Awarded for outstanding achievement in Robert E. Howard studies during the calendar year 2007.

The winners of the fourth annual Cimmerian Awards were announced on the evening of Friday, June 13th 2008, live at Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains.

THE WINNERS

The Atlantean — Outstanding Achievement, Book By a Single Author
[redacted]

The Valusian — Outstanding Achievement, Anthology
no qualified nominees — no award given

The Hyrkanian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay
First Place: BRIAN LENO, for “Down the Rabbit Hole” (from The Cimmerian V4n4)
Second Place: DAMON SASSER, for “Underwood for the Ages” (from The Cimmerian V4n1)
Third Place: DONALD SIDNEY-FRYER, for “Robert E. Howard: Epic Poet in Prose” (from The Cimmerian V3n12)

The Aquilonian — Outstanding Achievement, Periodical
LEO GRIN, for The Cimmerian Volume 4

The Stygian — Outstanding Achievement, Website
MARK FINN, LEO GRIN, [redacted], STEVE TOMPKINS: The Cimmerian Blog

The Venarium Award — Emerging Scholar
no qualified nominees — no award given

The Black River Award — Special Achievement
PATRICE LOUINET, for his work on getting the contents of The Last of the Trunk out to fans at long last.

The Black Circle Award — Lifetime Achievement
NOVALYNE PRICE ELLIS, (posthumous)

The Black Circle Award — 2008 nominee
no person qualified — no nomination given

More details of this year’s Awards will soon be available in the August issue of The Cimmerian (V5n4).

THE 2008 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)

NIELSEN, LEON: Robert E. Howard: A Collector’s Descriptive Bibliography, with Biography

WINNER: [redacted]

SAMMON, PAUL: Conan the Phenomenon: The Legacy of Robert E. Howard’s Fantasy Icon

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)

no qualified nominees — no award given

The Hyrkanian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay
(Essays must have made their first public published appearance in the previous calender year. Interviews, speeches, short 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.)

BURKE, RUSTY
“The Robert E. Howard Foundation” (from The Cimmerian V3n12)

CAVALIER, BILL “INDY”
“The Other REH Days” (from The Cimmerian V4n5)

GREEN, CHRIS
“On the Road to Cross Plains” (from The Cimmerian V4n1)

GRIN, LEO
“Beyond the Colorado River” (from The Cimmerian V3n11)
“‘Our Labor of Love'” (from The Cimmerian V4n2)

HALL, SCOTT
“An Iron Harp Played Through A Marshall Amp” (from The Cimmerian V4n3)

HARDY, DAVID A.
“Adventure Days and Arabian Nights” (from The Cimmerian V4n1)
“Worms of the Frontier” (from The Cimmerian V4n3)

HERMAN, PAUL
“The Search for the Desk of Robert E. Howard” (from The REH Foundation Newsletter #3)

HERRON, DON
“On Murgunstrumm, Mak Morn, and Karl Edward Wagner: Afterthoughts” (from “Yours for Faster Hippos,” — Thirty Years of “Conan vs. Conantics”)
“The Tennessee Kid: Some History” (from “Yours for Faster Hippos,” — Thirty Years of “Conan vs. Conantics”)

HOFFMAN, CHARLES
“Robert E. Howard: Twentieth-Century Mythmaker” (from The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows)

HOLMES, MORGAN
“Enter the Barbarian” (from The Cimmerian V4n6)
“The Statement of S. T. Joshi” (from The Cimmerian V4n2)
“A Tale of Two Pulp Shows” (from The Cimmerian V4n4)

INDICK, BEN P.
“The Would-Be Cimmerian” (from The Cimmerian V4n1)

KAHAN, JEFFREY
“Conan the Shakespearean/Hamlet the Barbarian” (from The Dark Man Vol. 3 No. 2)

KARWATH, BERND
“Bilder in Feuer” (from Winds of Time)
“Epilogue: Afterthoughts on ‘The Tempter'” (from Winds of Time)
“Loomings” (from Winds of Time)

KELSEY, RICK
“Star-Studded Conan” (from The Cimmerian V4n6)

LENO, BRIAN
“Diary of a Bad Man” (from The Cimmerian V3n12)
FIRST PLACE WINNER: “Down the Rabbit Hole” (from The Cimmerian V4n4)
“The Fouling of Robert E. Howard” (from The Cimmerian V4n2)

LINZALONE, JOSEPH
“The Thrill of It All” (from The Cimmerian V4n6)

McILVAINE, ROBERT M.
“The Influence of Joseph A. Altsheler’s Young Trailers Series on Howard’s Pictish Wilderness Fiction” (from The Dark Man Vol. 3 No. 2)

NIELSEN, LEON
“The Image of Conan” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #11)
“Legacy” (from The Cimmerian V3n12)

[redacted]

ROMEO, GARY
“The Father of Sword-and-Sorcery” (from The Cimmerian V4n3)

SASSER, DAMON
SECOND PLACE WINNER: “Underwood for the Ages” (from The Cimmerian V4n1)

SAUNDERS, CHARLES
“Reflections on Hyborian Africa” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #11)

SHOVLIN, PAUL
“Raising Kane” (from The Cimmerian V4n3)

SIDNEY-FRYER, DONALD
THIRD PLACE WINNER: “Robert E. Howard: Epic Poet in Prose” (from The Cimmerian V3n12)

STREET, DANNY
“Blooming Madness and Death” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #11)

TOMPKINS, STEVEN
“Barbarian at the Pantheon-Gates” (from The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 2: Grim Lands)
“Mind-forg’d Manacles? Back to School with Robert E. Howard” (from The Dark Man Vol. 3 No. 2)

WEINBERG, ROBERT
“A Brief History of the Conan Saga” (from Windy City Pulp Stories #7)

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 Volume 4

HALL, MARK: The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies

THE ROBERT E. HOWARD FOUNDATION: The Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter

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.)

BURKE, CAVALIER, HOLMES: The REHupa website

COFFMAN, FRANK: The REH-e-APA website

WINNER: FINN, GRIN, [redacted], TOMPKINS: The Cimmerian Blog

THE ROBERT E. HOWARD FOUNDATION: HowardWorks

SASSER, DAMON: REH Two-Gun Raconteur Publisher’s Journal

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.)

no qualified nominees — no award given

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.)

DRAGE, DAVID: For starting a pulp podcast that liberally covers Robert E. Howard along with many other topics.

KEEGAN, JIM and RUTH: for their continuing work on “The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob,” and for the sketchbook released in concurrence with the two-volume Best of REH series.

WINNER: LOUINET, PATRICE: For his work on getting the contents of The Last of the Trunk out to fans at long last.

MILLER, JOHN J.: For his efforts in popularizing Howard among a wider readership at the National Review website, specifically his interview with Rusty Burke and a podcast interview with Paul Sammon.

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. To appear on this ballot, nominees must have at least twenty documented years in Howard fandom and receive at least 25% of all votes cast in a past year nominating cycle. The resulting nominees are put on the ballot for a winner-take-all vote. If there is only one Nominee, that person must achieve an Approval Vote of at least 60% of ballots cast. In years where no one has earned a place on the ballot, no award is given. Awards given posthumously will go to the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains, Texas.)

WINNER: ELLIS, NOVALYNE PRICE (posthumous)

Current members of the Black Circle: GLENN LORD (2004), RUSTY BURKE (2006), DON HERRON (2006), NOVALYNE PRICE ELLIS (2007).

The Black Circle Award — Nominees for next year’s Award
(use your votes here to nominate people for next year’s Black Circle Award ballot. All nominees who get at least 25% of this nominating vote will appear on the final ballot next year. Once someone gets onto the Black Circle ballot they are removed from the nominating list below, and they remain on the final winner-take-all ballot above from then on, until they either win or stand alone on the ballot and fail a 60% approve vote, in which case they are bumped back down to the nominating ballot for possible reappraisal in future years. Anyone on the below ballot who gets no nominating votes in a given year is removed from the ballot until such time as a Cimmerian reader casts a write-in vote for them again.)

BLOSSER, FRED
CAVALIER, BILL “INDY”
CERASINI, MARC
De CAMP, LYON SPRAGUE (posthumous)
HOFFMAN, CHARLES
LOVING, BILLIE RUTH (posthumous)
McHANEY, DENNIS
SASSER, DAMON
THOMAS, ROY
WAGNER, KARL EDWARD (posthumous)