This week's book report....
"The Slithering Shadow" by Robert E. Howard. Well, Fritz Leiber no less rated this the worst Conan tale Howard ever writ, and he may well be right. From the turn-off opening, with Conan grumpily ignoring his clinging and annoying dishrag of a companion, Natala, a slave girl he's rescued in his latest military disaster, this reads like Howard almost parodying himself (one more reference to "iron thews" and such and I'm gonna hurl). A certain amount of suspense does arrive as Conan and his whiner explore the Marie Celeste-like setting of the shunned city of Xuthal, and there's a kinky bondage and whipping scene for those with an appreciation of such things (and Natala deserves it!). The Beastie in the Cellar this time out is Thog, an improvement on the nondescript menace of "A Witch Shall Be Born", but only by a bit. Definitely lesser stuff. "Shadow" was adapted a couple times, once in the 70's (Savage Sword of Conan #20) with some very nice Alfredo Alcala art over John Buscema roughs, and less memorably a few years ago in Conan the Avenger. Neither of them made it a better story, alas. An inauspicious start.
"The Jewels of Gwahlur" by Robert E. Howard. Another tale considered one of Howard's prize turkeys. Actually its an improvement over "Slithering Shadow"; which it rather resembles (abandoned city, helpless slave-girl) Howard's more on here, and leans less on Conan Cliches to describe his hero. Conan uses his wits a fair bit, and his plan to turn the tables on the evil priesthood is Leiber-worthy. But this is still a lesser adventure tale, albeit with some good action and characterization. I'd classify it as a good enough read but not remotely an essential Conan tale. "Jewels" got the comics treatment in Savage Sword of Conan #25 and Dark Horse's Jewels of Gwahlur miniseries. Neither of them terribly inspired (much as I like P. Craig Russell)
"The Scarlet Citadel" by Robert E. Howard. This is more like it. King Conan captured by rival kings and a particularly nasty wizard, held prisoner in a castle full of creepies, then leading an epic counterattack against his would-be usurpers. Only the big battle scene didn't engage me, and, as in the best Conan stories, its outside characters and forces - in this case, the imprisoned wizard Pelias - that make the tale. PS Marvel took this one on in Savage Sword of Conan #30, poorly, but Dark Horse did an awesome version entitled King Conan: The Scarlet Citadel which I highly recommend.
"The Dreaming City" by Michael Moorcock. Now this one was a pleasant surprise! While I thoroughly enjoyed "Kings in Darkness", I found the writing a bit comic-bookish, and feared the Elric stories would not be as impressive this time around. Not so! The prose of "The Dreaming City" is perfect, cool and modern with just a touch of flower in its tone, appropriate to the tale. Not only that, its cinematic - the opening scene is not only vivid enough to conjure up a clear mind-movie, it also manages to give the reader a full understanding of what's going on in about four paragraphs of expository dialog that doesn't even sound expository. Moving on, it manages to perfectly set up the whole Elric scenario and setting in the course of the tale - important, since this was the first published Elric story, and introduced the world to the albino sorceror-prince and his milieu. After reading, its easy to see why Elric caught on; "The Dreaming City" definitely leaves one wanting more. Its also groundbreaking - in 1961, the story inverted practically every sword-and-sorcery trope there is. What's more, without giving too much away, the story ends not so much is triumph; perhaps more like one of the biggest "be careful what you wish for" endings ever presented. We have winner, folks. Might I add, Marvel adapted this into a very fine graphic novel in the 80's with fine artwork by P. Craig Russell.
"While the Gods Laugh" by Michael Moorcock. While this doesn't have the punch that "Dreaming City" had, being as much a metaphysical exercise as it is an adventure story, Moorcock's writing is still vivid and imagination is still impressive. This time out, Elric isn't even an anti-hero; loser supreme might fit him just as well. An impressively non-derivative fantasy tale.
"The Singing Citadel" by Michael Moorcock. Very much like "While the Gods Laugh" in that its as much philosophical as it is adventure-ish; "Citadel" comes off as something of a transitional tale, meant to introduce certain ideas and characters and set up future events. Nevertheless, Elric's rendevous with Yishana is another piece of fine, cinematic writing, and Moorcock's imagination is as vivid as ever. There's a hint of the pulp tone creeping in, but not enough to overwhelm the otherwise strong storytelling.
The summer of 1980. It was a hot one, as I recall. I spent a lot of weekends playing D&D and the weekdays mostly reading and listening to rock and roll a whole lot. There wasn't much else going on. And mostly I was reading fantasy.
Ah, Appendix N, Gary Gygax's list of influences buried in the back of the Dungeon Master's
Guide. It gets a lot of attention these days, much of it centered around trying to figure out where EGG's head was at (don't get me started) and what it was he drew from the listed authors/titles. What gets left out and forgotten in this day and age, when the shelves groan with thick-as-a-brick fantasy fiction, is that its a pretty comprehensive list of all there was in the way of fantasy back in them thar days.
By no means its is a complete list of every fantasy of the swords or epic variety (the Earthsea, Narnia and Prydain books are notable omissions) - nor, after all, did it claim to be. Rather it was EGGhead listing his major favorites and influences. A highly personal list. And yet for all its selectiveness, it really was pretty comprehensive. There aren't a lot of holes, and I'd say it was a nigh-unbeatable starting point - most of what was worth reading was there, and, once immersed, the missing items would soon reveal themselves to the dedicated geek.
Having grown up in a house with fantasy/sci-fi loving parent and sibling, there wasn't much on the fabled list I hadn't heard of (hardly anything, really). But at that point, I hadn't read much of it, yet. That summer was when I dug in.
It was an important summer. I was 14. In the fall I would begin high school. I was looking forward to big adventures. I was full of hormones, imagination, and curiosity. I was home, alone, without much to do, all summer long. So with the radio blasting its early 80's uneasy mix of old rock, "new wave" and dinosaurs, and in between bouts of intense study with my treasured Playboy collection, I was off in the lands of swords and monsters....
Forty years later, I'm a working stiff. Home alone in the midst of our pandemic lockdown. Every day at 11 I break from work or at least 90 minutes and have some lunch and a read. My library is finally unpacked. And the lands of swords and monsters beckon...
I actually started in May, with a week-long selection of long-unvisited texts. My choices
being Michael Moorcock's "Kings in Darkness" (Elric and his sidekick Moonglum, a castle in a shunned forest kingdom, and the revenant of an ancestral king raised from the dead via blood sacrifice - c'mon how can you go wrong?); Fritz Leiber's "Lean Times in Lankhmar" (religion and chicanery in the fabled city of the Black Toga) and "Thieve's House" an earlier Lankhmarian tale involving some sinister treasures and something potentially nasty in the basement of the Lankhmarian thieve's HQ; Robert E. Howard's "A Witch Shall Be Born", the infamous tale that includes Conan's crucifixion and vulture-chomping; Jack Vance's "Turjan of Miir" and "Mazirian the Magician", two odd little tales from the odd little Dying Earth; "Raven's Eyrie", one of Karl Edward Wagner's dark, knotty ditties of Kane, the immortal and amoral sorcerer/warrior/all-around S.O.B.; and lastly but not leastly pornographer and narcissist Andrew J. Offut's "Shadowspawn", his contribution to Thieve's World, the first of the Sanctuary books. The attraction of these particular tales was that I had little memory of these stories other than certain details and that I had liked them.
So what did I (re)discover? Well, I'll tell ya...
Mr. Moorcock. I was a latecomer to Moorcock-mania; most of my fantasy friends pretty much started there. But at around 16 I took the dive and it was easy for me to see why my buds were so taken with Moorcock's colorful, sorcerous S&S. "Kings in Darkness" was one of the first Moorcock's I read - I remember getting a copy of The Dreaming City at the library near my beloved grandmother's apartment, and I went for "Kings" for the very logical reason that it was the shortest tale in the book! "Kings" gives us Elric and his loyal sidekick Moonglum, fleeing trouble in the kingdom of Nadsokor, and finding themselves making their way through the dank forests of Org, a place with a relatively well-earned bad rep, since its the home of some decadent, dying aristocrats and their morlock-ish, lesser relatives who serve as slaves and foot soldiers. Along with Elric's new squeeze Zarozinia, whom they meet along the way, they end up first guests, then prisoners, of some of those decadent aristos. It all leads to a fiery climax in a dungeon full of ghouls, crazed, decadent aristos, human sacrifice, and towering undead king's skeletal remains slugging it out with Elric. While the details had slipped my mind, I retained a general impression in my memory of an isolated forest castle, dungeons, undead, the king's skeletal revenant. In truth I remembered the gist of it pretty well, since those are the outstanding features.
The biggest surprise, honestly, was Moorcock's writing. Not that its bad, per se, but its slightly comic book-ish; pulpy, purple, it reminded me of something Stan Lee might have penned in a classic Marvel comic issue. Moorcock's writing, here at least, doesn't have the resonance of Leiber or even Howard, the ornate charm of Vance or C.A. Smith, or even the plainspoken contemporary solidity of Karl Wagner. Again, it's not that it's bad, but of all these pieces, Moorcock required the most shifting of my headspace from sophisticated and well-read middle-ager to wide-eyed high schooler.
Now Leiber - that's s a very different story altogether. For one thing, the Fafhrd/Mouser
books were the major component of that summer `80 reading binge. I loved them. I got all the way through Swords of Lankhmar before taking a break before diving into Swords and Ice Magic. Leiber also goes way back for me. The first serious adult SF I ever read was Gather Darkness, back in 7th grade.
"Lean Times in Lankhmar" was one of the most memorable of the Fafhrd/Mouser stories - most of which are pretty memorable. In part because its a departure - it splits the two heroes apart for the first time. The second reason is that I remembered it as one of the funniest - and most of the stories are pretty funny.
In "Lean Times", the Mouser and Fahrd go their separate ways; the Mouser becomes a sneaky enforcer for a low-level protections racket, while Fafhrd becomes acolyte to a martyr-based religion centered around a very minor god called Issek of the Jug. The story, a long-ish one, tells what happens and how our heroes are somewhat unintentionally brought together once more, and ends with a side-splitting climax involving an avatar of Issek (how that comes about I won't give away) and one of the Mouser's failed Big Plans. This may come in just behind Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings as the funniest fantasy I've ever read. "Theive's House", one of the earliest F/GM stories, involves a raid on a ring of thieves who have an unsettling secret even they don't quite understand in their basement. Its an exciting, witty and at times outright spooky (Leiber was a fine horror author as well) tale.
Now Howard is no surprise. I've been a staunch defender of Howard for many years. Every time I revisit a favorite Howard story, I'm impressed by the sheer power of his writing. His best writing practically burns with dark and sorcerous energy. I couldn't remember a damn thing about "A Witch Shall Be Born" except Conan getting crucified and chomping the vulture that tries to peck his eyes out. Unfortunately, even though Howard was a fine writer, not all of his stories were classics. The reason I couldn't remember anything else about "Witch" is that the crucifixion is the only really memorable part of the story, though it does feature an impressive villainess (the witch of the title); by and large the story is a bit of a throwaway, with an anticlimactic ending and a tacked-on monster that's a real letdown given some of the memorable horrors of Howard's best stories.
"Turjan of Miir" and "Mazirian the Magician" are the opening volleys of Vance's classic The Dying Earth. These are odd little stories, clearly heavily influenced by Lord Dunsany with a strong touch of Clark Ashton Smith in the elegant prose style, which is Smith-like but distinctly Vance's own - less spicy and dripping with acidic decadence. Quite lovely stories that deal more with love and yearning than typical S&S adventure. These didn't quite hit me as hard as they did when I last read them, at 17, only because I've read many of Vance's influences and antecedents, but their peculiar charm is still there.
I was a jaded 20 y.o. when I read Wagner's "Kane" books - all of `em. And loved them. I haven't revisited Kane much for a long time either, but the couple times I did I was always re-impressed.
After the light-hearted Leiber story, "Raven's" was a bit like a sudden cold wind on a warm day. Kane and some pals have been terrorizing a mountain community, raiding, raping and pillaging, for years. Now with a heavy price on their heads, they're fleeing a battle with some mercenary vigilantes. Kane is mortally wounded but, being Kane (he is immortal after all) is struggling towards recovery. The bandit band is moving through hostile territory with their leader barely conscious and tied to his horse, with a mercenary crew on their tails, and its the Moon of the Demonlord, an annual event in which the Lord of Hell is said to roam the woods, hunting for souls with his great black hound. Kane tells them to stop at Raven's Eyrie, a roadhouse in the area. But it turns out Kane has some history with its owner … and not good history.
Things get darker still as the story unfolds, as Raven's Eyrie turns out to be a full-on gothic nest, complete with secret passages and dungeons; mercenaries stalk and torture bandits, while Kane stalks them, and The Demonlord stalks the woods, black hound in tow. Kane even experiences a bizarre vision of hell as he goes to his confrontation with The Demonlord.
This was a great ride. Wagner was a fine writer, with a plain and straightforward style that suits the story perfectly. The tale drips with dark, supernatural atmosphere. Kane is easily the most complex sword`n'sorcery "hero" - Wagner uses Stanley Kubrick's trick of making his hero a despicable human being, but one we root for simply because the characters around him are even more loathsome.
Saving the most recent title for last, though this 1979 tale could hardly be called "new" (hard to believe, when I first read it in 1982, it most assuredly was on the new side). "Shadowspawn" is an entry in the Thieve's World series, what would now be called a shared-world fantasy series set in and around a Lankhmar-ian town currently under occupation by the Roman-like Rankan empire. Shadowspawn is the nickname of a young fellow named Hanse, a young thief with a little skill and a lot of chutzpah, who finds himself way over his head when he's employed to pull off a particularly nervy theft - only to find he's part of a subversive plan to humiliate the Ranken regent Prince Kadakithis - and then finds himself even further over his head when double-crosses and court intrigue come into play. Offut's writing is plain and solid, with a touch of wit. I started out not so sure, but the cleverness of the plot and the way Hanse goes from hero to chump is almost Leiber-worthy.
My takeaway: Leiber is the clear leader here, the wittiest and best writer. Howard remains pretty much definitive sword`n'sorcery, Wagner comes in behind him, having taken the lessons of all the above (and below); Vance is so unique in his odd way as to be difficult to pin down - more like a treat than a meal but a pretty nice treat; still I think there might be more to it when I dig deeper into the book; Offutt is probably worth reading more by, and my interest in Thieve's World is re-piqued; Moorcock comes in the last, writing-wise, but is still fun to read.
Anyway, my dipping my toe in the sword`n'sorcery water was enough to lead to a decision; which is to make this my second summer of sword`n'sorcery. Remember summer reading lists? I made myself one, and here it is:
Robert E. Howard - "The Slithering Shadow", "The Jewels of Gwahlur", "The Scarlet Citadel", "Black Colossus", "Drums of Tombalku", "Shadows in the Moonlight"
Michael Moorcock - "The Dreaming City", "While the Gods Laugh" The Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Karl Edward Wagner - Darkness Weaves, Dark Crusade
Jack Vance - The Dying Earth
Fritz Leiber - Swords Against Death
Anthology - Thieve's World
Gardner Fox - Kothar - Barbarian Swordsman
Andre Norton - Web of the Witch World
Lin Carter - The Enchantress of World's End
Leigh Brackett - The Sword of Rhiannon
So, it's going to be a summer full of swords, lusty broads, monsters and magic. And a lot of fun, I imagine. It'll keep me from thinking about the pandemic or the election anyhoo. I'll post more thoughts here as I read along.
Special mention to the guys who do the Appendix N Book Club podcast, who got me interested in the Carter and Kothar books I would otherwise have likely passed on.
"The Slithering Shadow" by Robert E. Howard. Well, Fritz Leiber no less rated this the worst Conan tale Howard ever writ, and he may well be right. From the turn-off opening, with Conan grumpily ignoring his clinging and annoying dishrag of a companion, Natala, a slave girl he's rescued in his latest military disaster, this reads like Howard almost parodying himself (one more reference to "iron thews" and such and I'm gonna hurl). A certain amount of suspense does arrive as Conan and his whiner explore the Marie Celeste-like setting of the shunned city of Xuthal, and there's a kinky bondage and whipping scene for those with an appreciation of such things (and Natala deserves it!). The Beastie in the Cellar this time out is Thog, an improvement on the nondescript menace of "A Witch Shall Be Born", but only by a bit. Definitely lesser stuff. "Shadow" was adapted a couple times, once in the 70's (Savage Sword of Conan #20) with some very nice Alfredo Alcala art over John Buscema roughs, and less memorably a few years ago in Conan the Avenger. Neither of them made it a better story, alas. An inauspicious start.
