Barbarian Fiction, Movies, Comics, &c....

Cafe Society
1

I just finished reading the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian collection and for some reason (adolescent fantasies, homoeroticism, wishful thinking) have been obsessed with barbarian fiction. I’m working through the Conan reissues, waiting for the new series, watching every barbarian movie I can find.

But having a hard time with any fiction. I refuse to read any of the Conan pastiche novels, but can’t find anything else in that vein (as much as I like Lieber, I’m trying to stay away from the more high-fantasy stuff, but then again, Conan was pretty high fantasy…).

Any suggestions? I’m afraid I’ll be reduced to reading GOR…

2

Karl Edward Wagner’s “Kane” series is good. Its just been re-released in two volumes,
The Midnight Sun and Gods in Darkness .

3

You should watch The Warrior and the Sorceress. Not because it stars David Carradine, who looks pretty darned down on his luck; not because of the plot, which is pretty lame; but because the leading lady, Maria Socas, appears topless throughout. And and and wowser, mister, it’s a sight for sore eyes, let me tell you.

Have you considered Howard’s Solomon Kane series? Kane is a Puritan adventurer who has all sorts of eerie adventures. I liked Kane far better than Conan; the character was more original. Kane was also the star of some comics put out by Marvel, the titles of which I forget. (Big help, eh?)

4

I used to enjoy the Tros of Samothrace series. Older but still sword and sandal stuff. I liked em better than Burroughs’ Mars stories.

Frankly, no one is as good as Robert E. Howard for this sort of thing.

But if worse comes to worse, man, onver on my thread about John Norman, there are some recommendation by people who have actually read the Gor novels about which ones in the series are the strongest adventure stories. I’m sure we all hope it doesn’t come to that, but it’s nice to know that if things get desperate … well, there you are.

5

There’s the new Disney cartoon series Dave the Barbarian, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for. It’s a good show, though.

6

Since you mention comics in your OP title, you should know that Dark Horse Comics is currently doing a lot with the license. There’s a new ongoing series written by Kurt Busiek (Astro City, Marvels, Thunderbolts, etc.) and the company is also reprinting the 1970’s Marvel Conan tales by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith in a set of TPB’s. I haven’t read either of these series, but I know they’re much beloved.

–Cliffy

7

First, if you like Howard, read more Howard. His stuff hasa been published by various paperback houses since the 1960s. Besides Conan, there’s the King Kull series (about one book’s worth), the Solomon Kane series (three paperbacks by TimeLost Press, later condensed to one by another paperback publisher), the Bran Mak Morn series (published by two different presses that I know of), the novel Almuric, and a series of collections of short stories (Wolfshead, The Dark Man and Others, Skull-Face and Others, etc. etc.)

Lancer published one or more collections of “Barbarian” stories back in the 1960s. Fritz Leiber you mentioned, but there’s also Philip Jose Farmer’s Hadon of Ancient Opar, Lin Carter wrote a series, L. Sprague deCamp wrote a lot of Conan stories for the Lancer/Sphere/Ace series (I think he’s the best of the lot of Howard imitators/pastiches/completers).

More recently there’s the Chicks in Chainmail series of anthologies.

8

Todd McFarlane’s toy company just obtained the Conan license, so they are planning a series of highly-detailed Conan action figures later this year, if you’re into that sort of thing. McFarlane Toys are aimed at adult collectors: they are usually neat-looking little statues that sell for around $10 each, but they don’t have much articulation or “play value.”

9

You might enjoy some of David Gemmell’s books. Particularly the books featuring Druss in the Drenai series.

You can get an idea for them and even read sample chapters at the Random House website… here

10

I echo the remarks of EvilCaptor and Cal Meacham. If you like Conan, you should love Solomon Kane and King Kull.

I would also nominate Poul Anderson’s novel The Broken Sword and his novelette “The Peat Bog.”

11

Another good Howard read (with Andrew Offutt following up for a few books) is Cormac Mac Art, about a 6th Century AD Irish reaver and his Norse buddy bumming around Europe getting into one scrape after another.

12

Tanith Lee wrote a swords & sorcery trilogy: The Birthgrave, Vazkor son of Vazkor & Quest for the White Witch. Includes some female mighty warriors.

It’s been a very long time since I read this, but it may be time for a re-read. Very different from most of the work of the wonderful Ms. Lee but I seem to remember that it was excellent in its way.

And you mention Leiber–I do hope this means you already own the entire adventures of Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser. Faf is, indeed, the thinking woman’s barbarian.

13

Meet the REAL Barbarians!

Go Goth–Old School Style!

Hello My Baby! Hello My HUN-ee!

OH NO! There goes To-ky-o! Go-Go Atilla!

But the nastiest of them all were the Mongols!

14

Not to forget the comic book series Groo the Wanderer!

15

Hello,

Thanks for the recommendations!

I was at the bookstore last night looking for some of these titles.

Gemmel: Read a couple of the sample chapters. Didn’t really like them.

Mundy: I found one of his other books (OM…), may pick it up after I get done with:

Farmer: I found Hadoth, looks pretty cool. Picked it up and will start it this weekend probably.

Wagner: Definitely high-concept (and not a stupid one at that) and the library has a copy. Will pick one up when I’m there next.

Conan: Next week man, the comic comes out. Busiek is a complete hack writer, but the art is damn cool. I worked my way through the Dark Horse reissues (I had ordered Marvel’s ESSENTIAL CONAN, but the store I ordered it from took at least six months without getting it and still managed to go out of business (what genius thought that opening a comic book store on the same block as another opening that same month would be a good idea? Not only that, but opening it two blocks down from the most venerable [if not best] comic store in Chicago? Seriously. Magic cards alone don’t a profit make any more) - I would have perferred that, because 1) the DH editions are expensive 2) whatever idiots they got coloring them really ruined BWS already crappy artwork. Fortunarely Vol. 3 picked things up a bit (BWS’ sudden leap in artistic talent to the guy we know and love didn’t hurt either), but if you ask me, Buscema had him beat by a mile.

Lieber: I really liked his Lankhmar stories in high school, making my way through two volumes of the White Wolf collections. The first thing I did after finishing the Conan compilation was head over to the book store to pick up Vol. 3, but apparently the publisher decided to repackage and renumber the series, and I couldn’t remember what stories I had read and which ones I didn’t (for some reason, I remember STARDOCK as being my favorite). I liked Lieber a lot back then, probably not as much as I like Conan now, but thought it was great that every story, these two dopes got the loot and promptly lost/spent it before the next story.

Anderson: Didn’t find the books mentioned, but saw a compilation of stories about the Knights Templar that was…interesting?

Lee: I recall hearing good things about her, but couldn’t find anything by her.

Groo: Man, Chicago Comics didn’t have anything. Nice enough place, but trying to get something ordered is like pulling teeth, so I’ve given up.

Sprague: Eh, tried it before, I think, and didn’t like.

Other Howard: I will definitely check this out. Solomon Kane is another one of those high-concept things that sounds interesting. The company that released the newest Conan compendium will release the entirety of the Kane stories in June, so I’ll wait for that. In the mean time, I’ll try to dig up the Cormac and Bran stories…

Looking through the Anderson/Farmer et. al. bibliographies, I was completely unaware that there was so much…“pastiching” going on. It seemed like each of these guys (and dozens of other writers besides) had to write a certain number of these stories or else…they wouldn’t have any credibility? Lost dozens of sales? Inflicted high-concept mush on an irredemably low-brow property? At any rate, during my research, I noticed that there’s such a great dislike of the “pastiche” novels (Conan’s at any rate), but no one seems to have figured out what the major problem is: Conan was written as a collection of short stories that were relatively loosely connected, while the pastiche novels are all 2-400 page long novels. Conan was never designed to go that long, so he could make his stories more intense without losing any of the impact.

Anyway, if anyone’s interested, here’s some other minor stuff I found:

SLAINE THE KING: Reprint of a Celtic-based series from HEAVY METAL. Apparently there is at least one volume before this and three after, but Glenn Fabry takes over the art halfway through this and really screws it up. The first half is pretty interesting (it’s got that certain HEAVY METAL bent to it that makes it more interesting) and …McMahon’s art (forget his first name) is phenomenal.

AXE OF THE MINOTAUR: Not so much a story as a collection of pinups with some text thrown in to justify why this guy spent so much time drawing a dude with a bucket on his head and leopard-print loincloth. The art is actually quite nice, if a bit too much in the Manowar/Boris Vallejo vein for originality’s sake, but the company, Hoffman Entertainment has a huge catalogue of barbarian comics as well as some Russ Meyer-looking stuff (including THOR: THE ROCK GOD which was apparently written and/or drawn by Jon Mikl-Thor).