Continuing with the centennial celebration of Robert E. Howard I want to review the first two books in a three volume series encompassing the stories that make up the canon of Conan: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and The Bloody Crown of Conan.

A few years ago the UK’s Wandering Star Books under took a labor of love: the restoration and rerelease of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. According to Wandering Star, “As with many authors who’ve been republished frequently and badly, Robert E. Howard’s work has undergone an unpublicized, but fairly constant process of editing, expurgation, and rewriting”. In their passion to release a product of quality Wandering Star consulted Howard scholars to restore the stories to their original text. They also chose to publish them in the order in which Robert E. Howard wrote them rather than the chronological reordering that had gone on with other publishers. Wandering Star Books also chose talented illustrators and the results were outstanding. A well-crafted book is a thing of delight to me thus I find this letter from Wandering Star to be a moving demonstration of their dedication to making their books a tribute to Robert E. Howard. Random Houses’ Del Rey division obtained the rights for US publication and has released these books in wonderful trade editions as can be seen here.

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian presents the first 13 of Howard’s Conan Tales. These stories are a perfect introduction to the unequaled work of Robert E. Howard. Herein lie tales of adventure, piracy, conquest, battle, heroism, travel, horror, romance…there is literally a taste of almost all genres that Howard was proficient in. My surprise in reading the stories of Conan was that he is not the ignorant barbarian that he has been portrayed as over the years. Conan is a savage in comparison to the more cultured people’s who populate his world, his people are strong and mighty and come from a tradition of success by labor and battle, but he is not ignorant. Conan may be a man of simple wants and desires but he is also intelligent, shrewd and cunning. I was pleasantly surprised at the philosophical leanings of Howard’s barbarian. These stories are rich with action and adventure but the real treasure is the way in which Howard’s words bring these tales to life. He really was a unique and talented storyteller. My favorite story in the bunch is the Conan pirate tale Queen of the Black Coast but they are all quite enjoyable.

This first volume contains beautiful artwork by one of my favorite illustrators, Mark Schultz. I posted recently about his first art collection here. His color work, as seen here in the cover illustration

is magnificient as are his pen and ink illustrations scattered throughout the book. Examples can be seen here. Again the quality of these books is amazing.

The Bloody Crown of Conan continues Howard’s Conan Tales. This volume contains 3 longer works including Howard’s only Conan novel. I was curious how Howard’s writing style would read in these longer tales in comparison to the shorter stories in the first volume. I need not have been concerned as they are once again outstanding. I rather enjoyed traveling with Conan on these bigger adventures. As I stated in yesterday’s post, Robert E. Howard created a genre that is now known as the Sword and Sorcery genre. In his tales Howard brings us lands and people that are so familiar that one could almost believe that they are historical fiction. Howard’s idea of creating epochs of time that are destroyed by cataclysmic events that render them as a vague memory or as mythology passed on to the next generation lend life and realism to his tales. Howard’s style of presenting the ferocity of battle without reverting to gore is unrivaled. It is the addition of ancient magic that lifts Howard’s tales into a genre all their own. The magic in these tales isn’t like the magic in traditional fantasy. Reading Howard’s descriptions of arcane magic and evil magicians feels like you are reading accounts of occultic practices from times that pre-date ancient Egyptian religion. The simplist way to describe the writing of Robert E. Howard is that is is filled with life…vibrant life.

The Bloody Crown of Conan is illustrated by Gary Gianni. Gianni is a fantastic illustrator whose work, especially his pen and ink drawings, hearkens back to the golden age of illustration. His work has a truly classic look and feel to it.

You can see more of his illustration work for Conan and other books in the gallery section of the above link. I had the opportunity to meet Gary Giani at a comic convention years ago. It was at the start of his book illustration career and he had just completed an illustrated work of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. At that time I had not discovered my affection for classic illustration and am kicking myself now for not picking up some of his work.

In addition to the stories and high quality illustration these books contain extras on par with the DVD’s that geeks drool over: “contextual notes, synopses, plot outlines, initial drafts, original ideas, notes — everything Conan’s creator ever wrote about the greatest barbarian adventurer of all time!”.

These books were originally released in trade paperback format in the United States but are now being reprinted in hardback form with 4 full color illustration plates in each volume. For the avid book collector there are still limited special editions of Wandering Star Books original print run that make me quiver with envy! A sample of what these editions look like can be seen here. Ironic that it took a British publisher to put together a high quality collector’s edition of one of the pioneers of American fantasic fiction.

Forget anything you think you know about Conan and fantasy fiction and discover the wonder of Robert E. Howard’s work for yourself.