Jewels of Gwahlur was first published in Weird Tales magazine in March 1935, coming three months A Witch Shall Be Born. It is the fourteenth published story in the Conan canon.
This tale has been republished under the names The Teeth of Gwahlur and The Servants of Bit-Yakin.
Spoilers below.
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I still like the New Warriors.
I am old enough to be the grandfather of any of those characters now, but I still like comic books, because, let’s be honest, if my taste in entertainment grew in sobriety, deepened in wisdom, or rose to the height of discriminating good taste, would I write Space Operas about Space Princesses? I say thee ‘nay.’
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A Witch Shall Be Born was first published in Weird Tales magazine in December of 1934, coming one month after the final installment of People of the Black Circle. It is the thirteenth published story in the Conan canon.
It is also, alas, one of the weaker and more forgettable Conan stories to spring from the masterful pen of Robert E. Howard, but, ironically, it contains one of the strongest and most memorable Conan scenes.
I have no doubt that every fan of Conan already knows which scene I mean. Since it is, perhaps, the best Conan scene ever, it was lifted wholly from the story and placed into the John Milius’ 1982 film CONAN THE BARBARIAN.
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Jagi, here.
Some of you may have heard, but Superversive Press–the publishing company that was publishing John’s more recent books and some of his older ones–has shut down. This means that any links you have for John’s new books are no longer any good.
The non-fiction and possibly, in the future, some fiction collections, are now posted on Amazon directly by us.
My latest novel ‘THE LAST STRAW’ is an analysis, criticism, and screed against the second film in the Disney Star Wars trilogy, THE LAST JEDI, uttered with all the disappointed outrage of an offended fanboy, adorned by the wickedly poisoned pen of an editorial opinion-writer, but composed with the cold, critical eye of a professional storyteller.
The Hidden Truth by Hans Schantz is part alternate history, part coming-of-age story, and part techno-thriller, peppered with wry observations about the nature of people, politics and power as seen through the eyes of a youth learning a hard lesson about the evils men hide.
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The People of the Black Circle was published first published in Weird Tales magazine in three parts over the September, October and November 1934 issues. It is the twelfth published story in the Conan canon.
The first installment appeared one month after Devil in Iron, the previous story. Readers during the fall of 1934 enjoyed a continual diet of Conan yarns.
This is also the first novel-length outing for Conan, and one of Howard’s better efforts (albeit even his worst are better than many a man’s best).
There are sorcerers aplenty among the unearthly menaces in various Conan tales up until now: Thoth-amon in Phoenix on the Sword, Tsotha in The Scarlet Citadel, Yara in Tower of the Elephant, Thugra Khotan in The Black Colossus: but here Conan invades the Black Seers of Yimsha, who are the Roke or the Hogwarts of the Hyborian Age.
He therefore runs afoul not of one warlock or necromancer, but of a whole organization of students and masters of the Dark Arts, and he storms their eerie haunted fortress behind its moat of venomous mists at the climax.
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“For every beast and for every man there is a trap he will not escape”
The Devil in Iron was published in the August 1934 issue of Weird Tales, several months after the previous story, Queen of the Black Coast. It is the eleventh published story in the Conan canon.
We have reached the halfway mark of the published Conan stories completed by Robert E. Howard.
Howard here recycles elements of his own previous stories – there is a magic blade as in Phoenix on the Sword, the sole bane of an otherwise invulnerable eldritch monster, who is a resurrected necromancer as in The Black Colossus. He resurrects his ancient capital: a haunted city of greenish stone existing without fields or pastures, inhabited by dream-addled sleepwalkers as seen in Xuthal of the Dusk; he is a metal statue raised in grim mockery of life as in Iron Shadows in the Moon.
Conan sees the eldritch backstory of the foe in a convenient vision, as he likewise did in Queen of the Black Coast; and Conan’s sole motive here is neither loot, revenge, or love of adventure, but the raw lascivious lust as was on display in Frost Giant’s Daughter.
One assumes barbarians prefer blondes.
In previous Conan tales, I have complimented Howard’s lyricism, his well knit plots, his adroit use of narrative structure. Here, the evidence of his talent is muted. This reads more like one of the pastiches or homages of Conan by later writers.
While enjoyable, it is, frankly, not one of Robert E Howard’s better efforts.
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Spoilers for the movie ENDGAME below the cut. Go see the flick first.
This review is in two parts. A spoiler-free review is above the cut, and the spoilers are below.
I saw AVENGER’S ENDGAME. I recommend this film in the strongest possible terms. It is, if I may, a marvel of a movie. I praise, laud, and magnify this movie with an infatuated delirium.
I am awestruck.
For better or worse, it is entertaining if sadistic to write about bad movies, because the endless groaning, griping, and nitpicking is endlessly amusing. But there is little to say about a good movie, because when all parts are in proportion, and the film elevates the audience into a clearer insight into the human condition, and it does it job so well, like the work done my angels, it is often unseen: you need repeated re-viewings to absorb the nuances or to see all the frenetic action.
There is even less to say about a great movie, because the discreet reviewer urgently wants not to spoil any surprises or plot twists, or ruin any jokes by any forewarning. Even to say whether the heroes win or lose is too much information in a film like this.
This movie was more than great, so I am left with almost nothing to say to those who have not yet seen it.
It is a privilege for which enough thanks cannot be tendered that a lifelong fan of science fiction, fantasy, and superhero comics like me just so happens to live in generation when the entertainment industry expended unparalleled effort, fortune, and genius to bring to the big screen SFF and genre works that will never be matched again.
Specifically, I mean the years between George Lucus’ STAR WARS (1977), Bruce Timm’s venture into the DC Animated Universe (1992-2004) up until AVENGERS ENDGAME (2019).
ENDGAME is a fitting finish and finale to Hollywood’s fling with genre fiction.
I say it is the finish not because Hollywood plans not to make more superhero and science fiction films in years to come. They certainly have such plans.
My sad but certain prediction is that more SFF films and MCU films will be made, but they will be rotten.
We have seen the corruption and downfall of DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK, and STAR WARS. Political Correctness has replaced story telling. The rot spread to once-beloved children’s cartoons as long ago as LEGEND OF KORRA. The print industry of DC and Marvel is so firmly in the hands of the virtue-signalling loons that no one need be tempted to spend even a dime on their work.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, up until CAPTAIN MARVEL, resisted the pressure from the forces of Political Correctness. But like the first snowflake of late autumn, in this film there is the cold hint of the coming darkness. It is not even a scene, merely one line here, one shot there. But even the first, smallest symptom of an incurable plague is dispositive. Future MCU films will be unwatchable garbage.
But not this movie. One line here, one shot there, is not enough to detract from the exultation of wonder, the joys and sorrows, the happy endings and tragic sacrifices that is the culmination of so many years of big-budget record-breaking blockbuster film-making.
I am awestruck because never has there been such a sustained and uninterrupted effort of interconnecting so many movies over so many years into one coherent triumph of story telling.
Can I recommend this film to everyone? Certainly not.
I know there are those who regard superhero tales as shallow, on the ground that the invulnerable super-people can neither suffer nor grow. Such opinions are incomprehensible given everything done since Alexander Suskind’s SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, and can only be the product of a soul unable to form a sympathy with persons from a world more wierd and fantastic than our own.
There are folk with a terminal case of “the muggles.” They must pass this film by.
There are those who never saw or cannot recall the events of the previous score and a half films set in this shared background. They will be baffled and lost by the large cast of characters.
Certainly the film is not to be seen by anyone who has not seen the first half of this story INFINITY WARS. You do not walk into Shakespeare’s HAMLET halfway through Act III and expect to follow what it going on, or start reading Tolkien’s trilogy with RETURN OF THE KING.
Everyone else should do see it. Multiple times.
The only spoiler I will deliberately say is no spoiler at all, but a head’s-up. There is no after-credits scene or Easter eggs waiting once the end music starts. There is no set up for any further projects hidden in an afterword.
WARNING! Spoilers below the cut.
I saw this movie with no preconceptions whatsoever, not even the slightest hint of what was coming up, and no speculations but my own. My enjoyment would have been diminished sharply by any foreknowledge. I strongly suggest, nay, I beg, that no one who has not seen the film read below the cut.
This discussion is only for those who have seen the film.
NO PEEKING, PLEASE!!
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In May of 1934, Robert E Howard’s Queen of the Black Coast was published in Weird Tales. This column is the second to review the story. The first part is here.
Many a fan, this one included, calls Queen of the Black Coast the finest of the Conan stories, in part because of its legendary scope, in part because of its lurid romance, it passages of lyrical poetry, its vivid and bloody battle-scenes, the sense of mystery and adventure, the chilling eldritch visions of ancient eons and shades of the dead, the Viking funeral at the end.
The writing excels on three levels: first, striking characterization gives life to an intimate and tragic romance; second, lyrical world-building conjures a vision of a lost age, cruel but not without its savage beauties; third, a deep and even grim theme dignifies what would otherwise be a mere boy’s adventure tale with adumbration of deep time and an almost Norse melancholy touching the brevity of life, the indifference of the gods.
Let us look at each in turn.
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Believe green buds awaken in the spring,
That autumn paints the leaves with somber fire;
Believe I held my heart inviolate
To lavish on one man my hot desire.
The Song of Belît
Queen of the Black Coast was published in the May, 1934, issue of Weird Tales, one month after the previous story, Iron Shadows in the Moon. It is the tenth published story in the Conan canon.
The tale cannot be discussed without spoilers, so be warned.
This should be the introductory tale to any curious but uninitiated reader: it is the best to date.
The passions are deeper and richer than a mere adventure story, the prose both in dry humor and dark pathos is some of Howard’s best, the supernatural horror strikes grimly close to Conan’s heart, and the whole as a legendary feel to it, from the madcap flight on horseback in the opening scene, to the viking funeral at the close.
Here, for the first time, Conan meets a woman as fierce, wild, bold and free as himself. She is his equal and more.
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Iron Shadows in the Moon was published in the April, 1934, issue of Weird Tales as Shadows in the Moonlight. It is the ninth published story in the Conan canon.
From the hints of internal chronology, this is roughly halfway through the mighty barbarian’s career, halfway between his adventure of his earliest years, Frost Giant’s Daughter, and The Scarlet Citadel, of his latest.
In this story, Conan is between jobs as a freelance mercenary and a freebooter pirate, and is introduced into the scene as a man bent on hideous vengeance, wild and untamed as a wounded man-eating tiger.
It is really Conan at his best.
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Frost Giant’s Daughter is not the name of the eighth story published in the Conan canon of Robert E Howard’s Hyborian Age tales, but it belongs in eighth place in a complete list, if it belongs anywhere. A word of explanation is in order.
This was originally a Conan story, and, based on the internal chronology, his first adventure, when he was still a barbarian wanderer and warrior among the northern tribes. Farnsworth Wright, the editor of Weird Tales, rejected it. Thrifty as all writers must be, Howard renamed the main character “Amra of Akbitana” retitled it Gods of the North, and under that name published it in the March 1934 issue of The Fantasy Fan. In its original form as a Conan yarn it was not published in Howard’s brief lifetime.
I regret to say that Farnsworth Wright’s decision is a defensible one: this story is below Robert E Howard’s expected level. Were one to read it with the name of the author hidden, it would not be recognized as his work.
Howard’s Conan stories are known and famed for driving, nonstop plots, memorable characters, for vivid descriptions of dramatic action sequences, for the portrayal of raw savagery (and its concomitant superiority to the corruption and softness of civilization), for exotic locales, eldritch horrors, memorable prose. Here, each element was muted, or missing.
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Below is a list of reviews of the canonical and complete Robert E Howard Conan stories, including Red Nails, the last one published in his lifetime. As time permits, the list grows and the links will become active.
The list is chronological and includes essays on Conan, and links to online sites where the originals are in the public domain.
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