Robert E. Howard | Karavansara

19 July 2018
by Davide Mana 8 Comments

The Hour of the Dragon

For a short course I gave online in the past weeks, I went back and revisited The Hour of the Dragon, a novel by Robert E. Howard, also known as Conan the Conqueror.
This is the only novel about Conan ever written by Howard, and it was used many years ago to introduce the character to the Italian public. In this, the Italian publisher followed the lead of Lancer Books, that in 1950 started its Conan series with this same book.
It was not the first Conan book I ever read (that was Conan the Adventurer) but it was the first Conan story by Howard I ever read in English. And I read The Hour of the Dragon in the Berkeley edition curated by the late Karl Edward Wagner, and based directly on copies of Weird Tales. Without, that is, the editorial interventions of De Camp.

The-Hour-of-the-Dragon-Berkley-fold-out

Much later, in the mid-90s, I managed to get a copy of the Donald M. Grant hardback edition, that rests on a secret, heavily guarded shelf, too priceless to be contemplated by mortal eyes.
And finally, I re-read the book in the past week in the Gollancz complete Conan Centenary hardback edition.
Let’s take a look at this thing. Continue reading →

30 April 2018
by Davide Mana 6 Comments

Read like a writer

Skyfarer_144dpi I said I would be reading a book, and I am.
I am reading Joseph Brassey’s Skyfarer, that I got me in paperback for the price of a pizza, and is proving to be quite fun. Highly recommended, based on the initial premises, and I’ll tell you more once I’ve finished it (won’t be long, it reads like a breeze).
The only problem, I had to turn off the “little voice” in my head.

I guess you all remember Magnum PI, and his little voice…

Magnum: [narrates] When I write my book on how to be a world class private investigator, I’m going to include a chapter on listening to your little voice. Everybody has one, and mine was saying to stop Marcus and find out the real story behind his new car. Of course I didn’t, which is another chapter, things I should have done, but didn’t…

OK, so my little voice starts talking as I start reading, and points out all the neat things the author did with his story: nice turns of phrase, killer characterization, great dialog.

“See,” my little voice tells me, “that’s how it’s done. You should try it too! Take notes, you fool! Learn from the good ones!” Continue reading →

24 March 2018
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Nitpicking in Samarcand

Oriental Stories Magazine Cover 9-Summer 1932 (2) A fan (yes, I have fans!) very kindly sent me a copy of the reprint edition of Oriental Stories, the Summer 1932 issue. I am putting together a collection of these nice reprints from Wildside Press, and the gift was highly appreciated.
The magazine includes, among others, an Otis Adelbert Kline story in his Dragoman series, a weird mystery set in Shanghai, an August Derleth story set in Manchuria, and a “complete novel” called “Pirate Whelp”. It is quite promising.

Now, whenever I get one of these magazines, the first thing I do is go through the whole issue, checking out the illustrations, marveling at the period advertisement…
Geez, really I could get me 12 mystery novels featuring Experience Smith, master detective¹, by simply subscribing to Weird Tales for four months? Sounds like a great deal!
… and then I check out the readers mail page – called The Souk.
I sometimes wonder if readers at the time did the same.

And there, in the Summer 32 issue of Oriental Stories, in the Souk page, there is a reply to a mister Francis X. Bell, that wrote to point out that Robert E. Howard blundered badly, in his Lord of Samarcand (published in a previous issue), when he described Timur celebrating his victory with a drink of wine, Timur being a Muslim and the Koran banning the faithful from drinking alcohol.
Which of course is a silly thing and it gets properly dismantled in a very detailed response (by Farnsworth Wright himself?), which is quite a nice read, really.

Of course I thought about recycling this for my worldbuilding course, about how sometimes our deep historical background checks are completely lost to (some of) our readers – and it is at the same time sad and sort-of-reassuring to see that nitpicking readers playing a game of one-upmanship with the author are not something that started with the internet.

Anyway, in case you are interested, you can check out the Howard story, Lord of Samarcand, for free, on the pages of the Gutenberg Project of Australia.
And have a drink of wine with Timur.

I wonder if the character is in the Public Domain, because one feels the need to write a story or five about Experience Smith, master detective… ↩

22 January 2018
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Robert E. Howard’s Birthday

It is Robert E. Howard’s birthday.
Is there anything I can say about Howard that was not said already, and better than I ever could? Unlikely.

I could once again say that Howard was one of those writers that I read as a kid, and made me say

This! This is what I want to write.

And I did – I wrote some horrid Conan pastiches when I was fifteen, and they are dead and buried, and it’s better that way. Continue reading →

21 January 2018
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Tits & Sand: dance and censorship

I was surprised, this morning, when I found out the cobra dance clip from Cobra Woman, that I had posted in 2015 as I reviewed that movie, has been pulled off Youtube because the sensual moves of Maria Montez as she dances with a cobra muppet could cause dirty thoughts in the innocent viewers.

I am seriously worried by this weird form of preventive censorship, based on the idea that something might offend those that don’t like it – but if they don’t like it, why are they watching it?

So, just for the sake of being contrarian, here’s another exotic dance that the censors have yet to purge: Debra Paget’s dance from Fritz Lang’s 1959 tits & sand movie, The Indian Tomb.
This one, too, had the censors’ knickers in a twist.
IN 1959.
Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se6NuvKYl9g&t=24s

… and yes, the Indian priests speaking German are somewhat unusual.

As a side note, the whole “woman dancing with cobras” might be familiar to my friends that are into Robert E Howard.
Shadows in Zamboula¹, anyone?

Weird_Tales_1935-11_-_Shadows_in_Zamboula

Go and talk about censorship and undue perturbations of the viewer’s spirit.

the comic adaptation of Shadows in Zamboula was actually the first ever Conan comic I read. ↩

29 October 2017
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

The Hunt for the Vampire Queen

A GREAT BLACK SHADOW lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of the red sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

This is the opening of Robert E. Howard’s The Moon of Skulls, a Solomon Kane story published in the June-July 1930 issue of Weird Tales.
You can find an e-text of the story here thanks to the good people of the Project Gutenberg of Australia. Like most Solomon Kane stories, it’s a nice piece of storytelling, and a testament to Howard’s prowess with a words. Continue reading →

24 June 2017
by Davide Mana 19 Comments

Rough & Cheap

I’ve just left a conversation in which the works of Robert E. Howard, and his Conan stories in particular were described as rough and cheap.
Now, I beg to differ.
Granted, at his worst Howard was basically a competent storyteller, compensating with darkness and pathos his lack of a good story. But at his best, Howard’s Conan was not cheap, and was not rough.