Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story...

Iron Shadows in the Moon by Robert E. Howard
(Original published as "Shadows in the Moonlight" 1934)

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 is really the first story in the collection that left me bored.

Conan rescues escaped girl from would-be rapist (oh, now he cares about rape!) She turns out to be a deposed Princess. He's fleeing from a lost battle. They go into hiding together.

There's something evil lurking in the grass!

Then, Pirates! Conan challenges the Captain & kills him, asserting he's now Captain by right of combat. The pirates take him prisoner while they argue some abstruse legal pint as to whether Conan has standing to challenge. While waiting for the supreme court to rule, the deposed Princess rescues Conan (the great Barbarian rescued by a girl? ew!)

Back to the evil lurking in the grass: Conan kills King Kong. The pirates beg him to be their Captain.

I dunno, this all seemed very by-the-numbers barbarian fiction to me: Rescue the girl, kill the monster, be careful not to get that mixed up.

I also thought this was a little boring at time. All the elements are there but they don't seem to come together well. I thought the story felt rushed and the pacing was poor.

I didn't mind this story. It wasn't great by any means but I liked the creepy island vibe. And Olivia doing something other than being totally helpless even if she reverted shortly after to the tendency to swoon...

The stories are starting to blend into each other now, but since Conan is still fairly new to me I thought this was ok. I liked the idea of the beings that were cursed by a god to turn to iron except when the moon shines on them. The pirate thing was a little silly (though kuddos for the helpless girl rescuing the invincible warrior, even if she no longer seems to be able to walk from that point foward), and the "King Kong" bit was totally unnecessary.

Must admit a better story might have left out the ape and the pirates and had Conan face the iron men directly, but they were never actually seen in action, only through the reports of the pirates.

Andrea wrote: "Must admit a better story might have left out the ape and the pirates and had Conan face the iron men directly, but they were never actually seen in action, only through the reports of the pirates."

Or, have Conan face the pirates, the ape AND the iron men. I agree that the lack of confrontation between Conan and the iron men made the whole story feel rushed, like Howard decided to just throw all these elements in and shake well.

Of course, we see the remixed version later in the collection, called "The Devil in Iron." It wasn't much better but at least gave Conan a more central conflict with the antagonist.

Interesting King Kong reference. This story was published about 13 months after the original King Kong film was released. I hadn't put that together until I saw your comment. Howard was known to steal, er, borrow ideas from others so he could easily have been influenced by the film.

I had visions of the white ape creatures from ERB's John Carter of Mars series.