Solomon Kane pastiches and clones
May 15, 2021 9:23:30 GMT -5
Post by alexander on May 15, 2021 9:23:30 GMT -5
Hi,
As I’ve said many times here Solomon Kane is my favourite creation of REH. I basically love everything REH has written but somehow Kane is the character whose adventures I go back again and again, which makes me wish Howard had written more of them or that there were pastiches (like for Conan).
One day I browsed the Net, hoping against all odds there were SK pastiches and I’ve found a few.
So I thought I would create this thread so that we could list these pastiches (hopefully there are more than I’m aware of) and comment them (spoiler alert: the ones I’ve read so far aren’t that good, and that’s from someone whose far more appreciative of Conan pastiches than most of you guys).
I will create another thread later on about Kane’s clones (I only know one: Gideon Caine) or more or less similar characters. Actually the idea for this thread came when discussing SK upcoming (hopefully) TV series and I mentioned Peter Cushing. Other people mentioned Captain Kronos then Witch Hunter general. I hate when people highjack a thread in forums and I realised I was doing just that (apologies by the way), hence this dedicated thread.
After this long intro and without further ado here are the few pastiches I’m aware of:
• The island of the feathered serpent and the crown of Asa: 2 stories written by Gianluigi Zuddas (who as I understand completed a couple of unfinished REH stories for the Italian version of Kane’s adventures). They are supposed to be Kane’s first and last adventures. They were written in Italian but I’ve managed to get for a cheap price a French version (I'm French). As far as I know these short stories have not been translated in English (not that you guys are missing anything, but that’s for another day)
• Observable things: a short story written by Paul di Filippo in an anthology of alternate history stories called “Conqueror Fantastic”. I’ve acquired the book but have not read the story yet
• SK appears in a few (3 I think) stories of the Tales of the Shadowmen. Wikipedia described them as “an anthology series edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier, where characters from French and international speculative fiction exist in the same universe”. SK’s Wikipedia articles mentions 2 stories: "The Heart of the Moon" by Matthew Baugh (in Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 3: Danse Macabre) and "The Anti-Pope of Avignon" by Micah Harris (in Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 4: Lords of Terror ). However Wikipedia’s article about Tales of the Shadowmen mentions a 3rd story “Princes of the Universe” by John Gallagher in Tales of the Shadowmen 14: coup de grace. I’ve recently managed to get The Heart of the Moon and The Anti-Pope of Avignon but I’ve not read them yet.
• The get of Garm written by C.L. Werner was published at the end of the Conan comic Serpent War as a mini-series. There’s a thread about it with only 3 or 4 comments including mine. It seems this story did not get a lot of traction
I’ve not included here the comics or some fan fiction (I’ve read one that I thought it was much better than Mr Zuddas’ attempt). I think we should try to be as exhaustive as possible so I’ll add these other pastiches later on.
As I’ve said many times here Solomon Kane is my favourite creation of REH. I basically love everything REH has written but somehow Kane is the character whose adventures I go back again and again, which makes me wish Howard had written more of them or that there were pastiches (like for Conan).
One day I browsed the Net, hoping against all odds there were SK pastiches and I’ve found a few.
So I thought I would create this thread so that we could list these pastiches (hopefully there are more than I’m aware of) and comment them (spoiler alert: the ones I’ve read so far aren’t that good, and that’s from someone whose far more appreciative of Conan pastiches than most of you guys).
I will create another thread later on about Kane’s clones (I only know one: Gideon Caine) or more or less similar characters. Actually the idea for this thread came when discussing SK upcoming (hopefully) TV series and I mentioned Peter Cushing. Other people mentioned Captain Kronos then Witch Hunter general. I hate when people highjack a thread in forums and I realised I was doing just that (apologies by the way), hence this dedicated thread.
After this long intro and without further ado here are the few pastiches I’m aware of:
• The island of the feathered serpent and the crown of Asa: 2 stories written by Gianluigi Zuddas (who as I understand completed a couple of unfinished REH stories for the Italian version of Kane’s adventures). They are supposed to be Kane’s first and last adventures. They were written in Italian but I’ve managed to get for a cheap price a French version (I'm French). As far as I know these short stories have not been translated in English (not that you guys are missing anything, but that’s for another day)
• Observable things: a short story written by Paul di Filippo in an anthology of alternate history stories called “Conqueror Fantastic”. I’ve acquired the book but have not read the story yet
• SK appears in a few (3 I think) stories of the Tales of the Shadowmen. Wikipedia described them as “an anthology series edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier, where characters from French and international speculative fiction exist in the same universe”. SK’s Wikipedia articles mentions 2 stories: "The Heart of the Moon" by Matthew Baugh (in Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 3: Danse Macabre) and "The Anti-Pope of Avignon" by Micah Harris (in Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 4: Lords of Terror ). However Wikipedia’s article about Tales of the Shadowmen mentions a 3rd story “Princes of the Universe” by John Gallagher in Tales of the Shadowmen 14: coup de grace. I’ve recently managed to get The Heart of the Moon and The Anti-Pope of Avignon but I’ve not read them yet.
• The get of Garm written by C.L. Werner was published at the end of the Conan comic Serpent War as a mini-series. There’s a thread about it with only 3 or 4 comments including mine. It seems this story did not get a lot of traction
I’ve not included here the comics or some fan fiction (I’ve read one that I thought it was much better than Mr Zuddas’ attempt). I think we should try to be as exhaustive as possible so I’ll add these other pastiches later on.