342 replies to this topic

[Kortoso]

Yeah, that one, the big tamale.

This was written in 1935, if I am not mistaken, for Dennis Archer in the UK, as a serialized novel which instead was published by Weird Tales. Howard cannibalized some of his stories (Phoenix on the Sword, Scarlet Citadel) for this novel.

It is also a hero's journey. Read a summary of the typical Hero's Journey from Campbell's The Hero with 1000 Faces:

The hero is introduced in his ordinary world, where he receives the call to adventure. He is reluctant at first but is encouraged by the wise old man or woman to cross the first threshold, where he encounters tests and helpers. He reaches the innermost cave, where he endures the supreme ordeal. He seizes the sword or the treasure and is pursued on the road back to his world. He is resurrected and transformed by his experience. He returns to his ordinary world with a treasure, boon, or elixir to benefit his world.

We can discuss this novel, chapter by chapter if you like.

[timeless]

My gateway to Hyboria, and REH, and all of his worlds and heroes. Paid a dime for a used copy at a flea market, it opened up vistas for me. I like the line in 'The Whole Wide World' where Novalyn says she hasn't seen any giant snakes or big-breasted women walking around west Texas. And Bob responds..."Oh, but I have. You look more closely next time." When I read this story I saw it.

The two most vivid scenes to me are:

1) when Conan appeals to the rowing crew aboard the slave ship, inciting mutiny, revealing his past as a Corsair.

2) when he found an exit from the pyramid in Stygia, after escaping Akivasha, after the encounter with the Khitan assassins, running across the sands with the Heart in his possession...

Yep, this one did it. I was hooked.

[deuce]

I second Timeless' emotion. Conan the Warrior was the first Conan book I bought, but I checked out (and was blown away by) the Gnome Press Conan the Conqueror first. Actually, the Parsons library had two Gnome Press Conan editions. I hope that noone has since stolen them. Anyway, not bad for a small-town library. This is one of my absolute favorite Conan yarns, so y'all will hear from me. You've been warned.

[Heavy Chevy]

Hello gang,

One of my favorite stories ever.
First paragraph of the tale.

"THE LONG TAPERS flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled.
Yet there was no wind in the chamber.
Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the green sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade.
In the upraised right hand of each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish light. Outside was night and a lost wind moaning among the black trees. "

That paragraph just sets the tone for the rest of the tale !!!


Mike

[deuce]

Agreed. As Rusty has said, Howard was the master of the initial paragraph. If a reader isn't sucked-in by what you just quoted, Chevy, then they shouldn't be reading REH. I remember reading that as a 10 year-old and thinking "HOLY COW"!

[Taranaich]

Hour of the Dragon will always have a special place in the Howard library due to it being the sole Conan novel, but even taking that into account it's a fantastic read. One would think that Howard would struggle with a longer format having seen his vast collection of short stories, but HotD suffers little bloating, dragging or padding, and is a very successful transition from short to long form for Conan.

Although there are many cannibalised elements from other stories, given the circumstances around its writing I think it's perfectly reasonable, and it isn't as if history doesn't repeat itself in real life anyway. Although not the last written, I think it works as a fitting finale to Conan's career: it's as if all his other adventures were leading up to this one epic journey, the trials of Phoenix, Citadel and Devil being a rehearsal for his greatest challenge, where he'd have to employ all his skills and experience as a thief, mercenary, captain, general and king to save his kingdom. All very hero's journey stuff, but no less fun and exciting for it.

Considering Howard's impressive villains up to now, he really outdid himself with Xaltotun. He's probably the most awesome (in the original sense) of Howard's sorcerers: even heavyweights like Tsotha-Lanti and the Master of Yimsha seem like small fry against Xaltotun's ancient evil. Orastes' revelations in chapter 20 do a lot to hit home just how dangerous and powerful a threat he is to not just Aquilonia, but the world. We see other wizards and gods use magic similar to Xaltotun: Khosatral Khel recreates Dagonia as Xaltotun planned, Tsotha-Lanti incapacitates Conan with ease, Thugra Khotan was an ancient sorcerer resurrected after thousands of years. By combining elements of other sorcerers, Howard makes Xaltotun seem that much bigger and more impressive by hearkening back to them, whether he meant it or not.

So much else to say, but I'll be brief: A lot of people found Conan's detours with the ghouls in Argos and Akivasha to slow the story down, but I liked them.

[timeless]

One of my favorite passages in all of Howard's writings:


The glow of the jewel illuminated the black tunnels like an en-sorceled lamp, dripping golden fire. Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the vampire that was Akivasha shrinking back from the glow of the jewel; and with her, other less human shapes scuttled or shambled into the darkness.

The dead man strode straight on, looking neither to right nor left, his pace as changeless as the tramp of doom. Cold sweat gathered thick on Conan's flesh. Icy doubts assailed him. How could he know that this terrible figure out of the past was leading him to freedom? But he knew that, left to himself, he could never untangle this bewitched maze of corridors and tunnels. He followed his awful guide through blackness that loomed before and behind them and was filled with skulking shapes of horror and lunacy that cringed from the blinding glow of the Heart.

Then the bronze doorway was before him, and Conan felt the night wind blowing across the desert, and saw the stars, and the starlit desert across which streamed the great black shadow of the pyramid. Thothmekri pointed silently into the desert, and then turned and stalked soundlessly back in the darkness. Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep.

With a curse the Cimmerian leaped from the doorway and fled into the desert as if pursued by demons. He did not look back toward the pyramid, or toward the black towers of Khemi looming dimly across the sands.

[Kortoso]

Howard devised an actual river Styx in his world to realize the myth of the river Styx. You can see how he designated it as a barrier for entry into the under/southern -world, Stygia, a back-formation of the word "Stygian". Obviously he wanted to have the river serve as a threshold into the underworld, as the mythical river was in fable.

But is wasn't until this novel that he had Conan literally decend into the underworld, upon the river Styx, disguised as the psychopomp Charon, no less, getting full use of his geography.

Conan retrieves from the underworld an artifact as plainly named as the Heart of Ahriman. Howard must have read from the same mythology texts as Campbell did!

In the first part of the story, it is hinted that autumn "crisps" the leaves on the trees, suggesting the myth of Persephone. When Conan returns, life returns to the world of plants.


There's a dissertation in there for some lucky soul.


This story is also an example of how Howard would flesh out a yarn from short story to novel length. He would probably have done the same if he had been given a chance to write a screenplay. I hope that someone is taking note of this.

[VoragoExcarnator]

To me HOTD suffers from feeling like a recycled mash-up of earlier (inferior) Conan tales. Had I read this first, or had we just gotten this in lieu of it's progenitor short stories, I think HOTD would feel a lot cooler. That said, there's a lot to love here:

The 4 Khitan Assassins are awesome, as is their fight with the Stygian priests

Our intimate look at the workings of Stygia, Thoth-Amon's place as prince of wizards etc.

The slave revolt on the ship is really fantastic

Zelata and Hadrathus increase the number of positively portrayed magic users in the series (Pelias may be the only other, and he's marginal)

I like the reference to Conan's time as a Black corsair and the fat merchant he made rich (whose name I'm blanking on)

I love it any time we get some Howard poetry, so this story is great for that

Maybe we should do a chapter by chapter analysis. Or maybe an HOTD book-club. Read a chapter a day/week/month and all do analysis together at the same time!

Edited by VoragoExcarnator, 20 February 2008 - 10:26 PM.

[elegos7]

In the Marvel comics adaptation of this story Roy Thomas has Conan fight a statue that comes to life in the temple of Asura in Tarantia. Was it an addition of Thomas or did deCamp add it to the story when he edited it for the Lancer publication?

Thomas also used this living statue idea in his adaptation of The purple heart of Erlik (Night of the Gargoyle in Conan the Barbarian #42).

[Heavy Chevy]

Hi elegos,

I am sure that the "living statue" was a Thomas addition.
I dont remember it in any of my Lancer editions.

Another change was RT had Xaltotun run through with a sword by Conan.

And like Vorago, i thought the 4 Khitan assassins were awesome.
They were like bloodhounds.
And their weapons "A kiss of the staff that was cut from the living Tree of Death "

These weapons were great matches for the Stygian wizards' "Black Hand of Set !"

Man, this novel has everything !!!

I first read it when the Giant Sized Conan's came out in the mid 1970's.
Then i found a paperback copy at a flea market a few years later.
Have read it at least 1000 times since !!

Mike C.

[deuce]

Too true, Timeless, Tu. Excellent points. I remember, lo, those decades ( ?!?) ago, after I'd checked "Dragon" out from the Parsons Public (bless it), I read it every chance I got that day and then finished it in my darkened bedroom with the "borrowed" familial flashlight. Just thrill upon chill upon shock. I was never the same, me brothers, never the same.

I, for one, vote that "THotD" have at least a two-month stay. I know I've got enough comments (and annotations) to fill that handful of noindens. We've only got about SIX completed Howard "Conan" yarns left. Like any worthwhile affair with a time-limit, best to make the sweetness last.

[Kortoso]

Right, let's get cracking. first chapter, O Sleeper, Awake! any comments on this chapter before we move on?

[Kortoso]

Since at least one of us has asked to go chapter-by-chapter, I thought I'd ask for focus.
Nobody's in a rush.

This first chapter is echoed in the opening of the movie The Sword in the Sorceror. Might be fun rent it sometime and go over it line by line.

[timeless]

My personal introduction to Howard's most famous character:


It was uncanny, but those watching knew it was no more than the reflected image of Orastes' thought, embodied in that mirror as a wizard's thoughts are embodied in a magic crystal. It floated hazily, then leaped into startling clarity-a tall man, mightily shouldered and deep of chest, with a massive corded neck and heavily muscled limbs. He was clad in silk and velvet, with the royal lions of Aquilonia worked in gold upon his rich jupon, and the crown of Aquilonia shone on his square-cut black mane; but the great sword at his side seemed more natural to him than the regal accouterments. His brow was low and broad, his eyes a volcanic blue that smoldered as if with some inner fire. His dark, scarred, almost sinister face was that of a fighting-man, and his velvet garments could not conceal the hard, dangerous lines of his limbs.

"That man is no Hyborian!" exclaimed Xaltotun.

"No; he is a Cimmerian, one of those wild tribesmen who dwell in the gray hills of the north."

"I fought his ancestors of old," muttered Xaltotun. "Not even the kings of Acheron could conquer them."

"They still remain a terror to the nations of the south," answered Orastes. "He is a true son of that savage race, and has proved himself, thus far, unconquerable."

[deuce]

O Sleeper,Awake!

I love the Frankenstein connection in this!
Did REH read Shelby???????

Tu

Hey Tu! You do know that Shelley took the phrase from Ephesians 5:14? To paraphrase Hans Gruber: "Fruits of a Pentecostal education."