Interview with Vincent

[VincentDarlage]

Why say 'there are only three good vampire novels' unless you've read them all?

1) I like having opinions. (To me, having a wrong opinion is better than to have had no opinion at all. However, I don't hold slavishly to my opinions. I don't mind being proven wrong - I find the experience educational; I find I learn less about topics about which I hold no opinion than about one I hold opinion about, either correctly or incorrectly).

2) I have read an insane number of vampire novels, short stories and folk legends; I used to haunt the Indiana University stacks, archives and libraries, poring over rare volumes by the likes of Montague Summers about vampires and their "kith and kin." I make no claims to have read them all, though, so take my opinion as one derived from a large sample, not the whole.

 

[Mark Dunder]

I like Spike.

 

[Flecha]

About atmosphere, I've recently finished a great book you've surely read, Vincent. Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock, which is a fantasy and mythology book with a lot of Lovecraftian atmosphere. Yes, it seems there's people who still know the trade.

I will look for that one. I am not familiar with it.

You're gonna like it. It's not horror, but it's been called "hard fantasy". The lovecraftian atmosphere is completely there, though. Let me know how you like it.

I'll read that fiction you've kindly provided us... :wink:

 

[Faraer]

Huh! I thought I had coined 'hard fantasy' to describe Robert Holdstock's books. Where did you see the term, and how was it used? (A web search reveals Michael Swanwick has used it.) I use it to mean books which deal rigorously and directly with myth and archetypes, which are the matter of fantasy in the way that (very approximately) science and its social effects are of hard SF.

 

[Flecha]

Then I'm afraid it's paralell thinking; the term must have been coined long ago, and I've heard it used for this novel by the Spanish publisher, here in Spain. I guess it goes as far as 1985 when the book was initially released, and has been around for a while, especially since the web exists.

 

[Faraer]

Yes, I didn't really suppose no one else had ever thought of the term. Though I'm curious as to the senses it's been used in. (It isn't in the Clute/Grant Encyclopedia of Fantasy, which everyone interested in fantasy, fiction and reality should read.)

 

[Raven Blackwell]

Well, speaking of vampires I agree with Vincent that the post-modern punk Gotheque vampire is a shame to the genre. I mean Anne Rice has done more damage to the image of the undead than can be belived with her far too effeminate bloodsuckers.

On the other hand I don't see vampires as a sort of two-dimensional evil to be done in with holy water and stakes like the older horror stories did. I've facinated with the idea of a sentient predator in my writings. From an ecological view point this world could use a race or two of them to help thin out the human race of the weak, foolish and overly bland. Nor would such a creature be truly evil- they are after all just doing what nature intended them to do. They shouldn't feel remorse for the killing of a human being but on the other hand I don't see them as being the sort to 'take over the world' or concoct some ther rather bizarre plot to doom mankind that writers sometimes use them for. After all the lions don't have imperial ambitions on the zebras- they just want to run one down from the herd and eat it. 8)

 

[Etepete]

Me, I like the living dead. Blood-sucking living dead? Sure! But the Anne Rice variety has very little to do with just that. If they kept dropping rotting limbs and pieces, I _might_ learn to love them 8)

 

[Raven Blackwell]

Me, I like the living dead. Blood-sucking living dead? Sure! But the Anne Rice variety has very little to do with just that. If they kept dropping rotting limbs and pieces, I _might_ learn to love them 8)

Well, Anne Rice has more or less been 'born-again' and her next series of novels is a fictional account of Jesus's life instead of vampires. No joke.

Frankly I find this more frightening.

 

[Etepete]

Me, I like the living dead. Blood-sucking living dead? Sure! But the Anne Rice variety has very little to do with just that. If they kept dropping rotting limbs and pieces, I _might_ learn to love them 8)

Well, Anne Rice has more or less been 'born-again' and her next series of novels is a fictional account of Jesus's life instead of vampires. No joke.

Frankly I find this more frightening.

Me, I'm not surprised. You talk to satanists, they're reformed nazis, people go wicca then christian sect then scientology. No matter how many people with genuine beliefs there's out there there's obviously also alot of people just being insecure.

And some of these people fancy vampires

Sorry, I'm being both mean and OT.

 

[Raven Blackwell]

Sorry, I'm being both mean and OT.

And likely accurate too.

 

[Mongoose Gar]

About atmosphere, I've recently finished a great book you've surely read, Vincent. Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock, which is a fantasy and mythology book with a lot of Lovecraftian atmosphere. Yes, it seems there's people who still know the trade.

I will look for that one. I am not familiar with it.

Hunt down the sequel, <I>Lavondyss</I> as well. Incredible book. The other sequels are kinda meh, but Lavondyss is utterly utterly stonkingly great.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Hunt down the sequel, <I>Lavondyss</I> as well. Incredible book. The other sequels are kinda meh, but Lavondyss is utterly utterly stonkingly great.

Excellent. I will look for that too, then! Thank you for the recommendation.

 

[Arcadayn]

Vincent,

Great interview and very valid points. Like yourself (and MANY others), I was introduced to Conan through the De Camp rapes. Of course, being 11 I didn't know any different. I guess to look at it from a glass half full perspective, the Ace books at least served to introduce a generation to Howard.

I'm really chomping at the bit for the release of Stygia and Shem! One of my PCs has aspirations to unite Shem and carve out his own kingdom. Unfortunately, through the events of Dark Dens of Iniquity, he and the group have majorly pissed off the priesthoods of both Derketo and Set. :twisted:

 

[Supplement Four]

Bumped for the interview and thread discussion on Vincent's interview.

I agree with the opening of the interview--it's not so much the quantity of Conan material that Vincent has produced, it's the level of quality that has been maintained over that vast amount.

 

[Malcadon]

WOW, its good to see that page is still alive and kicking. The last time I checked, the link was dead.

I have always enjoyed the interview, and I find it really insightful. On top of being an exceptional scholar of Howard's, his is apparently someone's evil twin. :wink:

 

[Phobos]

I got the same pov of Vincent about pastiches and roy thomas adaptations. I never felt "trickery" when i read Thomas Marvel stories, and I can´t say that for SPrague and Lin Carter Conan books. Robert Jordan also bored me a lot, too many "other side of the coin" and too little story.

 

[Supplement Four]

I like Jordan. He doesn't write a "Howard" Conan, but he does write a fun, heroic, good-guy Conan.

I like de Camp and Carter, too. There's only two or three of the pastiche authors I don't like. Steve Perry. Roland Green. Those two come to mind. They're awful. And, Leonard Carpenter--although not as bad as Perry or Green, the guy just bores me to tears with his writing.

Most other pastiche writers, though, I've enjoyed their stories. Even Turtledove's Venarium, with all its flaws, is a pretty good read, in my opinion.

I think the key in reading a pastiche is to accept that it won't be Howard. It will be something else.

I also enjoy reading different versions of stories, like Turtledove's description of the events leading up to Venarium, then the Dark Horse adaptation. Or how the Howard story fragments are "finished" in different ways. I think that stuff is "cool".

I look it like I'm reading myth. Like Conan was a real person from a real age in our history, but it was so long ago that the facts sometime contradict.

That's how I'm able to enjoy a book like Conan The Bold or Conan of Venarium. Both books are good reads--but the events in them contradict with established Conan lore.

I've accepted that Conan is written by different writers, all with different takes on the material. That acceptance allows me to enjoy the multiple points of view.

 

[Phobos]

In fact, I hate Andrew Offut and his Sword of Skelos. Finalist for the most boring (¿Boring!?) Conan story ever written...

 

[Supplement Four]

In fact, I hate Andrew Offut and his Sword of Skelos. Finalist for the most boring (¿Boring!?) Conan story ever written...

I'm on the opposite end. I liked Offut's trilogy. I think Offut's writing is closer to Howard's than Jordan's.

I like Jordan's writing better, but Jordan doesn't have the grit that Offut brings to the table. I mean, c'mon, Offut tells us of Conan taking a woman on the desert, almost against her will, as his friend's blood sinks into the sand. The scene reminds me of parts of The Frost Giant's Daughter and the beginning of Red Nails.