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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2019 12:27:50 GMT -5
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Post by thulsadoom on Feb 12, 2019 15:49:04 GMT -5
My favorite thing about the Scarlet Citadel is that things were so horrific down in the dungeons, that Conan actually breaks and runs in terror. Not once, but three times if I recall correctly. Something I don't think he ever did in any other story.
The point from where he takes the torch and goes off into the dungeon up to the point where Pelias says "His task is done, and hell gapes for him again" I think may be my favorite section of any Conan story. And some of my favorite horror writing of all time.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2019 16:22:58 GMT -5
Mother of Mitra! Just as a matter of interest, was this ejaculation lifted from the original stories or was it a Roy Thomas invention? I seem to recall that RT used it once as a nod to Edward G's last words in Little Caeser - "Mother of Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?" - but I can't remember if it was in an issue of CtB or SSoC. ...... I don't think it can be found in the original yarns. But I found another Mother of Mitra in the fourth panel from CtB 84.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2019 16:26:11 GMT -5
...and another one during Michael Fleisher's run on SSOC (61).
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 11:32:39 GMT -5
There's an earlier one in CtB #38 (p11). I was sure Roy Thomas had specifically referred to it in regard to the old gangster film - maybe in a letters page - but I could be misremembering. ...... Aha! SSoC#1, page 10, courtesy of Sonja. ...... Excellent memory there, Kail.
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Post by johnnypt on Feb 13, 2019 11:42:55 GMT -5
Aha! SSoC#1, page 10, courtesy of Sonja. ...... Excellent memory there, Kail. That's just SOOOOOOOOO Roy!
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Post by johnnypt on Feb 13, 2019 11:53:35 GMT -5
One thing I noticed a number of years back when plotting out a chronology was how in most of the early stories there seemed to be a little nugget in a story that coincidentally or not would end up helping create the next story. Slender threads to hang on in some cases but still...
King Conan talks about Cimmeria with Prospero in PotS, Frost Giant's Daughter is next The unpublished God in the Bowl & the unfinished Nestor synopsis lead to Tower of the Elephant, then later Rogues in the House The mention of Conan's time as Amra in Scarlet Citadel leads to Queen of the Black Coast Conan as a mercenary in Queen leads to Black Colossus Conan having no use for Koth's king leads to Iron Shadows Conan working for a rebel prince of Koth leads to Xuthal of the Dusk The beginning of Conan's mercenary career pre BC is possibly being seen in the Yaralet fragment, but there's so little of it we just don't know.
Here's where it peters out because I can quite find a good antecedent for Pool of the Black One, this one seemed to spring up on its own. I'd have to compare it to when he was doing some of his other pirate writing, though I don't think that was until a little later. Later stories seemed to be more influenced by outside sources than a previous story (PotBC-Mundy & Lamb, BtBR-Chambers, etc.) other than the ones that were practically recycled (DiI, HotD)
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Post by sherlock on Feb 16, 2019 7:21:31 GMT -5
Coming up on Monday, David C. Smith looks at 'Pool of the Black One.'
I had to juggle the order a bit...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2019 10:05:47 GMT -5
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Post by sherlock on Feb 25, 2019 7:25:56 GMT -5
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Post by johnnypt on Feb 25, 2019 8:23:50 GMT -5
Dave certainly finds this wheat in the chaff with this one, excellent analysis.
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Post by sherlock on Feb 25, 2019 10:38:03 GMT -5
Dave certainly finds this wheat in the chaff with this one, excellent analysis. When I was telling folks what story they got (randomly) assigned, several asked who got "stuck" with this one. Dave joked about the task ahead of him, but he didn't complain at all.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2019 1:46:56 GMT -5
Dave Hardy has done an excellent job on probably the most difficult REH Conan yarn.
I think there is a primal aspect to the first half of the story that is well written and Conan is truly barbaric when it comes to honouring his side of the deal with Bajujh’s severed head as a gift for Livia!
In the comments Bob Byrne (Sherlock) mentions the real-life story of Cynthia Ann Parker as a possible source of inspiration for this yarn. I remember some of this was covered in Patrice Liounet's Hyborian Genesis - here's the relevant extract:
In December 1932, Howard began corresponding with August W. Derleth, a writer of both weird stories and regionalist fiction, and the two men were soon exchanging tales and lore of their respective regions. In a letter postmarked December 29, 1932, Howard asked Derleth: “You’ve heard perhaps of Quanah Parker, the great Comanche war chief, son of Petah Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker?” Derleth probably hadn’t, and requested Howard to recount the story. Howard, like most Texans, was familiar with the story; still, he apparently did further research before replying. His lengthy letter to Derleth reads in part:
“In 1836, when the Texans were fighting for their freedom, the Comanches were particularly bold in raiding the scattered settlements, and it was in one of those raids that Fort Parker fell. Seven hundred Comanches and Kiowas literally wiped it off the earth, with most of its inhabitants. . . . Fort Parker passed into oblivion, and among the women and children taken captive were Cynthia Anne Parker, nine years old, and her brother John, a child of six. “They were not held by the same clans. John came to manhood as an Indian, but he never forgot his white blood. The sight of a young Mexican girl, Donna Juanity Espinosa, in captivity among the red men, wakened the slumbering heritage of his blood. He escaped from the tribe, carrying her with him, and they were married. . . .” It was probably in the story of Cynthia Anne and John that Howard found the inspiration for his next Conan story, The Vale of Lost Women (written circa February 1933). In the story, Conan is said to have dwelt for several months among the Hyborian Age equivalent of African tribes. In the village of Bajujh he discovers a white captive, Livia. Just like Cynthia Anne Parker, Livia had a brother—“This morning my brother was mutilated and butchered before me”—and she and her brother had been captured by a hostile tribe. And just as the sight of Donna Espinosa “wakened the slumbering heritage” in John’s blood, Livia wakens similar ethnocentric considerations in Conan: “I am not such a dog as to leave a white woman in the clutches of a black man.” From that moment on the stories diverge. Conan successfully vanquishes the unconvincing devil from the “Outer Dark,” then promises to send Livia back to her people without, of course, marrying her.
Not surprisingly, the story failed to sell. If Howard was trying to discreetly infuse some of his growing interest in Western lore into the Conan stories, he was perhaps too subtle: it is impossible to detect the source without having access to peripheral documents. The powerful story of Cynthia Anne and John Parker was lost between the unconvincing supernatural threat and Livia’s penchant for nakedness. As to the racial overtones of the story, while the violent ethnocentricism of the tale is understandable when we recognize its origin in the nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon settler viewpoint, with the blacks standing in for Indians, it makes for unsettling reading for the modern audience. At any rate, Howard’s first foray into the American Southwest version of the Hyborian Age was a failure, and it would be another year before he made another attempt.
The Vale of Lost Women was probably rejected by Wright, though no records survive regarding its submission. This rejection marked the end of Howard’s first Conan period. He would not return to the character until late in 1933. In a little over a year, he had completed twelve Conan stories, selling nine. While the first tales had been, on the whole, well above average, the later stories showed a definite trend toward the formulaic. They were becoming the kind of stories Robert Bloch would condemn in the letter-pages of Weird Tales. Conan, Volume 1, Del Rey/Wandering Star
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Post by sherlock on Feb 27, 2019 15:11:14 GMT -5
Monday over at BlackGate.com, Hither Came Conan has a bonus post.
I talk a little bit about Dark Horse's 'Iron Shadows in the Moon' adaptation. Including some of the storyline before and after that one.
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Post by sherlock on Mar 4, 2019 13:14:27 GMT -5
Hither Came Conan is back for another Monday morning. I dug into a couple aspects of Dark Horse's adaptation of 'Iron Shadows in the Moon'
It's good to be the editor!
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