Over at National Review Online, friend of The Cimmerian, John J. Miller, just posted an entry giving props to Grognardia. As some TC readers may already know, James Maliszewski’s web log is perhaps the finest of its kind devoted to role-playing games. Just a few weeks ago, Grognardia received plaudits from The L.A. Times.  Even if you’re not of the role-playing bent, it is still worthwhile checking in on Grognardia from time to time. Maliszewski is a keen student and critic of the the pulp-style adventure we all love and his book reviews are some of the best on the ‘Net, in my opinion.

Over at The Official Robert E. Howard Forum, [redacted] from the Robert E. Howard Foundation gave frequenters of the forum a sneak peak at the contents of a projected new book from the REHF. This volume will contain Robert E. Howard’s fictionalized autobiographical short novel, Post Oaks and Sand Roughs (the cover from the DMG edition is shown above), along with numerous other works from Howard containing information of a personal and biographical nature. Rob cautions that the whole project is still in development and no firm date whatsoever has been set. The contents, which [redacted] has described as “tentative,” are as follows:

Ambition by Moonlight
An Autobiography
The Galveston Affair
In His Own Image
Irony
Ivory Camel, The
Lives and Crimes of Notable Artists
Musings of a Moron
The Paradox
The People of the Winged Skulls
Post Oaks and Sand Roughs – Draft
Post Oaks and Sand Roughs
The Recalcitrant
Some People Who Have Had Influence over Me
Spanish Gold on Devil Horse
The Splendid Brute
Sunday in a Small Town
To a Man Whose Name I Never Knew
A Touch of Trivia
Untitled (“A typical small town drugstore . . .”)
Untitled (“As my dear public . . .”)
Untitled (“Mike Costigan, writer and self-avowed futilist”)
Untitled (“The Seeker thrust . . .”)
Voyages with Villains
The Wandering Years

Rob has also indicated that there might be annotations included as well.

[redacted] has been giving the annotaters a helping hand, it seems. Over at the Two-Gun Raconteur website, [redacted] has posted a guest blog which examines some of the clues provided by Post Oaks and Sand Roughs. He has made, in my opinion, a very strong case as to what real-life football game REH fictionalized at the very start of his short novel. Check it out here.

I just read the newest entry from Ryan Harvey, one of the ace bloggers over at Black Gate. It concerns Cornell Woolrich’s 1938 novella, “Jane Brown’s Body.” From the sound of it, it’s a fine little science-fictional horror tale. The plot can be briefly summarized: a scientist revives the newly-dead body of a beautiful young woman. Later, a young gangster abducts the woman from the scientist who he believes has “enslaved” her. Action and horror ensue.

Now, as someone who has read his share of Karl Edward Wagner’s works, but very little of Woolrich’s, I have to say that the plot outlined by Ryan Harvey seems to possess some likeness to that of KEW’s “Undertow.” That tale is a short story in the “Kane” series written by Wagner in 1977, about forty years after “Jane Brown’s Body.” For those who fear spoilers, my advice would be to stop reading about now.

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Here’s what REH Foundation mover n’ shaker, [redacted], just posted over on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum:

We should start taking pre-orders soon, but I thought folks would want to see the other El Borak cover by the Keegans.

[redacted] also noted that it’s not too late to email the Foundation regarding this volume. The more they hear from fans, the better they’ll be able to determine the size of the print run.

A Cimmerian Award-winning Howard scholar is now posting at the TGR blog.  Brian Leno is blogging at Publisher’s Journal, the Official REH: Two-Gun Raconteur Blog.

 From 2006 through 2008, Brian made seven contributions to The Cimmerian, including two of my personal favorites, “Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation” and “Down the Rabbit Hole” (for which he won the First Place  for Outstanding Achievement, Essay).

 Brian is also a regular contributor to REH: Two-Gun Raconteur.  So if you enjoy Brian’s writing as much as I do, mosey on over the Publisher’s Journal blog and check it out.

 Brian just posted a new entry, and here are links to his first two posts.

Leno and Damon Sasser came out of the gate on January 1 firing on all cylinders and have kept the blog entries coming ever since. It’s great to see another REH blog out there and I wish them the best.

A couple of months back, I wrote a blog entry regarding Sword-and-Sorcery author, Milton Davis, and his current and forthcoming projects. I thought that TC readers might like an update.

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The 117th anniversary of Clark Ashton Smith’s birth last week was marked by The Cimmerian (here, here, and here), Grognardia, Black Gate, and others with accolades and remembrances. As well it should. Smith, along with Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, formed the weird fiction triptych of the 1920s and ’30s — and in my opinion, he was the most talented member of a talented group. Yet a recurring question in many of these memorials is why Smith remains uncelebrated in comparison to his partners. This is especially vexing when you consider he outlived the other two by almost a quarter-century.

Blogger Jackson Kuhl (a personage not unknown to long-time TC readers) wrote the above in an entry he posted on Robert E. Howard’s birthday, ironically enough. Kuhl’s article, entitled “The Obscurity of Clark Ashton Smith,” answers the “vexing question” of CAS’ lack of literary prominence by pointing the finger directly at those who control Smith’s estate. Kuhl relates his (ultimately futile) struggles to publish an omnibus gathering together all of the Averoigne stories (a collection yours truly has been waiting for these past two decades). It is a disheartening tale, but one that should be read by every fan of the Bard of Auburn.

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As reported last week, Paul Herman and Dennis McHaney organized a birthday celebration in honor of Robert E. Howard at Opal Divine’s in Austin for Saturday, January 23rd. Here’s a post-party summary from Paul courtesy of the Official Robert E. Howard Forum:

It was a beautiful if windy Saturday in Austin. We started on the deck of Opal Divine’s, a nice place with a broad selection of beers and food. 65-70 degrees (welcome to Texas-style winters!), a brisk wind out of the west. After the wind dumped my beer in my lap (if ONLY someone had caught that on video, pretty amazing), we decided to move it inside. Quite the rogues gallery, with Dennis McHaney, [redacted]*, Dave Hardy and better half, Todd Woods, Joe and Ms. Crawford, and a couple other folks who stopped in that I didn’t know. A rousing toast to REH, and the conversation was on. Much brilliant Howard discussion ensued, as well as just catching up with each other. Good food, cold drinks, and a couple hours of fun camraderie. It is so rare to get to sit around with a group and talk REH, especially such a knowledgeable group. Man that was fun! Definitely worth the drive.

Sounds like a great shindig. All Robert E. Howard fans who were within driving distance and stayed home ([redacted] drove all the way from Vernon) just might hafta hold their manhoods cheap at this point. However, unlike Agincourt, there will be do-overs in the future. A tip of the TC morion to Dennis and Paul for making it all happen.

*Mark hit a deer on the way back from the soiree, by the way. He’s fine, but his car could be better and the deer could be a lot better.

As reported earlier here at The Cimmerian, award-winning artist, Timothy Bradstreet, is the creator behind all of the black-and-white pieces for the upcoming El Borak and Other Desert Adventures from Del Rey. Above is one of his illustrations for that volume (recently posted on the homepage of Conan.com).

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I first read the name “Robert E. Howard” in the spring of 1975. I had seen a copy of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #38 on a spindle-rack in one of those little corner grocery stores whose place has now been taken by stores of convenience in America’s small towns. Having discovered the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs the previous year, I was primed for the sort of adventure the cover seemed to promise. My indulgent and sainted grand-mother, responding as she nearly always did to my boyish entreaties, promptly bought it for me (naked blue chick and all).

Conan #38 was Roy Thomas’ (and John Buscema’s) adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “The House of Arabu.” Howard’s yarn featured a blonde-haired Argive named Pyrrhas as the protagonist and was set during the twilight years of Sumer. Roy, as he often did with other REH tales, “freely adapted” (his own words, right on the splash page) the yarn as a story of Conan during his time in Turan, which he entitled, “The Warrior and the Were-Woman!”. Over the years, it’s been noted more than once that “Arabu” is one of Howard’s darker tales of high adventure. In my opinion, Thomas managed to convey a lot of that while still toeing the line for the Comics Code.

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