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Post by Lonewolf on Jun 10, 2020 10:10:25 GMT -5
I recently bought The Conan Companion - "A Publishing History and Collector's Guide", written by Richard Toogood. The book is a publishing history and collectors guide of Conan stories (original and pastiches), focused solely on the paperback editions. My primarily interest was for the various cover artwork, for which this book succeeds, but I was very surprised with the text?, Toogood does give a publishing history of Conan in paperback, but also spends paragraph after paragraph (after paragraph.....) working himself up into a frenzy over his disdain for L. Sprague de Camp. And while I actually agree with most of Toogood's opinions, the repetitiveness (and quantity) of the passive-aggressive "de Camp bashing" gets old (fast). As a "Collectors Guide", IMO, The Conan Companion completely "misses the mark", all the various paperback edition cover art is featured, but there is little to no information on the books/stories themselves, I think a brief synopsis of the individual stories, as well as additional information on the various authors and artists should have been included.    |
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Post by garbanzo on Jun 10, 2020 10:21:22 GMT -5
Ooh, instant purchase! Thanks for the heads up.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2020 11:33:22 GMT -5
Just ordered a copy.
This sounds great.
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Post by charleshelm on Jun 10, 2020 20:07:08 GMT -5
adds another to the library...
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Post by thedarkman on Jun 10, 2020 21:06:06 GMT -5
I think I'll pass. Looks like a missed opportunity to me; a guide to all paperback Conan novels and collections, original and pastiche, each with a synopsis and review would be priceless. This doesn't do it for me.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2020 0:51:35 GMT -5
Yeah, I canceled my order this morning.
All that DeCamp stuff really don't interest me anymore. I don't really wanna look at the covers of books that I have sold, donated, recycled throughout the years.
I'll pick up the new pastiche books once Perilous Worlds sort themselves out, that's enough for me.
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Post by garbanzo on Jun 15, 2020 19:28:19 GMT -5
My copy just arrived. I'm definitely glad I picked it up. I haven't read any of it yet, but I'd say it's worth it just for the coverart reproductions alone. I can't wait to dive deeper.
According to my spreadsheet I still need 18 of 65 Conan books from the Lancer/Ace/Bantam/Tor paperback runs. Eventually I hope to expand beyond that, but for now, collecting and reading all of these a worthy goal, and I'm glad to have a companion book to accompany them.
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Post by Monster on Jun 15, 2020 21:17:14 GMT -5
My copy just arrived. I'm definitely glad I picked it up. I haven't read any of it yet, but I'd say it's worth it just for the coverart reproductions alone. I can't wait to dive deeper. According to my spreadsheet I still need 18 of 65 Conan books from the Lancer/Ace/Bantam/Tor paperback runs. Eventually I hope to expand beyond that, but for now, collecting and reading all of these a worthy goal, and I'm glad to have a companion book to accompany them. Do they delve into first editions/impressions and what the differences between first impressions, second impressions, etc. are, at all? I have a great majority (only missing a couple) of the paperbacks, but want to look into getting first editions and first impressions. |
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Post by garbanzo on Jun 16, 2020 5:22:37 GMT -5
My copy just arrived. I'm definitely glad I picked it up. I haven't read any of it yet, but I'd say it's worth it just for the coverart reproductions alone. I can't wait to dive deeper. According to my spreadsheet I still need 18 of 65 Conan books from the Lancer/Ace/Bantam/Tor paperback runs. Eventually I hope to expand beyond that, but for now, collecting and reading all of these a worthy goal, and I'm glad to have a companion book to accompany them. Do they delve into first editions/impressions and what the differences between first impressions, second impressions, etc. are, at all? I have a great majority (only missing a couple) of the paperbacks, but want to look into getting first editions and first impressions. Not really. The focus is very much on paperback cover art. So if a book is reprinted by the same publisher but with a different cover it gets featured, but it doesn't go into details about every printing of every book.
Which is fine with me - that's exactly how I want to collect. But if you're looking for a true completionist guide/checklist, you'd do better with online resources like ISFDB, or even Wikipedia.
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Post by garbanzo on Jun 17, 2020 18:17:44 GMT -5
I started to read this book today. Ugh.
The writing is terrible, and as Lonewolf warned, the author is extremely opinionated.
This is not a history book, and this is not a collector's guide.
I will keep it as a nice art book since the cover reproductions are really great, but I'll pretend that the text just doesn't exist.
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Post by alexander on Jun 20, 2020 4:42:10 GMT -5
My copy just arrived. I'm definitely glad I picked it up. I haven't read any of it yet, but I'd say it's worth it just for the coverart reproductions alone. I can't wait to dive deeper. According to my spreadsheet I still need 18 of 65 Conan books from the Lancer/Ace/Bantam/Tor paperback runs. Eventually I hope to expand beyond that, but for now, collecting and reading all of these a worthy goal, and I'm glad to have a companion book to accompany them. Hi, I thought I had all pastiches - except the novelization of the movies - and I have "only" 54 paperbacks in my own spreadsheet. Would you mind sharing your list so that I could check which pastiches I miss? Here's mine: Conan The Bold Conan of Venarium Conan The Defiant Conan The Hunter Conan The Indomitable Conan The Free Lance Conan The Formidable Conan And The Sorcerer Conan The Mercenary Conan: The Sword Of Skelos Conan The Outcast Conan The Magnificent Conan The Invincible Conan The Fearless Conan The Warlord Conan The Victorious Conan The Unconquered Conan The Hero Conan The Valiant Conan And The Spider God Conan The Valorous Conan The Relentless Conan The Savage Conan The Defender Conan The Triumphant Conan The Guardian Conan The Rebel Conan At The Demon's Gate Conan The Gladiator Conan And The Emerald Lotus The Road Of Kings Conan The Renegade Conan Of The Red Brotherhood Conan: Scourge Of The Bloody Coast Conan The Champion Conan And The Manhunters Conan The Raider Conan And The Death Lord Of Thanza Conan And The Amazon Conan And The Shaman's Curse Conan The Marauder Conan And The Mists Of Doom Conan And The Grim Grey God Conan The Buccaneer Conan And The Gods Of The Mountain Conan And The Treasure of Python Conan: Lord Of The Black River Conan The Rogue Conan The Liberator Conan The Conqueror (Hour of the Dragon) Conan The Avenger (Return of Conan) Conan The Great Conan of Aquilonia Conan Of The Isles Thank you |
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Post by garbanzo on Jun 20, 2020 5:33:57 GMT -5
My copy just arrived. I'm definitely glad I picked it up. I haven't read any of it yet, but I'd say it's worth it just for the coverart reproductions alone. I can't wait to dive deeper. According to my spreadsheet I still need 18 of 65 Conan books from the Lancer/Ace/Bantam/Tor paperback runs. Eventually I hope to expand beyond that, but for now, collecting and reading all of these a worthy goal, and I'm glad to have a companion book to accompany them. Hi, I thought I had all pastiches - except the novelization of the movies - and I have "only" 54 paperbacks in my own spreadsheet. Would you mind sharing your list so that I could check which pastiches I miss?
I used Wikipedia to build my list.
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Post by alexander on Jun 21, 2020 4:41:55 GMT -5
Thank you!
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