S&Sword - Suggested Reading Questions

[Zak Arntson]

Okay, I hit the used bookstore again ... and I've got some questions on these books, which I'm hoping Ron (or someone) will be able to answer.

Farewell to Lankhmar, by Fritz Leiber. This thing looks great, though when I read the inside cover, several of the pieces are copyright by different authors and there's a statement:
The right of Fritz Leiber to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988
So is he really the author? And, more importantly, are these as good (and I understand that's a very subjective word) as the Ill Met in Lankhmar stories?

Conan the Advanturer by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp. I'm worried that these have been butchered. Only one story (Drums of Tobalku claims to have been rough expanded by de Camp. Can I trust this?

Conan, The Treasure of Tranicos by Robert E. Howard. While the book claims it's "Authentic! One of the rare original Robert E. Howard adventures!" The inside cover says it was revised by de Camp. What the hell does that mean? He monkeyed with the text?

Finally, Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner. I'm just super excited about this one because his Dark Crusade was amazing, and even his Conan, Road of Kings was pretty good (far better than what I was expecting for a non-Howard Conan book).

One more note: I've seen two Conan anthologies for sale at Amazon, they're called the Conan Chronicles: The People of the Black Circle and The Hour of the Dragon. Does anyone know if these are the untouched Howard books? I'm wary of the ad copy (since one of my paperback boasts authenticity on the cover, but admits to revision on the insider).

Looking forward to playing S&Sword someday, but still happy to have this great reading list to attack bookstores with ...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Zak,

You're doing well to be suspicious.

I suspect that Farewell to Lankhmar is a fine example of fanboy-enthusiasm, and since I didn't even like Swords and Ice Magic much (which was written by Leiber), I bet I'm too much of a purist to be optimistic about this one.

Conan the Advanturer by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp. I'm worried that these have been butchered. Only one story (Drums of Tobalku claims to have been rough expanded by de Camp. Can I trust this?

Let's see, as I recall, that collection is pretty pure except for Tombalku, which I believe had its entire back end written by deCamp - in other words, Howard wrote the first half, then deCamp came and did who-knows-what to the existing text and wrote the second half. Considering that it's an incredibly lousy story, I'm not surprised … deCamp and Carter seem oblivious to the fact that sometimes an author doesn't finish a story for a reason.

The other stories in there probably got their semicolons or weapons descriptions changed here and there, but aren't otherwise messed with. (Let me think - it has Pool of the Black One, People of the Black Circle, The Slithering Shadow, right? Any others?) As usual, ignore all those stupid "intro continuity" paragraphs between the stories.

As for The Treasure of Tranicos, here's where my teeth gnash. The real scoop is this: Howard wrote and published a story called The Black Stranger, which according to deCamp and Carter was just too many titles with "Black" in them, so they changed the title. Fine and good, and I wrote it off as just a second-tier Howard story until Karl Edward Wagner put out his Echoes of Valor collections, which are defined by using the original texts, completely untrammeled.

Boy are those enlightening. The version of Adept's Gambit in the Lancer paperbacks (Swords in the Mist), for instance, cuts out two sentences in the story in which Fafhrd and the Mouser clash physically during the course of an argument. But back to the Black Stranger … I was amazed to discover that Conan, in the Echoes version, plays a much more intelligent, much more manipulative role in the outcome of the story. Whole sentences of dialogue and whole author-observations on those sentences are simply missing from Tranicos! In other words, deCamp liked the idea of Conan as a kind of "wander in, wander out, grunt and hack" character, and so he figured, "Howard couldn't really have meant him to be this smart," and went snip snip.

Ah, good - you have Bloodstone. I think it's probably the single strongest Kane story, although perhaps not quite as out-and-out wonderfully drug-addled as Dark Crusade and some of the stories in Night Winds.

As for the Conan Chronicles, I'm not sure. Sean Wipfli's done a lot of hunting for untrammeled Howard, and he tells me there are a lot of good new collections out, so maybe if you email him, he'll update you.

Best,
Ron

[Robert Leal]

Zak-

You're in for a treat on Bloodstone.  I just finished it (picked it up at a used book store in Florida a couple weeks back).  About halfway through, I remembered what got me into "fantasy" fiction in the first place; it had the same sort of rush as the early Elric books.

Enjoy!

Rob

PS: On the same run, I picked up a copy of Nifft the Lean.  I have some stuff to read for work first, but I can't wait to get to it.

[jburneko]

One more note: I've seen two Conan anthologies for sale at Amazon, they're called the Conan Chronicles: The People of the Black Circle and The Hour of the Dragon. Does anyone know if these are the untouched Howard books?

I own these two books and like you I looked over them very carefully.  I'm fairly certain that the stories are completely untouched.  The one thing that's odd about them is that they're organized into 'chronological order', although, they don't contain any intro continuity paragraphs.

I went through the copywrite page and several internet sites and numbered the stories in order of publication.  The first Conan story written is actually like the 5th story in the second volume.  Then, I went through and compared the story names to the tiers that Ron suggests in Sorcerer and Sword.  Next to the first tier stories I put an R+.  Next to the second tier stories I put an R.  Third tier stories have nothing.  Finally, I put an * next to any story that was published post-humously.  I was surprised to find that a couple R+s were published post humously, such as The Frost Giant's Daughter.  Oh, and ALL the stories Ron mentions in Sorcerer & Sword can be found in those two volumes.

Basically, I've been reading the stories in the order they were written and on the first pass reading only R+ stories.  I will go back and read the R stories next.  And so on...

Oh and while we're on the subject does anyone have any opinions on the two Fafhard(sp?) and Grey Mouser collections put out by White Wolf?  I beileve the titles are Lankmar (sp?) and Thieves House.

Jesse

[joshua neff]

The two White Wolf Fafhrd & Grey Mouser books are some of the best fantasy fiction I've ever read. Poetic, thrilling, witty--really, really good stuff. I wholeheartedly recommend them.

And thanks for the heads up on the Conan books. They're on my Amazon wish list, & it looks like it's good that they are.

[Ron Edwards]

Josh, please clarify - do the White Wolf collections contain the original, older stories? Given the title of Thieves' House, and what little I can glean from the on-line Amazon ad copy, that's my impression.

Best,
Ron

[joshua neff]

To be honest, I'm not all that sure about the original stories, as such--I had a paperback of the first Nerewhon stories ("first" as in as they take place chronilogically, not "first" as in when they came out) back in middle school, but that's long lost. As far as I know, White Wolf was committed to releasing the stories without any revisions (unless they were by the author, as I think Moorcock may have revised some of his Eternal Champion stories when White Wolf released them). I don't have the books in front of me (I'm on vacation), but I don't recall seeing any notes about revisions, & certainly not by any other authors besides Leiber if there were.

I'm checking Amazon right now & they have a table of contents listing for the first volume, Lankhmar ("The Snow Women", "The Unholy Grail", "Ill Met in Lankhmar", "The Circle Curse", & "The Jewels in the Forest"), but not the second volume, Thieves' House