More Howard

Del Ray's putting out a series of "Best of Robert E. Howard" books. I picked up the first one, Crimson Shadows. It's awesome.

It's like a sampler platter of Howard characters: Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, Conan (natch), etc. They threw in a Sailor Steve Costigan story. It was good, though I'd already read that one -- last year I scored Fight Stories, a collection of Costigan stories and a few boxing one-offs. If you've only read the Conan stories, you might not know that Howard could be really funny. The Costigan stories are too much fun, just really over-the-top, boisterous, rollicking adventures. Love 'em.

Besides the Costigan story I'd already read, the two Bran Mak Morn stories had been printed in the collection they put out last year, and the Solomon Kane story was a reprint from his collection, as well. I read 'em anyway, but I was starting to worry I'd picked up a best-of when I already owned all the albums, so to speak.

I was wrong. Now... I'm not a Howard scholar or anything, but I've been actively pursuing this guy's work for two-thirds of my life, and I can say I've read a lot of Howard. And Crimson Shadows had a lot of stuff I'd never seen before.

The book has stories featuring El Borak, Steve Harrison and Breckinridge Elkins, three characters I'd heard about, but had never been able to track down. El Borak is an American Old West gunfighter who travels to Afghanistan and embroils himself in their endless tribal warfare. Breckinridge is a big, goofy cowboy who isn't too bright and doesn't know his own strength. It was a funny story, I laughed out loud. And it was cool to read a Western by Howard. I think a lot of his stories are basically just Westerns dressed up in different clothing. I don't have a problem with that, of course, but I do like reading Howard working in the genre, unadorned. Steve Harrison is a detective who works in Chinatown. It's straight-up, two-fisted pulp.

And this fucking floored me -- the collection includes a Conan story I'd never read! The People of the Black Circle. Awesome. It's Conan hanging out with the "Afghulies," which are just slightly-renamed Afghans. It was odd reading this one back-to-back with the El Borak story, like Howard got on an Afghanistan kick for a while. It's a great story, tons of action, lots of bastards getting skewered by tulwars. But it's also dark and creepy... it reminded me of Tower of the Elephant in that sense. It has a lot of standard Howard stuff -- a character is sent back in time to witness all of her prior "selves," there's a giant snake, etc.

As a bonus, the other Conan story included is Beyond the Black River, which is my current fave Conan tale. For a long time it was Red Nails. But I just love the idea of Conan going on a suicide mission with a dirty-dozen crew. And it's a story from later in Conan's life, after he's done a lot of traveling. There's a character who acts as kind of a sidekick throughout, and he's constantly surprised by the knowledge Conan throws out. Finally, he's like: "Dude, you're this barbarian from the hills, how do you know all this stuff?" And Conan's reponse is along the lines of: "I've done some shit." (I'm paraphrasing).

There's a one-off called The Valley of the Worm that's about a Viking named Niord who goes up against a Great Old One! The conceit is this is the core tale that spawned all the other dragon-slayer myths. This tribe of Vikings settles in a valley. The local tribes are like... that's not a good idea. But they're Vikings, they don't care. Niord is laid up after getting into a fight with a saber-toothed tiger. When he recovers, he decides to visit his friends in the valley and see how they're doing. Whaddaya know? Everyone's dead, the village destroyed. A buddy of his from the Picts tells him it's the work of the "worm" that lives in an ancient temple.

This basic set-up has a lot in common with Lovecraft. The two corresponded, and you can find a lot of Lovecraftian elements sprinkled throughout Howard's writing. There's even a creature that summons the Old One with piping that "induces madness."

But here's the difference. In a Lovecraft story, the protagonist would be driven insane by the mind-blasting knowledge that we're not alone in the chaos, etc. In Howard's version, the Viking hunts down a giant snake, cuts off its head, dips arrows in the venom, goes back to the ancient temple and kicks the shit outta the Old One. Even when the thing's trashing around in its death-throes from the poison, Niord starts weeping man-tears because he's too wounded to hack at it with his sword. It's good as dead, but Niord still wants to seal the deal with an extra-special fuck-you steel enema.

And that, my friends, is the core of why I love these stories so much. Too many people in this world face their troubles like Lovecraft -- they think there's nothing they can do, give up, get depressed and do nothing.

But there's always another way to go -- Howard's way. My way. For a variety of reasons, it's absolutely ludicrous that I should be working as a producer in the film industry. And I just kinda am. I made up my mind to put on my boots and kick Hollywood in the ass. I'm not a rock star yet, but every day I get one step closer... I understand it's a journey, and that's fine. It took Conan a long time before he could wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.