DusterBoy Posted July 7, 2010 Report Share Posted July 7, 2010 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment..... War of Powers rocked - Synalon and Rann are two brilliant villains. And those war eagles. I want one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 7, 2010 Report Share Posted July 7, 2010 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment..... I recall being fairly addicted to the War of Powers when I was in high school. And I'll admit, the sexual adventures of Fost and Morianna had a lot to do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted July 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2010 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment..... It was a great series and the "adventures" were as well written as the rest of it which in my book, seperates it by a vast difference from the current drek of Romance-a-fantapron and necroporn........ Truth be told when Playboy was in the novel publishing gig for the 70's and 80's, they churned out some great material. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 9, 2010 Report Share Posted July 9, 2010 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment..... Perhaps I should re-read them and see if there are any interesting monsters to convert to HERO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted July 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2010 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment..... Always worth a re-read. I lucked out and found them again at Half Priced Books. That chain would be the old book Godsend if they could actually be bothered to do an Inventory so you could call them and ask them if they had a book. That series will remain one of my favorite Fantasy series of all time. Got them up on the shelf next to my Sunset Warrior stuff. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burrito Boy Posted November 21, 2013 Report Share Posted November 21, 2013 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment.....Perhaps I should re-read them and see if there are any interesting monsters to convert to HERO. I recently read the first two books in Lin Carter's Callisto series and there are a few interesting monsters in them. My personal favorite being the thaptor, which has the body of a horse, spurred feet like a rooster, and the head of a parrot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted December 8, 2013 Report Share Posted December 8, 2013 I've been reading The Savage Sword of Conan graphic novel vol. 6. Good read. But it has many elements of DnD in it that people complain about it makes me laugh. Lets see so far in the four stories there was magic in three of them. Random monsters scattered through out the stories. Ancient gods and cursed people that just happennto be in the wilderness. Magic that works automatically and vared magic at that between stories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vondy Posted December 9, 2013 Report Share Posted December 9, 2013 All of those things exist in Conan stories. Its more their presentation than their presence that sets REH apart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted December 9, 2013 Report Share Posted December 9, 2013 Vondy could you expand on how the presentation is different? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roter Baron Posted January 6, 2014 Report Share Posted January 6, 2014 I guess Vondy means that REH is a really good story teller - his Conan is gritty, Hyboria is rife with magic, grim warriors and ancient evils in a way that is easy to turn into finest cheese if someone else wrote it. With REH it seesm all quite real and believable. For instance found his boxing stories really exciting - I am not much of a boxing fan, but his description made me feel the punches. No kidding. How he does it? I can't tell. It is jsut that the pastichesm while some are also very good, are just mot quite reaching his level. But never, never try to read his detective stories - they are quite lacklusterly awful and I was thinking while reading: "That would have been an okay story - I someone would lop off someones head with a battleaxe ..." Really, nothing much. Like if Chandler tried horror or Sword & Sorcery: "It was Friday night in Los Aquilonas when that dame in a chainmail-bikini came into my hut - with legs that wouldn't quit. She said she had some problems with a local warlock and me, I was having a handover from last night's poker game in the Green Dragon. I told her that my going rate was 50 silvers per day and expenses, and she said okay. That was when the trouble started but I always fall for witches with silver and too short chainmails. Name's Marloo, Son of Slade, and I live by the axe." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 6, 2014 Report Share Posted January 6, 2014 Don't read his "Spicy" stories. Just don't. One of them is particularly "awesome", since the "hero" ends up as captain of a blackbirding ship running indentured labour (aka slaves) from the Pacific to Queensland. And, of course, ends up declaring the "heroine" to be his property. Nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roter Baron Posted January 9, 2014 Report Share Posted January 9, 2014 Yep, that Texan was an adventure writer - cowboys, sailors, boxers, crusaders, hard-fisted tentacle-monsters-punchers, fighting puritans and barbarians with axes, swords and pictish war-paint were his strong points. Detectives and anything romantic certainly wasn't (I didn't even know he dabbled in "spicy" - I'll be damned!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 24, 2014 Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 It turns out Howard wrote detective stories. An obvious aspect of Howard's work is how easily many of his stories can be swapped between genres. In fact, Hyboria is basically a patchwork of settings for various types of stories - pirates, African adventures, "Indian fighting" in colonial America and so on. So, naturally, I'm intrigued by the concept of rewriting some of his detective stories into Conan stories. Fortunately, a lot of his detective stories seem to be "strange detective" ones, which would convert easily. It would work with other writers too, of course. After all, Akira Kurosawa converted Hammett's "Red Harvest" into a Samurai movie ("Yojimbo"). Going a step further and adding Conan to the mix would be trivial. It's not like the lead character of Yojimbo didn't kill enough people. Of course the real trick would be the Maltese Falcon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spence Posted January 24, 2014 Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 I lot of people I know tend to forget that Howard was one of the true Pulp Era writers with writing everything from historical fiction to fantasy to horror to westerns. Whatever the publishers were taking (paying for) at the the time. Usually Conan, Kull or Kane pops into the mind and that's it. I also liked the Bran Mak Morn series. Most of his writings were short story/novella format with even most of the original Conan books being collections of the stories. A lot of his work is public domain or available in inexpensive e-book collections if you take the time to look. And they are fantastic adventure ideas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard_bibliography lists them. Or at least most of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roter Baron Posted January 25, 2014 Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Great overview - thanks for the link. The Werewolf stories seem intrigueing ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spence Posted January 26, 2014 Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 I was surprised by the two Boxing Sailor series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted January 28, 2014 Report Share Posted January 28, 2014 Boxing Sailors are natural pulp RPG characters. Little formal education (but potentially awesome autodidacts) who have travelled the world and are as tough as nails. Aside from a lack of skills dealing with high society, perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roter Baron Posted January 30, 2014 Report Share Posted January 30, 2014 Hey, nothing gets a good pulp story started like a good ol' punch in the face! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burrito Boy Posted March 6, 2014 Report Share Posted March 6, 2014 Robert E. Howard and the Many Faces of Conan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DusterBoy Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Re: A Robert E. Howard moment..... Sure... I'll play. So: Kull is a tiger... Conan is a lion... Solomon Kane is a wolf... Bran Mak Morn is a panther... El Borak is a hawk... and Sailor Steve Costigan is a walrus... (and) Breckenridge Elkins is a grizzly. I say Red Sonya whips them all into a circus act until they die of broken hearts. And Agnes do Chastillon kicks Sonya's arse in a fencing duel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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