I’ve been writing about Conan off and on since the first movie came out, and we all wondered how Milius could have gotten the character so glaringly wrong. As I’ve been thinking about Conan I’ve come to be aware of the fact that Conan wasn’t just the character Howard happened to be writing about when he was really hitting his stride as a writer — Conan is the most fully realized of Howard’s many heroes. Words like “realistic”, “well-rounded”, or “iconic” aren’t applied to Bran, Kane, or even the brooding Kull — at least not with much frequency. But though rightfully viewed as “larger than life”, there is a lot of depth in Conan — he represents a type that goes way back.

Back, some might say, to “the abysses of bellowing bestiality through which humanity [has] painfully toiled.” [Coming of Conan the Cimmerian p292] In Absinthe Pie #5 Bo Cribbs wrote an essay in which he spoke of aggressive tendencies in humans, and how they could probably be traced to our pre-human ancestors. Citing from Robert Ardrey’s African Genesis about the work of anthropologist Robert Dart, he suggests that Australopithecus africanus was an ancestor of modern man and that he was a killer who instinctively used tools to kill. Dart’s evidence was baboon skeletons found with crushed skulls at the same sites as the Australopithecus remains. The skulls all bore the “characteristic double depression” fitting the distal end of an antelope humerous, which were also found in quantity, though no other antelope bones were. One Australopithecus skeleton showed the effects of being hit by the same type of leg bone — a millions-year-old murder, whether driven by anger or competition or whatever. Man arose from the primates because he was a killer — killing preceded the standing erect, the receding snout –most significantly, perhaps, the emergence of a large brain. You could say we had our Cain before we had our brain.
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Last week, Robert E. Howard got name-checked in the New York Times Magazine, due in equal measure to Jack Vance and Carlo Rotella. Jack’s contribution consisted of being the subject of the article and of having been a fan of Weird Tales during the Depression. Rotella did his part by being an assiduous journalist and a reader of discerning tastes.

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Terry McVicker, popular REH bookseller and fan, sends in the following announcement:

CONAN 3 IS COMING!

CROM! Subscribers, friends, and fellow enthusiasts, we’ve all had a very long wait, but after six years the concluding volume of the three-volume Complete Conan will finally appear. Wandering Star Publishers, aided by Book Palace Books in London, will publish Conan 3 this coming December, 2009. I have been assured by the insiders working on this book that the quality standards established in the previous two volumes will be exactingly met, and we will not be disappointed. All the same designers and book builders of the previous volumes are participating once again. At long last we will see the lovely artwork of Gregory Manchess presented in the format he envisioned.

Pre-publication price, good until October 1st, is $205, and given the quality and the cost of materials — which never goes down — this is very, very reasonable. If you are a previous subscriber and would like your matching number, please send me an email with your Subscriber Number. As a thank you to all my patient subscribers, I will pay your shipping. You may pay by credit card via Paypal (I will be happy to send you a Paypal invoice), cheque, or money order.

When Wandering Star had their flyers printed, ₤130 equated to $195. Now that same ₤130 equates to $ 215! When the book is ordered from Wandering Star, their Pounds remain constant but our dollar value changes, so you really don’t know what the final sum will be. As a solution to the foreign exchange variance I’m charging a flat fee of $205.

If you had missed the previous two volumes, and would like to purchase a complete set with matching numbers, the price is $620 including shipping (California residents: please remember to include your 8.75% sales tax).

Terence A. McVicker, Rare Books

1745 W. Kenneth Road

Glendale, California 91201

(818)242-4818

email:mcrarebooks@earthlink.net

This is good news for those of you who have been craving the third volume. I especially like that the production standards are set to equal the first two. Terry is a great dealer and a personal friend of mine, and I heartily recommend dealing with him when ordering this book. It’s cool that those who waited to buy all three at once can now get them from Terry for one flat price, and all the same number to boot.

My copy of REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #13 came in the post on the same day that a long-awaited guest arrived. Due to previously scheduled essays, I’m only now getting around to singing this issue’s praises. Morgan Holmes has already weighed in on the REHupa site, but I hope that this review will complement his.

I must admit that I never read the earlier issues of “TGR” when they were published back in the 1970s. I was but a wee lad back then. However, I have perused the “Out of Print” section on Damon C. Sasser’s website. REH: Two-Gun Raconteur has always been a worthy publication, mixing real Howardian scholarship, quality art and fannish fun. That was definitely my impression when I bought the first “relaunch” issue in 2003.

REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #13 greets you with a full-color cover depicting Kull and Brule whaling away at serpent-men. Sasser went with color covers (one of the advancements of civilization we can all be thankful for) a while back. That move got my unequivocal support at the time, and this cover changes that opinion not one whit.

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French Howard fan Simon Sanahujas writes in:

Last year, in February, I made a road trip in Texas with a photographer ( Gwenn Dubourthoumieu). Our purpose was to follow Howard’s trail and try to find the landscapes and places which inspired him for Conan and the Hyborian Age. Last year we published in France an art book about that, called Conan le Texan, and now it’s translated and available in English. It’s eighty pages with more than sixty color pictures.

Here is the page on the publisher’s website. And the link where it can be ordered.

And here is the entire design from the French edition (very large page, you’ll have to scroll it on the right).

Best Regards,

Simon Sanahujas

The book looks quite nice, with some very professional pictures, layout, and design. If you are interested in Texas from a Howardian perspective, check it out.

“Bullfighting is indeed a reversion to Roman amphitheater days. I have an idea that the Mediterranean peoples have practiced it in some form or other every since the days of Crete, where it flourished, according to vases and the like.”

Robert E. Howard to HP Lovecraft, ca. January 1931

The bulls are running again in Pamplona, once the heart of medieval Vasconia, and what is now known as the Basque Country. The Feast of St. Fermin is an ancient one, with records attesting the encierro going back at least eight centuries. There are some indications that its roots extend much further. (Continue reading this post)

In all the hoopla surrounding the more famous celebrity deaths of late, the death of Harve Presnell at 75 has gone largely unnoticed. Among many other performances during a long career, he ably played Dr. Howard in the biographical REH film The Whole Wide World, which also starring Rene Zellweger and Vincent D’Onofrio.

Presnell’s obit is here.

The tortured, transcosmic being that the youthful Conan encounters in “The Tower of the Elephant” seems to have a bit of an identity problem. Said entity refers to himself as “Yogah” once and as “Yag-kosha” twice. Robert E. Howard, in his role as omnipotent narrator, refers to the last exile of green Yag as “Yag-kosha, or Yogah” and as “Yag-kosha and Yogah.”

What to make of this? How should Yara’s ultra-telluric thrall be called? By what name did that pathetic entity refer to himself, in his innermost thoughts? Short of finding a lost letter relating to the matter, or the discovery of more “Hyborian Age Notes” of some sort, nothing absolutely definitive can be stated. However, I think something can definitely be speculated. (Continue reading this post)

That’s the deal going on at Subterranean Press through July 3. If you’re interested, check it out (hat tip: Jack Jones).

At long last, Fabrice Tortey reports that his large and meaty French tome about Robert E. Howard, Échos de Cimmérie, is at the printer and will be available shortly. It promises to be filled with interesting essays about Howard from both French and American writers. Last year Donald Sidney-Fryer read the galleys in the original French and reviewed the book in TC V5n6. I also published some of the contents of the book, translated into English, in TC V5n2.

Information on ordering the book, and a breakdown of the contents, can be found here.

UPDATE: The book is now available at Amazon here.