De Camp: Any Good or Not?

[Valgrim Bragisson]

My worst DeCamp Conan experience was Sigard the Vanir pirate in Conan the Buccaneer. A Vanir Barbarian, a mythical Viking... who looks acts and sounds like a bad stereotype of an eighteenth century English swashbuckler! This is absolute proof that DeCamp had either no grasp of, or no respect for REH's original work!

MP

 

[The King]

My worst DeCamp Conan experience was Siguard the Vanir pirate in Conan the Buccaneer. A Vanir Barbarian, a mythical Viking... who looks acts and sounds like a bad stereotype of an eighteenth century English swashbuckler! This is absolute proof that DeCamp had either no grasp of, or no respect for REH's original work!

MP

Conan the buccaneer was written by Lin Carter.

 

[Valgrim Bragisson]

Thanks for pointing that out, King. I completely forgot it was Carter. Good to know DeCamp wasn't resposable for Sigard! I still hate the character.
Just change DeCamp to Carter in my post above, and its all true.

MP

 

[The King]

Conan the buccaneer and Conan of Aquilonia are among the worst.

Do you know that we see again the viking Sigard in Conan the Avenger ?

 

[Fernando]

Sigurd (or Sigard) appears again in Conan of the Isles.

 

[tarkhan bey]

IIRC it is Rolf the Aesir who appears in Conan the Avenger(Return of Conan) and not Sigurd the Vanir.

 

[kintire]

but I didn't think the love affair between Conan and Rudabeh was "execrable".

Rudabeh is a prim, stay-at-home lady who wants a husband with a proper job, who she can take home to meet her family and will be a valuable addition to the family. De Camp has Conan seriously considering settling down and becoming a blacksmith in order to woo his lurve. COmpare this with Belit, who is Conan's equal in every way, except fighting skill where she is inferior, and experience and cunning where she is his superior. She joins him in his adventures, or rather he joins her, and she spurs him to deeds of fame and heroism he could never have matched alone. Before he meets her, he's a vagabond mercenary. After, he's on the road to greatness.

The only thing Rudabeh inspires in Conan is a desire to get a steady job and raise a family. In CONAN?

No no no no no no no.

 

[Fernando]

but I didn't think the love affair between Conan and Rudabeh was "execrable".

Rudabeh is a prim, stay-at-home lady who wants a husband with a proper job, who she can take home to meet her family and will be a valuable addition to the family. De Camp has Conan seriously considering settling down and becoming a blacksmith in order to woo his lurve. COmpare this with Belit, who is Conan's equal in every way, except fighting skill where she is inferior, and experience and cunning where she is his superior. She joins him in his adventures, or rather he joins her, and she spurs him to deeds of fame and heroism he could never have matched alone. Before he meets her, he's a vagabond mercenary. After, he's on the road to greatness.

The only thing Rudabeh inspires in Conan is a desire to get a steady job and raise a family. In CONAN?

No no no no no no no.

All right, kintire, I respect your opinion, and I admired your (very good ) argumentation. But I still think that, before meets Belit, Conan were looking for an woman who could belong to him (and vice versa) for the rest of life. The first option, in my opinion, could be Rudabeh (who died); the second, Malla (from the free adaptation of "The Dark Man", but she also died when he found her), and the third (the best of all!!) was Belit.

And I think that Zenobia - who Conan knew almost 20 years after Belit's death - wasn't so different of Rudabeh... :wink:

Anyhow, "Conan and the Spider-God" also developed a Conan's speech to Yasmina in "People of the Black Circle", where the Cimmerian talks about "the temple girls of Yezud" that "dance before the black stone spider which is their god". I just didn't like when Conan refused at least two tavern-girls, simply because they were fat.

 

[Axerules]

I've read Herron's article, and I'm not entirely convinced by his arguments. Or to be more exact, I think he takes them too far[...]he takes the anti-deity thing a little far. while certainly the good aligned glowy things in hand of Nergal and Conan of the Isles are very un-Howard, it is very difficult to explain the oracle to Yasmela in Black Colossus as anything other than genuine. The alternative explanation is a coincidence so wild as to be absurd[....]However, there is no doubt that when DeCamp is bad, he is terrible

• I second this post. Kintire summed up EXACTLY some of my feelings about Sprague and D. Herron's article: L. Sprague DC wrote a lot of un-Howard things, but Herron seem to ignore REH when it suits him.

• The Hyborian age is mostly without divine interventions in REH writings, Crom is not the good guy describded in some nonsensical pastiches but a "grim and loveless" god (the bull sacrifices to Crom in the Avenger are ridiculous :evil:: if one of my players DARED to do that I would instantly curse him), but REH, in a few instances showed gods (good) deeds: the oracle of Mitra in BC, the prophetess Zelata in Hour of the Dragon who sends Conan in a Grail-like quest (read Patrice Louinet's Hyborian Genesis about it) and first and foremost Epemitreus in Phoenix on the Sword, a long-time dead Mitran priest who appears in Conan dreams and draws a holy symbol on his sword to fight the minions of the"arch-demon" ! It were three times (not direct) interferences by gods, but they act through oracles and saints.

• And, BTW, I also second Kintire to say that Sprague is often one of the worst pastiche writers.

 

[The King]

However, there is no doubt that when DeCamp is bad, he is terrible
All this nonsense with Thoth Amon as the Big Bad Guy, the random purposeless world tours in the books set after he is king and, worst of all, the execrable Spider God, featuring next to no action and a love affair for Conan that sits next to his affair with Belit like "Noddy Goes to Toytown" sits next to Lord of the Rings. It will be a long time before I forgive DeCamp for that!

Then read only his short stories.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Conan the buccaneer was written by Lin Carter.

My copies of "Conan the Buccaneer" say it was written by L. Sprague De Camp AND Lin Carter. Lin Carter wrote the introduction, but both are listed as book authors.

They dedicated the book to "the greatest living creator of swordsplay and sorcery - JRR Tolkien."

A bit insulting that last bit.

 

[The King]

Conan the buccaneer was written by Lin Carter.

My copies of "Conan the Buccaneer" say it was written by L. Sprague De Camp AND Lin Carter. Lin Carter wrote the introduction, but both are listed as book authors.

They dedicated the book to "the greatest living creator of swordsplay and sorcery - JRR Tolkien."

A bit insulting that last bit.

I thougth it was the other way around or perhaps he made the editor work (as he did with Howard's stories) because frankly the novel is very weak.
Moreover it uses a god from the Cthulhu/Lovecraft pantheon (Tsathoggua) and deals with magic items (one copy of the three existing books of Skelos and the serpent-king crown) as if they were AD&D artefacts. Even de Camp at his worst (i.e. Conan of Aquilonia) wouldn't have wrote this.

However to make things right, I like Carter's short story entitled The hand of Nergal.

As to the dedication to J.R.R. Tolkien, it is quite funny but why not? At that time, there was no such definition of genres like Dark Fantasy, High or Low Fantasy and excepted for his non human race, Tolkien uses much of a S&S setting, especially with his low magic.

 

[VincentDarlage]

As to the dedication to J.R.R. Tolkien, it is quite funny but why not?

It was the listing of him as the creator of the genre that was a bit insulting, even though "The Hobbit" wasn't published until 1937 (LotR wasn't published until 1954), and Howard's first published King Kull story was in 1929. His first Conan story was published in 1932, both of which precede "The Hobbit." (To nit-pick, since Howard killed himself in 1936, ALL of his works precede the publication of "The Hobbit.")

One could argue that the "living" adjective makes the dedication okay, but there is one further point I would like to make about this:

The other point is that the dedication was a bit insulting because it called Tolkien the "greatest" in front of a Howard pastiche. That, to me, is like writing a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and dedicating it to Agatha Christie - while calling her the greatest living detective writer.

True or not, it was a bit inappropriate, IMHO.

 

[urdinaran]

1. I tried reading Conan the Buccaneer; sorry, couldn't do it, really bad.

2. I wouldn't consider Tolkien a S&S writer; even though Middle Earth is somewhat of a Low-Magic world, his writing on the other hand doesn't capture the same feel that Howard or Lieber did. Better said, Tolkien's Heroes weren't the same as the other writers' heroes; Conan or Fafhrd vs. Aragorn.


*** not in any way dissing J.R.R.

 

[The King]

The other point is that the dedication was a bit insulting because it called Tolkien the "greatest" in front of a Howard pastiche. That, to me, is like writing a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and dedicating it to Agatha Christie - while calling her the greatest living detective writer.

I hadn't considered this under this angle and you are (probably) right. This is insulting in the way that de Camp didn't consider Howard the greatest S&S author (else he would not have edited his short stories).
But in a way, perhaps he didn't consider himself good enough to pastiche Tolkien.

 

[The King]

1. I tried reading Conan the Buccaneer; sorry, couldn't do it, really bad.

2. I wouldn't consider Tolkien a S&S writer; even though Middle Earth is somewhat of a Low-Magic world, his writing on the other hand doesn't capture the same feel that Howard or Lieber did. Better said, Tolkien's Heroes weren't the same as the other writers' heroes; Conan or Fafhrd vs. Aragorn.


*** not in any way dissing J.R.R.

The thing is that Tolkien was English and had Celtic (and European) influence. Moreover almost (if not) all European older fantasy tales have a king and a queen as a ruler which Americans fought against (as a system). So the genre can hardly be compared (though there was already some discussion about this in this forum).
Of course, we have this in Conan as he himself becomes king, but the meaning is deeper in Tolkien as there is in Europe the feeling of the rightful rulers (i.e. there is always a good king and good queen with evil doers trying to usurp the throne) while in Howard it's quasi the contrary because the rulers are corrupted.

To go further, in Robin Hood, for instance, the king's throne is usurped and Robin Hood fights against this but not for his own sake but for the king's.

 

[Axerules]

Moreover it uses a god from the Cthulhu/Lovecraft pantheon (Tsathoggua)

The King , I do agree with the over points of your post, but Howard himself did mention the "Nameless Old Ones" in Phoenix on the Sword.

 

[Axerules]

The other point is that the dedication was a bit insulting because it called Tolkien the "greatest" in front of a Howard pastiche. That, to me, is like writing a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and dedicating it to Agatha Christie - while calling her the greatest living detective writer.

True or not, it was a bit inappropriate, IMHO.

I second that. Sprague De Camp was able to write Conan stories and making inappropriate ( and sometimes insulting) comments about the creator of the character. Didn't he also talk about the "errors" or "inconsistencies" of REH to justify his rewrites or butchering of stories?

 

[Faraer]

Moreover it uses a god from the Cthulhu/Lovecraft pantheon (Tsathoggua)

The King , I do agree with the over points of your post, but Howard himself does mention the "Nameless Old Ones" in Phoenix on the Sword.

And Tsathogua by name in a draft of the story, as well as the final version of "The Children of the Night." It exists in Howard's cosmos.

Also, Lovecraft's entities are not a pantheon: that systematization was the doing of August Derleth, whose relationship to Lovecraft somewhat parallels de Camp's to Howard.

 

[Axerules]

And Tsathogua by name in a draft of the story, as well as the final version of "The Children of the Night." It exists in Howard's cosmos.
Also, Lovecraft's entities are not a pantheon: that systematization was the doing of August Derleth, whose relationship to Lovecraft somewhat parallels de Camp's to Howard.

I just went through Patrice Louinets Hyborian Genesis in the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: the draft named "Cthulhu, Tsathogua, Yog-Sothoth", and the Nameless Old Ones. Very interesting point about Derleth. I'm not a great Lovecraft fan, but perhaps it's exactly because of the same reason that some people consider Howard as a minor writer: pastiches. I have only read 2 or 3 Cthulhu books a few years ago, and they were probably not written by Lovecraft. Some people read a bad Conan pastiche and then consider all Conan books worthless. And some pastiches have Howards name printed on the front cover.