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Post by kullagain on Feb 23, 2016 12:23:26 GMT -5
Maybe he feels its too self explanatory to even need to mention?
Then again I looked at the wiki entry for the book itself, and it says:
"(Although the pseudonym matches the author of the original Conan the Barbarian stories, it is more likely to be a reference to the "Bastard Operator From Hell" [BOFH] which matches the protagonist's nominal systems administration job and his attitude towards field work.)
He could have used Henry for the H part of the acronym but maybe its not as strongly evocative of an "American Anglo Saxon." Plus this "spy" character doesnt sound too Howardian.
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Post by kullagain on Feb 27, 2016 15:08:47 GMT -5
Interesting stuff.
I always figured Predator for a Most Dangerous Game knock-off with an alien thrown in.
I was just catching a bit of Predator on AMC right now. My VotW comparison was more to its climax and setup to that climax, but before that, the movie is already very S&S. Not saying you or anyone else denied this at all, but just felt like expanding on how S&S the film truly is. I haven't read Most Dangerous Game, so I cant say how much it owes to that story, but Predator involves a group of noble yet gruff badasses fighting human opposition with no suspicion of alien intervention, though they are left inexplicable clues to this and we the audience know a space faring being is involved. Finally, it all comes to a head, and they fight a personification of the brutal, hunt-oriented inclinations contained in the jungle setting, the political backdrop, and themselves. The film is thoroughly sprinkled with mysterious horror of a cosmic kind, that subtly is reflective of the unsettling, more ambiguous aspects of the very terrestrial story running throughout. And blended into this of course, is the very brutal and visceral action. I always felt such features were essential staples to the constitution of an S&S story of any kind, especially those of its father. Finally, I have to say, I've not only further clarified my taste in this movie, but have magnified that taste by this clarification. I guess this was a long, sidetracked fashion of expressing: this was another yet subconscious motivation to put Predator on my original, incomprehensive list. lol
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2016 2:44:03 GMT -5
I don't know how it has really been in those times, when these authors published their books, but I have ALWAYS had a sort of a difficulty finding works of ROH anywhere, for reading. Lovecraft, you can always find anywhere, on any language. Just the availability may also affect the popularity, especially in times, when writing were published only on a fairly local level, and for a fairly small audience. Perhaps ROH just was unlucky?
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Post by deuce on Mar 16, 2016 9:24:55 GMT -5
I think there is a definite howardian influence in pop culture but it's likely a second or third generation thing, with various authors and screenwriters being influenced by REH in the 30's through the 80's and then later authors and screenwriters being influenced by them without encountering REH's work first hand or just in a limited way. The same goes with Lovecraft but Lovecraft probably gets more credit because his influence is more easily definable because of certain creatures and themes, to the extent that his name has become an adjective, "lovecraftian". Bear in mind that a good portion of REH's work is strongly influenced by Lovecraft's mythos so he's included in the "Lovecraft Circle" that influenced many later writers to varying degrees. However REH's work has always stood out from some of the other members of the Lovecraft Circle because he used the lovecraftian ideas to enhance his own style instead of simply copying Lovecraft as many others did. I also think your advocation about Lovecraft's influence on Howard and his circle coupled with Char-Vell's related statement does convince me more of how Lovecraft does indeed deserve a lot of credit he gets for influence. Still, Howard at least (I want to add Smith but not as familiar with his stories) befits more attribution of influence than he gets. He derived from Lovecraft sure, but I felt he added a lot of unique nuance and voice to his fiction that we still see today, as you alluded to. When it comes to REH's influence in the Lovecraftian arena, probably the most powerful today would be the whole "Mythos noir" and "Pulp Cthulhu" aspects. CJ Henderson (RIP) wrote most of his tales in that vein. CJ was a Howard fan. Despite Fred Ward being named "Lovecraft" in Cast a Deadly Spell, the character is obviously Howardian. Probably one reason REH doesn't get as much credit for that is he never quite wrote a full-blown "Mythos noir" tale, though his Steve Harrison tales skirt the boundaries at times. All it took was one tiny step to get there. Others did so. Howard blazed the trail (both guns blazing) that others followed.
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Post by deuce on Mar 16, 2016 15:24:08 GMT -5
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Libaax
Wanderer
Burhan the Puntlander
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Post by Libaax on Mar 16, 2016 17:59:10 GMT -5
Solomon Kane led to the creation of an entire type of character...the influence is something I see all the time, and with Conan it is even more so. NO question that Howard and Tolkein are the two greatest fantasy writers and most influential by far from what I have seen. Burroughs and Moorcock are a couple more I would throw in there regarding the fathers of modern fantasy. IMO Lovecraft was a horror writer first and foremost and delved into fantasy to flesh out his horrific monstrosities Idk if it's just my blind ascription but I feel as though Vampire Hunter D shares some similiarity to the character, at least in his character design. I also saw posted on the international REH fb group that sleepy hollow season 2 features a character named Solomon Kent, lol. I have read 3 Vampire Hunter D original novels and they are very much like Solomon Kane in almost everthing from setting,type of story and D is almost copy of him. Just he is avenger of justice that happens to be a vampire. He even dresses very similarly in big medevil hat, long coat despite being set in post apocalyptic world. Geralt of The Witcher books, videogames is also very slavic Solomon Kane. His stories are slavic myths S&S with the same calm weird,horror tone of Kane stories.
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Post by deuce on Mar 22, 2016 5:22:25 GMT -5
A case of REH's influence being flat-out ignored:
Exactly how Donald Saxman thinks he can write a Cthulhu Mythos RPG sourcebook set in TEXAS and make no use or mention of REH or his creations is beyond me. Saxman is (presumably) using many tales from HPL which name-check REH's concepts. Yet, not a whisper. Totally reinventing the wheel (and making it octagonal). I don't want to say this, but I'm mighty glad he's got less than 3 days and $8000+ dollars to go on his Kickstarter.
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Post by valeriaspirit on Apr 11, 2016 7:45:12 GMT -5
For the weird western, do you think that Jonah Hex was a trickle of this? I guess it's possible. There is no mention of REH in any of the accounts about JH's creation. Nor does Jonah much resemble any of REH's Western heroes. However, via Lansdale and Truman, some Howardian dna definitely got into JH during the '90s. Anciano (of Wandering Star) was shopping around his Solomon Kane movie by the late '90s. I'd say that Van Helsing's look and premise appears very suspicious in that context. <snip for brevity> Hi, Deuce! I know a lot more about Bram Stoker's Dracula than I do about REH and his creations, and I can say one thing - any similarity between the film "Van Helsing" and the character created by Bram Stoker is almost entirely coincidental. And his "look" is definitely more Solomon Kane-ish than the character in either the book or the 1931 (original) "Dracula." Van Helsing as I think of him in the book and the earlier film was more of a 19th. C. European academic researcher/scholar and not some adventurer/vampire hunter cavorting around Transylvania. Valeria Spirit
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Post by deuce on Apr 12, 2016 16:00:01 GMT -5
Anciano (of Wandering Star) was shopping around his Solomon Kane movie by the late '90s. I'd say that Van Helsing's look and premise appears very suspicious in that context. Hi, Deuce! I know a lot more about Bram Stoker's Dracula than I do about REH and his creations, and I can say one thing - any similarity between the film "Van Helsing" and the character created by Bram Stoker is almost entirely coincidental. And his "look" is definitely more Solomon Kane-ish than the character in either the book or the 1931 (original) "Dracula." Van Helsing as I think of him in the book and the earlier film was more of a 19th. C. European academic researcher/scholar and not some adventurer/vampire hunter cavorting around Transylvania. Valeria Spirit Hey Val! I'm quite aware of Stoker's version of Van Helsing and I know the Jackman movie doesn't jibe with it. I tend to veer away from tossing around outright accusations of theft/plagiarism unless there is something resembling a chain of evidence. Several years ago, a perfervid REH fan declared that the GI Joe character, Shipwreck, was an " obvious ripoff" of Howard's Sailor Steve Costigan. There's nothing to support that. Nothing. Battling/boxing sailors were a staple of fiction even before the pulps. REH certainly didn't invent the archetype. The same goes for Van Helsing. It's possible that the screenwriters were drawing from Captain Kronos. All that said, as I noted, the timing and resemblance to SK is very suspicious. If you want to crawl down a rabbit-hole, you should look up the He-Man/Conan Properties lawsuit. Lots of coincidences/parallels. Maybe that's all they were. Maybe not.
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Post by valeriaspirit on Apr 13, 2016 8:47:42 GMT -5
Hi, Deuce! I know a lot more about Bram Stoker's Dracula than I do about REH and his creations, and I can say one thing - any similarity between the film "Van Helsing" and the character created by Bram Stoker is almost entirely coincidental. And his "look" is definitely more Solomon Kane-ish than the character in either the book or the 1931 (original) "Dracula." Van Helsing as I think of him in the book and the earlier film was more of a 19th. C. European academic researcher/scholar and not some adventurer/vampire hunter cavorting around Transylvania. Valeria Spirit Hey Val! I'm quite aware of Stoker's version of Van Helsing and I know the Jackman movie doesn't jibe with it. I tend to veer away from tossing around outright accusations of theft/plagiarism unless there is something resembling a chain of evidence. Several years ago, a perfervid REH fan declared that the GI Joe character, Shipwreck, was an " obvious ripoff" of Howard's Sailor Steve Costigan. There's nothing to support that. Nothing. Battling/boxing sailors were a staple of fiction even before the pulps. REH certainly didn't invent the archetype. The same goes for Van Helsing. It's possible that the screenwriters were drawing from Captain Kronos. All that said, as I noted, the timing and resemblance to SK is very suspicious. If you want to crawl down a rabbit-hole, you should look up the He-Man/Conan Properties lawsuit. Lots of coincidences/parallels. Maybe that's all they were. Maybe not. Yo, Deuce! I agree with you - there is a lot of this material, being in the popular culture, you might say zeitgeist, that shares many characteristics. It is hard to come up with something completely original - an example, I guess, might be Michael Moorcock, who acknowledged the influence of REH in his foreward to "Two-Gun Bob," but who basically said his character Elric was a reaction to Conan - so he gave us an albino swordsman who was to some extent ruled by an (evil?) sentience in his blade. About as different from Conan as you could get, I guess, but even so Moorcock acknowledges REH's influence. In the case of SK, as I've mentioned, I haven't read the stories (yet). I'm thinking of his "look," largely a creation of his illustrators. Thinking of that, I can't help thinking of "The Shadow," the 1930's and 40's radio character "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men." Do you think there is any connection among SK, the Shadow, and other similar characters? As I said, I think some of these things may relate symbolic elements which tend to recur to provide a sense of depth and meaning to these characters - sort of like the battered fedora, manpurse, and bullwhip sported by Indiana Jones. And another thing - these characters appear and reappear sometimes over a period of decades, and there may be a synergistic effect going on amongst them, so it's very difficult to determine who exactly is influencing whom. Valeria Spirit
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Post by kullagain on Apr 24, 2016 17:44:31 GMT -5
Just wanted to bring up one more for now. In the canon of Dark Souls there is a very enigmatic deity called Velka, the goddess of sin. Her name is easily noted to be very close to Valka of the Thurian age, though that deity was referred or averred with zeus-like status in the pantheon. Velka is intriguing because she seems to be in the background and the popular fan theory is that she wanted to punish the lords with "persistent" humans. However on a side note, ultimately the games contain DNA to feed the player outlines for them to imagine and craft their own stories (and even themes I venture to claim). Not a definite influence, but this is not an epic-high fantasy game like Elder scrolls, nor a modern era horror game like A mnesia. It is a sword-and-sorcery tale, much closer in tone to the genre's father than Tolkien or Lovecraft. Even the creature designs are more Howardian, being more straight animal-like than Germanic or orcish, nor twisted and tentacled. There are serpent men, Thog-like demons, even living stone fossils that seem to come to life. Even some Zuthala-esque figures deuce.
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Post by joethoms on Apr 25, 2016 9:27:51 GMT -5
I agree about the similarities between Francis X. Gordon and Indiana Jones, though Indy has Doc Savage influences too. I would love to see an El Borak movie. FXG is my second favorite REH character, behind Sailor Steve Costigan.
Joe Thoms
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Post by deuce on May 20, 2016 21:19:39 GMT -5
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Post by Majere on May 21, 2016 19:33:28 GMT -5
howard, lovecraft and ashton-smith, as the three fathers of the sword and sorcery sub-genre, are still out of the fantasy genre's mainstrim as a whole. they're entrance into it wes stemmed in the late 1980's as more tolkien-inspired fantasy was rediscovered. the three founders of sword-and-sorcery are still the province of specialists, as i like to call them, who share an understanding of these author's style, inspirationes, motifs, etc. paradoxically this is true even when film and comics did something to make them more widely known. If Howard, Lovecraft, and Clarke Ashton Smith are the three fathers of Sword and Sorcery, then Lord Dunsany is the grandfather. I think it's tragic how unknown Lord Dunsany is to many fans of the fantasy genre. His obscurity makes REH look like a veritable superstar by comparison.
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Post by deuce on May 21, 2016 19:46:05 GMT -5
howard, lovecraft and ashton-smith, as the three fathers of the sword and sorcery sub-genre, are still out of the fantasy genre's mainstrim as a whole. they're entrance into it wes stemmed in the late 1980's as more tolkien-inspired fantasy was rediscovered. the three founders of sword-and-sorcery are still the province of specialists, as i like to call them, who share an understanding of these author's style, inspirationes, motifs, etc. paradoxically this is true even when film and comics did something to make them more widely known. If Howard, Lovecraft, and Clarke Ashton Smith are the three fathers of Sword and Sorcery, then Lord Dunsany is the grandfather. I think it's tragic how unknown Lord Dunsany is to many fans of the fantasy genre. His obscurity makes REH look like a veritable superstar by comparison. By all means, start a thread on Edward Drax Moreton Plunkett. Threads are free on this forum.
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