Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story...

The Devil in Iron by Robert E. Howard (1933)

From the anthology The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard. See The Coming of Conan the Cimerian discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.

This story can be found on Project Gutenberg. An Audio recording can be found on Librivox.

By this story, Conan has started to seem a bit formulaic. There are definitely similarities with "Iron Shadows of the Moon." Khosatral Khel was never developed much past being an evil juggernaut, attacking everything he sees like a bull shark in mating season.

Randy wrote: "By this story, Conan has started to seem a bit formulaic. There are definitely similarities with "Iron Shadows of the Moon."..."

The beginning, with a random explorer (in this case, a lost fisherman) stumbling into the resting place of some ancient evil is very much like the start of "Black Colossus".

The idea Conan's enemy, Jehungir Agha, comes up with to trap him alone – by luring him to a taboo island by dangling a comely wench, Octavia, as bait — seems overly complex, not to mention farfetched. So of course, it works. Except for the aforementioned ancient evil.

Hence, as in ""Iron Shadows of the Moon", Conan's enemies are killed by a big baddy, and it's left to Conan to kill Iron Man.

The "magic sword" harkens a bit back to "The Phoenix on the Sword", though I'm loathe to call it a trope in 1933.

Conan takes the unwilling woman (the bait) with a fiery kiss that is apparently sufficient to seduce her. (presumably to be discarded before the next story.)

I confess I was a little confused by some of the plot elements. Once the fisherman's theft of the magic sword re-awakens the Iron Devil, Khosatral Khel, the walls of his ancient fortress are restored from their formerly ruined state. But on entry, Conan meets a confused, groggy woman (not Octavia) who seems to have memories of the fortress being attacked and her being killed.... Not sure how she fit into the scheme of things.

Another day, another mysterious island, another semi-willing woman to be rescued... enough said.

Cat wrote: "Another day, another mysterious island, another semi-willing woman to be rescued... enough said."

I agree. By the end of this collection a lot of the stories had started to run together. That's disappointing. I think the Introduction referenced that Howard had started to crank the stories out to meet his financial needs, which sounds like the Tarzan sequels (from what I hear anyway - I only read the first Tarzan book). Each story had at least some part that I enjoyed - a paragraph, an action scene, dialogue, whatever - but some of the stories have a hard time standing the test of time.

G33z3r wrote: "Conan meets a confused, groggy woman (not Octavia) who seems to have memories of the fortress being attacked and her being killed.... Not sure how she fit into the scheme of things. "

I got the impression that Khosatral Khel had the power to recreate his city even though it had been destroyed, even to go so far as reanimating the dead (which apparently couldn't be done fully so they had to sleep all day, once dead one tends to stay a little dead)

This one had a bit too much of the Conan as rapist again, basically he would go "steal" a woman from someone else because of his own lustful desires, and that kiss at the end (she didn't want to have anything to do with him but oh wow, if you can kiss like that guess it's ok?)

I guess I can't blame Conan for having a fear of snakes, given how often they show up (btw, snakes aren't slimy, they are dry, but guess that's not as creepy). I had to wonder why he didn't just kill the snake when he first encountered it asleep. But then there wouldn't be the near death scene (see checklist below)

Must admit Conan has held a lot of positions in his life. Thief, pirate, leader of mercenaries, and in one story not part of the group read, captain of the palace guard (which seemed out of character for him...). To bad there isn't an underlying thread that actually ties the stories together, how he goes from one to the next. It's like Howard had a list of ingredients to put together the stories:
- Conan's new job - check
- Monster of the day - check
- Damsel in distress - check
- Find a way to nearly kill Conan where his impressive thews will save him - check

:)