# Remembering the author of "Conan the Barbarian"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 13, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560 "2006-06-13T12:58:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/1 "2006-06-13T12:58:04Z")
Get yourself down to Texas, posthaste…
[http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/06/12/books.conanthebarbarian.ap/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/06/12/books.conanthebarbarian.ap/index.html)
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/2 "2006-06-13T13:06:32Z")
His adventure & fantasy stories are a favorite of mine.
But don’t overlook his humerous Westerns, either!
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/3 "2006-06-13T13:09:10Z")
It wasn’t just Conan he wrote. I’ve got a shelf full of his works, and finally got around to reading one of his Breckenridge Elkins stories a couple of months ago. (Imagine Conan as a Texan with an offbeat sense of humor). Solomon Kane, Kull, other adventurers, and Lovecraftian horror-fantasy. nteresting stuff. And he did it all before the age of thirty.
They made a movie about him, **The Whole Wide World** , which I have yet to see:
> **[The Whole Wide World (1996) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118163/)**
>
> The Whole Wide World: Directed by Dan Ireland. With Vincent D'Onofrio, Renée Zellweger, Ann Wedgeworth, Harve Presnell. In 1933 Texas, a schoolteacher and aspiring writer meets a pulp fiction writer, and a relationship soon develops between the two,...
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/4 "2006-06-13T13:41:44Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> They made a movie about him, **The Whole Wide World** ,
The ending surprised Mrs. Plant, despite my telling her about Howard several times.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/5 "2006-06-13T13:48:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> It wasn’t just Conan he wrote. I’ve got a shelf full of his works, and finally got around to reading one of his Breckenridge Elkins stories a couple of months ago. (Imagine Conan as a Texan with an offbeat sense of humor).
Here’s a collection of Howard’s humorous Westerns.
> **[The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales (The Works of Robert E. Howard):...](https://www.amazon.com/Bucksnort-Other-Western-Robert-Howard/dp/0803273541)**
>
> The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales (The Works of Robert E. Howard) \[Howard, Robert E., Gentzel, David, Gentzel, David\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales (The Works of Robert...
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/6 "2006-06-13T17:45:55Z")
Dang, now I’ve got to go to 2 places, Cross Plains and Portmeirion Hotel, in North Wales.
I love his stories as much as I love Tolkien. I didn’t know he wrote westerns, thanks for the tip!
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/7 "2006-06-13T17:55:46Z")
Frontier and Pirate stories that were edited by REH and others to feature Conan as the protagonist.
Was it _Black Vulmea’s Vengeance_ that is available as a pirate story and a Conan tale?
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/8 "2006-06-13T17:59:59Z")
Somewhere in storage I have a 1974 anthology of humorous SF stories, _Cosmic Laughter_ – including a hilarious Conan parody, “The Black Sorceror of the Black Castle,” by Andrew J. Offut. Look it up if you get a chance, it’s worth it. Especially the glossary at the end.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/9 "2006-06-13T18:02:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Frontier and Pirate stories that were edited by REH and others to feature Conan as the protagonist.
While it’s true that others did indeed re-edit some of Howard’s stories to make them Conan stories, I don’t think they did it to any of his westerns. (I’m not familiar with any non-Belit pirate stories). And, aside from one King Kull story that he rewrote into a Conan story, I don’t recal howard himself doing this. It was mainly for the deCamp/Carter Conan series, well after REH’s death.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/10 "2006-06-13T18:26:54Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I don’t think they did it to any of his westerns.
There’s a frontier story where Conan and a young guy save the settlers from a Pict (Indian) uprising. There is a dog who dies with the young guy. I think Howard did that one. The Giant Chimmerian is wearing buckskins. 🙂
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/11 "2006-06-13T18:31:11Z")
Which King Kull was changed to Conan?
The one where King Conan has to wage war to regain his kingdom seems like Kull, particularly where a citizen uses his own death to trick the bad guy.
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/12 "2006-06-13T19:12:40Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> The ending surprised Mrs. Plant, despite my telling her about Howard several times.
My father mentioned the movie and I said I planned to see it, and “don’t tell me anything about it”. So he says "Well, his mother dies and he commits suicide."I thought, you asshole, what part of don’t tell me anything about it confused you. Granted, he may have thought I knew his life story but I didn’t and I prefer to not know much about movies going in. :mad:
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/13 "2006-06-13T20:50:29Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> There’s a frontier story where Conan and a young guy save the settlers from a Pict (Indian) uprising. There is a dog who dies with the young guy. I think Howard did that one. The Giant Chimmerian is wearing buckskins. 🙂
“Beyond the Black River”. The kid was named Balthus, the dog was Slasher.
“He was a man. I drink to his shade, and to the shade of the dog, who knew no fear. The heads of ten Picts shall pay for his, and seven heads for the dog.”
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/14 "2006-06-13T21:09:16Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#):
>
> “The heads of ten Picts shall pay for his, and seven heads for the dog.”
Cool.
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### Author:  [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2006, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/15 "2006-06-14T02:02:30Z")
It’s been done before.
\*Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And the Sniders squibed no more;
For the Bermans said
That a white man’s head
Must be paid for with heads five-score
There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Bermans shun;
And there is Subader Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.\*
Rudyard Kipling, _The Grave of the Hundred Head_
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2006, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/16 "2006-06-14T02:07:16Z")
So Kipling stole from REH, the cowardly swine.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/17 "2006-06-14T03:17:55Z")
Issue #28 of Dark Horse’s Conan comic has a beutiful Kurt Busiek story that’s a tribute to REH.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2006, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/18 "2006-06-14T03:30:05Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#):
>
> Issue #28 of Dark Horse’s Conan comic has a beutiful Kurt Busiek story that’s a tribute to REH.
Is that a current comic?
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### Author:  [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2006, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-the-author-of-conan-the-barbarian/360560/19 "2006-06-14T03:40:28Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> Is that a current comic?
Yes–that issue came out about three weeks ago.