In the December 1924 issue of Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright proposed in The Eyrie (the editor’s column) that someone should write a good story set in prehistoric times where a Cro-Magnon man encounters a Neanderthal man, and they fight over a girl. (The suggestion starts toward the bottom of the second page and carries over to the third page.)
Robert E. Howard, of course, took up the challenge and wrote “Spear and Fang” which became his first professionally published story. It appeared in the July 1925 issue.
Lindsay Tyson, a friend and one-time roommate of Robert E. Howard, was present when REH got the letter from Weird Tales accepting his story. In a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, Tyson recounted the story and made additional comments.
We know REH read Jack London and that London’s The Star Rover influenced REH’s James Allison stories and, no doubt, “Spear and Fang” has some similarities to London’s Before Adam (which features a reincarnation framing device like REH’s Allison tales). But, editor Farnsworth Wright recognized that REH’s prose was original and perfect for “The Unique Magazine” and put REH on the path to his professional career.
If you never read the story before, you will be introduced to the artistic and mighty shouldered Ga-nor and the lovely A-aea, as well as the cruel Ka-nanu, all Cro-Magon. You will also learn of the Gur-na, the ape-like Neanderthals. Rest assured Ka-nanu and the unnamed Neanderthal get their due and that Ga-nor and A-aea have a happy ending. Read it for the first or fifth time…
Tevis Clyde Smith and Robert E. Howard bringing “Spear and Fang” to life.
Matt John’s “Faces of Doom” in Savage Sword of Conan #14 uses the character of Nestor, a Gunderman mercenary mentioned in Robert E. Howard’s untitled synopsis that later became the basis for L. Sprague de Camp’s completion known as “The Hall of the Dead” and Roy Thomas’s separate completion known as “Keepers of the Crypt” (at that stage of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comics, Thomas was not allowed to adapt de Camp & Carter’s stories). Presumably, this story takes place after that synopsis (or either of the two completions, depending on which you consider canonical).
The story is only a page long, yet contains quite the adventure in its three columns of text. Nestor is neatly fleshed out as someone who believes in luck and gambling, using dice to determine next steps. I thought that was a neat characterization of Nestor, something Matt John does well in all of his writings – he can convey little quirks quickly that summarize his characters for us without a lot of baggage, backstory, or exposition.
Nestor and Conan are beneath a temple to the Spider-God, presumably in Zamora, looking to climb a long ladder out of some water-filled tunnels. Again, Matt John does a great job telling us about these tunnels and why they were there without wasting a lot of time or space.
Things go wrong, as they often do in Sword & Sorcery heists, and they find themselves with a problem: they are locked in the tunnel with a river dragon. Now, when I read the story, I pictured an alligator or crocodile. Also, in the Marvel Comics, Conan often called crocodilians “river dragons,” but the artist who drew the picture drew more of a snake-like dragon (which would have fought differently than described in the story). Also, the artist drew a wooden ladder, when the ladder was clearly described in the story as iron, so I don’t really trust the artist, but it is a nice drawing.
As usual, Matt John captured the character and actions of Conan well. It was a fun and short little glimpse into one of Conan’s little side-adventures. I recommend it.
Castle of Frankenstein was a hipper version of Forry Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. This particular issue was published in 1965. I was 8 years old. I remember seeing it displayed on the magazine rack at Johnson’s Drug Store on Third and Willis in Detroit where I grew up. My dad would take me and my brother there for a concoction called a Cherry Phosphate. The key ingredient being Acid Phosphate (calcium, magnesium, and potassium phosphate salts with a touch of phosphoric acid). Tasted like a sour cherry.
Former location of Johnson’s Drug StoreWillis Show Bar sign
Johnson’s Drug Store is long gone but the Willis Show Bar (the “strip-o-rama” sign) which was right next door was still operating until recently. They have classed the place up since my childhood.
I had a small allowance back then, so I could buy comic books and candy on my own. Thirty-Five cents was a major purchase though. So I didn’t purchase this particular issue. I did eventually get a bigger allowance and purchased later issues.
Now that I’m old and retired I was able to buy a complete set of the magazines. I will be posting about some of the more interesting content. Especially book reviews by Lin Carter. But for now, I bring attention to a review of The Dark Man and Others by Robert E. Howard and Swords and Sorcery by L. Sprague de Camp. The reviewer, Charles M. Collins (b.1935 – d.2019), edited three horror anthologies: Fright (1963), A Feast of Blood (1967), and A Walk With the Beast (1969).
Hint: If you have trouble reading the scan, save it as a document (pdf, jpg, etc.) and expand it while viewing it in that format.
Nowadays H. P. Lovecraft is practically synonymous with Weird Tales. Lovecraft’s first appearance in Weird Tales was in the September 1923 issue’s letter column. Below starting in the lower right column is HPL’s letter.
His first prose appearance in the magazine was in the October 1923 issue. “Dagon” was the first Lovecraft story published in “The Unique Magazine.” (“Dagon” had been published earlier in the amateur press journal, The Vagrant.) It is considered the first “Cthulhu Mythos” story.
When “Dagon” was published in The Vagrant, the editor, W. Paul Cook wrote: “In “Dagon,” in this issue of the Vagrant, Mr. Lovecraft steps into his own as a writer of fiction. In reading this story, two or three names of short-story writers are immediately called to mind. First of all, of course, Poe; and Mr. Lovecraft, I believe, would be the first to acknowledge his allegiance to our American master. Second, Maupassant; and I am quite sure that Mr. Lovecraft would deny any kinship with the great Frenchman.” (Cook doesn’t mention a third name.)
“Dagon” was one of five stories that Lovecraft sent to Weird Tales. The other four were “Arthur Jermyn,” “The Cats of Ulthar,” “The Hound,” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter.” Edwin Baird, the editor, said the stories had to be retyped and double-spaced before acceptance. Lovecraft, reluctantly complied. “Dagon” was the first of the five to be published.
This is the second collection of stories using Robert E. Howard’s characters by Stephen Gaspar. I enjoyed his first collection, 3 Blades Against Darkness, and I enjoyed this one as well.
A large number of Robert E. Howard fans like to erect barriers preventing their enjoyment of things. They hate pastiche, they hate AI art, they hate unauthorized books… they hate a lot of things. I’m not going to spend anytime addressing those hates. This is a book review for people who prefer to enjoy things.
Stephen Gaspar writes clear unadorned prose. That is his strength. He strives to tell a good story. Unfortunately he tries to get a little fancy and inserts epigraphs at the beginning of every chapter. Ignore them.
Stone of Doom. This story starts by having Conan racing ahead of a pack of angry pursuers. Arrows are fired and Conan is hit. He rides harder into the sandstorm and escapes. Conan passes out and is rescued by Augur, a man on a quest to eradicate evil. The dialogue between Conan and Augur is quite good. Most authors are afraid to have Conan talk too much. Conan agrees to join Augur in his search for fragments of “The Black Stone” thinking there might be profit in the adventure. After a decent action scene, in which Conan kills three men, he learns there isn’t going to be any profit and abandons Augur. Conan later learns that Augur has been killed and the fragment of rock they found has been stolen. The story becomes more of a typical Conan tale at this point. Conan decides to find out who was responsible for Augur’s death and encounters bad men and a bad woman. This story beats 90% of the Heroic Legends e-books for pure entertainment.
Nil Desperandum. This a Bran vs. Rome tale. The story starts with a good description of Bran’s latest nemesis, Caius Dracus, and segues into a battle between Romans and Picts. Bran and Dracus end up in a wrestling contest that lasts a while and separates them from their men, They end up getting captured by another band of Picts hostile to Bran. The author has Dracus and Bran talking to each other (and their captor.) I remembered that Bran spoke Latin. It isn’t mentioned if Dracus speaks Pict. When Bran has to ask Dracus what “Nil Desperandum” means and Dracus responds “Never despair,” I was taken out of the story wondering who was speaking Latin and who was speaking Pict? The story continues on with Norseman attacking the hostile Picts and taking Dracus and Bran as prisoners. Dracus and Bran apparently understand Norse. They escape on a small boat and see the Loch Ness monster. Bran and Dracus part on possibly grudgingly friendly terms. But then Dracus is immediately captured by the remnants of the hostile Picts. What will Bran do regarding his Roman foe? This was a good story despite the language confusion.
Demon of Darkness. This story takes a few too many paragraphs to get started. There is a short history lesson regarding the town of Kirkland in the center part of Northern England and mood setting regarding Solomon Kane and Travis March, a cheating barkeep. All this to introduce another haunted moor story. Kane goes to investigate Blaec Moor and meets a father and his daughter who tell him about the scary place that they live in. Kane asks to spend the night. They sneak out after Kane goes to bed and Kane follows them to a field of stones. All the villagers are there and chanting hooky spooky words. An evil but handsome fellow named Dinger-Kek materializes. Dinger tells the crowd to keep repeating this ritual every night and eventually Dinger will reach full power. Kane travels back to the house and confronts the returning couple. Dinger-Kek is a dark god, blah, blah, blah. Kane decides to confront Dinger and knows God’s righteousness will prevail. They fight until the sun rises. Dinger is defeated. Ho-hum.
The Steward of Time. This story starts with Ka-nu telling King Kull about “The Black Stone.” It is a bad stone, causing madness in people, a gateway to hell, pure evil. The gods cast lightening and broke the stone but it can be reassembled. (All this ties back to the first story “Stone of Doom.”) Then others tell Kull more scary stories. Kull is intrigued and wants to visit a scary place. The next day, Kull, his soldiers, and Brule the Spear Slayer travel to a known mysterious location, an empty field giving off weird emanations. Kull starts hallucinating, passes out, and wakes up in a curved color changing environment and meets “the steward of time.” What follows are lots of paragraphs about the nature of time. Kull eventually snaps out of it and everybody wants to leave this uncomfortable place. Kull sees it is late now and asks, “my, where does the time go?” Not as clever as I would have liked but it brought a smile.
The Ice Castle. This story starts with Conan in the freezing cold. He spots a castle made of blocks of ice and escapes the blistering winds. He meets the beautiful woman who lives in the Ice Castle. She tells her story of being cursed by an evil wizard. Conan stays with her for a while and believes he has fallen in love. She recites poetry to him and it all seems chastely happy. Months pass and Conan is ready to leave. Trouble. The story ends rather predictably.
Dark Covenant. A Christian church was founded long ago in a remote part of Africa. Time has passed and the church has been reestablished by a near madman named Biruk. A beautiful woman named Zeria decides to use Biruk and his church and its now corrupted teachings to her benefit. Enter Solomon Kane. Zeria has followers now and a local tribe has resisted her warriors. Kane is perplexed by the Christian imagery being used to scare the local tribe. Kane investigates and is captured. Biruk and Kane have some dialogue about King Solomon and Bible verses. Zeria meets Kane and we get “The Moon of Skulls” vibes with Zeria coming on to Kane the same way Nakari did in that story. The story gets a little convoluted but remains interesting. Kane receives a vial of the Apostle Matthew’s blood from a spirit of the Church’s founder. The Lord’s help is needed to triumph over Zeria. I think Mr. Gaspar has captured a slight Howardian feel in this story.
The Dark Man’s Revenge. Gonar is worried about Bran Mak Morn’s future. Bran is preparing for a big battle with the Romans. Bran is worried and wishes he had had a normal life. A man named Nothus (Latin for bastard) shows up. He is the offspring of Bran and Atla (from “Worms of the Earth”). Gonar tells Bran he is working on a statue to encase Bran’s spirit when he passes (see “The Dark Man”). Bran makes a deal with the leader of a rival Pict tribe saying he will abdicate his throne if he joins the fight against Rome. And if there wasn’t enough happening already, Brule the Spear Slayer time travels to visit. The big battle starts and the rival Pict tribe deserts leaving Bran’s army outnumbered. Bran dies in the battle. Gonar does his magic and “The Dark Man” statue is created. The story doesn’t end here. The author adds an ending that mixes Howard’s Picts with the real life Onuist. The timeline really doesn’t work historically. Onuist was king of Pictland (Scotland) from 732 to 761 but I suppose the Onuist in this story could be a forefather of the later Onuist.
The Well. Conan is working for Captain Oscuro and has taken over Captain Bosmer’s ship, the Baltar. Bosmer is only concerned about a woman named Narissa. He offers Conan a bargain for treasure in return for the woman’s safety. Before Conan can make a deal, Captain Oscuro appears, Bosmer attacks and is killed by Conan. Oscuro tells Conan to take the woman to his ship. Conan advises Oscuro that the Baltar now belongs to him per their agreement and that he is keeping the girl. Oscuro, now Conan’s enemy, leaves for his own vessel. Narissa shows Conan a pink diamond and tells of a treasure. What follows is a halfway decent adventure with giant sea creatures, humorous pirate banter, rock monsters, and the bride of Quetzalcoatl.
This is a tale of young Kull, while he is still a slave in Valusia. He is trying to earn his freedom so he can make a name for himself in King Borna’s army. It is a decent premise.
Sentences in the opening paragraph work hard to paint a picture: “The Althunian Skull Forest pushed against him from every side. A swirling fog rushed into the lower depths of the wood like a lost wraith, but Kull still found the trail of blood. Crimson red drops glistened on tall blades of saw grass and led straight up the mountain side like an open wound.”
I can imagine the scene from the author’s words. A low lying fog obscures the path, but Kull is still able to see blood scattered on the grassy trail. But the semi-poetic prose bothers me nowadays. It seems a kind of forced fancy that infantilizes fantasy. And why would a place be named “The Skull Forest”? (I gathered from later text that the highest point has a skull shaped peak.) Introducing the name “skull forest” before an explanation is Count Floyd going “Ooh, that’s scary!”
Kull goes on his quest to kill the beast that is terrorizing the livestock and sees “reality a shifting shadow that he would control for his betterment.” He communes with a mighty elk that points the way. I like a metaphysical Kull. And the author is trying real hard to tell a good mystical tale; so of course there are crows, lots of blood, and wolves with names.
Kull encounters Orgon, a bounty hunter, also on the trail of the beast. Orgon is an honorable fellow. They decide to work together. The story gets more action oriented and comes to a satisfying conclusion for everyone but Orgon and the villains of the story. The author keeps the mystical edge throughout the narrative and I began to enjoy it. Whether that edge is sharp or dull will depend on the reader.
All in all, I thought it a worthy attempt at keeping a balance between action and thought in a Kull story. I have quibbles but it was worth the read.
This Hippocampus Press 799 page volume was published in 2017. I was fortunate enough to purchase the hardcover edition. Nowadays there are two paperbacks at $30.00 a piece. “Dawnward Spire” refers to the tall church steeple in Providence, RI that H. P. Lovecraft could see from his home. “Lonely Hill” refers to Clark Ashton Smith’s isolated cabin in Auburn, CA. The illustrations by David C. Verba represent Smith’s “Lonely Hill” cabin and Lovecraft’s “Dawnward Spire” church.
Paperback Two Volume Edition
Lonely Hill
Dawnward Spire
In the introduction the editors inform us that while they have most or all of Lovecraft’s letters, quite a few of Smith’s are missing. But they did the best they could.
You do not see the first Smith letter until page 75. I have written before that it is startling to read in this era of huge entertainment conglomerates with millions of dollars zooming around that on November 4, 1925 Smith was selling copies of his exquisite Ebony and Crystal for $1.00 each.
Smith congratulated Lovecraft on his marriage which Lovecraft acknowledged in July of 1924 but curiously that is the only time I can find that Lovecraft’s marriage is mentioned at all. The entire time from when HPL was living in New York City until he moved back to Providence his marriage is never mentioned again. It seems HPL did not wish to discuss being married. It was a non subject.
I found very funny the letter of December 8, 1925. HPL had Smith write crossword puzzles! Smith’s crossword puzzles were fiendish! Lovecraft would hand them out when “the gang” got together and he would gleefully report to Smith what a terrible time everybody, but especially, crossword puzzle expert James F. Morton, would have trying to fill in the Smith words and definitions! Smith used words such as “violastre” and “dedaim” and “Atarantes” and “hierodule.” CAS reminds us that it doesn’t hurt to learn new words and that “Few people realize the resources of English–and most of them howl at the occasional rare gems with which I embroider my poetry.”
(I have an idea for a great fantasy short story: the teen aged Jack Vance in the Thirties takes on CAS for a crossword puzzle contest. The loser would either be taken by Thaisdon the Lord of the Seven Hells or Chun the Unavoidable!)
Several of Smith’s crossword puzzles are included in the book’s appendix.
August 31, 1928 was the first time Smith was addressed as “Klarkash-Ton.” (I will use the names “Klarkash-Ton” and “E’ch-Pi-El” for the rest of this article.)
On October 27, 1928 E’ch-Pi-El reported to Klarkash-Ton that Farnsworth Wright had paid E’ch-Pi-El $240.00 for “The Dunwich Horror.”
March 30, 1930 was the first time in this book where Lovecraft signed his name “E’ch-Pi-El.” And in a June 23, 1930 letter he tells Klarkash-Ton for the first time about Robert E. Howard and that E’ch-Pi-El would be “dropping him a line.”
E’ch-Pi-El always referred to Hugo Gernsback as “Hugo the Rat.” E. Hoffman Price described Gernsback as “that supreme chiseler.” It seems Gernsback worked very hard to earn his reputation! E’ch-Pi-El on July 18, 1930 thanked Klarkash-Ton for assisting Frank Belknap Long. Wonder Stories Quarterly had published a Long story and had not paid Long. Lovecraft wrote a “what the hell” letter to the magazine. E’ch-Pi-El was told that they had NEVER published a Long story. Shown proof that they HAD published Long’s tale they backed off and admitted something along the lines of “Oh, you meant THAT story….” Long still was not paid. From the letters I can not tell if he was EVER paid. I do know that eventually Klarkash-Ton had to hire a lawyer to pry out of Gernsback the seven hundred plus dollars he owed Klarkash-Ton. Perhaps Long took this route? I remember reading E. Hoffman Price stating that the “Hugo” awards should not have been named after such a crook!
E’ch-Pi-El was not too impressed by the stories of Edmond Hamilton. In an August 6, 1930 letter he told Klarkash-Ton that he hoped Klarkash-Ton “would replace Edmond Hamilton and his one plot.” E’ch-Pi-El loved Klarkash-Ton’s planetary stories.
Klarkash-Ton in a October 1930 letter to E’ch-Pi-El describes his philosophy of the weird tale: “Science, philosophy, psychology, humanism, after all, are only candle-flares in the face of eternal night with its infinite resources of strangeness, terror, sublimity. And surely literature can not always confine itself to the archives of the ant-hill and the annals of the hog sty, as it seems to be doing at the present.”
E’ch-Pi-El wrote to Klarkash-Ton on September 11, 1932 that “Robert E. Howard’s omnipresent gore spattering is surely getting monotonous, but I fear that it will be a hard fault to eradicate.”
Discussing a current Weird Tales issue on April 15, 1932 Klarkash-Ton tells E’ch-Pi-El that he liked Howard’s tale but that Hamilton’s “unspeakable drivel” had brought the issue low. E’ch-Pi-El and Klarkash-Ton were NOT Hamilton fans!
Both E’ch-Pi-El and Klarkash-Ton began corresponding with the teen-aged Robert Bloch. A September 1, 1933 letter by Klarkash-Ton in one of the great understatements of the 20th century writes “the boy certainly has promise.”
E’ch-Pi-El in a March 26, 1935 letter tells Klarkash-Ton that he has written a 65 page pencil manuscript of The Shadow Out of Time. E’ch-Pi-El was so full of doubt that he couldn’t face typing the tale and that August Derleth typed up the manuscript for him.
On June 1, 1935 Klarkash-Ton informs E’ch-Pi-El that “By the way, I have taken up carving as a spare time diversion.”
E’ch-Pi-El had some great news for Klarkash-Ton on October 28, 1935. At the Mountains of Madness had been sold to Astounding Stories four and a half years after it had been written. Shortly after that Astounding bought The Shadow Out of Time! Julius Schwartz, acting as E’ch-Pi-El’s agent, received $315.00 for At the Mountains of Madness and $280.00 for The Shadows Out of Time. Even the ever arch pessimist E’ch-Pi-El found this encouraging!
A March 23, 1936 letter to Klarkash-Ton describes E’ch-Pi-El as having a bad time with “grippe” [an old-fashioned term for influenza]. He was beginning to develop colon cancer. How I wish he had gone to the doctor!
E’ch-Pi-El on April 23, 1936 wrote to Klarkash-Ton that “Two Gun’s serial is really splendid despite the “monotonous manslaughter” and confusing nomenclature.” Then tragic news struck. He continues this letter months later and writes “Since beginning this epistle I’ve had the most depressing and staggering message (from C.L. Moore) – a postcard with the report that good old Two-Gun Bob has committed suicide.”
E’ch-Pi-El’s response to C. L. Moore was reprinted in Selected Letters V, Arkham House, 1976:
E’ch-Pi-El’s last letter to Klarkash-Ton is dated February 5, 1937. He discusses Virgil Finlay and sends a poem he wrote about Finlay’s illustrations for a Robert Bloch story and a personal poem he wrote to Klarkash-Ton. At the end of the letter he mentions “indigestion” and the “grippe.” Howard Phillips Lovecraft died a little over a month later.
This review just touches the surface of their correspondence. E’ch-Pi-El’s letters could be extremely long and involved. He would give college length lectures on many subjects. He was fascinated by Roman Britain and the end of Roman Britain and the invasions of the barbarians. He wrote very elaborate and interesting stories of his travels and his descriptions of Charleston and Saint Augustine and Quebec are fascinating.
Both E’ch-Pi-El and Klarkash-Ton were exasperated in an amused and affectionate way by Farnsworth Wright. There are many exchanges concerning Wright and Weird Tales and there are many “Why in the world did he publish that story?” comments.
I do think that Klarkash-Ton was much more thick skinned and professional than E’ch-Pi-El. A theme of these letters is Klarkash-Ton constantly reassuring E’ch-Pi-El that Lovecraft’s tales ARE good and not to be discouraged by rejections. Klarkash-ton sold more than 3/4th of his stories. If a story was returned Smith would revise it (often to Wright’s suggestions) and send it out again. Klarkash-Ton and August Derleth were both always encouraging E’ch-Pi-El to write more and worry less.
The book appendix contains several of Klarkash-Ton’s fiendishly difficult crossword puzzles and also some of his excellent essays from Planets and Dimensions, Smith’s thoughts on fantasy and why it’s important and relevant are very worth reading!
I would highly recommend these books to anyone who is interested in E’ch-Pi-El and Klarkash-Ton. Their letters are always interesting and frequently charming. You end up awed by their letter writing skills and especially by E’ch-Pi-El. I think that Lovecraft was truly one of the great letter writers of the 20th century.
I will next review the letters of ” Two-Gun Bob” and E’ch-Pi-El.
This review both treats the title indicated and is a tribute to its late publisher—late in the sense of deceased. The publisher is SF Gateway, a UK publisher of (mostly) ebooks, a division of Gollancz, which is an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group. Some background is in order.
In the course of these de Camp reviews I have frequently had occasion to badmouth SF Gateway, while simultaneously acknowledging its virtues—with good reason, in both instances.
On the minus side, SF Gateway is a glaring instance of publication with minimal effort, most often reissuing works previously published by others, each generally with a “cover” consisting of red and black print on a blank yellow ground. The vast majority of its output is in ebook form, and not available in the United States, either through physical purchase or order. At least in regard to de Camp, and a lot of other American authors. The situation varies according to what rights Gateway was able to secure.
On the plus side, it rescued a vast corpus of works by innumerable authors of past eras from oblivion, keeping their names and writings alive in a world that would otherwise no longer be publishing them at all. It also combined and reissued subsets of major works by selected authors as actual print volumes in “omnibus” form (a format more popular in the UK than the US). Each of these practices constitutes a distinct service.
Or, at least, it did. Lately, the SF Gateway website, the most convenient place to access its publications, has disappeared. This occurred sometime between February 21, 2026, when the site was last saved on the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine, and March 31, 2026, when I tried to consult the live site and came up empty. As far as I can determine, no notice appeared of its deletion.
Regardless, “sfgateway.com” now redirects to the general Gollancz website, which no longer provides access to the SF Gateway catalog. Gollancz’s FAQ now answers the question “Do you sell ebooks or audiobooks?” with “No, we currently only sell physical editions of our books.” Possibly it farmed its ebook sales out to Amazon UK, where individual SF Gateway works are still listed as available, but given Gollancz’s seeming abandonment of the project, one has to wonder—for how long?
So, in memory of SF Gateway and the undoubted good it has done, today I review the imprint’s sole L. Sprague de Camp print omnibus, bearing the unwieldy title SF Gateway Omnibus: Lest Darkness Fall, Rogue Queen, The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales (London, Gollancz, 2014). I should note here that the omnibuses have been at least a little easier to get in the US than the ebooks, possibly because, as physical volumes, purchasers can buy them in the UK and bring them over, and, when done with them, resell them as they might any other book. Anyway, I have noticed a number of SF Gateway print titles for sale at secondhand bookstores over the years, particularly at the Half Price Books chain. In fact, I ordered my own copy of the de Camp omnibus from Half Price Books.
Parenthetically, Gateway’s omnibuses were not just issued in print, but also ebook. Because of course they were, that was Gateway’s main thing. But I’m emphasizing the print versions here because that’s how we here in the states usually got our Gateways, when we could get them at all.
The de Camp omnibus is intended for fans who want their helpings of the author in immense slabs rather than thinnish volumes, who are happy to accept someone else’s determination on what his major works were, and who don’t wish to take the trouble of hunting up those works separately. The publisher, meanwhile, hopes that by packaging up a batch of proven sellers (or, sometimes, sneaking a less popular but still worthy work into that batch of proven sellers) good monetary returns will be realized.
I don’t know if things worked out that way with the de Camp omnibus. I hope so.
The omnibus is one of two original de Camp publications by SF Gateway. Original not in the sense of offering new material, but in offering new presentations of old material. In the case of the omnibus, it packaged up three early de Camp works never previously issued together. In the case of the other original, The Virgin of Zesh, it issued a stand-alone edition of a work never previously issued by itself. Both thus constitute first editions, of a sort. (There was a previous stand-alone (and print!) edition of Zesh, published by W. Heyne Verlag in 1984, but that was in German. SF Gateway’s ebook represents the first stand-alone edition of the original English version.)
Okay, let’s move on to the omnibus, specifically. Which means, I’m afraid, that we have to talk about the cover. I know, I know, but it’s the first thing we see, and we can’t unsee it, so we might as well get it over with.
Actually, I’m pleased to report that this cover doesn’t suck as much as most SF Gateways. Yes, it’s yellow, yes, we get the usual black and red print, but we also get pictorial elements. One might call it a hybrid cover, midway between the usual yellows and covers with actual, you know, pictures. Gateway’s omnibuses specialize in this sort of cover. The pictorial element consists of a starburst of triangles centered on the cover’s, well, center. Some triangles are mere outlines, some are filled in with solid colors, and a few have actual pictures in them. Some are divided in half, with the wide end of the triangle forming a four-sided shape, or quadrilateral. The quadrilaterals are the shapes likely to have the pictures in them (though not all of them do). I suppose the idea is to suggest a sort of stargate (or gateway) to other realms, galaxies, or universes, with the pictures in the triangles showing some of the possible destinations the gateway might open up. Or I could just be giving the publisher too much credit, here. Regardless, it makes for a striking cover, even as it perpetuates Gateway’s typical laziness.
On our cover, the text consists of the Gateway Omnibus logo at the upper right, (black and red), made up of a black starlike compass bearing the letter “G” in the middle, with the compass interrupted at the right by the rest of the word “Gateway” beaming out from the center. Beneath “Gateway” we get the word “Omnibus” in red, also radiating outward. Then we have the author’s name, centered on the cover in large black letters, and the three component books of the volume, listed in successive lines, in smaller red print at the bottom. All text is in all caps. The shapes radiating outward have the customary mix of outlines and filled shapes, the latter being gold or grey when they don’t have pictures in them. The two that do have pictures in them show (1) an armored gladiator and (2) an old, bearded fellow in a tricornered hat and umpire-striped shirt, holding a spear like a staff, standing atop some sort of awning. Which sounds more interesting than the gladiator, but unfortunately it’s a smaller picture, and hard to make out. My guess is that picture 1 is intended to suggest the story of Lest Darkness Fall, and picture 2 some scene in The Tritonian Ring or its associated short stories. Because neither looks like it could be derived from the alien hive-society of Rogue Queen.
Because this is a print book (though, as previously noted, an e-version is available), there is also a spine and a back cover. Both repeat the yellow ground.
The spine copies the front cover’s starburst of triangles, much reduced in size, at the top, then the author’s name running downward, and the list of three component books, all in the same format as on the front cover. Then the Gateway star/compass symbol with the G in the center, here not interrupted by the word “Gateway,” and beneath it the word “Omnibus,” again in the form used on the front cover.
The back cover is headed by the words “INTRODUCTION FROM THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION,” beneath which the gladiator picture reappears and a lengthy passage from the introduction is quoted, a fuller form of which appears inside the book. After the header, the all-caps style for text is abandoned for normal print. Beneath the quotation we get a bold-faced cover blurb by Algis Budris referring to de Camp as “SF’s best-educated humanist,” and then an advertisement for the SF Gateway line as a whole, directing the reader to the SF Gateway website for “more of L. Sprague de Camp’s work.” Only that doesn’t work now that the site has gone bye-bye.
At the bottom there’s some miscellaneous stuff; a QR code and a barcode together with URLs for the previously advertised website and the Orion Books website, the ISBN, Gollancz’s website, the (UK) price of the book (£18.99 when new), the fact that the book is also available as an ebook, and credits for the cover design—Us Now, whatever that is—and art—Richard Yang. So we have Yang to thank for the gladiator and the geezer. Thanks, Richard, for making this cover not quite as sad as it might have been! More on him later.
Inside the book, the first page gives us blurbs on Lest Darkness Fall, Rogue Queen, and The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales. Moderately informative, and I’ll be quoting them later. On the reverse, where we might find the frontispiece for an illustrated book, we get instead a fairly comprehensive bibliography of works “Also by L. Sprague de Camp.” This shows someone from SF Gateway has done his homework, or at least consulted Wikipedia, from which the bibliography’s format appears derived. (Which means some of my research went into it, not that anyone cares.) The titles listed coincide, more or less, with those actually published by SF Gateway, with a few omitted. The bibliography is divided into Science Fiction (Viagens Interplanetarias Series, conveniently divided into the books about Krishna, Ormazd, and Kukulkan), Other Science Fiction (standalone works), Fantasy (Harold Shea Series and Novarian Series), Other Fantasy (standalones, though including, unacknowledged, the two books of the Incorporated Knight sequence), and Non-Fiction (limited to the five nonfiction de Camps published by SF Gateway).
Then a page touting the publisher, headed “ENTER THE SF GATEWAY . . .” which gives you the lowdown on the publisher and why you should care. It does its job.
Then a five page “INTRODUCTION from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction” on de Camp and his work. This is derived from the then-current de Camp entry from the encyclopedia cited, an invaluable reference work whose first edition was issued in print, back in the day, and whose updates are online at https://sf-encyclopedia.com/ We are not told who wrote the intro, but it’s by Malcolm Edwards and John Clute. Trust me on this one.
Now for the meat of the omnibus. Oddly enough, I have not previously reviewed its three component books, though I suspect I may at some point; in the meantime, you can certainly find excellent pieces elsewhere on this blog about Lest Darkness Fall by Phillip Sawyer and on The Tritonian Ring by both Phil and Gary Romeo. (I don’t believe any of our bloggers have yet covered Rogue Queen.) In place of full workups here, I simply quote the summaries that SF Gateway gives us at the beginning of the omnibus, with such additional comments as occur to me.
Lest Darkness Fall was originally published in book form by Henry Holt and Company in 1941, after magazine publication in Unknown in December 1939. Here’s the summary.
“The Roman Empire had spread order, knowledge, and civilization throughout the ancient world. When Rome Fell, the light of reason flickered out across the Empire. The Dark Ages had begun; they would last a thousand years. Could a man from the 20th century prevent the fall of Rome?”
No, not really, because Rome had already fallen. Our twentieth century hero, Martin Padway, has actually time-slipped to the sixth century, nearly six decades after the Western Roman Empire’s end, by which time the city of Rome was already subsumed into the Gothic Kingdom of Italy, though the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire was poised to reconquer it. It was the Goths’ and the Byzantines’ ruinous war that would usher in the Dark Ages. This is what Padway strives to prevent, so he’s for the Goths keeping Rome and the Byzantines being sent packing. Improvising as he goes, his program eventually includes innovations (Arabic numerals, bookkeeping, whiskey, printing, newspapers, the telegraph), going into politics, and remaking himself into a strategist who can take down the Byzantines’ famed general Bellisarius. Quite a program, and quite a book!
Rogue Queen was originally published by Doubleday in 1951 (in book form; no previous magazine appearance). Per Gateway:
“Decades before a certain five-year voyage, L.Sprague de Camp sent a spirited crew to a strange and distant world, where their meeting with its inhabitants created chaos in local politics, upset the balance of power and generally created the most entertaining havoc.”
The “five-year voyage” is, of course, that of the starship Enterprise, from the original 1960s television series Star Trek. Why would Gateway reference Star Trek? Most likely because de Camp’s Viagens Interplanetarias series, of which Rogue Queen is one, was an important precursor, pioneering the concept of noninterference in the affairs of alien worlds with intelligent inhabitants—a notion that, in Star Trek, became the “Prime Directive.” It didn’t work very well in either series—let aliens get a glimpse of advanced technology or lifeways challenging their own, and those aliens are going to start getting ideas… Oh, and for “entertaining havoc,” read “world-changing overthrow of established sexual mores and regimes” on the planet Ormazd, as a result of its visitation by the Viagens exploratory spaceship Paris. All as seen from the perspective of the unlikely revolutionary lass Iroedh, lowly worker “bee” of the matriarchal hive society of Elham.
Rogue Queen is prefaced in the omnibus by an AUTHOR’S NOTE, mostly on how to pronounce Ormazdian words from the invented language used in the story, which is helpfully supplemented by a GLOSSARY OF ORMAZDIAN NAMES AND WORDS at the end of the novel. Both from the original edition.
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales was a collection first issued by Twayne Publishers in 1953, and afterwards never again until SF Gateway reissued it in this very omnibus. Oh, there were plenty of editions of the titular novel, but always without the “other Pusadian tales” included. Even Gateway’s own 2011 ebook version, titled The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian [sic] Tales, actually just included the novel, if memory serves. (It’s hard to go back and check, because Amazon UK is now selling the Phoenix Pick edition in place of the Gateway. But I think I’m right. I do know the Gateway ebook was later retitled just The Tritonian Ring, presumably in line with the actual content.) Incidentally, like Lest Darkness Fall, all the collection’s components originally appeared in magazine form, to wit: The Tritonian Ring, in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books, Winter 1951, and the three short “tales” in Fantasy Fiction, November 1953 (“The Stronger Spell”), Imagination, November 1951 (“The Owl and the Ape”), and Fantastic Adventures, May 1951 (“The Eye of Tandyla”). Just so you know!
As befitting a collection, this section of the omnibus has its own table of contents, which is where the ordinary reader will learn the names of the “other tales” and what page numbers to find them on. Which is convenient.
Oh, but I’m forgetting to give you Gateway’s summary! Here it is:
“The gods of Poseidonis – or Atlantis – were powerful and real. Now they were determined to destroy the kingdom ruled by the father of Prince Vakar, the one man whose mind they could not read. The only way to save the kingdom was to discover that thing which the gods feared most.”
That’s the summary. And now for a few things it doesn’t tell you. The kingdom ruled by Vakar’s dad is called Lorsk. The mental thing going on with Vakar isn’t so much that his mind can’t be read, but that it can’t perceive communications from the supernatural, such as the dreams through which the gods customarily reveal their wills to their followers. And, spoilers here, what the gods fear most is meteoric iron, which cancels out magic, including their own. If everyone had some, all human beings would be like Vakar, and the gods, who are sustained by belief, would eventually wither away into ineffective spirits. Not good! The specific thing the gods fear is a certain ring made of iron, the focus of Vakar’s quest. It gets lost, but not to worry, our hero has a sword made from the same metal! He saves his nation (if not his throne) and finds his happy ending in a nearby realm, in the arms of a queen he fancies. All of this takes place in a primeval world like Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age, when sea levels were lower, and states existed that were precursors to those of the ancient Mediterranean.
You will have noticed that Gateway’s summary just covers the novel, not the “other tales,” so here are my own takes on the latter. All of them take place a century or so after the novel, when Vakar is a legendary figure. So, no guest-appearances from him, alas.
“The Stronger Spell.” The druid Gleokh has by his art created a revolutionary new weapon, which later ages will recognize as a gun. It proves controversial, and something others will gladly kill to either possess or destroy. Mayhem ensues; Gleokh and his foes die messily, and the secret of the new weapon is lost. For several thousand years, anyway.
“The Owl and the Ape.” Wily young Gezun of Lorsk, servant of the sorcerer Sancheth Sar, bids against a rival magician to obtain a magical manuscript for his master. He almost succeeds. Gezun will go on to star in all subsequent Pusadian tales not included in the collection, but we just get this taste of him here. He is essentially de Camp’s Conan figure, rising from slave to thief to mercenary to conman, to—but no, he stops there, because, A, de Camp didn’t write enough stories about him, and, B, people in general don’t rise from nothing to become kings, Conan notwithstanding. Because kingdoms are, A, xenophobic, and, B, they do have their standards, after all.
“The Eye of Tandyla.” King Vuar of Lorsk wants to obtain a magic gem from the rival Pusadian realm of Lotri. The problem is, it’s currently part of a temple statue of the goddess Tandyla—her eye, in fact. Diplomatically, it’s a no-go, so theft is the answer, and Vuar’s court sorcerer Derezong Taash is commissioned to do the deed. Which proves forebodingly easy … leading him to realize that there’s more going on here than meets the (ahem!) eye …
Right, that’s all you get. Want more? Get your own copy of the omnibus, or the original collection, or seek out the original magazines, and read up. Which may not be all that easy to do, none of these being the most obtainable of items. Sorry, but that’s the way it goes.
And the Pusadian stories omitted from the collection (and the omnibus)? Also not necessarily easy to find. But if you’re ambitious, here’s the list. There are four, all of them Gezun tales (though Derezong Taash also reappears in the first one). Since I’m a nice guy, I’m giving them to you in chronological order rather than order of publication.
“The Hungry Hercynian” (Universe Science Fiction, December 1953). Reprinted in the de Camp-edited anthology The Spell of Seven, Pyramid, 1965).
“The Stone of the Witch Queen (Weirdbook, Fall 1977). Only there, sorry.
“Ka the Appalling” (Fantastic Universe, August 1958). Reprinted in the Lin Carter-edited anthology The Young Magicians, Ballantine, 1969, and the de Camp collection The Reluctant Shaman, Pyramid, 1970).
“The Rug and the Bull” (Flashing Swords! #2, 1973, another Lin Carter-edited anthology). Only there, sorry.
Right, back to the omnibus, with which we are now almost done. At the end of the volume, we get another, briefer puff piece on the SF Gateway, just in case you missed the one at the beginning of the book, and an author blurb titled “L. Sprague de Camp (1907-2000),” just in case you missed the other bits about the author on the back cover and from the introduction.
The omnibus retains the dedications of the component volumes’ original editions:
Lest Darkness Fall is “To Catherine” (L. Sprague de Camp’s wife, Catherine Crook de Camp. He was still laboring furiously to finish the manuscript on their wedding night.).
Rogue Queen is “To Willy Ley” (German-American science writer and rocket enthusiast, de Camp’s friend and collaborator on Lands Beyond).
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales is “To: FRITZ LEIBER / CLARK ASHTON SMITH / and the late ROBERT E. HOWARD / with apologies for invading their territory” (fellow authors, three of the earliest practitioners of Sword and Sorcery fiction; de Camp would later claim his own Harold Shea series was also early S&S, but the Pusadian stories were certainly his first ventures into the wholly invented pre-technological secondary fantasy worlds pioneered by Howard and the others).
Interestingly, when The Tritonian Ring was reissued without the “other Pusadian tales,” de Camp re-dedicated it “To my old colleague and friend, Lester del Rey. Also a fellow author, though not of S&S. But they were Trap Door Spiders together, and later Lester’s wife Judy-Lynn would reissue or initially publish some of de Camp’s works. Though that would be later.
Normally, I would do a more detailed little paragraph on each dedicatee here, but I think I’ll save that for when I review the component volumes, assuming I eventually do. Besides, if you’re interested enough in this stuff to be reading this blog to begin with, you probably know about them already. But I’m happy to inform you about people connected with this book specifically, namely the authors of the introduction and the cover artist.
The intro, as noted earlier, is by Malcolm Edwards and John Clute, cribbed from their article on de Camp in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Martin Edwards (b. 1949) is a British science fiction fan, editor and critic. He has edited Vector, critical organ of the British Science Fiction Association, and has held various positions at Gollancz, Grafton, HarperCollins, the Orion Publishing group, and the Wellbeck Publishing Group, among them science fiction editor and chairman (Gollancz), and deputy CEO (Orion). He launched Orion’s SF Masterworks series in 1999.
John Clute (b. 1940) is a Canadian-born speculative fiction author and critic who has written extensively on the field. He is co-editor with Peter Nicholls of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, co-editor with John Grant of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, and author of The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, all three of which have won Hugo Awards. The full range of his publications, credits and honors would themselves make exhausting reading. Suffice it to say that he, and Edwards, know their stuff!
Richard Yang (b. … sometime). It remains to discuss the omnibus’s cover artist. I find only one Richard Yang in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, and this is his sole credit therein. I have found a number of artistic Richard Yangs online, plying a variety of styles. Only one, however, produces work resembling the brutal armored gladiator on the cover of the omnibus. He has a portfolio of some fifteen pieces at artstation.com, mostly fantastic in subject matter, though with ventures into the Historical, SF and Western genres. These are recognizably by the same artist whose work graced the omnibus. He also has a presence on deviantart.com as “NeilBlade.” The portrait is the one he provides at deviantart. While little personal information is provided about him, we learn he is a freelance artist based in Toronto, Canada, with skills in illustration, 3D animation, and character design who “loves Medieval stuff, specializ[ing] in battle scene and realistic armour design.”
The Other de Camp Gateways
Finally, because this review will undoubtedly be the only one in which I will discuss the SF Gateway de Camp publications other than incidentally, here is a complete list of them. Almost all were issued in a batch in September 2011, with a few straggling in later in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016. Forty-three titles were published in all, 38 of them fiction and five of them nonfiction, together representing the greatest number of our author’s works ever pt out by a single publisher. Aside from the omnibus, which was issued in both print and ebook formats, all were ebooks.
This list was compiled by consulting versions of the former sfgateway.com website saved on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, crosschecked by searching each title on Amazon UK. Titles shown are as given by SF Gateway; clarification, if warranted, is provided in square brackets. Arrangement is by fiction titles followed by nonfiction titles, then alphabetical by title. Dates are of original publication in book form followed by dates published by SF Gateway. Finally, the type of cover used by the SF Gateway edition is provided. Where “pictorial cover” is indicated, it almost invariably replaces an earlier yellow cover. Where “hybrid cover” is indicated (once), it means a yellow cover with pictorial elements was used. (For this book. It’s the omnibus.)
Sample images are provided for a selection of the yellow cover titles and all eight of the pictorial cover titles. Note that the yellow covers are of two general types, using a fancy font for fantasy and fantasy-related titles, and a heavy sans-serif for science fiction. The blurb, too, differs, with a Raymond Feist quote preferred for fantasy and a list of awards de Camp received for SF. The odd title out is Dark Valley Destiny, which has the fantasy font combined with the SF awards list. Of the pictorial titles, almost all are “Gateway Essentials” – titles the publisher recognized as important. Here the odd title out is Solomon’s Stone, a fun early fantasy, but on nobody’s “important” list. Possibly one reason for Gateway later reverting to the yellow cover for it.
Fiction
The Bones of Zora (1983; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Carnelian Cube (1948; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Castle of Iron (1950; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
The Clocks of Iraz (1971; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (collection) (1953; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
Divide and Rule (collection) (1948; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
Down in the Bottomlands: and Other Places [Harry Turtledove collection including de Camp’s “The Wheels of If”] (1999; SFG 2013) – yellow cover.
The Fallible Fiend (1973; SFG 2012) – yellow cover.
Genus Homo (1950; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Glory That Was (1960; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Goblin Tower (1968; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Great Fetish (1978; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Hand of Zei [complete version] (1982; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Hostage of Zir (1977; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Incomplete Enchanter (collection) (1941; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
The Incorporated Knight (1987; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
Land of Unreason (1942; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
Lest Darkness Fall (1941; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
Lest Darkness Fall / Rogue Queen / The Tritonian Ring (omnibus) = L. Sprague de Camp SF Gateway Omnibus (SFG original 2014) – hybrid cover.
The Pixilated Peeress (1991; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Prisoner of Zhamanak (1982; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Purple Pterodactyls (collection) (1980; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Queen of Zamba (collection) (1977; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales (collection) (1970; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
Rogue Queen (1951; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
Solomon’s Stone (1957; SFG 2016) – pictorial cover (Amazon.uk still shows yellow).
The Stones of Nomuru (1988; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Swords of Zinjaban (1991; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
Tales From Gavagan’s Bar (collection; expanded edition) (1978; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Tower of Zanid (1958; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian [sic] Tales (collection, or maybe just the novel. Later retitled just The Tritonian Ring] (1953; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Unbeheaded King (1983; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Undesired Princess (collection) (1951; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Venom Trees of Sunga (1992; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Virgin & The Wheels (collection) (1976; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
The Virgin of Zesh (SFG original 2011) – yellow cover.
Wall of Serpents (collection) (1960; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
Nonfiction:
Dark Valley Destiny: A Biography of Robert E. Howard (1983; SFG 2011) – yellow cover.
Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy (1976; SFG 2014) – yellow cover.
Lovecraft: A Biography (1975; SFG 2011) – pictorial cover.
This is the third book recommended by comedian Anthony Jeselnik that I’ve reviewed. None are related to Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, or Lin Carter in any way. I risk alienating my audience by posting these reviews. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to write about them. The man is promoting some damn good books.
I admit that initially I thought Among Friends by Hal Ebbott was going to be the book that ended my infatuation with Mr. Jeselnik’s picks. I had a hard time getting interested in it. The book starts with an interesting quote from Jean Renoir, “The real hell of life is that everyone has their reasons.” But the first 100 or so pages had me yawning. I lost track of who was who and why I should care.
I had to write the characters names and their relationship physically in the book to remember who was who. (I’m talking actually putting ink onto the page like notes in a textbook to remember things.) The main characters are Amos, his wife Claire, his daughter Anna; and Emerson, his wife Retsy, and his daughter Sophie. The author’s prose isn’t particularly complicated but the way he has each character think about their motivations really bored me until “the event.”
Spoilers ahead…
Up until the event, I really had no idea where the book was going. All I knew was that it was about a “toxic relationship” between two male friends. I just wasn’t reading what I expected and I was getting bored. There were some funny lines once in a while, as when Emerson jokes about having the same car as a school teacher. You see, Emerson and Amos are both upper middle class earners and obviously a school teacher isn’t.
After finishing the book I read some online reviews that seemed to say the characters being rich was what influenced their (in the reviewer’s opinion) despicable behavior’s. I disagree. I think the reactions of the main characters behaviors come from being too educated.
I think knowing what the book is really about is a service to the reader, not a spoiler, so here it goes. “The event” is when Emerson sexually assaults Anna. It occurs around page 121. Nothing prepares the reader for it. After that, the reader becomes aware that this is what will carry the story forward.
From this point forward I was engrossed in the novel and started appreciating the author’s style and subdued poignancy. I know a lot of readers will hate the book for various reasons but they shouldn’t. A careful empathetic reading of every character will at least make you think, if not satisfy you. If still unhappy, create an alternate ending as Amos does.
When L. Sprague de Camp was preparing the Conan series for Lancer Books he had to do his due diligence. Famously, there was the eventually settled dispute between him and Martin Greenberg, and of course de Camp had to create a contract with Howard’s heirs and the newly appointed literary agent, Glenn Lord.
There were also minor things like getting P. Schuyler Miller and John D. Clark’s permission to use excerpts from their “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian.” I came across this letter from Mr. Clark granting de Camp permission and noticed he mentions borrowing from Robert E. Howard’s The Hour of the Dragon for an article on dimensional analysis.
During the early years of Conan fandom, professional writers, all members of the Hyborian Legion, submitted articles to AMRA and periodically gathered at Science Fiction conventions. Seeing winks and nods toward Robert E. Howard and Conan often appeared in the magazines of those days from writers who were friends of de Camp. Mr. Clark’s article appeared in Analog, November 1966. As a refresher, here is the first page of Howard’s story as presented in Weird Tales:
And now, without further ado, is John D. Clark’s pastiche of Robert E. Howard!
spraguedecampfan