Like so many of you, I love the feel of a book in my hands, so I took the 20 dollar hit and ordered Francis DiPietro’s ROBERT E. HOWARD: The Supreme Moment, from Lulu.com. It’s also available as a download for four bucks, but I don’t like reading books on a computer.

I’ve only been able to skim read this book – got about six things going on at once right now, including the upcoming REH Days – y’all come! – but it looks “OK”. But because of a skim read, I can only give you a skim review for now.

The cover is kinda funky, with its negative green & grey imagery, and little tiny photos of REH grabbed from Joe Marek’s REH web page. (Joe Marek – now there’s someone who has fallen off the Howard map…) The big red copy at the top of the really ugly back cover dramatically says: “He gave life to a genre, and saved death for himself.” So, is this “The Supreme Moment” of the book’s title? That’s what I initially thought: another guy dwelling on Howard’s suicide…sigh. Actually, Mr. DiPietro explains inside that The Supreme Moment is a title to a Howard story -which ends in suicide. Doh! OK – asked and answered, Mr. Indy.

Anyway, Mr. DiPietro tells us he will offer up a fresh perspective on REH. While previous biographies were done in a linear fashion, he explains (and then shows us) that his biography of REH is non-linear. After availing himself of every biographical scrap of information he could find about REH, Mr. DiPietro cobbles everything back together in a kind of hodge-podge fashion. Oddly enough, I didn’t find this as distracting as it sounds. There’s a lot of info and speculation in 216 pages here.

The Supreme Moment seems to be a well-enough written REH biography (from what my skimming has told me), drawn from the major REH biographical pieces: The Last Celt, Dark Valley Destiny, One Who Walked Alone, Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, the two Necronomicon Press Selected Letters volumes, and to a much lesser extent, Blood & Thunder (which kinda gets the short shrift in a couple of places, as I recall…) Oddly omitted is Rusty Burke’s A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard from Cross Plains Comics. A number of Howard scholars are quoted herein, and a pile of stuff was copped from various online websites & blogs. However, there’s no evidence of any first hand research on Mr. Di Pietro’s part. Has he ever been to Cross Plains and breathe Howard’s dust? Had any of the Cross Plains Howard Experience that most of us reading this find to be a palpable entity? In his introduction, he asks right off: “Who the hell am I, and where do I get off writing a new biography of Robert E. Howard?” Hmmm, he’s not the only one asking that question.

Mr. DiPietro reprints H.P. Lovecraft’s The Silver Key within the pages of this book, and devotes a whole chapter on how it was an important influence of REH. While there’s mention of various Howard fan publications, I couldn’t find any notice of important Howard events like Howard Days in Cross Plains. (Again, I just skimmed…I’ll owe y’all a better review sometime later…)

While the ever popular question “Was Robert E. Howard a Racist?” and it’s further discussion are no where to be found, Mr. DiPietro does raise the “Was REH a Homosexual?” question. Apparently, some situations involving REH and Lindsey Tyson have tripped Mr. DiPietro’s trigger. Whatever.

So, we have a new Robert E. Howard biography here that doesn’t shed any new surprise news about Robert E. Howard, and is filled with a lot of rehashed biographical stuff and Howard Speculation (a great hobby of mine, so I like it here), and I find it all to be “OK”. I may change my tune upon more intense reading, but like I said, I love a book in my hands, and if it’s about Robert E. Howard, it’s particularly “OK”.

There are certain dates that are solemn in nature. June 11 of course is a day every year that I cannot but help think. May 18 is another as that is the day in 1980, Ian Curtis, singer/lyricist of the band Joy Division, committed suicide at age 23. Today is the 30th anniversary that the sword and sorcery writer, David Madison, left this world by his own hand.

A golden age of sword and sorcery existed in the small press in the 1970s roughly from 1974-1980. Writers such as Richard L. Tierney, Gordon Linzner, David C. Smith, Charles R. Saunders, Wayne Hooks, M. A. Washil, and David Madison all came out of small press magazines such as Space & Time, The Diversifier, Dark Fantasy, Wyrd, Fantasy Crossroads etc. These writers were mostly baby boomers. They grew up taking in Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Ace, Lancer, Pyramid, Hammer, AIP, and Roger Corman. Armed with sincerity and exuberance, they produced a body of work that remains to me at least the greatest movement within sword and sorcery outside of 1930s Weird Tales. These guys weren’t copying Conan by numbers, they were inspired by Robert E. Howard to write sword and sorcery fiction in ways unique to each writer. As a result you had Dick Tierney’s Cecil B. DeMille meets H. P. Lovecraft Simon of Gitta stories, David C. Smith’s contes cruels set on the continent of Attluma, Charles Saunders’ alternate Africa Nyumbani and its champion, Imaro. Then you had David Madison from Venus, Texas. He wrote a series featuring Marcus and Diana. The stories had a grounding in the decadent tradition with a big dose of Howardian action. Think of Cormac MacArt set down in Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne. Charles Saunders’ has coined the term “sword and punk” to describe Madison’s style. Titles such as “Castle of Light,” “The City of Silence,” “The Glyphs of Doom” just sound like how sword and sorcery should be. Madison also wrote some poetry.

Not many of the writers from the 1970s small press were able to make the jump to paperbacks. The buying up of paperback houses by conglomerates, changes in tax law regarding depreciation of stock, and the explosion of Lord of the Rings 90210 door stop fantasy books strangled this generation’s chance. Madison saw only one mass market appearance in Swords Against Darkness III (Zebra Books 1978) with the story “Tower of Darkness.”

Venus, Texas is a tiny town of a few hundred people south of Fort Worth; not too far from Waxahachie. He was a writer with talent and potentially a bright future ahead of him. Maybe someday, we will have a collection of David Madison stories and poems to pull off the shelf and read on days like today.

Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains 2008 is just around the corner, and it’s not to late to still make plans to attend on Friday June 13 and Saturday June 14th. (Texas is a really big state, so there’s room for all of us!) Please click on the REH DAYS 2008 tab at the top of this page to find out all you’ll need to know, and now find out even more with a few changes & additions.

A quick note on the changes: the Friday morning 10:30 panel has been changed to a more generic “What’s Happening with REH”. REHupans, REH Foundation Board members and (hopefully) a Paradox Entertainment representative will present a discussion of what’s going on in the world of Robert E. Howard. We’ll disperse information, answer questions and encourage audience participation in talking about the Howard boom of the 21st Century.

Arlene Stephenson, President of Project Pride in Cross Plains, tells me they’ve received over 100 items for the Friday night Silent Auction at the REH Banquet, but they’re always looking for more. Actually, paperback books are NOT what they need this year, so if you’ve got some other type of REH or related item, please consider donating it to the Silent Auction, c/o Project Pride POB 534, Cross Plains, TX 76443 (or bring it with when y’all come.) It would be much appreciated (and it’s tax deductible!)

The nice folks down at Greenleaf Cemetery in Brownwood, caretakers of the Howard family plot there, have asked all Howard fans everywhere for help. They are underfunded and understaffed, but they are still bringing out that wonderful Texas hospitality during REH Days. There will be a canopy erected over the Howard gravesite to protect folks from the blazing Texas sun, and Greenleaf will also be providing some refreshments in the form of water and soft drinks and cookies, for all who visit to pay their respects to Robert E. Howard and his family. So, if you can see your way clear to make a donation to the Greenleaf Cemetery when you visit during Howard Days, it would be a wonderful and most appreciated gesture.

The Gift Shop at the Robert E. Howard Museum will be selling a new t-shirt this year. Shown above is the newest addition for your fine REH clothing line. Yours truly will also be peddling a new Howard shirt, and I would hope others of you would take advantage of the informal Howard dealer’s area on the tables in the Pavilion for those items you’d like to sell or trade. (Think about donating some of them to the Silent Auction, as well!) And don’t forget to make your donation to Project Pride if you do decide to take advantage of the “dealer’s area”.

Robert E. Howard Days 2008 is almost here. Hope to see you there, for it’s the gala event of the year for all fans of Robert E. Howard! Y’all come!

You Tube is a fascinating place. Yesterday, I was able to watch a good portion of Giant of Metropolis which I had seen decades ago as a kid on T.V. The scene of the biting dwarves always stuck in my mind. The movie itself is of the genre today called peplum also known as “swords & sandals.” A peplum is another name for a short skirt. All those Italian made movies have Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott, Gordon Mitchell, Mickey Hargitay etc in leather mini-skirts. The Long Ships even has the Vikings wearing miniskirts. Which leads one to wonder, what is the obsession with putting body builders into leather miniskirts? What is more amazing is it took six writers to create Giant, a movie that bordered on the nonsensical. One internet review of Giants of Metropolis asked how many Italians does it take to write a sword and sandal flick? The answer is one to write the “screenplay” and five to oil up the actor named Gordon.

     The Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan movies were peplum. Nothing more. Instead of the leather miniskirt, Arnold wore a fur peplum (thank you Marvel Comics). Conan in cinema was doomed the minute Dino de Laurentis was involved. We are about to see history repeat itself. A Swedish company owns the rights to Robert E. Howard’s works and is hell bent for leather to get in on movie money.  The odds are we will see peplum with better effects. You can guarantee it if the director is from continental Europe. They can’t help themselves.  We can see Solomon Kane in black linen miniskirt, Bran Mak Morn in tartan miniskirt, Conan returns in the fur peplum, etc. The Sassenachs at least don’t have the obsession with leather miniskirts. I can remember a well made English movie called Alfred the Great that had a wonderful Dark Ages look to it. Michael York looked great as a Danish Viking.

 Change the word peplum and you have pablum–insipid fare.

A few years back, David Drake kindly provided me with a scan of this book cover. This was supposed to be Karl Edward Wagner’s follow up to Legion From the Shadows. He never wrote it of course. Don Herron has said that Wagner’s Bran Mak Morn novel is essentially Hugh Cave’s “Murgunstrumm” adapted to sword and sorcery. David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney were hired to write the novel that would become For the Witch of the Mist. I once mentioned to both Dave Smith and Dick Tierney that I enjoyed their Bran Mak Morn novel. I think I liked the novel better than they did. I brought up the Colosseum gladiatorial contests and said that scene must have been an homage to Talbot Mundy’s Tros of Samothrace. Neither had read Tros when they wrote For the Witch of the Mist.

Those of you smart enough to buy The Last of the Trunk should find something for everyone. I was blown away with the story given the title “The Man Who Went Back.” They say great minds think alike. John Pendragon is a Howard hero that unfortunately never got his full due.

“Raised in an Anglo-Saxon Land, speaking an English tongue, he grew up an alien to the people about him; he was, in his own mind, a Briton – one with his ancestors.”

As you can guess from my first name which is Brythonic Celtic that means “Sea Dweller” and a last name of Cymric origin which means the Holly bush, I have had similar thoughts.

“The Man Who Went Back” is a science fiction story involving time travel. The opening has similarities to Almuric. I don’t know when this fragment was written but it is similar in tone to the interplanetary adventure. Here is a great part:

“The next night he faced Professor Worley in the scientist’s study. Worley gaped in amazement. On Pendragon’s back ws strapped a bulky case and about his waist were belts with buttoned flaps. ‘A machine gun,’ said John Pendragon grimly. ‘A little souvenir of a South American revolution I managed to salvage from the ruin when our little rebellion failed. It’s a German gun –remarkably compact. And I know how to use it. I’m not going into a youner age unprepared.’ ”

The mention of a “compact” machine gun made me take notice. The light machine guns of WWII were in developement in Howard’s time but not yet in service. The U.S. Army did have the Browning Automatic Rifle which had good firepower but lacked a large enough magazine. The water cooled Maxim/Vickers machine guns used in WWI were still the norm, but you need crews to move them and run them. There were a couple of submachineguns around. The Thompson submachinegun just missed WWI but found use in gang wars during Prohibition and by the U.S. Marines in “Banana Wars” of Haiti and Nicarauga. The other submachinegun was of German origin and used in 1918 by the Wehrmacht Stormtroopers- the MP18. This was the first submachinegun used in combat and effective enough that the Versailles Treaty forbid the German Army from possessing it. There were variations including an MP22, MP28, and MP34. These submachineguns are known as “Bergmanns” (after Theodor Bergmann) or Schmeissers (after Hugo Schmeisser). The MP22 for example by produced by S.I.G. in Switzerland under the direction of Bergmann. Hugo Schmeisser made changes in the gun that resulted in the MP34 which was used by the German Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War. A number of nations bought these submachineguns including Denmark, Belgium, Finland, China, and Japan. Calibers used included 9 mm, 7.63 (used by China which had the “Broomhandle” Mauser pistol of this caliber), and 7.65 (Finland, a very fast bullet).

Unfornately, this story ended when Pendragon arrived in Dark Ages Britain. To give an idea of conditions at the time, I love to quote Gwyn Jones from A History of the Vikings: “By an interesting survival the Welsh and Gaelic speakers of the Island of Britain have preserved to our own day their ancient usage, Saesneg, and Sassenach, words not entirely without savour of Teutonic piracy and barbarism.”

The ancestors of today’s English were Germanic barbarians schooled in warfare from fighting both in and against Roman armies and probably in Hunnish armies also. Some scholars think that when the Saxons would conquer a section of Britain that 50-90% of the native population was exterminated or expelled. For more on this read Peter Beresford Ellis’ Celt and Saxon. Ethnic cleansing of Devon for example is well documented in the early 10th century. Robert E. Howard intuitively knew this which showed up in letters and stories. A shame he didn’t finish this story as I was ready to see a Saxon shield wall get mowed down with 9 mm bullets.

I was visiting Tor Books website this week and noted the company is doing something interresting. The success of the mass market reissue of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend has prompted Tor to reissue other Matheson books. Here is the kicker- the books are only $4.99!

James Reasoner once told me mass market paperbacks should be about an hour at the minimum wage. The current price of mass market paperbacks is such that it no longer becomes an impulse item. You have to weigh spending $7.99 for a paperback versus the return in entertainment. With paperbacks below one hour of working at the minimum wage, these bargain priced paperbacks are more enticing. I can remember in the middle 1990s when there was an experiment with serial paperbacks for Stephen King’s The Green Mile and a paperback by John Saul (I don’t remember the title). Must not have worked well because I have seen no further attempts at this.

Richard Matheson has a range of novels from horror-science fiction (The Incredible Shrinking Man) to wistful fantasy. My own personal favorite is his WWII novel, The Beardless Warriors. Matheson was a green replacement infantryman in the European Theatre in 1944 at a very young age. This is a great novel, certainly a faster read than The Thin Red Line (which I like in its own way). I have felt the saving of the mass market paperback was to bring down the price of the books. It would help if a more comprehensive distribution system were in place like the old days. Reorganization of the distribution system for paperbacks killed the midlist and with the chance to read the more oddball or obscure novel.

An just to bring this back to Robert E. Howard, Richard Matheson did have one story in Weird Tales at the tail end of the magazine’s history.

If you work hard enough, almost anything can be brought in to relate to Robert E. Howard. A few days ago, I posted about Calgaich the Swordsman by Gordon D. Shirreffs. The copyright page gave the cover artist as “Enrich.” I did some searching and it turns out I know this artist. The artist is Enrich Torres or rather Enrique Torres. I have also seem him listed as Enric. Anyway, he is a Spaniard like Sanjulian and Esteban Maroto. He has done quite a few covers for Vampirella back in the day and also a few paperbacks. His cover painting for Avram Davidson’s Ursus of Ultima Thule is better than the book. Davidson managed to make prehistoric fantasy boring in this book. Not a wonder there was only one printing. One of the deadly sins in sword and sorcery writing is to write a boring story. Yet, there has been more than a few.

Enrich also did a great caveman cover that ended up on the Zebra edition of Three-Bladed Doom! Gotta love how Zebra used totally inappropriate art for their paperbacks. The Sanjulian cover for the later Ace edition is much more true to the story. Enrich reminds me of Gino D’Achille, another very 1970s artist who did quite a few covers for D.A.W. Books, especially Gor novels. The Frazetta influence is evident with these two covers. Just goes to show how far reaching and influential the Master has been.

The great Rick McCollum drew this picture for his REHupa zine about six or seven years ago. It remains one of my favorites. He converted Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp into sorcerers of Acheron. I especially like the touch of giving L. Sprague de Camp female breasts!

Back in March, I had a continueing education seminar in Cleveland. When I was finished, I had to stop at Mac’s Backs, a great used bookstore that has been in the Coventry area of Cleveland Heights for decades. One of the items I found was a nice upgrade copy of Calgaich the Swordsman by Gordon D. Shirreffs. I first read this novel back in 1995 and loved it. Gordon D. Shirreffs was a writer best known for his violent, hardboiled westerns written for Gold Medal, Avon, and Ace from the 1950s into the late 1980s. Shirreffs started out in the pulp magazines in the late 1940s writing over a hundred stories for the western pulps. For some reason, he did not branch out into general adventure, detective, or science fiction as many did at the time such as Gardner F. Fox or John D. McDonald.

Sometimes you just know a writer had to have read Robert E. Howard even though you have no concrete evidence. Shirreffs is a case in point. Calgaich the Swordsman is a historical novel, though you generally find used copies in the science fiction/fantasy section of bookstores. The book is set in the Fourth Century A.D. (that stands for Anno Domini; stick the newfangled Common Era up your sphincter) in Roman Britain. Calgaich is a Brythonic Celt warrior in exile to Ireland. He returns to fight against the Romans who he really hates. The book starts out with a fight against a raiding band of Picts. How can you go wrong? If you like Bran Mak Morn or Cormac MacArt, find a copy of this book. Over the years, I have picked up extra copies and lent them to people to read. I turned Glenn Lord on to Shirreffs and also Rusty Burke. The great lamented Chuck Eschweiler commented to me when I had him read it that Shirreffs though writing in Howard’s territory did it in his own voice and not as a mindless pastiche.

Former REHupan James Reasoner found that the original title was The Celtic Blade and Shirreffs had wanted to write a sequel. Unfortunately, Playboy delayed the publication by a few years. The book sold well but Shirreffs had lost interest by that time and moved on. A real shame as I would have loved more adventures of Calgaich. The Celtic Blade is a great title for a book. Perhaps someday we may see a reprint of this fun novel with the original title. A search on abebooks shows many copies available for a low price. I urge all who are interested to track down a copy of this novel. Shirreffs also wrote a pirate novel called Captain Cutlass about the same time as Calgaich. Shirreffs died in 1996 right when I wrote a letter to him to find out if he had read Robert E. Howard. That is one mystery we may never solve. My old copy of Calgaich has already found a home with a new owner.