ROBERT E. HOWARD

The following post is a tradition for me to bring up.

Robert E. Howard, the man responsible for the Sword and Sorcery genre, is by far one of my favorite short story writers. For those who don't know of REH, he wrote Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, a bunch of westerns, boxing and detective fiction. If I recall, he wrote about 300 stories and most of them are entertaining as hell IMO.

Now maybe RMN can prove me wrong, but it's been my experience that most people (under the age of 35) who claim to like adventure/fantasy/fiction have no clue who Howard is. Yet, you mention one of Howard's contemporaries, Tolkien, and people are marching down-down to goblin town and the shire! I just find it kinda absurd that nearly all the people I've talked to who've seen the Conan movies (which are great Ahnuld flicks, but TERRIBLE Conan adaptations) didn't even know Conan existed as a series of short stories and novels! I'm not talking about they hadn't read them, they never even HEARD of them. I know it's pretty common for a book based movie to have its roots go unnoticed, but with a pop-culture figure like Conan, one would imagine knowledge of the original craftsman and his stories would also be common knowledge. Maybe I'm the exception, as I was hooked on them at an early age, drawn in at first by Sprague de Camp's reprints with the Frazetta (who kicks ass) cover art from my Dad's collection. As a result, I was pretty much launched into liking RPGs and Hack n' Slashes of the NES gen.

Anyway, as it's probably obvious by now, I'm a big fan of the Howard's work and felt like making a topic to discuss and spread word to other people. If you like action, adventure, enemies being cleaved asunder and sultry women being seduced, I'd highly recommend Conan. Solomon Kane for those who can do without the scantily clad women and would rather prefer a puritan era gun toting, rapier wielding vanquisher of evil.

Hell, I could go on mentioning the impact R.E.H. had on a shitload of the fantasy we all rock today, but I think I've ranted for long enough.

GO!

It's cool to see people show interest and knowledge of REH.

Shinan: Yeah, you bring up some good points. It's as if popular literary and media icons had always existed. Also, in the UK and Australia I know REH's work has fallen into public domain, however elsewhere I'm unsure of and people fight over it's status constantly. I would recommend you try picking up a small paperback in it's original language if you wish since you can read and write in English very well. Hell sometimes I forget that you're from Finland, no harm meant by that! (I actually prefer Finlandia vodka over many Russian counterparts, I know sshhhh...don't let them hear that)

Orochi: Nice! Some recommendations of stories are: Red Nails, Rogues in the House and Tower of the Elephant. Maybe I'll try reading some of the Lieber books you mentioned as well.

Brandon: Yeah, the setting is pretty cool, it's devoid of any high fantasy creatures and wackiness lending it the name low-fantasy or sword and sorcery. Yet, it's filled with human guile, magic and strange beasts.