
Another wonderful video. Thank you for introducing me to Robert E Howard. I've been a Lovecraft fan for 50yrs and you inspired me to read works of his friends. As a teenager in the 60s,I was obsessed with ancient Egypt and devoured all of H. Rider Haggard... Lost cities, adventure... Last Christmas my husband gave me the Del Ray edition of the first Conan stories. This year he's getting me the second and third volumes. The grey gloom of a British winter will be the perfect time to snuggle up with High Adventure, daring duo's, Hirsute heroes, Fatal Famms(with Loud Bosoms) Questing Beasts and the rest: providing the next wave of the dreaded lurgy doesn't carry me off. One wonders what imaginative nomenclature they will come up with this time! Let's see we've had Omicron.. (drum roll) the Kraken(visions of Cthulu rising) my money's on MEGATRON! .
God bless Karl Edward Wagner and Decamp if I must. They kept the dream of Conan alive and now we have the whole of the Cimeran himself. The love of Conan lives on.
I really, really need to get to those Kane books! I think it might be time to plan for KANEtober on my end...a perfect follow-up for Cimmerian September.
The Sphere editions here in Scotland were my introduction to Conan, Howard and indeed fantasy as a whole. Back then (in my early teens, the early 70s) my attitude was, the more the merrier! While I can understand why you feel so strongly about the pastiches appearing alongside Howard originals, those Sphere editions mean so much to me that I'm not really moved to unravel the two strands. Inferior as they may be to Howard, I think the expansion to his stories that De Camp and Carter provided really did help keep the character alive in the public consciousness. On the big screen, the quicker Jason Mamoa is given another crack but with a better script, the better!
I agree they were also my first introduction to Conan back in the early 80s I have the complete collection I can like you happily read both the original Howard stories and the pastiche stories
Karl Edward Wagner's 'The Road of Kings' was the only pastiche Conan book I could read. I started others and couldn't get through the first few pages without throwing them across the room.
I really enjoy listening to you talk about Robert E. Howard (and other great authors). He's long been one of my favorite writers, with an energy all his own. Keep up the great work!
🎵 It’s the Robert E. Howard Show! 🎶 Isn’t It beyond frustrating when you can’t find something when you can see it plainly in your mind but it just isn’t there?! 😂 Thanks for this REH video and keep up the great work!
I don’t know how anyone can improve on the Wandering Star editions due to their quality production, complete original text, and illustrations by artist who arguably can’t be topped (with the exception of Frazetta and Ken Kelly covers).
I love Wagner's early writing, though Kane fell flat for me (sacrilege, I know). I found him more suited to horror fiction. I cherished those Berkley editions when they came out in 77. I was 11 years old at the time. I was already reading the Lancer /Ace paperbacks, but the Berkley's cemented for me that Howard was an author set apart. I recognized that some of the Aces didn't feel right. Wagner showed me why.
The Howard books I collected were these Wagner edited paperbacks, and also the Donald M Grant editions of Howard's vintage Conan stories. There was a comic book store that used to carry those.
I remember getting a relative to buy me the Lancer edition of Conan of Cimmeria in a used book shop, based solely on that Frazetta cover. Would have been 14 then. The book was as good as new, the pages hadn’t started to slip out yet, as always happened with those Lancer paperbacks. Even back then I remember noticing that if the name Howard wasn’t in the story’s credit it wasn’t very good, and the stuff that was billed solely as REH was the best by far.
I have that very book on my shelf right now. First printing, 1969. It was originally 0.95 cents. Those purple-edged pages which I think were unique to Lancer. It has an ad for Ted White's 'The Sorceress of Qar' which I also happen to own.
What a beautiful edition! The three paperbacks of the Berkley edition included a mini-poster each reproducing the wraparound cover. Talk about value for money :)
i remember those paperbacks. Wonderful paintings by Frazetta's nephew-in-law Ken Kelly. He also covered some non-Conan Howard books in the same series.
@@russworks2882 I have ten of them (not sure if that is all or not) and they all have the fold-outs. I also have 'The Last Celt' which is a bio of REH but it is a trade paperback and has no folder included.
@@wwiiinplastic4712 That's more than I was aware of, and I had no idea they'd done the Last Celt, by Howard Agent Glen Lord. It was originally one of those limited edition Donald Grant books. Berkley went deep.
It's finally happening. You have me revisiting Conan for the first time since the mid-'70s when I was first read SOME the original stories in those old Lancer editions. They did NOT hook me back then, even having been introduced to Conan through the old Marvel Comics. But you're perpetual zeal has been contagious over the last couple years, and you've convinced me to order those three Del Rey collections, and by Crom! Now I can't WAIT to jump into Cimmerian Ceptember!
@@LeoniFermer-vi4dc Very similar, but it isn't the Seal of Rassilon. It's my own logo, based on a Celtic Cross rune curling around to conceal my own initials. But I do appreciation the connection!
It's a lovely design. I love anything Celtic too. I own many books on Celtic mythology and archeology. The Scottish historian Neil Oliver is another hero. Goodnight.
Thanks for focusing a great post on KEW and REH! Roy Thomas and Marvel did a great job keeping the character before the eyes of a mass audience. I read a lot of those issues when John Buscema was drawing the character. But I agree, no Conan is the real Conan except REH's Conan.
Road of Kings was in my collection back in the early 80s and I aim to buy it again. I love Conan and unfortunately the master left us with few stories. I am keen on the new novel and also the new comics now marvel have let Conan go. As long as the stories are true to the original lore I'm all good
Nice video, I think it provides some good thoughts on even just the practical considerations of how to present somebody else's work in a compendium, to self-insert a pastiche is genuinely mind-blowing (in the negative) to me. Also, I like your friend, they have great teeth!
Omg I was just looking for Wagner-RE connection, moreover reading a lot of all that there is on these two etc and here you come with this video! The information field is real!
I don't know about the Complete Chronicles, but it should be noted that the editors of the Del Ray set attempted to put the stories in a chronology of Conan's life, which I think it pretty cool.
Those were some great editions of Conan. I'm in aww at your knowledge of the ins and outs of Howard's publishing history. Until I found your channel, it felt like I was one of the only people who knew about this. Like it was lost to the ancient Conan Forums of the 90s. That's where I found out about the DeCamp issue. That being said, I did enjoy the Lancer/Ace paperbacks, Tor books and comics. I'm looking forward to reading some real Conan, Howard's Conan, next month.
If I ever win the PowerBall I'm gonna establish a publishing company that does nothing but publish completist omnibis of virtually every 19th-20th Century writers and artists like these in oversize full-color hardcovers for collectors to build complete libraries with no errata or excisions. It'll cost more money than it'll ever earn but goddamn, there will be definitive editions that everybody can go to without question or exception that can be reference copies for as long as possible. I wouldn't even sue people for scanning them into PDFs and putting them on the internet for free.
Thanks for another great video, and am racing to eBay to get my copies of these books. Meanwhile, looking forward to your review of the new CONAN THE BARBARIAN comic series from Titan Comics, which is FANTASTIC!
I wish I'd picked the Wagner books up back in the day. Oh well. I guess these days if people are missing out on REH it is less because of the De Camp series and more because of the still-in-print Robert Jordan collections in 'high fantasy' covers.
Hey, Michael! I love those Berkley paperbacks with the fold-out mini-posters by Ken Kelly! Karl Edward Wagner wrote the Conan pastiche "The Road of Kings" and the Bran Mak Morn pastiche "Legion From the Shadows". Do you intend to read the Howard Conan fragments, too, or will you fill those out with their pastiche conclusions? Did Howard state anywhere explicitly that Cimmerian is pronounced with an 's'-sound rather than a hard 'k'-sound? The name is derived from the Greek 'Kimerioi' so I always assumed the hard 'k'-sound which is an alliterative match to Conan with its hard 'k'-sound. 'K'onan the 'K'immerian.
Sphere was indeed the UK company that published the Lancer and then Ace Conan paperbacks, and therefore the publisher that we here in Australia had access to in the early and mid-1970s (US publishers not being permitted a toehold in our market due to patronising deals made post-World War II by the trade commissions of the British Empire errrr, I mean Commonwealth and her former colony of Australia). I too object to that one point in Wagner's introduction: Marvel's Conan comics have nothing in common with the company's superhero comics. Roy Thomas in particular has always been most respectful of Howard's works (sadly, when Marvel regained the licence several years ago the meat-heads in Editorial thought it would be a good idea to team Conan up with Wolverine - it wasn't). Wagner was certainly a huge talent in the horror and fantasy genres and we lost him much too young. Have you asked Roger if he knows anything about your missing books? Don't let his innocent look fool you, Michael.
I liked de Camp and Carter's works on their own creations. I'm not sure if I disapprove of people taking Howard's other works into Conan stories. If it were done carefully and minimally, it could work, as Howard did similar things himself.
I have carried a collection of REH around with me for the last 40 years. I have all the Conan books in the Lancer and Sphere editions, the Kane books in the Centaur Press editions, as well as all the Berkley releases and a number of his Westerns and sports stories from Panther, Zebra, and Ace. Of his non-heroic fantasy I like the Bear Creek stuff. Lovecraft, the same. Arkham House and Beagle Boxer editions. Burroughs in abundance and mostly all Ace editions with the beautiful Frazetta cover illustrations. My entry was finding a copy of 'The Spawn of Cthulhu' anthology at my grandmother's when I was 11, so 48 years ago.
Karl Edward Wagner is to be lauded for attempting to bring to readers Conan as written by Robert E. Howard. He was partially successful with three volumes; the rest were probably withheld for copyright and legal reasons. Sadly, Wagner died in 1994 at 48 from the ravages of alcoholism. . .drank himself to death. 😿🍺🍷Even so, this was an informative video. Many thanks for posting.
They're quite impossible to get down here, I've never seen them. I found one of KEW's edited novels - Echoes of Valor. I'll read that for CImmerian September and the Del Rey v2.
I'm also one of those people who thought that the diluted Conan paperbacks were the only version. I'm curious how the unadulterated REH books/stories are different. Are they grittier or more geared towards adults?
The tone is a bit different. It's not so much grittier or anything like that, but it always seems like the pastiches view Conan as an unstoppable force, while the original Conan stories seem to place him in situations where he could very easily lose. Once you know what to look for, the pastiches are easily picked out.
When Lancer went bankrupt in the early 1970s, rights to the Howard stories were in flux so Karl Edward Wager was able to get the public domain stories published. But when the bankruptcy was settled, Conan Properties was created which included L. Sprague de Camp who was furious about the Wagner edited books because de Camp didn't get a dime from them so one of the first things de Camp had Howard Properties do was kill the Wagner series so that the Lancer books (with the de Camp pastiches) could be reprinted by Ace Books as the official Conan. It would be years before anyone could get around that and by then Wagner was dead.
I actually like the Robert Jordan series with CONAN - Sure nothing is going to compare with Robert Howards originals - BUT when you have great source material to work with - It's kind of hard to go wrong if you are a decent writer...
Robert came into the bookstore I worked at years ago to do a signing. I told a joke in the back before we walked him out and everyone laughed but him. He just stood there with a very perplexed look on his face. Wish I could remember the joke but that was at least 24 years ago now but I always found it funny how I somehow flipped a breaker in Robert Jordan just before he had to go greet a bunch of fans.
Were Conan stories really in the public domain as early as the early 1980s? I thought it was only fairly recently that that happened. In fact, for a long time you could go to Project Gutenberg Australia to read Conan tales for free because copyright for this stuff seemed to lapse in Australia earlier than elsewhere.
A great pastiche of Conan is Cerebus the Aardvark, which is more a parody of the comic book. I own the three books edited by Karl Edward Wagner which I believe to reprintings of the source material right from the pages of Weird Tales. Please make more videos about Howard's other characters like Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn.
Still waiting for a Conan cover with brains exploding out of helmeted, heads. Not impressed with scantily, clad damsels. I don't remember them being used by Howard except as indicators of the debauched lifestyles of corrupt or weak Hyborian kingdoms or cults. Must do a comparison of medieval armor and weapons and Hyborian armor and weapons. For instance was Hyrkanian metal and weapons superior to Stygian or Aquilonian. Which civilization was most advanced in such accouterments and why? Due to local knowledge passed down through families, guilds and societies; or through stolen and looted treasure from lost civilizations; or through supernatural means, access or aid? There must be some in depth backstory that should put the shallow "secret of steel", from the original Conan movie, to shame. Would be interested to know if the Cimmerians preserved or were passed down some of the ancient technologies or knowledge of ancient Valusia. Just who was the most "advanced" kingdom in "practical" technology, and was it the same nation who was advanced in supernatural access. Obviously this is one of the main conflicts in Conan stories. A state of constant warfare between what we would recognize as initiates in modern warfare and its means and those aided by both modern warfare and supernatural means. In this sense Conan represents the triumph of the flesh over the spirit.
Only the original Robert Howard Conan tales are topnotch, de Camp or Kin Carter Conan yarns are not so good, as a reader you feel immediately the difference . You can't copy Howards style because you cannot copy his personality, he was an unique author, de Camp or Lin Carter not, for me they are mediocre writers regarding " fantasy or weird fiction" ! But Mr. Wagners sword and sorcery yarns are outstanding , he made no cheap copies, he was inspired by the Master Howard and his Kane novels, tales are equally outstanding with Howards Conan tales !!
The late Karl Edward Wagner lived in the Fort Sanders neighborhood of Knoxville, Tennessee. A great writer & editor.
It's been a while since I've been there, I lived in Knoxville for almost a decade; went to college (UT) there. I've been to Ft Sanders many times. Thanks for the information.
I’m glad that the character wasn’t lost to history and that others kept the character around. I’m forever grateful to Roy Thomas as the comics were my introduction to the character and got me to seek out those paperbacks. Now I get to read the Del Rey editions with pure REH. Exciting!
Another wonderful video. Thank you for introducing me to Robert E Howard. I've been a Lovecraft fan for 50yrs and you inspired me to read works of his friends. As a teenager in the 60s,I was obsessed with ancient Egypt and devoured all of H. Rider Haggard... Lost cities, adventure... Last Christmas my husband gave me the Del Ray edition of the first Conan stories. This year he's getting me the second and third volumes. The grey gloom of a British winter will be the perfect time to snuggle up with High Adventure, daring duo's, Hirsute heroes, Fatal Famms(with Loud Bosoms) Questing Beasts and the rest: providing the next wave of the dreaded lurgy doesn't carry me off. One wonders what imaginative nomenclature they will come up with this time! Let's see we've had Omicron.. (drum roll) the Kraken(visions of Cthulu rising) my money's on MEGATRON!
.
Hail to a fellow Haggard fan! REH and HPL both admired him.
God bless Karl Edward Wagner and Decamp if I must. They kept the dream of Conan alive and now we have the whole of the Cimeran himself. The love of Conan lives on.
The Robert E. Howard show is the best show on UA-cam. I tend to forget about the KEW Conan stories. It has been so long.
I actually own the three Del Rey Conan Anthology Editions.
I really, really need to get to those Kane books! I think it might be time to plan for KANEtober on my end...a perfect follow-up for Cimmerian September.
My introduction to Howard back in the day.
The Sphere editions here in Scotland were my introduction to Conan, Howard and indeed fantasy as a whole. Back then (in my early teens, the early 70s) my attitude was, the more the merrier! While I can understand why you feel so strongly about the pastiches appearing alongside Howard originals, those Sphere editions mean so much to me that I'm not really moved to unravel the two strands. Inferior as they may be to Howard, I think the expansion to his stories that De Camp and Carter provided really did help keep the character alive in the public consciousness. On the big screen, the quicker Jason Mamoa is given another crack but with a better script, the better!
I agree they were also my first introduction to Conan back in the early 80s I have the complete collection I can like you happily read both the original Howard stories and the pastiche stories
@@davidbarron4118 still sporadically trying to recomplete my set. 😊
I have a set of the Spheres and the Lancers even though they are the same content. Because it's REH.
Ah the ghost of Vaughan Manor strikes again, relocating books.. dress Zorro as Sherlock Holmes and go on a book hunt.
Karl Edward Wagner's 'The Road of Kings' was the only pastiche Conan book I could read. I started others and couldn't get through the first few pages without throwing them across the room.
I really enjoy listening to you talk about Robert E. Howard (and other great authors). He's long been one of my favorite writers, with an energy all his own. Keep up the great work!
6:20 In regards to Karl Edward Wagner; worth mentioning again is his novel "Killer" co-authored with David Drake.
That was a good book.
🎵 It’s the Robert E. Howard Show! 🎶 Isn’t It beyond frustrating when you can’t find something when you can see it plainly in your mind but it just isn’t there?! 😂 Thanks for this REH video and keep up the great work!
I don’t know how anyone can improve on the Wandering Star editions due to their quality production, complete original text, and illustrations by artist who arguably can’t be topped (with the exception of Frazetta and Ken Kelly covers).
Wagner was a helluva storyteller
He was.
"Beyond the Black River" and "Red Nails" are my two favorite Conan stories.
I love Wagner's early writing, though Kane fell flat for me (sacrilege, I know). I found him more suited to horror fiction. I cherished those Berkley editions when they came out in 77. I was 11 years old at the time. I was already reading the Lancer /Ace paperbacks, but the Berkley's cemented for me that Howard was an author set apart. I recognized that some of the Aces didn't feel right. Wagner showed me why.
The Howard books I collected were these Wagner edited paperbacks, and also the Donald M Grant editions of Howard's vintage Conan stories. There was a comic book store that used to carry those.
I remember getting a relative to buy me the Lancer edition of Conan of Cimmeria in a used book shop, based solely on that Frazetta cover. Would have been 14 then. The book was as good as new, the pages hadn’t started to slip out yet, as always happened with those Lancer paperbacks. Even back then I remember noticing that if the name Howard wasn’t in the story’s credit it wasn’t very good, and the stuff that was billed solely as REH was the best by far.
I have that very book on my shelf right now. First printing, 1969. It was originally 0.95 cents. Those purple-edged pages which I think were unique to Lancer. It has an ad for Ted White's 'The Sorceress of Qar' which I also happen to own.
What a beautiful edition!
The three paperbacks of the Berkley edition included a mini-poster each reproducing the wraparound cover.
Talk about value for money :)
i remember those paperbacks. Wonderful paintings by Frazetta's nephew-in-law Ken Kelly. He also covered some non-Conan Howard books in the same series.
@@russworks2882 I have ten of them (not sure if that is all or not) and they all have the fold-outs. I also have 'The Last Celt' which is a bio of REH but it is a trade paperback and has no folder included.
@@wwiiinplastic4712 That's more than I was aware of, and I had no idea they'd done the Last Celt, by Howard Agent Glen Lord. It was originally one of those limited edition Donald Grant books. Berkley went deep.
It's finally happening. You have me revisiting Conan for the first time since the mid-'70s when I was first read SOME the original stories in those old Lancer editions. They did NOT hook me back then, even having been introduced to Conan through the old Marvel Comics. But you're perpetual zeal has been contagious over the last couple years, and you've convinced me to order those three Del Rey collections, and by Crom! Now I can't WAIT to jump into Cimmerian Ceptember!
I agree. I see you sport the seal of Rassilon: a fellow Whovian
@@LeoniFermer-vi4dc Very similar, but it isn't the Seal of Rassilon. It's my own logo, based on a Celtic Cross rune curling around to conceal my own initials. But I do appreciation the connection!
It's a lovely design. I love anything Celtic too. I own many books on Celtic mythology and archeology. The Scottish historian Neil Oliver is another hero. Goodnight.
Great to hear you talk about Karl Edward Wagner! One of my favorite Sword and Sorcery writers after Howard himself.
I remember getting the Ace paperbacks right after the movie came out.
Thanks for focusing a great post on KEW and REH!
Roy Thomas and Marvel did a great job keeping the character before the eyes of a mass audience. I read a lot of those issues when John Buscema was drawing the character. But I agree, no Conan is the real Conan except REH's Conan.
Sadly, by the time these volumes came out, I had already raided all the used paperback stores for all the volumes of Howard's fiction.
I've never read Conan -so I just bought the centeniary edition . I'll see you there brother ⚔
Road of Kings was in my collection back in the early 80s and I aim to buy it again. I love Conan and unfortunately the master left us with few stories. I am keen on the new novel and also the new comics now marvel have let Conan go. As long as the stories are true to the original lore I'm all good
Wonderful.
Nice video, I think it provides some good thoughts on even just the practical considerations of how to present somebody else's work in a compendium, to self-insert a pastiche is genuinely mind-blowing (in the negative) to me. Also, I like your friend, they have great teeth!
Omg I was just looking for Wagner-RE connection, moreover reading a lot of all that there is on these two etc and here you come with this video! The information field is real!
Thanks for bringing the Del Rey editions to my attention! I've bought and read the first and will pick up the others. Thanks Again!
I don't know about the Complete Chronicles, but it should be noted that the editors of the Del Ray set attempted to put the stories in a chronology of Conan's life, which I think it pretty cool.
The least this man is doing REH right.
My Grail book !! 🤤
Oh, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh, booooooooooooooyyyyyyyy!
Those were some great editions of Conan. I'm in aww at your knowledge of the ins and outs of Howard's publishing history. Until I found your channel, it felt like I was one of the only people who knew about this. Like it was lost to the ancient Conan Forums of the 90s. That's where I found out about the DeCamp issue. That being said, I did enjoy the Lancer/Ace paperbacks, Tor books and comics. I'm looking forward to reading some real Conan, Howard's Conan, next month.
If I ever win the PowerBall I'm gonna establish a publishing company that does nothing but publish completist omnibis of virtually every 19th-20th Century writers and artists like these in oversize full-color hardcovers for collectors to build complete libraries with no errata or excisions. It'll cost more money than it'll ever earn but goddamn, there will be definitive editions that everybody can go to without question or exception that can be reference copies for as long as possible. I wouldn't even sue people for scanning them into PDFs and putting them on the internet for free.
I’m hoping for your PowerBall win.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Shit, if I actually get it, you'll get the first copy of the Conan omnibi off the press.
I'll also agree the Roy Thomas did a good job with Conan comics. His stories were and are pretty true to the spirit of the character.
Thanks for another great video, and am racing to eBay to get my copies of these books. Meanwhile, looking forward to your review of the new CONAN THE BARBARIAN comic series from Titan Comics, which is FANTASTIC!
I wish I'd picked the Wagner books up back in the day. Oh well. I guess these days if people are missing out on REH it is less because of the De Camp series and more because of the still-in-print Robert Jordan collections in 'high fantasy' covers.
Yeah, the De Camp series seems to be pretty scarce nowadays. I still suspect Titan Books might reprint them.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Then of course there are the 40+ pirate Russian ones, some with crazy titles; I'd love to read them in English!
Hey, Michael! I love those Berkley paperbacks with the fold-out mini-posters by Ken Kelly!
Karl Edward Wagner wrote the Conan pastiche "The Road of Kings" and the Bran Mak Morn pastiche "Legion From the Shadows".
Do you intend to read the Howard Conan fragments, too, or will you fill those out with their pastiche conclusions?
Did Howard state anywhere explicitly that Cimmerian is pronounced with an 's'-sound rather than a hard 'k'-sound? The name is derived from the Greek 'Kimerioi' so I always assumed the hard 'k'-sound which is an alliterative match to Conan with its hard 'k'-sound. 'K'onan the 'K'immerian.
I suppose Cimmerian was pronounced with a hard K back in the olden days. I never pronounce anything right anyway.
Red Nails is my favourite Conan story.
Sphere was indeed the UK company that published the Lancer and then Ace Conan paperbacks, and therefore the publisher that we here in Australia had access to in the early and mid-1970s (US publishers not being permitted a toehold in our market due to patronising deals made post-World War II by the trade commissions of the British Empire errrr, I mean Commonwealth and her former colony of Australia).
I too object to that one point in Wagner's introduction: Marvel's Conan comics have nothing in common with the company's superhero comics. Roy Thomas in particular has always been most respectful of Howard's works (sadly, when Marvel regained the licence several years ago the meat-heads in Editorial thought it would be a good idea to team Conan up with Wolverine - it wasn't).
Wagner was certainly a huge talent in the horror and fantasy genres and we lost him much too young.
Have you asked Roger if he knows anything about your missing books? Don't let his innocent look fool you, Michael.
I'm just reading Nightwinds. Heady stuff indeed😮
I liked de Camp and Carter's works on their own creations.
I'm not sure if I disapprove of people taking Howard's other works into Conan stories. If it were done carefully and minimally, it could work, as Howard did similar things himself.
I have carried a collection of REH around with me for the last 40 years. I have all the Conan books in the Lancer and Sphere editions, the Kane books in the Centaur Press editions, as well as all the Berkley releases and a number of his Westerns and sports stories from Panther, Zebra, and Ace. Of his non-heroic fantasy I like the Bear Creek stuff. Lovecraft, the same. Arkham House and Beagle Boxer editions. Burroughs in abundance and mostly all Ace editions with the beautiful Frazetta cover illustrations. My entry was finding a copy of 'The Spawn of Cthulhu' anthology at my grandmother's when I was 11, so 48 years ago.
Michael telling it like it is 👍
Karl Edward Wagner is to be lauded for attempting to bring to readers Conan as written by Robert E. Howard. He was partially successful with three volumes; the rest were probably withheld for copyright and legal reasons.
Sadly, Wagner died in 1994 at 48 from the ravages of alcoholism. . .drank himself to death. 😿🍺🍷Even so, this was an informative video. Many thanks for posting.
They're quite impossible to get down here, I've never seen them. I found one of KEW's edited novels - Echoes of Valor. I'll read that for CImmerian September and the Del Rey v2.
Echoes of Valor is a good anthology.
I'm also one of those people who thought that the diluted Conan paperbacks were the only version. I'm curious how the unadulterated REH books/stories are different. Are they grittier or more geared towards adults?
The tone is a bit different. It's not so much grittier or anything like that, but it always seems like the pastiches view Conan as an unstoppable force, while the original Conan stories seem to place him in situations where he could very easily lose. Once you know what to look for, the pastiches are easily picked out.
The original stories have a darker and more serious tone I think.
When Lancer went bankrupt in the early 1970s, rights to the Howard stories were in flux so Karl Edward Wager was able to get the public domain stories published. But when the bankruptcy was settled, Conan Properties was created which included L. Sprague de Camp who was furious about the Wagner edited books because de Camp didn't get a dime from them so one of the first things de Camp had Howard Properties do was kill the Wagner series so that the Lancer books (with the de Camp pastiches) could be reprinted by Ace Books as the official Conan. It would be years before anyone could get around that and by then Wagner was dead.
Interesting. Thanks!
I actually like the Robert Jordan series with CONAN - Sure nothing is going to compare with Robert Howards originals - BUT when you have great source material to work with - It's kind of hard to go wrong if you are a decent writer...
Robert came into the bookstore I worked at years ago to do a signing. I told a joke in the back before we walked him out and everyone laughed but him. He just stood there with a very perplexed look on his face. Wish I could remember the joke but that was at least 24 years ago now but I always found it funny how I somehow flipped a breaker in Robert Jordan just before he had to go greet a bunch of fans.
Were Conan stories really in the public domain as early as the early 1980s? I thought it was only fairly recently that that happened. In fact, for a long time you could go to Project Gutenberg Australia to read Conan tales for free because copyright for this stuff seemed to lapse in Australia earlier than elsewhere.
I think they were.
I would love it if you could do a video about REH's historical stories.
I will, eventually.
A great pastiche of Conan is Cerebus the Aardvark, which is more a parody of the comic book. I own the three books edited by Karl Edward Wagner which I believe to reprintings of the source material right from the pages of Weird Tales. Please make more videos about Howard's other characters like Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn.
I will. Thanks!
Have you ever done a show on the other authors who have produced Conan stories like Robert Jordan?
Well, to do that I would have to reread those Robert Jordan Conan books. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about that idea.
So which one should I buy?
You should buy the Del Rey set.
Still waiting for a Conan cover with brains exploding out of helmeted, heads.
Not impressed with scantily, clad damsels. I don't remember them being used by Howard except as indicators of the debauched lifestyles of corrupt or weak Hyborian kingdoms or cults.
Must do a comparison of medieval armor and weapons and Hyborian armor and weapons. For instance was Hyrkanian metal and weapons superior to Stygian or Aquilonian. Which civilization was most advanced in such accouterments and why? Due to local knowledge passed down through families, guilds and societies; or through stolen and looted treasure from lost civilizations; or through supernatural means, access or aid? There must be some in depth backstory that should put the shallow "secret of steel", from the original Conan movie, to shame. Would be interested to know if the Cimmerians preserved or were passed down some of the ancient technologies or knowledge of ancient Valusia.
Just who was the most "advanced" kingdom in "practical" technology, and was it the same nation who was advanced in supernatural access.
Obviously this is one of the main conflicts in Conan stories. A state of constant warfare between what we would recognize as initiates in modern warfare and its means and those aided by both modern warfare and supernatural means. In this sense Conan represents the triumph of the flesh over the spirit.
Not exactly exploding brains but the cover of the Lancer/Sphere edition of 'Conan of Cimmeria' is a decent fight scene and no damsels in view.
Only the original Robert Howard Conan tales are topnotch, de Camp or Kin Carter Conan yarns are not so good, as a reader you feel immediately the difference . You can't copy Howards style because you cannot copy his personality, he was an unique author, de Camp or Lin Carter not, for me they are mediocre writers regarding " fantasy or weird fiction" ! But Mr. Wagners sword and sorcery yarns are outstanding , he made no cheap copies, he was inspired by the Master Howard and his Kane novels, tales are equally outstanding with Howards Conan tales !!