The complete chronicles of Conan
Robert E. Howard
Gollancz
(centenary edition)
This was a lovely surprise beneath the tree of Christmas day. A hardcover collection from Gollancz containing all the Conan stories, as well as relevant poetry, essays and an extensive feature on the author and his creation by Stephen Jones.
Conan is one of those characters I both know and don't know - I was introduced to the character in the Marvel Comics when I was a kid, this then led to the novels by other hands continuing the character and of course I've seen both of the movies and several episodes of the TV series. And yet I've read precious little of the original pulp stories by Robert E. Howard.
The author is highly regarded and of course Conan, his most famous character, has stood the test of time. I'm looking forward to discovering these tales, most of them for the first time.
By Crom some serious enjoyment lays ahead.
7 comments:
I love Conan - interesting blog. Some great post and left me wanting to try a western. Carl4
You're definitely in for a thrill. I love these stories.
Yep, some fantastic reading there. 'Wolves Beyond the Border' is a great frontier tale, could almost be a western. And REH did write a lot of actual westrens, well worth tracking down.
Never read any of these but have long admired the paintings, particularly those by Frank Frazetta - who did the one you've shown here. Frazetta is my favourite fantasy artist of all time.
It mentions Howard's other stuff in the introduction - can anyone point me in the direction of where these may be available, particularly the western stuff?
There's tons and tons of other stuff. Del Rey recently published a 2-volume 'Best Of...' (Crimson Shadows Vol 1 and Grim Lands Vol 2) which provide a pretty good overview from the many genres he wrote in, with authentic texts (ie no editing to preserve the sensibilities of modern readers.) There are a couple of western-specific anhologies too, 'The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales' and 'The End of the Trail: Western Stories'. Some of his westerns are humorous, kind of tall tales.
here are three books I covered, none of which are the Del Rey releases which are all fantastic.
http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/anthologies/bullets-broads-blackmail-bombs-howard-be-thy-name/
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