Awarded for outstanding achievement in Robert E. Howard studies during the calendar year 2004.

The winners of the first annual Cimmerian Awards were announced on the evening of Friday, June 10th 2005, live at Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains.

THE WINNERS

The Atlantean — Outstanding Achievement, Book By a Single Author
DALE RIPPKE, for The Hyborian Heresies

The Valusian — Outstanding Achievement, Anthology
DON HERRON, for The Barbaric Triumph

The Hyrkanian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay
First Place: [redacted]
Second Place: RUSTY BURKE, for “Travels With Robert E. Howard” (from The REH Companion #1)
Third Place: STEVE TOMPKINS, for “The Past is Dead, the Past is Deadly: Three Dragons in One Hour” (from The Dark Man #7)

The Aquilonian — Outstanding Achievement, Periodical
LEO GRIN, for The Cimmerian Volume 1

The Stygian — Outstanding Achievement, Website
PAUL HERMAN, for HowardWorks

The Venarium Award— Emerging Scholar
[redacted]

The Black River Award — Special Achievement
JIM and RUTH KEEGAN, for The Illustrated World of Robert E. Howard and “The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob”

The Black Circle Award — Lifetime Achievement
GLENN LORD

The Crom Award — Editor’s Choice
KEN NEIDERER, for designing and sculpting The Cimmerian Awards skulls

Full details of this year’s Awards are available in The Cimmerian‘s annual Awards issue for 2005.

THE 2005 CIMMERIAN AWARDS — LIST OF NOMINEES

The Atlantean — Outstanding Achievement, Book by a Single Author
(for the purposes of this award, a book is any publication which is perfect-bound, over 50 pages, and has a stated intention of being a one-shot item)

WINNER: RIPPKE, DALE: The Hyborian Heresies
(vote APPROVE or DISAPPROVE)

The Valusian — Outstanding Achievement, Anthology
(for the purposes of this award, a book is any publication which is perfect-bound, over 50 pages, and has a stated intention of being a one-shot item)

WINNER: HERRON, DON: The Barbaric Triumph
(vote APPROVE or DISAPPROVE)

The Hyrkanian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay
(Essays must have made their first public published appearance in the previous calender year. Short interviews, speeches, book introductions, short reviews and other minor works do not count. Remember, you need to allocate your total number of votes three times for this category: once for First Place, once for Second, and again for Third. Also remember, for each of those places you can split your total between several essays you feel are deserving of votes.)

BLOSSER, FRED
“Review of the Del Rey Conan Collection” (from The Dark Man#7)
“The Trouble with Swords? (The Road of the Eagles)” (from The Robert E. Howard Companion)
“Black Queen, Red Heart” (from The Howard Review#12)

BURKE, RUSTY
SECOND PLACE WINNER: “Travels with Robert E. Howard” (from The Robert E. Howard Companion)

CONNORS, SCOTT
“Twilight of the Gods: Howard and the Völkstumbewegung” (from The Barbaric Triumph)

[redacted]

GRAMLICH, CHARLES
“In The Tradition of…” (from The Howard Review #12)

GRIN, LEO
“The Reign of Blood” (from The Barbaric Triumph)
“Hell Needs a New Devil” (from The Cimmerian V1n1)
“Cross Plains Memories” (from The Cimmerian V1n3)
“Heart’s Blood” (from The Cimmerian V1n4)
“The Ghosts of Fort McKavett” (from The Cimmerian V1n4)

GUILLAUD, LAURIC
“Barbarism and Decadence” (from The Barbaric Triumph)

HARDY, DAVID A.
“The Great Game” (from The Cimmerian V1n2)

HERRON, DON
“The Barbaric Triumph” (essay from the book of the same name)
“Conan the Expensive” (from The Cimmerian V1n1)
“‘He Was Deadly'” (from The Cimmerian V1n3)
“A Review of Del Rey’s The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #7)

HOFFMAN, CHARLES
“Hard-Boiled Heroic Critic” (from The Cimmerian V1n5)
“Robert E. Howard vs. the Desert of the Real” from Spectrum Magazine — Conan Super Special)

HOLMES, MORGAN
“‘The Voice of El-Lil’ and the Lost Race Tradition” (from The Robert E. Howard Companion)

KNIGHT, GEORGE
“Lands of Dreams and Nightmares” (from The Barbaric Triumph)

LORD, GLENN
“REH, HPL and the Cthulhu Mythos” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #7)

LOUINET, PATRICE
“Hyborian Genesis Part II” (from The Complete Conan of Cimmeria, Volume 2)

LUPOFF, RICHARD
“Dog in the Manger” (from The Cimmerian V1n2)

MAREK, JOE
“Pike Bearfield: An Appreciation” (from The Robert E. Howard Companion)

McCULLOUGH, JOSEPH A.
“Robert E. Howard, Christianity, and the Saga of Bran Mak Morn” (from www.swordandsorcery.org)

McHANEY, DENNIS
“The Fiction of Robert E. Howard — An Illustrated Bibliography” (from The Howard Review #12)
“Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet and The Souk” (from The Howard Review #13)

MELCHIONE, LINDA
“A Woman Looks at Cross Plains” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #7)

ROMEO, GARY
“In Search of Cimmeria” (from the booklet of the same name)
“Napoleon’s Triumph?” (from The Cimmerian V1n1)

SASSER, DAMON
“The Vengeance Sword of the Norman-Gael” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #6)

SCHWEITZER, DARRELL
“The One and Authentic Cimmerian” (from The Cimmerian V1n1)
“After Twenty Years, A Landmark” (from The Cimmerian V1n5)

STREET, DANNY
“A Dark Gray Heritage” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #7)

SZUMSKYJ, BENJAMIN
“Brothers of the Night” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #7)
“Sheathed in a Virgin’s Skin or the Desires of Man?: Booking Passage on the Mythos Train of Thought” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #6)

TOMPKINS, STEVE
“Gigantic Gulfs of Eons: Kull, Conan, and Tyrant Time” (from The Barbaric Triumph)
THIRD PLACE WINNER: “The Past is Dead, The Past is Deadly: Three Dragons in one Hour” (from The Dark Man #7)
“North by Southwest (The Marchers of Valhalla)” (from The Robert E. Howard Companion)

TROUT, STEVEN R.
“Heritage of Steel: Howard and the Frontier Myth” (from The Barbaric Triumph)

WATERMAN, EDWARD A.
“The Shadow from a Soul on Fire: Robert E. Howard and Irrationalism” (from The Barbaric Triumph)
“The Robert E. Howard Collections found in the University of California at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library” (from The Dark Man #7)

WEINBERG, ROBERT
“Small Poets Sing: Two Reviews of The Barbaric Triumph” (from The Cimmerian V1n2)

The Aquilonian — Outstanding Achievement, Periodical
(for the purposes of this award, a periodical is any publication which has a stated intention of being a continuous series of items, even if only one issue appeared during the year in question, and even if the periodical’s length would otherwise qualify it as a book)

WINNER: GRIN, LEO: The Cimmerian
HALL, MARK: The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies
MAREK, JOE: The Robert E. Howard Companion
McHANEY, DENNIS: The Howard Review
SASSER, DAMON: REH: Two-Gun Raconteur

The Stygian — Outstanding Achievement, Website
(Nominees are limited to Internet sites with a main purpose of archiving REH scholarship. Chat groups and e-mail lists do not qualify. To get on the ballot, each website must have updated their content at least once in the past year.)

COFFMAN, FRANK: REH-E-APA: The Robert E. Howard Electronic a.p.a. and The Cross Plainsman
GRIN, LEO: The REHupa website
WINNER: HERMAN, PAUL: HowardWorks
HOGAN, STEVE: The Robert E. Howard Archive
MAREK, JOE: Joe Marek’s Robert E. Howard Page
RIPPKE, DALE: Heroes of Dark Fantasy
WATERMAN, EDWARD A.: The Barbarian Keep
ZAVITZ, BRIAN: The REH Covers Bibliography (now defunct)

The Venarium Award — Emerging Scholar
(Nominees have never won a Cimmerian Award before, and in the last year displayed the beginnings of what could be a movement into the upper echelon of Howard movers and shakers. You can only be nominated for this award once, in the year you make your first big push into the wider world of Howard publishing and scholarship.)

WINNER: [redacted]

RIPPKE, DALE: Dale published The Hyborian Heresies, the first book of Howard criticism by a single author in a looooong time. In addition, he runs the Heroes of Dark Fantasy website, which for years has provided Howard information to the masses.

TOMPKINS, STEVEN: After providing the introductory essay to The Black Stranger Typescript in 2002, he has gone on to publish several Howard essays this year in venues as diverse as The Barbaric Triumph, The Robert E. Howard Companion, and The Dark Man; The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies. Within a year he has become one of the most prolific writers on Robert E. Howard.

The Black River Award — Special Achievement
(The following nominees have produced something special that doesn’t fit into any other category: scholarly art, biographical discoveries, etc.)

[redacted]

WINNER: KEEGAN, JIM and RUTH: for both his artistic collection The Illustrated World of REH — which included not only work from many famous artists, but published for the first time several previously unknown Howard photos — and for Jim and his wife Ruth’s writing and illustrating of “The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob,” a well-received comic strip running in Dark Horse’s Conancomic book, using real research from Howard’s letters. By doing these two projects, they have popularized REH to thousands of readers.

MILLER, CRAIG: For his special issue of Spectrum Magazine, the Conan Super Special. This issue was packed with various articles, artwork, essays and interviews about Conan, Howard, and related subjects, and debuted at the 2004 Robert E. Howard Days festival, helping to make the event a success.

WEINBERG, ROBERT: for donating several old, one-of-a-kind checks from the 1930s — given by the pulps to Dr. Howard for Robert E. Howard stories — to Project Pride and the Robert E. Howard Museum. Also for his generosity and many other donations while Guest of Honor at the 2004 Howard Days festival.

The Black Circle Award — Lifetime Achievement
(Given only sporadically as warranted, The Black Circle of Howard Fandom constitutes entering a highly select group of luminaries. Nominee must have at least twenty documented years in Howard fandom and get at least 60% of the total votes for this category. In years where no one candidate amasses the 60% minimum, no award is given. Awards given posthumously will go to the next of kin or, if none are forthcoming, to the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains, Texas.)

BLOSSER, FRED
BURKE, RUSTY
CAVALIER, BILL “INDY”
CERASINI, MARC
De CAMP, LYON SPRAGUE (posthumous)
HERRON, DON
HOFFMAN, CHARLES
WINNER: LORD, GLENN
LOVING, BILLIE RUTH (posthumous)
MAREK, JOE
McCOLLUM, RICK
McHANEY, DENNIS
PRICE, ROBERT
SASSER, DAMON
SCHWEITZER, DARRELL
SCITHERS, GEORGE
THOMAS, ROY
TROUT, STEVE
WEINBERG, ROBERT
WRIGHT, FARNSWORTH (posthumous)