Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story...

The Phoenix on the Sword by Robert E. Howard (1932)

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.

An audio version of this story can be found at PodCastle.

I never cared for this story as much as I should have. It's the original, but I first read it as the Kull story "By This Axe I Rule!" in the Lancer editions from the 60s & always liked that version better.

Jim wrote: "I never cared for this story as much as I should have. It's the original, but I first read it as the Kull story "By This Axe I Rule!" in the Lancer editions from the 60s & always liked that version..."

The Kull story "By This Axe I Rule" had not been published when Howard submitted "The Phoenix on the Sword" to Weird Tales. (Apparently it had been rejected when Howard submitted it, so Howard revised it and sent it out again!)

"By This Axe I Rule" only saw posthumous publication, by Lin Carter in 1967.

As mentioned in the Forward, Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright didn't think it merited the cover, though Wright would publish a number of Howard's Conan stories over he years.

It's interesting that the first Conan story Howard published placed him as King of Aquilonia (though a former Barbarian), since our popular image of him is the peripatetic thief, rogue & reaver.

This isn't the only King Conan story in the collection, either.

The beginning of this particular story, in which King Conan muses that civilization has caused him to lose his barbaric edge, put me in mind of Tennyson's brooding Ulysses:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I never read the Kull story either. If I like the rest of the Conan stories I might try Kull: Exile of Atlantis as well as The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane and others.

G33zer, it's interesting that you compare the portrayal of Conan to Ulysses, which I have never read. At the time I read this story, I got the strong impression that Howard was trying to elevate Conan's character to a more literate level than I would expect in a pulp magazine. Conan was definitely more "pulpy" in the following stories, but in this story I got the feeling that Howard was aiming higher. I wonder if he consciously thought about Ulysses when he wrote this story?

The story itself wasn't as entertaining as some that followed, but I liked it well enough. It had all the classic Sword and Sorcery elements. It's telling that in Howard's tales, magic is always evil (even the magicians who cooperate with Conan reveal themselves to be acting solely in their own best interest) and the sword always overcomes magic. This story is the exception, in a sense - Epemitreus is never revealed to have any sinister intent. Maybe because he's been dead for hundreds of years?

Randy wrote: "At the time I read this story, I got the strong impression that Howard was trying to elevate Conan's character to a more literate level than I would expect in a pulp magazine. Conan was definitely more "pulpy" in the following stories, but in this story I got the feeling that Howard was aiming higher...."

I think you said in another message that Howard's prose style was all over the map. Sometimes (OK, rarely) he waxes eloquent and employs an broader vocabulary than I expect in pulp fiction. Other times, I wonder if he's trying to write in the hardboiled/noir style Dashiell Hammett was popularizing in the contemporary crime pulps. And sometime he just writes.

This story gave a good rundown of the seeming hierarchy of the Conanverse. Conan is at the top, the French knights below him but at least are still warriors. Dark-skinned southern sorcerers and fat people are obviously evil. Rogues are faceless mooks, while politicians, priests and doctors are at the bottom.

I can't really figure out what's going on with the mythology here. Real world gods and places mixed in with made up ones? And why does the France-analogue seem to use a mixture of French and Greek pronunciation rules?

I didn't really engage with this story at all - I was expecting the barbarian Conan which this really wasn't at all. There was definitely some Shakespeare references in there (Prospero, anyone?) which I found interesting, but didn't really go anywhere. The pacing just seemed a bit off.

I read the original draft for this story, which was rejected for publication and is included in the back of the collection. I prefer the version that was originally published, but there are some scenes in the draft that give a little more insight into the Conan character, which is especially interesting since this was the first published Conan story.

It's interesting that the free copy from Project Gutenberg Australia puts this one near the end, I guess it was attempting a chronological order of the stories. So I got to see him go from thief to pirate to captain to king.

But it's also interesting to start with Conan as king and then go back and see his origins.

I just very recently started reading the Conan stories, specifically the Del Rey editions. This one is the first one in the collection.

And I must admit, it's good, but doesn't really feel like his best. It's intriguing, certainly, and very emtertaining, better than a lot of modern fantastic, but it's not what I think of when I think of Conan. There's (oddly enough) too much for what Conan is.

I do understand, however, that Conan is more than just a muscular man waving a sword around, and this shows the more intellectual aspect of the Cimmerian. Though I didn't like this one story as much as some of the others ("The Tower of the Elephant" is amazing), it did surprise me by giving me a different side of Conan that I was not even expecting.

Saul wrote: "I do understand, however, that Conan is more than just a muscular man waving a sword around, and this shows the more intellectual aspect of the Cimmerian. Though I didn't like this one story as much as some of the others ("The Tower of the Elephant" is amazing), it did surprise me by giving me a different side of Conan that I was not even expecting."

Agreed, I also expected more grunting and less talking, but he has whole conversations and figures out some complex traps as he goes along, so he's got at least some brain, I don't think I would have made it through all the stories otherwise.

Andrea, you should try the Kull stories, if you haven't already. Kull is a thinking Conan. I'd recommend the Lancer edition since everything is complete in it. The latest version is pure REH & that means quite a few fragments, but your call.

Jim wrote: "Andrea, you should try the Kull stories, if you haven't already. Kull is a thinking Conan. I'd recommend the Lancer edition since everything is complete in it. The latest version is pure REH & that..."

I think I'm going to try those Kull stories too, but probably after I get through the Conan catalogue, which is going to take some time...

As a side note, I'm pleased to see that the Conan anthology discussion still has legs. It's nice to see S&S getting some love.

Well, I'm a bit outdated on this discussion, but since I'm rather new here, guess its ok. Couple of things I can add: this is the only Conan story in which he actually describes a friendship - with Prospero, a general in his army. To this friend, he complains about the boredom of his life as a king and dreams of his old days of freedom and glory. Another interesting thing is that Conan desmises to Prospero the Cimerian way of life, which he deems too gloomy and dispirited, and praises the other northern tribes lust for wild revelry and ale :D. It can be viewed as a reason why Conan left Cimeria and an insight into his persona.