Gbo (or close enough)

Charles R. Saunders has posted a very helpful blog entry for the bovinically-challenged on his website. Saunder’s utterly bad-ass Sword-and-Sorcery heroine, Dossouye, is partnered in her exploits by an equally deadly “side-kick” named Gbo. Gbo is not to be trifled with, nor is he an Asian water buffalo. Mr. Saunders sets the record straight.

I first read about Dossouye and Gbo in Amazons! around 1980 (the story in question was “Agbewe’s Sword”). At the time, I was struck by how unique CRS’ pairing of warrior and bull was in fantasy fiction. Unique, but not unlikely. Having grown up around cattle all my life, it seemed far more probable that a (woman-) warrior would bestride such a steed than, say, a dragon. Bovines, even domesticated ones, are formidable beasts. Generally speaking, for any herd animal to survive, it must possess one of two traits: speed or lethality. Bovines aren’t renowned for their speed. There is a perfectly logical reason why the very capable predators of sub-Saharan Africa have never wiped out the Cape buffalo. Cape buffalos are bad news.

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REHupan (and Professor) Frank Coffman now has his Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems ready for online purchase at lulu.com. Here’s the info…

$23.50

Ships in 3–5 business days

A large and representative selection of the poetic work of Robert E. Howard, with a general introductory essay, 30 chapter introductions, and commentary by Prof. Frank Coffman, one of the foremost authorities on Howard’s verse and “ways with words.”

Three indexes add to the value of this ample selection: by title, by first lines, and a “Form Finder” index to allow quick access to Howard’s work with the ballad, the sonnet, blank verse, free verse and other forms and techniques.

Well over half of Howard’s more than 700 poems are included in this text, set in a text size and format for presentation that enhances readability and enjoyment. For those who are familiar with Howard’s prose fictional works, but who remain uninitiated in the many qualities and nuances of Howard’s verse, this compilation and commentary will offer insights into the complexity, quality and breadth of his work. For those who believe they know Howard’s poetic work, some new perspectives will broaden their appreciation.

[redacted]

Now, just a little over two years later, this news from [redacted], over at The Robert E. Howard Foundation website…

The Robert E. Howard Foundation is pleased to announce The Collected Drawings of Robert E. Howard. This slim, 42-page volume collects all of the known artwork by our favorite Texan. All of the comics and doodles from his letters and all of the Hyborian Age maps have been collected, but that’s not all. Many previously unpublished maps for stories like “Blood of the Gods” and “Wild Water” have been cleaned up and are presented here for the first time. Also, a fantastic discovery was made in Texas last year: Robert E. Howard’s high school text book. On each of the blank pages within that book, a young Howard doodled characters from his favorite stories in Adventure magazine, 11 characters in all. There was also a loose sheet of paper folded in the book with additional drawings. All are collected here. Order today and, depending on which shipping option is chosen, it might just show up in time for Christmas.

The Collected Drawings is an 8.5 x 11, perfect-bound paperback with an introduction by Bill Cavalier. Prepared for publication by yours truly.

This sounds like a cool little package. Apparently, the REHF is going with a paperback edition from lulu.com for this volume, just as they did for the first edition of [redacted]’s [redacted]. What has me really fired up are the maps that will be reproduced. We know that REH drafted rough maps (just like Conan) for several yarns, including The Hour of the Dragon. On top of that, several of the drawings I’ve seen are quite good for an untrained artist. For complete information about this REHF project, see here.

As reported by [redacted], Paradox/CPI is engaged in a trademark dispute with Orion Publishing Group. One of Orion’s imprints is Gollancz, which company was scheduled to release Conan’s Brethren, a collection of Howard’s non-Conan adventure yarns, next month. As just posted by the book’s editor, Stephen Jones, Conan’s Brethren seems to have gotten pulled into the fight as well:

Note: As a result of a threatened lawsuit over trademark infringement, publication was pushed back until 2010. Although the page sheets were printed, only copies of the export trade paperback were bound-up, and these were not commercially distributed.

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Ndoro and Obaseki

I do think the time is overpast for drawing inspiration from other milieus — Oriental, Near Eastern, North and Black African, Amerindian, Polynesian, an entire world — and am happy to see that several writers have begun doing so.

— Poul Anderson, from his essay, “On Thud and Blunder.”

Over at the Black Gate blog, Charles R. Saunders has logged on and made another (and most welcome) guest appearance. His motivation this time is to promote the work of an up-and-coming fantasy author. Click here and then click back, if you would.

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Poul Anderson would be eighty-three years old today. That means I’ve been reading his fiction for about thirty years now. The realization of that would be even more twinge-inducing if I didn’t constantly remind myself that I was a mere thirteen years old when I started.

My love for Poul’s writing began when I bought a first-edition copy (1952) of Vault of the Ages from the Oswego Public Library (the same institution from whence I purchased my first Harold Lamb and Merritt books). Alex Schomburg dustjacket/endpapers and everything. All for one shiny quarter (the library ended up rebuying the book in paperback). The second (or first?) Anderson novel ever published.

“Vault” was a pretty good introduction to Poul Anderson for a thirteen year-old. The book was written for the “Young Adult” market, with a certain proportion of the sermonizing that genre usually requires. On the plus side, Poul based his novel around a post-apocalytic setting, provided numerous great combat/battle scenes and featured “northern barbarians” as sympathetic antagonists whose narrative purpose was to give a stagnant culture a shot in the arm.

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Some might remember that a while back I blogged about the life and fiction of Elmer Kelton, possibly the greatest Western writer ever. Over at The Wall Street Journal Online, John J. Miller tips his own hat to the legacy of Kelton while also providing a look at Other Men’s Horses, Elmer’s posthumous novel and the final installment in his “Texas Rangers” series . Check it out here.

“I knew it!” Leigh shouted, punching her fist into the air. “I told you sons of… sons what it would be like years ago!”

A rebel yell cut loose, and suddenly the room was a babble of voices.

— Leigh Brackett (in an alternate timeline), as envisioned by S.M. Stirling in his novel, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings.

Looks like Leigh Brackett and Edgar Rice Burroughs were more right than some scientists. Ever since NASA’s Mariner 4 did a drive-by look-see at Mars in 1964, there have been plenty of astronomers and planetologists lining up to “debunk” the idea that the Red Planet was ever anything but an arid rustball since the formation of the solar system.

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Sanford Allen, over on the Missions Unknown website, wrote up a piece regarding Robert E. Howard and San Antonio. The article is the third in a series called “S.A.’s Place in the SF Universe.” Missions Unknown is a site devoted to the fantasy/sci-fi/horror scene in San Antonio, so any such series as Allen’s could not well afford to ignore the influence San Antone exerted upon REH. Rusty Burke was kind enough to stop by and post some pertinent citations from Howard’s letters in the blog entry’s “Comments” section. I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing those quotations (and Rusty’s introductory paragraph) below…

San Antonio was Robert E. Howard’s favorite city, rivaled only by El Paso (which he did not visit until about 1934). His mother had good friends there, and the Howards were frequent visitors through the years. REH spent a good bit of time in the public library, which apparently had a pretty good genealogical section. His letters contain a number of mentions of SA, including such things as the Fiesta and Battle of the Flowers, the opening of the Spanish Governor’s Palace, and so on. Here are just a few brief quotations from his letters:

“Most of the trade of West Texas – with the exception of that region dominated by Amarillo, high up in the Panhandle – goes to Fort Worth. Personally, though, I like San Antonio, and spend much more time there than at the former city.” (REH to August W. Derleth, 12/29/32)

“Of all these northern [Texas] cities, I like Fort Worth best, though for color and historical glamor none of them can compare to San Antonio and other towns of the south.” (REH to Derleth, 7/3/33)

“You ask about San Antonio. It is without question the most interesting and colorful city in Texas, possibly in the entire Southwest…” (REH to Carl Jacobi, summer 1934)

As for him finding inspiration in stories of old-time Texans, here’s a specifically SA reference:

“San Antonio is full of old timers – old law officers, trail drivers, cattlemen, buffalo hunters and pioneers. No better place for a man to go who wants to get first hand information about the frontier. The lady who owned the rooms I rented, for instance, was an old pioneer woman who had lived on a ranch in the very thick of the ‘wire-cutting war’ of Brown County; and on the street back of her house lived an old gentleman who went up the Chisholm in the ‘80’s, trapped in the Rockies, helped hunt down Sitting Bull, and was a sheriff in the wild days of western Kansas. I wish I had time and money to spend about a year looking up all these old timers in the state and getting their stories. (REH to Derleth, 5/33)

James Maliszewski, the proprietor of Grognardia and a Friend of The Cimmerian, has posted an article on The Escapist website. It is called “The Books That Founded D&D” and I found it quite interesting. I thought it worth some commentary.

Mr. Maliszewski starts his essay noting the various reasons why J.R.R. Tolkien should be dismissed as major influence upon the role-playing game that Gygax and Arneson developed. Most of the evidence used to back this up is cited from Gygax’s own writings. The fact that these writings date from before and after the threatened lawsuit by Tolkien Enterprises means very little, in my view.

Tolkien deeply influenced Dungeons and Dragons. That is my humble opinion and I stand by it. The Elves as portrayed in D&D would be far different if JRRT had never written his novel, The Lord of the Rings. The same for D&D dwarves. Double ditto for “orcs,” which species (with that particular appellation) would never exist, but for Tollers. Triple ditto for the “halflings” in the game (whom I always considered ridiculous, in game terms). All of that, however, is fodder for another blog entry. Now, let’s get to all the stuff that James Maliszkewski and I do agree on (more or less)…

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