recommended reading

I don't own this image. It was created (with considerable skill) by Cary Nord for Dark Horse Comics, and belongs to Conan Properties International, LLC.

I am currently about halfway through the second volume of the complete Conan-related works of Robert E. Howard, so entitled The Bloody Crown of Conan. This particular volume isn't as thick as its predecessor, nor does it contain the same number of stories. However, as the adage goes, it is quality and not quantity that counts. This volume contains three of the longest Conan stories Howard ever wrote, including his only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon.

The first story, The People of the Black Circle, was excellent, if somewhat anticlimactic. It concerns Conan's involvement in a web of black sorcery (what else?). In this case, he is the leader of a ferocious band of Afghan-esque warriors who are raiding the borders of an Indian-inspired empire. The king of that empire has recently been destroyed by magic; his sister, Yasmina, now the queen, seeks revenge against the Black Seers of Yimsha, who have purportedly done the dirty deed. She travels to the borders to enlist Conan's aid, only to wind up being kidnapped by him. A series of chases, desperate battles, and scrapes ensues, after which the two protagonists wind up inside Yimsha itself, a demonic castle perched on an evil mountaintop. After wounding the nefarious wizard at the head of the Black Seers (who has transformed into a gigantic serpent), Conan manages to rescue Yasmina and return her to her countrymen after one last epic battle in a gorge. The wounded wizard, returning to slay Yasmina in vulture form, is instead slain by Conan, and so the story ends. Lengthier than most Conan stories it was for the most part a gripping tale and a high adventure, particularly the account of Conan's rough ascent of Yimsha and the sorcerous traps and obstacles he encountered in the process.

The second story in the volume is the aforementioned The Hour of the Dragon. The plot is far more intricate, convoluted, and just plain bigger in scope than anything I've read of Howard's before. It's really rewarding to see the time and effort he put into fleshing out this story and making it a complete novel. Since Howard was a commercial writer and most of what he wrote had to be published in magazines, many of his Conan tales are disappointingly short. It is set during the time when Conan was the king of Aquilonia, and had his throne wrested from beneath him by a scheming band of conspirators aided by (you guessed it) an evil wizard. But this ain't no ordinary evil wizard, folks. Most of Conan's necromantic adversaries are just men who have learned the dark secrets of arcane religions, practitioners of thaumaturgical arts too evil to be spoken aloud, who have gazed across nighted abysses and plumbed the foulest depths of the universe in search of power and influence. Xaltotun is something else. First of all, he's been dead for three thousand years. At least, he was dead, until those aforementioned conspirators woke him up. He's immensely powerful, exceedingly intelligent, and coldly calculating. Conan's got his work cut out for him, I can already see that much, even though he's managed to escape a few nasty traps laid for him. He's had to bug out of Aquilonia and head south to become a corsair again in order to find...

...well, I won't spoil it. You'll just have to read it yourself.

Prior to this I read Hemingway Adventure, an account of Ernest Hemingway's old haunts and stomping grounds written by Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame. Palin's a pleasantly sardonic travel writer and his anecdotes regarding his attempts to follow in Hemingway's footsteps are often hilarious: driving ambulances in Italy, or attending patently insane festivals in Spain, or roping cattle in the American West. There's more than enough to stimulate the interests of travelers, especially given the variety of places Hemingway lived or spent time: France, Italy, Spain, Key West, Cuba, Montana, Idaho, and Africa. Though the book is a superb and entertaining travelogue in its own right, it's also compelled me to read Hemingway's biography. Hemingway is one of the writers I admire most, and his wide travels and expatriate lifestyle I hope to emulate someday. For anyone, however, this book is a springboard into many other interests and destinations.

After I finish with Conan (for the time being) I will dive headfirst into 50 Great Short Stories, which as the title suggests is a compendium of fifty most exemplary short stories by some of the world's most renowned authors. Short story writing is something I never could do well. I'm fine with the literary aspect of it, but I'm too wordy and long-winded. Whenever I attempt a short story it inevitably winds up turning into a novella, or sucks canal water, or both. I'll keep you posted.