Specifically, Robert E. Howard's books. Conan is his most widely-known character; there's also Kull, and Red Sonja, and Dennis Dorgan, Steve Costigan; historical fiction, fantasy, sword & sorcery.
Only thing I knew of Conan for a long time was the idiot comic books. Then, in 1978, friend and I went to the Fourth World Fantasy Convention. Very memorable for several things, two of them being the guest of honor- Fritz Leiber*- and what he read Saturday night. Robert E. Howard was a central feature of the con, and as part of that Leiber read the first Conan story, The Phoenix on the Sword.
Leiber was a, let's say 'imposing' guy: tall, slim, deep eyes, a mane of white hair, and a resonant voice. Saturday night he stood at the lectern and every light in the hall went out except for the two candelabra behind him and the reading lamp. And he began to read.
Ever listened to someone who has the gift? To me, it was like being in the story, and marvelous. Put a spell on me, it did.
And when we got back from the con, I started finding Howard's stuff and reading it. There was a bookstore I'd found that had a big section of half-price used paperbacks(which is where I discovered Leiber), and in the 70's that meant getting them for anywhere from $.25 to $.75, and I ate them as fast as I could. They're still on a shelf, every one I bought.
What brought this to mind is that the other day a friend mentioned seeing a movie based on another Howard character: Solomon Kane. I'd heard somewhere, sometime, that there was talk of a movie but I'd never known it was made. Having heard, I looked and today blew part of the budget on a disc. Which I'll probably try to watch tomorrow; Sunday at the latest.
And if they screwed it too badly, well, I'll put 'em on my list, I will.
*And if you don't know his work, why the hell not? Go look up Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Conjure Wife, or Gather, Darkness for a start.
Side note: the Howard stories were also what got me pissed off at L.
Sprague de Camp; editing the stories for new publication should NOT
involve changing the damn things, and he did. It ticked me off when I found out how he had, and I still am.
6 comments:
The Soloman Kane movie was ok. That's about the best I can say but I don't have a lot invested in Robert E. Howard's stuff or fantasy in general. A true fan probably will feel about it like I did with the film adaptation of Starship Troopers. The @#%$&@ guy that directed that needs to die screaming in pain. But ya know, that's just me.
Yeah, Paul Verhoeven.
"Write his name down. Now put a line through it."
He missed every one of the points of the novel. He missed the characterization and motivation of Sgt. Zim, among others, he couldn't imagine the powered armor so he left it out. He had no grasp of how small units train, so that had no versimilitude at all, and it was all just rushing around with less organization than a football scrimmage. It reminded me of the joke about the woman who said, "I cooked your *** recipe. Except I didn't have cous-cous, so I used rice, I didn't have chicken so I used pork, and I didn't have hoisin sauce, so I used BBQ sauce. But I'm telling everyone it's your recipe. There was less "based on" in that movie than there was in the "remake" of "The Italian Job."
I was going to gripe about de Kamp changing the story on reissue, but Khar40 mentioned what's his name.
There is supposed to be a Japanese anime version of Starship Troopers, but I can't seem to find it.
The Solomon Kane is really good but the end kinda sucks as it seems they ran out of money and good actors to finish it, the sorcerer whom he finally meets uses the line bwahahahahaha and that ruined it for me. The cast apart from that guy was excellent.
L. Sprague de Camp kept the Conan name active during the 1960's and 1970's, so I won't be too hard on him; if he hadn't, Howard might be close to forgotten at this point, and his books all out of print. Sprague de Camp wrote some fine Conan pastiches; some were simply Howard's El Borak stories moved to the Hyborian age. Howard never described all of Conan's life, and the de Camp pastiches filled in the gaps in a satisfactory way.
Do not get me started on the abortion they made of Starship Troopers. Son had recently read the book, and we were both excited about it; if I was pissed when we left the theater, he was nearly incandescent.
It's not the pastiches I minded; it's the editing on Howard stories themselves.
'Course, I was more of a purist on some things back then, but when I compared one of his edited stories to an original, it did set me off.
Then I ran into the originals edited by Karl Edward Wagner, who did nothing but clean up obvious spelling errors and such; much preferable.
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