33 replies to this topic

[black dragon]

I personally am a fan of Howard, Lovecraft, Smith and other writers from the pulp era. (Howard being my favorite.) Each one had a few stories that could be considered as weak; but the very fact we are discussing them means they struck a chord in each one of us on some level. Taste is highly subjective, and fandom can be very rabid in defense of personal preferences.

But that's what everything boils down to: personal preference. I don't particularly enjoy Robert Jordan; but I would not stoop to make personal comments about his fans (and he has a great many.) Literary discussion is possible if we can keep our emotions out of the equation. Too often logic is replaced by anger.

[Tex]

I just don't understand folks who think they can't like something because they like something else already. It's like saying "I like Star Trek, so I can't/don't like Star Wars." Or this one--"I'm a science fiction fan, so I can't/won't read fantasy." An understandable attitude for a child to have, maybe, but not an alleged adult.

Personally, I happen to enjoy all (or vast swaths) of the above.

Now if someone said that they just couldn't get into a certain writer/genre, etc, that's fair enough. But enjoying your geek thing so much that you have to slam other folks geek thing...well, that's just damned stupid.

I got into Two-Gun first, then Grandpa Theobald, then (as I found his books,) Klarkash-Ton. And since they were the Weird Tales Triumvirate, a Trufan of any of them has to know about the others, and acknowledge their importance to the others, even if their works ain't quite that fan's cup of tea.

Too bad those folks over at the CAS equivalent of the REH Forum don't seem to grasp this simple concept.

Tex
(glad that CAS won't be misjudged by the "fans" he has over there)

[Taran]

I don't see anybody here slagging off Tolkien or Martin fans as a bunch of idiots though.

Oh?

[Ironhand]

Reading the above made me start thinking about "what I don't like".

I don't like romantic vampire novels, endless D&D spinoffs, endless Star Wars spinoffs, and endless Star Trek spinoffs, although I will give the last named the benefit of the doubt, if they are based on NextGen, DS9, or Voyager.

But I don't see any percentage in dissing them, or their authors or fans. I'd much rather dis other religions or political parties. Of course, I'm not allowed to do that on this forum, so I just sit around and pretend to be a nice guy.

[RobP]

I don't see anybody here slagging off Tolkien or Martin fans as a bunch of idiots though.

Oh?

Yep - and that guy was banned, probably a troll.

Personally I love HPL, REH, CAS, Tolkien not to mention Lieber, Vance, etc, etc. It's all just a question of taste at the end of the day and hardly a major issue in life

The internet has bred a new type of person who just enjoys pointless arguments - assuming of course that they are not a construct there to "encourage" debate and forum traffic, which is not unheard of.

[Taranaich]

I don't see anybody here slagging off Tolkien or Martin fans as a bunch of idiots though.

Oh?

In fairness, that was Sermon Bath, who, ahem, doesn't represent the majority of REH Forumers. (Much like how the folks in question at Eldritch Dark don't represent the majority of Eldritch Dark Forumers.) But then, SB had some controversial views on REH, too.

[Mikey_C]

It's tiresome, isn't it? The ED folks pride themselves on their supposed erudition and intelligence, but don't seem to have grasped the purpose or the origins of the Shieldwall. The "Lovecraft's racism" comparison is particularly irrelevant, as no-one can argue that Lovecraft wasn't actually racist or that this was invented by a misleading biographer.

As Morgan said, this is all a misguided attempt to boost CAS's credentials by denigrating the "competition". It must be oh so galling for them that REH has breached the walls of critical acceptance by being published as a "Penguin Classic" while poor old CAS is still trapped in the "Fantasy Masterworks" ghetto.

Unfortunately, I don't think ED is doing much to enhance their hero's reputation or welcome new readers (and don't forget, folks; to be a real ED-style CAS fan you have to say you prefer his poetry to the stories anyway ).

[Mark Finn]

Man, I wish I had the time to jump in on the Eldritch Dark forum. Some serious misconceptions that need clearing up over there. More about the hows and whys of our world than errors.

[Taranaich]

Thank to our own docpod, here's that introduction which is apparently "sure to raise (our) already elevated blood pressures to dangerous levels."

"The term "Sword and Sorcery" was virtually invented to describe the works of Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936), whose most famous creation, Conan, has become an iconic figure in the world of adventure fiction and film. As a young man in Texas, Howard held numerous odd jobs- all of which he hated, knowing he was born to be a writer. He produced reams of stories and poems while still a teenager, and made his first sale to one of the greatest of all pulp magazines, WEIRD TALES, which published "Spear and Fang" in its July 1925 issue. Although he wrote in many genres, including boxing, westerns, horror, and detective and historical fiction, he is known today for his fantastic adventure series about the vengeful Solomon Kane, a Puritan swashbuckler in Africa; King Kull, who thrived in ancient Atlantis; Bran Mak Morn, a king of the Caledonian Picts, an ancient Scottish tribe that fought the Romans; and, most memorably, Conan the Barbarian, who lived in Cimmeria during the fictional Hyborian Age, about twelve thousand years ago. Even as a young man, Conan was a large, heavily muscled wandering warrior who loved food, drink, women, and battle. His powerful sword was as invincible as he was, and he was always read to fight. Barbarism, he proclaimed, was the natural state of being. He battle hordes of enemies- whether human, monstrous, or magical- with a fearlessness that suggested an almost suicidal disregard of his own life. Such a worldview may reflect the author's own: A lifelong depressive, Howard was inordinately close to his mother. When her tuberculosis reached its final stage and a nurse told him she would never again be conscious, he put a gun in his mouth and killed himself at the age of thirty, by which time he had written an astounding number of books (more than fifty) and short stories (more than two hundred), mostly unpublished during his lifetime. Although Howard died young, Conan lives, in the pages of the stories and the two films about him. CONAN THE BARBARIAN made a star of bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, the future governor of California, who also starred in the sequel, CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984).
"The Devil in Iron" was originally published in the August 1934 issue of WEIRD TALES; its first book publication was in CONAN THE BARBARIAN (New York: Gnome, 1954)."

As with the last time the Eldritch Dark gentleman kindly thought of our health, I'm pleasantly underwhelmed.

No, it isn't a great introduction - the spectre of de Camp rises again with the whole "dependent on his mother" thing, and even details like the circumstances of his suicide (he put the gun to his temple, not his mouth) aren't quite right. The idea of Conan's sword being "as invincible as he is" isn't exactly borne out by reading the stories. And, of course, I'm surprised to learn that Howard apparently wrote more than fifty books, forty-eight of which I seem to have completely failed to notice.

But aside from that, it isn't horrible. We don't have "excuses" for his "not great" writing, no disparaging comments on his sexuality or mental well-being (while inaccurate, at least he wasn't using the mother-attachment myth as a criticism, so much as it came across as a matter-of-fact statement), no belittling of his accomplishments - in fact the opposite.

This isn't bad. Debacles like the incidents with MVO, Sanford, Ellison, et al, THAT gets the blood up. This? All it elicits from me is a resigned sigh at how he was doing so well until the second half.

[Kortoso]

Most galling is the judgment of "inordinately".
But for me, it ain't enough to kick about.

[Almuric]

He's the victim of bad information, lots of people are, when it comes to REH. That's why we have to correct it whenever we find it.

[Kortoso]

Sometimes, I am like a drinking man who sees a falling down drunk and exclaims, "well, at least I am not that bad!"

I am referring to Arnold fans who post in places such as IMDB in ALL CAPS, declaring that there is no Conan without Arnold! Now, that puts the "fanatic" back in "fan".

[Ironhand]

Sometimes, I am like a drinking man who sees a falling down drunk and exclaims, "well, at least I am not that bad!"

I am referring to Arnold fans who post in places such as IMDB in ALL CAPS, declaring that there is no Conan without Arnold! Now, that puts the "fanatic" back in "fan".

Just tell them about "Clonan".