Edited by Leo Grin
40 pages

This issue was printed in two editions. The deluxe edition, numbered 1–75, uses a black linen cover with foil-stamped emeraude text. The limited edition, numbered 76–225, uses an emeraude cover with solid black text.

DELUXE COPIES DESTROYED: 12

LIMITED COPIES DESTROYED: 76

Features detailed charts and analysis of the voting, interesting articles on all the winners, a pictorial essay on how the awards were crafted, full coverage of the June 10, 2005 presentation ceremony in Cross Plains, and more.

EXCERPTS:

On a mild, breezy Friday evening in June, assembled in a pavilion under the Texas starscape, a few dozen Howard fans gathered to honor the very best that REH scholarship had to offer during the year 2004. A stone’s throw away, the very house Howard wrote his famous tales in stood as mute witness to the event. Lined up on a table facing the audience were the trophies, grim helmeted skulls looking as if carved from stone, grinning atop midnight black towers of solid marble. The nameplates, laser-etched in glimmering gold, were hidden behind strips of paper taped across them, waiting to be revealed. Who had been chosen by you, the readers? Who was going to win?

— from “June 10, 2005”

“I’ve considered writing about Howard’s view of evolution, the ten things everyone knows about Conan that are wrong, a look at the entire overview of Howard’s prehistory, conflicts between ‘The Hyborian Age’ essay and the Conan series, conflicts between the Conan saga and the rest of Howard’s prehistory….”

— Dale Rippke, writing in “The Atlantean”

With these awards going to so many different publications, I envision someday seeing advertising on websites proclaiming a fanzine “Winner of five Cimmerian Awards for outstanding scholarship” or some such, the same way The New York Times brags about winning Pulitzers.

— from “The Hyrkanian”

“I think most Howardians know by now that I have a particular interest in countering, or at least questioning, some of the things everyone seems to know about REH that are — if not outright wrong — at least not particularly well supported by the evidence. ‘Travels with Robert E. Howard’ (originally titled ‘Travels with Bob’ in REHupa, where it first appeared) was inspired by a comment on one of the online groups that ‘Howard never left his home town.’ I’d seen similar comments often enough that I thought it was about time to demonstrate just how untrue that idea is.”

— Rusty Burke, writing in “The Hyrkanian — Second Place”

“I’m an old scientist by training, and the first rule of science is ‘Knowledge is worthless if it isn’t shared.’ I’ve been collating biblio information on REH since I first started collecting his works over twenty years ago. The HowardWorks concept came out of the concern that if REH was ever going to be taken seriously, the scholars were going to have to be able to actually find and read his work.”

— Paul Herman, writing in “The Stygian”

“Calendars are great and all, but they only last for a year, so I didn’t really want to do that. At the same time I liked the idea of designing something that wasn’t the usual art book or portfolio. Ultimately, I decided to produce a calendar, but without any dates. I modeled the pages themselves on baseball cards — you know, with a picture of the player on the front (in this case a painting of the character) and the stats and other information on the back. It seemed like a good format to pack a lot of info and material into.”

— Jim Keegan, writing in “The Black River Award”