O yes – he’ll be showing her his savage sword! Classic Conan pose (or leg cling) in The Savage Sword of Conan cover art by Earl Norem for “The Treasure of Tranicos”, issue 47, 1 December 1979, Marvel Comics (fair use)

(10) ROBERT E. HOWARD –

CONAN (1932-1936)

“As Dracula is to vampires, Sherlock Holmes is to private detectives, and Superman is to superheroes, so Conan is to barbarian heroes”.

The Lord of the Rings may have defined modern literary fantasy – fantasy could well be classified as pre-Tolkien and post-Tolkien. And yet…there were of course other writers of fantasy before (and apart from) Tolkien, most notably Robert E. Howard and his Conan stories from 1932 to 1936. I understand that Tolkien read and enjoyed the Conan stories – and I can’t resist quoting George R. R. Martin, who came to The Lord of The Rings from those very different Conan stories:

“Robert E. Howard’s stories usually opened with a giant serpent slithering by or an axe cleaving someone’s head in two. Tolkien opened his with a birthday party…Conan would hack a bloody path right through the Shire, end to end, I remembered thinking…Yet I kept on reading. I almost gave up at Tom Bombadil, when people started going “Hey! Come derry do! Tom Bombadillo!”. Things got more interesting in the barrow downs, though, and even more so in Bree, where Strider strode onto the scene. By the time we got to Weathertop, Tolkien had me…A chill went through me, such as Conan and Kull have never evoked.”

On the other hand, Conan would have made quick work of the Quest, while making off with an elf girl or two…

Conan embodies heroic fantasy in his setting of the Hyborian Age – an age of our own world after “the oceans drank Atlantis” that conveniently predates all surviving historical records. Translation: a setting for which Howard didn’t have to do any of that pesky research for his quick pulp fantasy stories but which could still invoke or have historical vibes as the precursors of civilizations in recorded history.

“Know, o 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, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars — Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian; black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.”

That pretty much sums up Howard’s stories of his best known hero Conan which often invoke for me Conan as a Hyborian Bond – or is that barbarian Bond? – with similar vibes as James Bond with the different Bond girls for each story, as well as the different monstrous or sorcerous antagonists.

Due to his friendship with H.P. Lovecraft, “the original Conan stories are actually a peripheral part of the Cthulhu Mythos” – and perhaps that friendship also accounts for the huge “loathsome serpents” that recur throughout the stories. They are also canon to the Marvel Universe, thanks to their adaptation to comics by Marvel.

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)