Get a quick Conan fix AND still look busy at work

[The Evil DM]

God bless Gutenberg.
Here are some of Howard's Conan stories available for free on the net.
Print them up, put them in a manila folder, and take em to your next staff meeting. while the suits ramble on about deadlines and strategic planning, you can lose yourself in some Hyborian hell raising.

gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html#letterH

Scroll down to Howard. stop by Haggard as well.

[thegreyelf]

Yup...I've actually collected all those into one document and am formatting them to print off and have hardbound and foil stamped as a "deluxe" hardcover for my bookshelf

And actually, that's almost all of them. There's only one or two missing. Interestingly, the one entitled "Gods of the North" (I think) is actually a rough draft of "The Frost Giant's Daughter."

I found myself wondering what possessed the transcriber to put the draft up, instead of the final version.

[kane]

thegreyelf said:

Interestingly, the one entitled "Gods of the North" (I think) is actually a rough draft of "The Frost Giant's Daughter."

I found myself wondering what possessed the transcriber to put the draft up, instead of the final version.

Don't hold me this. IIRC "The Frost Giant's Daughter" was first written as a Conan story. It was rejected as being to sexual in nature and never published during Howard's lifetime. He did think that it was to good a story to just abandon so he re-wrote it and submitted it to a different magazine as "Gods of the North", which was accepted and published.

TFGD was not printed untill DeCamp included it in the sphere printing of the Conan stories. Even there it was not published in it's original form. DeCamp edited it to down play the sexual nature and highlight the action and combat. It was not until Wondering Star published their first volume of Conan stories that this one was seen in its complete and original form.

[brianm]

My apology for Set-style thread necromancy, but since somebody mentioned Frazetta's Death Dealer, you might keep your eyes out for a quartet of novels based on that character written by James Silke. I believe they've been collected into a giant hard-back recently. The first two are a strongly linked story that undercuts its S&S roots with an almost epic quest. Gath of Baal is a bit more Tarzan than Conan at the beginning, especially in terms of his code. He lives in a wonderfully prehistoric world with a feel that is both original, but also touched by what we know of ancient Mesopotamia. He lives in the dense forests of the Mediterranean basin, before the natural barriers between it and the Atlantic cracked and flooded it. He gets tricked by a sorceress into donning the horned helmet, inhabited by a demonic spirit. When wearing the helmet, his already prodigious strength and speed are increased far beyond human possibility, but at the cost of his reason, his honor, and his self-control. The first two books describe his quest to free himself from the helmet, while helping to thwart the invasion of the Mediterranean basin by a vicious empire.

Book 3, Tooth and Claw, however, is where the series really wallows in its S&S themes. Gath goes to the deep jungles to search for his mysterious roots. The story hits all the high points: the treachery of men, the viciousness of nature, the triumph of strength, the beautiful woman who is the "daughter" of a natural terrain feature and must be won by the hero. It is my favorite of the series.

After the greatness of the third book, the fourth, Plague of Knives, disappoints a bit. It returns strongly to the epic feel of the first two books and completes the arc that began with them. I find the culture described to be a bit too high medieval, but then, I also found Howard's Aqualonia too high medieval to fit comfortably into the rest of the Hyborian landscape for my tastes. (Yes, blasphemy, I know. )

And, if you don't mind your heroes being utter scoundrels, with little in the way of redeeming qualities, I can recommend Wagner's Kane stories. The best by far is Dark Crusade. A spirit of evil is brought into the world and inhabits the body of a prophet who gathers and leads a vast army in a war of conquest. Kane joins the horde in hopes of turning it to his own purposes. Be warned that this is at times an unremittingly grim book.

- Brian

[brianm]

Argh! Sorry, dropped this in the wrong thread.

- Brian

[nightlamp]

Wow, thanks for the link!

Don't forget all the fun Abraham Merritt tales-- Dwellers in the Mirage and The Face in the Abyss are both pretty good adventure yarns. There are also a few Otis Adelbert Kline titles on the list, in case you want to mix in some Burroughs-inspired Sword & Planet...