There are also at least two parodies before Conan became big business. One novel, “Mention My Name in Atlantis” by John Jakes, Daw #25, 1972, where Conax the Barbarian visits the soon to be lost continent, and a short story, “The Barbarian” by Poul Anderson, from the late '50s F&SF, where we see how the more cultured palace residents see Conan.
I’ve got that one, but I’d argue that Conan was already Big Business by then. The Marvel Comic had been running for two years. Savage Tales had come out, died, and come out again, and the Lancer Paperback Conans had been coming out for over six years (with other publishers hopping on the bandwagon – Ace had published Almuric Twice, Dell had published Bran Mac Morn, and Centaur had put out three Solomon Kane vlumes – all of them touting By the Author of Conan! on the covers) The only thing that hadm’t happened yet were the movies.
I was recently sent several boxes of books from my youth and those included Conan paperbacks up through #12 and also (to reference an earlier post) the Fafhrd/Gray Mouser series. The Conan is holding up better than I expected - I’m about halfway through them and am greatly enjoying them…in particular Conan is a little less “superhero” than I recalled, and does need a fair amount of luck to get out of some scrapes. As for whimsy/humor, I’m not seeing much of it so far.
The Fafhrd/Mouser isn’t holding up so well. Too much of the dialogue is in the clever-70s-banter vein (think Zelazny, only a lot more of it), and so far the plots/action could be boiled down to about 10 pages per story. Not terrible, but Lankmar doesn’t hold the attraction for me that it once did.
The Fafhrd/Noogan, however, remains a hit.
Where’s that thumbs-up emoticon when you need it? 