Is Conan the Barbarian Texas' greatest hero?

Hey, y'all -- it's time for REH Days, the annual tribute of fans of Texas writer Robert E. Howard, in his hometown of Cross Plains, Texas. This year the festival runs from Thursday through Saturday (June 11-13). It's mostly free, so drop by if you get a chance. In REH's honor, I'm re-running some of my previous about him and his stories -- including some you may  not expect!

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People of the Black Circle

by Robert E. Howard 

Conan-creator Robert E. Howard a specialist in spunky heroines? Possibly, it's not the first characteristic that leaps to mind in considering the king of 1930's pulp fiction. But I dare you to find a single spiritless, or even resigned woman in Howard's stories. Especially not in one of his best, People of the Black Circle, whose heroine Yasmina defies protocol, not to mention loss of life and sanity, to rescue the soul of her beloved brother from wizardry.

Image by Hansuan for pixabay

And despite the racy cover of the September 1934 Weird Tales, which serialized the novella, Yasmina, in typical Howardian fashion, wins without stooping to the exploitation of her sexuality. Not even to gain the aid of the warrior Conan, turning up in a surprisingly non-Hyborian context.

Briefly, as Bunda Chand, king of Vendhya, lies dying, he reveals to his beloved sister, the Devi Yasmina, that he has been “ensorcelled by the wizards of the Himelians,” who are intent on imprisoning his soul in the body of a demon. The distraught Yasmina determines to free her brother’s soul. To do so, she travels incognito to the borders of Himelian territory, determined to find the famous Conan and force him to aid her in penetrating the wizards’ fastness.

The Devi finds the tables turned on her more than once in a typically twisty Howard plot, but she and Conan will eventually acknowledge each other as the best of enemies.

“. . . of all the Conan-girls, I have a special fondness for Yasmina,” writes the reviewer at http://www.pulpanddagger.com/conan/people.html/. “Somehow, Howard combines in her a perfect blending of imperious strength and fetching vulnerability that makes her stand out from all the rest.”

Conan thought so, too.

As the story ends (spoiler alert!) he tells Yasmina, now queen of her own country, “‘I will collect your ransom in my own way, at my own time. . . And I will come with fifty thousand men to see that the scales are fair.’”

“She laughed, gathering her reins into her hands. ‘And I will meet you on the shores of the Jhumda with a hundred thousand!’”

Where did Howard (not to mention Conan) get this appreciation for strong women? In spite of the disapprobation heaped on Howard’s mother, Hester Ervin Howard, who added her surname to the name of her only son, I suspect he appreciated her strength, both as she and his father argued famously and as she endured an agonizing death from tuberculosis.

But not surprisingly, Howard never married. And although Conan sometimes appears about to take the plunge, I can’t remember one of his stories that ended with a wedding, either.

(Want more Howard? Listen to a free audio trial of People of the Black Circle at www.audiobooks.com or stay tuned here for more!)

Texas writer smackdown: two takes on heroic fantasy

 It's another of those classic matchups -- established Texas writer Robert E. Howard versus (relative) newbie Rick Riordan duking it out for the king of heroic fantasy. But wait, you say? Riordan as a Texas writer? Wonder no more, dear friends. Back before writing his way into the land of myth, Riordan, born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, took honors for his mystery series starring Jackson "Tres" Navarre. I like to think the surname of his breakout series hero, Percy Jackson, was a nod to Tres.

In the other corner is Howard, also born, lived, and died in Texas, with almost innumerable Conan stories to his credit, not to mention the likes of a slew of other heroes, movie spinoffs, etc.

Today, I'm featuring short reviews of one of the most famous Conan stories, "Red Nails", paired with a recent Riordan entry in the Percy Jackson oeuvre, The Wrath of the Triple Goddess. Each story features that classic threesome: a guy, a girl, and the monstrous house of a witch. What could possibly go wrong?

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Red Nails

A beautiful and dangerous woman flees through a dark forest, fearing pursuit from a band of pirates. Not that she has anything against pirates in general. She was one of their crew. But when one of them attempted to rape her, she had no choice but to kill him. And the rest of the crew didn't take kindly to that form of "no." 

REH

Hoping she's finally outrun her would-be assassins, she stops to reconnoiter, only to find one follower still on her trail: Conan. Luckily, he's more impressed with her sword work than the rest of her (not that he doesn't have an eye for gorgeous dames!). 

After polishing off a deadly dragon (impressed with their potential as food sources), Conan and the woman, who gets a name, Valeria, about half a dozen pages into the story, catch sight of a distant city and set out, seeking shelter.

The city consists of a single, enormous, multi-roomed house. But though it's immaculate and richly furnished, they find no evidence of inhabitants until they stumble upon an eerie, murderous masked figure and rescue one of its intended victims. The survivor informs them that the city/house is home to related but warring factions that have been at each other's throats for decades. (The story's title, Red Nails, refers to the nails one faction drives into a post to keep track of its kills.)

The survivor guides them to his faction's leaders, Prince Olmec and his beautiful consort Tascela, who overlooks Conan but is intensely drawn to Valeria. And as the slaughter of the warring factions drives each side toward extinction, Conan and Valeria learn the reason for their insane strife and the deadly meaning of Tascela's fascination with the younger woman,

Who will win and who will lose in what Howard himself described as his bloodiest and sexiest Conan tale?

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The Wrath of the Triple Goddess

Teenaged demigod Percy Jackson desperately needs recommendation letters from a few more Olympian gods to gain admission to the college of his choice, where his demigod girlfriend, Annabeth, is already assured of entry. So, what choice does he have when Hecate, goddess of witchcraft and magic, offers a recommendation in return for the "small favor" of house/pet sitting her mansion while she tours the world during her annual Halloween vacation? The mansion, of course, must be in immaculate condition, ditto Hecate's strange and deadly pets, upon her return or the recommendation will be forfeited.

Luckily, Percy has Annabeth and his best friend, the satyr Grover, to keep order while he attends the high school classes he missed while out saving the world in previous adventures.

But when the temptation to taste one of Hecate's deliciously dangerous brews overcomes Grover, the resulting spell trashes the entire mansion and unleashes the witch's pet hellhound and polecat into the wilds of New York City, the three friends must seek additional supernatural aid to find the beasts and put the house back in order. Or forfeit Percy's college recommendation, possibly even his life.

Luckily, Annabeth's research reveals an entire nearby graveyard full of pioneering New York ghosts who may be able to help if the friends can secure the aid of their ghostly leader. Too bad he was a demigod himself, a son of Hecate. And he's held a grudge against his mother, and everything associated with her for oh, about the last 400 years.

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Well, readers, who do you choose? Classic writer Howard or newbie(ish) Riordan? I'd love to hear your comments!

For me, Red Nails bears the weight of being the last of Howard's published Conan tales, not seeing print until after his suicide and the death of his mother, with whom he had, shall we say, an interesting relationship? And although I love many of Howard's never goody-goody female characters, he vented all his frustrations of money worries, race, and homophobia in ways that will seem creaky with age to some readers, or right for new readership for others.

Riordan's take on the classic story formulas is definitely 21st-century. And maybe it's just me, but I like the focus on working together as his demigod characters do than with the lone rangerishness of Conan. But I still vent at Netflix for dropping the ball about another Conan revival!

Totally by the way, but despite his disappearance from screens, lots of the Conan tales are still available. I found Red Nails in Prion publishing's Conan the Barbarian, among the Dallas Public Library's trove of Howardiana. Probably in multiple outlets as well.

Adventure classics -- A puritanical swashbuckler

Red Shadows

by Robert E. Howard

At first thought, the possibility of a Puritan turning pirate seems as unlikely as, well, Captain Jack Sparrow terrorizing the Spanish Main. But the conflicted character of Solomon Kane is a strong illustration of Howard’s ability to, as H.P. Lovecraft said, “understand and mentally inhabit past ages,” as well as a thinking person’s version of Conan.

In spite of Howard’s own agnostic attitude toward religion, he could write a compelling portrait, in Kane, of a man who believes himself to be an agent of God’s will. Even if carrying out that will requires him to associate with witch doctors and follow his own urges for adventure and swashbuckling fights. With its blend of supernatural horror and swordplay, Howard scholar Rusty Burke labeled the Kane stories, predating Howard’s Hyborian tales, the first of the sword and sorcery genre.

Red Shadows,” the initial story featuring Kane, was written when Howard was only twenty-one, although not published until the August 1928 number of “Weird Tales.” In it, an unnamed stranger first encounters a dying girl and, after hearing her story, determines to avenge her. True to his puritan heritage, in Howard’s words “he made no wild, reckless vow, swore by no saints or devils. . . ‘Men shall die for this,’ he said coldly.”
　
That, needless to say, is the last cold-natured action of the story as Kane tracks the killer from Europe to the African coast where he teams with shaman N’Longa, who has a zombie or two in his bag of magic tricks to keep the excitement bubbling.

Kane’s story was made into a movie -- “Solomon Kane” -- starring James Purefoy of HBO’s series “Rome,” in 2009. Despite receiving fairly good reviews, it was not widely distributed in the U.S. (although a fan on Amazon.com reports seeing it at the Alamo Draft House in Austin, Texas). Movies based on Howard’s stories and characters generally haven’t done well at the box office, but I’ll hope for better luck when the remake of “Conan the Barbarian” comes out this August. It will star Jason Momoa, a former male model who has acted in the TV series “Game of Thrones,” Stargate Atlantis,” and “Baywatch.”

(Next Friday: Love me, love my dog -- Howard’s story of fighting seadogs -- really -- sailor Steve Costigan and his best friend.)

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The last barbarian

This coming Saturday, January 22, marks the one-hundred and fifth anniversary of the birth of my fellow Texan Robert E. Howard.  Howard, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age thirty, invented sword and sorcery fantasy almost single-handedly with characters such as Conan the Barbarian (more properly, the Cimmerian).  Even J.R.R. Tolkien, who had little sympathy for most of his contemporary writers, is rumored to have admitted that he “rather liked the Conan stories.”

During Howard’s lifetime, his neighbors in the West Texas town of Cross Plains considered him more of an eccentric than an innovator, looking askance at him for acting and when possible, dressing, in the style of his protagonists.  My favorite anecdote is of Howard and a friend who, eager to experience sword-fighting but finding fencing masters in short supply in small Texas towns during the Depression, bought a couple of U.S. Army surplus cavalry sabers.  The two young men started bashing away at each other, and in the encounter, the taller and heavier Howard slightly wounded his friend.  Also notable for his sensitivity to the pain and injuries of others, Howard threw down his saber and never touched one again.

Perhaps you don’t want to channel your inner barbarian by attacking your friends with edged weapons.  But have you considered using Howard’s other methods to get inside your characters’ heads?  I find the book Inner Drives by Pamela Jaye Smith (yet another Texan) useful for providing styles of speech, physical actions, clothing, foibles and even appropriate foods for many character archetypes.  Smith’s clients are often filmmakers, but anyone striving to portray character and motivation will find it helpful.  Robert E. Howard, I’m sure, would have loved it.

If this gives you any ideas for characters and stories to display them in, join my writing prompt contest.  Just list items in the comments section that you would like to include in a short story of any genre.  I’ll pick three – adding some of my own if needed – and post them on the January 26 blog, adding rules for a story contest using the prompts.  Winning prompts will be credited to their creators.  They’re your choice, but keep the sex and violence to about what you’d see in a PG-13 movie.

(For more information about Smith and her character theories, see her website, www.mythworks.net/ )