Robert E. Howard Readers discussion

Well, this has been tried before and it looks like it didn't happen. Can we get it going this time? Please post suggestions here for a Group Read.

My personal preference would be for a non-Conan book to start with, but I will bow to any overwhelming opposition!

I'm not opposed to doing group reads per se, as long as they're voluntary; but I may not always participate. Some of my other groups do group reads at times, which sometimes conflict with each other, and I often have other reading commitments as well. (I'm a one-book-at-a-time reader, and get so little time to read that it usually takes me awhile to read one.) Then too, my to-read shelf is so out of control I usually don't want to read anything that's not already on it --but REH would be an exception, since I'd love to read anything by him! :-)

My reading schedule for the rest of 2011 is sort of blocked out in my mind already; but starting in November, I don't have any plans that involve any commitments to anyone else. So I'd be free to take part in a group read then; but if others want to do one before that instead (or in addition to), that's fine with me, and I'll wish you all fun and success with it!

Of course they will be voluntary - participating in Group Reads isn't mandatory for membership.

Given that most of Robert E. Howard's books are short story collections, I'd propose that any book we take on have the stories listed and then those with tight reading schedules like yourself, Werner, could hopefully pick one or two stories and still participate as they felt able.

I just need some suggestions now!

How about The Black Stranger: And Other American Tales? That's the only Howard collection we have in the college library where I work, and I've had my eye on it for awhile.

I don't have "The Black Stranger" so I looked up the contents. I think I have most of them scattered through other books, except for the intro & such. Amazingly, except for one story, none of them are on Gutenberg.net.au, either. It looks like it is a cheap purchase on Amazon. 7 cents plus $3.99 shipping.

Contents:
Introduction by Steven Tompkins
The Black Stranger
Marchers of Valhalla
The Gods of Bal-Sagoth
Nekht Semerkeht (Unfinished fragment)
Black Vulmea's Vengeance
The Strange Case of Josiah Wilbarger (essay)
The Valley of the Lost
Kelly the Conjure-Man
Black Canaan
Pigeons from Hell
* Old Garfield's Heart
The Horror from the Mound
The Thunder-Rider
"The Classic Tale of the Southwest" (excerpts from letters to August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft)
The Grim Land (poem)
Source Acknowledgements (essay)

How about The Sowers of the Thunder? It has 4 stories in it:

The Sowers of the Thunder
Gates of Empire
Lord of Samarcand
The Lion of Tiberias

Unfortunately, none of these are available from Gutenberg, either. Howard had an amazing output for such a short writing career. I know there were a couple of editions of this though & there is a Kindle edition, too.

I also have all the stories on my hard drive & could email them to anyone who needed them.

How about choosing one story or two for group reads ?

Since there are 100s of books with the same stories.

I have complete collections and not small collections like you guys.

That's a good idea, Mohammed.

I've gotten two of those big collections. They're nice. I gave the first one to my son, but still have The Best of Robert E. Howard: Grim Lands, the second. They're great with a lot of info about Howard & the stories.

Myself im a hardcore fan who prefer collections that feels like a single book. A whole Kane collection in chrono order, a whole El Borak book feels like a complete series and so on.

Thats why i never got the best of books cause i have the stories by character or genre collections.

I read REH often so im up for any group read.

I can see your point, Mohammed. I'm iffy on the subject of chronologies. Zebra did a good job of putting together A Gent From Bear Creek. They put all the stories in chronological order, even though I think one was actually a different character - well, named differently, anyway.

They did the same thing with The Incredible Adventures of Dennis Dorgan. Dorgan was actually the name in only one or two of those stories, though. Most were originally written about Steve Costigan. Still, it was a good read.

In the 70's & 80's, I was trying to get the Conan books. (Mom gave away 3 boxes of books after Pop died & I lost most of his Lancer editions.) Signet, Del Rey, Ace & others were all putting out Conan books & some were basically the same stories that Carter & DeCamp did for the Lancer editions. Others were written by other authors completely, filling in any extra couple of minutes Howard hadn't accounted for it seemed. Some lines were numbered (Ace?), but it was a confusing mess. Anyway, without the Internet, it was tough to figure out what was what, so I took what I could get/afford for a while.

There was too much repetition & filler. Some of it was fairly horrible, some excellent. There were huge arguments on GEnie (1990 +/-2years) about 'real' Howard writing. I just kind of burned out on it & now read an occasional story or book for fun, so I'm up for reading most anything. Likely it will be a re-read & not take me long.

Another group I'm in reads short stories as group reads on a regular basis, usually one a week. (Since I'm usually reading a book, I generally don't take part, but I sometimes do if the story is very short, or I've read it already.) They try to pick stories that are in the public domain, or at least available for free online. That might be a model this group would want to try.

So many reading suggestions - how excellent! I'm up for anything, though short stories would be my preference.

My vote thus far would be 'The Black Stranger'.

Thanks to Jim for listing the contents - only two of those stories I've read before, so my interest is definitely piqued.

I've posted some links to internet sites that host REH stories here.

The Wikisource link is really good and has many stories not available on Project Gutenburg, including all of those Jim mentioned from The Sowers of the Thunder.

As a couple of people have suggested, I think that to start with we should go with individual short stories.

I suggest that we alternate between non-Conan and Conan stories and, because I've never read any El Borak stories, I'm going to nominate The Daughter of Erlik Khan as the first read:
The Lost Valley of Iskander

Please let me know if you're happy with the "alternating" idea and with my nomination for the first read - I'm open to other ideas and keen to get the ball rolling!

Sounds good to me.

Me, too. A good starting point.

I can re-read El Borak a 1000 times so im in :)

Nice nomination Michael The Daughter of Erlik Khan is one of the best El Borak stories when it comes to adventure side.

There are stories that are more grim,bleak and awesome action. Hawks of the Hills that was bonebreaking just reading it.

We seem to be forming a small consensus here, so unless I get a ton of alternatives by this evening (GMT) I'll list the Group Read of The Daughter of Erlik Khan to start in a week to give people time to clear space in their reading schedules.

Im just glad to this REH group is finally active.

Plus its easy being active in group reads when its someone you have many books of :)

After The Daughter of Erlik Khan we'll read a Conan story: suggestions, please.

I think "The Daughter of Erlik" is great choice to kick things off. For a Conan story I would suggest "Tower of the Elephant" as a great introduction to the character. Of course you can always go with the heavy hitters like "Red Nails" and "Beyond the Black River."

Also, for those who aren't familiar with it, I highly recommend www.howardworks.com as a reference to find out which collections contain a particular story. For example here is list of all the publications that contain "The Daughter of Erlik Khan":

TOP-NOTCH VOLUME 95 NUMBER 6, Street and Smith Publications, Inc., December 1934
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, FAX, 1974
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, Zebra, 1st, January 1976
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, Zebra, 2nd, du
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, Orbit, 1976
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, Berkley, September 1979
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, Berkley, 2nd, 1979
THE LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER, Ace, November 1986
ROBERT E. HOWARD'S WORLD OF HEROES, Robinson, 1989
BLOOD OF THE GODS AND OTHER STORIES, Girasol Collectables, April 2005
THE 'EL BORAK' STORIES, Echo Library, March 2007
THE DAUGHTER OF ERLIK KHAN, Medusa Expression, June 2007
THE DAUGHTER OF ERLIK KHAN, Dodo Press, February 2008
THE DEVILS OF ERLIK KHAN, Francis DiPietro, August 2008
THE EL BORAK ADVENTURES, Ignacio Hills Press, November 2008
EL BORAK AND OTHER DESERT ADVENTURES, Del Rey, February 2010

Hehe i see the recent poll Conan stories are winning again. Are there only Conans fans and no Howard fans in this group ;)

Mohammed wrote: "Hehe i see the recent poll Conan stories are winning again. Are there only Conans fans and no Howard fans in this group ;)"

Well, our last read was non-Conan, so it is his turn again :-)

Give me some ideas for Western stories and we can do one of those after the Cimmerian - assuming he's still out in front come the 10th.

There isn't any category for humor in the polls. Howard's Westerns come in serious & humorous, as do his boxing stories.

Jim, you should be able to add a poll category yourself - please feel free - or just suggest a story here.

Thanks Michael, but I'm not sure if I'd want to add one or two categories - just Humor or Western-humor (Elkins) & Boxing-humor (Costigan/Dorgan).

HowardWorks.com doesn't list them under humor, but by character under their type.
Humor:
http://www.howardworks.com/subject.ht...
Dorgan/Costigan:
http://www.howardworks.com/subject.ht...
Westerns, including Elkins:
http://www.howardworks.com/subject.ht...

I'd lean toward two since there are as many or more of each as there are Conan - roughly 20 stories of each of these 3 characters. (A purist might say Costigan & Dorgan are different characters, but I don't think so. Just a name change, all else is too similar.) What do you think?

Michael wrote: "Mohammed wrote: "Hehe i see the recent poll Conan stories are winning again. Are there only Conans fans and no Howard fans in this group ;)"

Well, our last read was non-Conan, so it is his turn a..."

I have read enough of Conan to re-read him at the moment. Im getting serious, humor westerns and boxning at the momnent. I can join in after the next group read.

As we're coming to the end of the current poll, I will add a "Humour" category to the next one.

Hey Jim and gang, as far as Dorgan and Costigan.....Steve Costigan was the first humorous boxing hero created. In actuality they are the same character. I read that Howard actually wrote the Dorgan stories as Costigan stories but wanted to sell some boxing stories to another magazine so he changed the names. The first Dennis Dorgan story "Alleys of Darkness" appeared in the Jan 1934 issue of "Magic Carpet Magazine" under the pseudonym Patrick Ervin. He sold 3 other Dorgan stories to that magazine but it folded before they were published. "Alleys of Darkness" was changed to "Alleys of Singapore" for the FAX edition of "The Incredible Adventures of Dennis Dorgan".

Suggestion for a future read:

How about one of his supernatural/horror tales? Many are set in the Southwest U.S. and Deep South.

I've really enjoyed the Cthulhu based stories - would anyone else be interested in that genre?

Cthulhu - The Mythos and Kindred Horrors

Thanks,

P.

I think most of the stories in Cthulhu - The Mythos and Kindred Horrors are easily available. I have them in various other ones, although I don't own this specific book. A couple I got online, too.

The Black Stranger: And Other American Tales contained some good horror stories. I just read it not long ago & loved some of them.

The Valley of the Lost is a Texas feud in the late 1800's that takes a horrific, supernatural turn for the worst. It's very well done.

Black Canaan is pretty eerie & well known, although the language turns a lot of folks off. I think there's a topic on it here.

Old Garfield's Heart is fairly short & straight forward, reminding me of a "The Furies" by Zelazny. (I wonder if he got the idea for Corgo here?) Again Howard hints at elder civilizations & peeks at it through the eyes of 'modern' man - in this case the folks of Howard's Texas. (Horses, guns & cars.) I saw this was in the Cthulhu book, too.

The Horror From the Mound is another horror story set in late 1800's Texas. (view spoiler)[ It's a vampire story, (hide spoiler)] but we don't really know that until more than halfway through, which is excellent because it is a great build up. Horror of the finest kind with a very earthy hero.

So are you in?

I'm always up for discussing Howard's stories. If I haven't read a specific one, I will, if I can find it. I think I have most of those of interest now, although that's only about 250 out of over 600. I'm not into his poetry & I won't go out & buy any more of Howard's books unless it contains several stories that I want. I can't afford the space.
;-)

I have horror stories of REH by Del Rey and i have few horror stories left to read so i up for any horror,supernatural read.

I dont have Conan collections right now thats why i cant partake in those group reads.

You can get most of the Conan stories online, Mohammed. I'm not a huge fan of reading stories on the computer, but none of them are that long.

Im getting Conan by Del Rey collections. I have most of my books from them. Im just gonna read End of trail western collection and then read Conan stories in Del Rey, all 3 of them.

They are pretty cheap compared to what his second hand collections.

In a dramatic overturning of the democratic process, I am tyrannically dispensing with a poll for the next Group Read!

Having temporarily arrogated to myself the dictator's power, I enforce upon you a story of Sailor Steve Costigan, Alleys of Darkness, also published as a Dennis Dorgan story called Alleys of Singapore.

I'll list some books with this story, as well as a link to a web version, shortly.

Not that I mind the choice at all, but what brought on this sudden moment of megalomania?
;-)

I've been a bit slow in getting the next Group Read sorted, so rather than have no REH on the go while we poll for it, I took an executive decision.

I promise to be a Cincinnatus, not an Augustus!

Hail, Nero!

Respect due!

Somehow I missed 2 polls! Horrible! It's a tough choice on the favorite character & I found another for a horror read. I hope everyone sees it & votes.

Pay attention, Jim!!

How about some Solomon Kane reads in the near future ?

Not because i ordered Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Del Rey but because Kane stories are the creepier,horror like of his S&S series.

Mohammed wrote: "How about some Solomon Kane reads in the near future ?

Not because i ordered Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Del Rey but because Kane stories are the creepier,horror like of his S&S series."

Ask and ye shall receive! The poll is awaiting your vote for a Kane story.

I voted for any story. Kane is my fav S&S hero by REH i can read him anytime,any story :)

I have read only 4-5 stories so far. My Baen mass paperback collection was not good enough to read all the stories in.

Hey, Michael -

A question regarding the group reads: I just finished Mark Finn's autobiography of REH, titled 'Blood & Thunder,' and I'm blown away. I found myself wondering, 'How did I not know about this book before now? Am I the only person in this group who hadn't read it?'

I'm wondering if Blood & Thunder would be an apt book for our group's reading list. Or for that matter, perhaps the biography/journal kept by Howard's one-time girlfriend, Novalyne Price.

Thoughts?

That is a great book, and definitely should be read by every REH fan.

Peregrine, I've never read Blood and Thunder, and hadn't really had it on my radar until I read your post. IMO, it might make a viable pick for a common read in this group. I could see myself taking part, if it's scheduled at a time when I could. (Paradoxically, I'm more apt to take part in common reads of whole books than of short stories.)

I'm also thinking it might be a good selection for the college library where I work, since we have classes here in American literature. We don't have any books about Howard, and I think he was a more significant figure in American letters than most critics recognize.

Hmm... so, you have the ability to help create a Howardian (??) presence on a university campus? Oh, yeah! Do it, man, absolutely do it.

I never really thought of Howard's fiction as 'fine literature' growing up or even in my 20's, as Conan was really all I knew and I didn't have a grasp of what 'literature' was. But I can tell you that, if literature can be defined as writing that helps to shape, define or reflect a culture, then REH definitely wrote literature.

Reading Finn's biography opened up REH's world to me and showed me how influential his writing really is.

Yes, Peregrine, I'm in charge of book selection at the college library here. Of course, I can't just select any book I want to read (and wouldn't want to be that irresponsible, anyway!) --I have to have a defensible rationale for things I pick, as being related to the purposes of the library. But I think books by/about REH can meet that test; I've already selected a few books by him, since we didn't have any before. Thanks for the tip about Finn's biography!