What Conan Should I Read?

[sgstyrsky]

Other than the three volumes issued by Del Rey the past few years, which other Conan stories should I read?

There's a plethora of books out there, many I've heard are not very good. I'd love a reading guide from someone who has worked through the Carter, de Campe, Lancer, Acer, and more recent stuff.

Thanks.

 

[Spectator]

My favorite stories are "The Jewels of Gwahlur," "Red Nails," and "The Scarlet Citadel"
My favorite pastiche is "Conan the Valorous"
just my opinion dude.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Other than the three volumes issued by Del Rey the past few years, which other Conan stories should I read?

There's a plethora of books out there, many I've heard are not very good. I'd love a reading guide from someone who has worked through the Carter, de Campe, Lancer, Acer, and more recent stuff.

Thanks.

The new Return to the Road of Kings has a bibliography that might help.

Honestly, if you have read the Conan Howard stories, you should go on to other Howard material - you can get Conan inspiration even from his non-Conan stories (much of the material in the Hyboria's F series derives from Howard's non-Conan stories, including some of his boxing stories; some of the spells in Across the Thunder River come from the short story Black Canaan).

But if you insist on pastiche Conan... IMHO, while not the best, after Howard, you might choose:
Conan comics (Marvel or Dark Horse)
Conan the Swordsman
The God in the Moon
The Eye of Charon
The Silent Enemy
Conan the Avenger (watch out, this has a horrible deux ex machina ending)
Conan and the Sorcerer
Conan the Mercenary
Conan: The Sword of Skelos
Conan and the Spider God
Conan the Buccaneer
Conan of Aquilonia
Conan of the Isles
Conan and the Emerald Lotus

Avoid anything by Roland Green. Read Steve Perry only if you like your Conan to be very high fantasy, with lots of inhuman races populating the Hyborian age.

 

[Axerules]

Try this topic: The best non-Howard Conan works.


Happy new year everybody !

 

[DaveNC]

Most of the Conan pastiche is pretty bad. The stories by the late Robert Jordan are some of the better ones, in my opinion. All six stories were collected in "The Conan Chronicles" and "The Further Chronicles of Conan". Last I knew, you could get both books at Amazon for, like, $20. Again, they aren't anywhere near as good as Howard, but fun sword & sorcery stories starring a guy named "Conan".

Happy New Year!

 

[Strom]

As far as pastiche the others before me have provided you with plenty to read. Personally, I would read Kull next if I was done with Conan for 3 reasons:

1 It's more RE Howard - better than any pastiche

2. Kull's world is the prequel to the Hyborian Age and although the characters of Kull & Conan appear very similar (barbarian kings by their own hand), Kull is a distinctly original character. I love this description by Steve Tomkins:

Kull of high Atlantis. Kull, who will never be "of" Valusia no matter how long he rules the Land of Enchantment. Kull, cold-eyed but not hot-headed, a bull in an unimaginably ancient china shop. Kull, the thinking man's barbarian and the barbarian as thinking man, for whom surfaces of forbidden lakes and sorcerous mirrors are not barriers but invitations. Kull, who opens Pandora's boxes like birthday gifts. Kull, who returns the stare of Deep Time and dares the stair that leads up to perspectives high, chilly, and cosmic. The king who philosophizes with a broadsword and legislates with a battle -axe, the king who haunts us because he is himself so haunted. Kull, who is no mere way-station en route to Conan, but an unforgettable destination in his own right.

Steve Tompkins (2006) Introduction Kull -Exile of Atlantis, Del Rey

3. All the REH Kull stories are available in one affordable book - Kull- Exile of Atlantis.

Like Vincent posted, inspirational & usable for any Conan RPG plot. If you have read Kull, then you could read El Borak, Solomon Kane or Dark Agnes, to name a few. Roy Thomas used many REH non-Conan stories for his Conan plots in the Marvel comic Conan the Barbarian, often just adding a supernatural element if needed.

Have Fun and Happy New Year to everyone!

 

[Aholibamah]

I did a kind of intensive study of pastiche vs. original this year and there is definitely something missing in all the pastiches--it is mostly that the pastiches tend to present characters that are a little selfconscious whether in barbarism or decadence. Compare these to "Hawks over Shem", "Red Nails", "Black Colossus", "Across the Black River" and other favourites of mine and you can see that there is nothing like the originals to give you inspiration.

Having said that,Conan the Freebooter, Conan the Adventurer, Conan the Wanderer all contained Howard original stories (and a couple of pastiches in each, though of better quality than usual) and are probably available in used bookstores.

 

[sgstyrsky]

Thanks to everyone. I just ordered a ton of used books from abebooks dot com.

 

[Tim]

if you are looking for some good black kingdoms inspiration Try Imaro, its currently back in print in to books. Although not writin by Howard it has a good gritty spear against sorcery feel.

 

[Mythos]

If your looking for stories that still deal with aspects of the Hyborian Age, and are written bt REH, you might want to put the time into tracking down some of the James Allison stories.
Allison is a character, created by Howard, who has the ability to recall all of his past lives. The stories deal with him recalling his past incarnations at different times of the Hyborian Ages.

The most popular of the stories are;

Marchers of Valhalla

The Valley of the Worm

The Garden of Fear

The following were fragments and completed by other writers;

Black Eons

Brachen the Kelt

Genseric's Fifth-Born Son

The Guardian of the Idol

The Tower of Time

If your looking for some direct Conan pastiche, try getting "The Sagas of Conan".
It is a collection of the books "Conan the Swordsman", "Conan the Liberator", and, "Conan and the Spider-God". The first of these, "Conan the Swordsman", is a collection of short stories that round out some of the material thar first occured in the original Howard stories.

 

[sgstyrsky]

I remember reading some of those Allison stories years ago. They included some appearances of Cthulhu mythos tropes, didn't they?

Ebay here I come...

 

[GCC40]

If you are looking for Conan material to read, then anything about the moody cimmerian written by Howard is your first place to start.
I may be showing my age here, but there were two very prolific authors who wrote quite good Conan stories through the late 60's, right until the late 80's. These were Le Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter.

They were the first to attempt a chronolgy of the stories and contributed a lot of there own, based initially on Howards notes and outlines. Let google be your friend here.

As for comic books, I have found that the series by Kurt Busiek & Cary Nord to be excellent re-tellings of some classic stories, like "The Tower of the Elephant"

I also heard that the old monthly Marvels "Savage Sword" series is to be released as large graphic novels.

plenty of material to chew on

 

[Valarian]

Why not start here. If you enjoy those, then there are compilation books available on Amazon.

 

[Axerules]

I remember reading some of those Allison stories years ago. They included some appearances of Cthulhu mythos tropes, didn't they?

Ebay here I come...

REH's reincarnation yarns were greatly influenced by Jack London's Star-Rover. It's also about past lives, barbarians, "racial memories". He was one of his favorite authors. It's free on the web (Wiki, Gutenberg...).

 

[Strom]

I strongly urge all Conan and REH fans to support Robert E. Howard's books by purchasing them whenever you can. There is very little sword & sorcery available on the book store shelves/internet stores, and if we as fans don't support the authors & genres we prefer to read, then we all lose out in the end.

Just my 2 lunas.

 

[sgstyrsky]

I strongly urge all Conan and REH fans to support Robert E. Howard's books by purchasing them whenever you can. There is very little sword & sorcery available on the book store shelves/internet stores, and if we as fans don't support the authors & genres we prefer to read, then we all lose out in the end.

Done and done. I'm hoping the increased interest in REH's stories will also lead to a reprinting of some of the Carter, de Camp et al. stories. I hate having to hunt through ebay and Amazon listings trying to get all of them.

 

[Valarian]

I strongly urge all Conan and REH fans to support Robert E. Howard's books by purchasing them whenever you can.

I agree, and there's that nice leather look Centenary edition collection for £20. I hear the siren's call.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I agree, and there's that nice leather look Centenary edition collection for £20. I hear the siren's call.

Wheee, guess what I got in the mail yesterday. ^___^ Ordered it over two weeks ago, and it finally arrived. All the original Howard goodness for 20 Euros. (Original price £15 btw.)
Read the first three stories so far and they're grrrreat. I really love Howard's writing style. It's so dense and powerful, amazing.