Part five in Genseric’s Fifth Born Son was Michael Moorcock’s “The Nemedians.” Michael Moorcock was the 800 lb gorilla of heroic fantasy of the time.  Elric, Corum, Count Brass, Dorian Hawkmoon, and Erekose were all in print or at least most of them were in print at the time. Michael Moorcock is the International Man of Fantasy. He took the Carnaby Street dandy and turned him into a sword and sorcery antihero– Elric. The Dreaming City on Melnibone is the Swinging London of sword and sorcery. Elric himself ran around from story to story telling the Lords of Chaos to “Oh, Behave!”  Next time you read Elric, put on the song “Dandy” either the original version by the Kinks or the hit by Herman’s Hermits. Also have “She’s Not There” by the Zombies, “Heart Full of Soul” by the Yardbirds, and “My Generation” by The Who ready.

Ghor’s Nordheimr ambush a lost group of Turanians taking much gold and also some captives. Ghor claims a 13 years old girl as his portion of the spoils. The girl, Shanara, and her two brothers, Tashako and Yashati are the children of a Nemedian general who is fighting the Picts. His rival brother arranged for their mother to be slain, house burned upon them, and children taken captive. The Turanians got lost and wandered in the wilderness until they were ambushed by the Aesir. Ghor promptly rapes Shanara in a rather glib scene and informs her brothers that he is now their brother in law.  And that is where Moorcock’s section ends.

This was something of a throw away piece of work for Moorcock. I find it interesting that he has proclaimed himself a feminist and even rewritten earlier work that he felt was insensitive and yet has a rape of a 13 year old. No doubt, he would give some long winded response that he was being ironic blah, blah, blah. What’s the deal with the Japanese sounding names Tashako and Yashati for Nemedians? Was he on some sort of Bushido or Shinto kick at the moment? Also was he pulling a joke calling the girl “Shanara.” This would have been around the time that Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara (aka The Sword of Sha-Na-Na) first debuted.

I contacted both Charles R. Saunders and Richard L. Tierney. Both gave the same response that Jonathan Bacon gave complete freedom to the writer in his own section.  Dick Tierney added “I like to characterize it as the longest and most violently fantastic round-robin since the Bible.”

I just found out this afternoon that Robert Holdstock died today after losing a battle with an E. coli infection. He had come down with the infection I believe on November 18 and was in grave condition when I first heard last week.

Holdstock is going to be remembered mostly for his novel Mythago Wood (1984). I had first read the original novella in the September 1981 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The idea blew me away with woods holding the history of the land, the deeper into the wood, the farther back in time. Mythago Wood may be the most important fantasy book of the 1980s. Holdstock could be on the difficult side to read. I have to admit that I always did not get the ideas.  Steve Tompkins was a ceaseless cheerleader for Holdstock. Back in the 1990s, Steve would fly to London for a few days, buy new U.K. books and bring them back. Seems like he was always picking up David Gemmell and Robert Holdstock.

Holdstock under pseudonyms wrote some out and out sword and sorcery.

He wrote three novels in the “Berserker” series as “Chris Carlsen.” They were violent and also thought provoking. The main character went backwards in time with each incarnation. Very intriguing.

The Raven series could have been something that made Lin Carter look good.  Robert Holdstock and Angus Wells wrote the series. Both Wells and Holdstock wrote the first novel. Holdstock then wrote the second and fourth while Wells wrote the third and fifth books solo. There is a moodiness present in them and level of writing that lifts the series above book creation hackery.

Holdstock could be dismissive of sword and sorcery fiction. Which is worse, someone who can write it well but does not particularly care for it or someone enthusiastic but overrates himself and his production (i.e. Lin Carter)?

I had intended to return to both Raven and the Berserker series in the next few months.  May Robert Holdstock go that Mythago of his own making.

The initial setup for Ghor Kinslayer/Genseric’s Fifth Born Son was now over. Joseph Payne Brennan’s section in the round robin novel had Ghor attaining his revenge against his family.  Now what? Richard L. Tierney had no problem. Dick Tierney was one of those new writers in the 1970s though older by a decade than the average neophyte. He grew up on Arkham House and Gnome Press hardbacks in the 1950s plus a steady diet of historical movies. He had started writing a series of stories about Simon of Gitta, an actual historical person important in Gnosticism. Tierney also along with David C. Smith served as a pinch hitter writing the Bran Mak Morn novel, For the Witch of the Mists. Karl Edward Wagner had bailed on writing a sequel to Legion From the Shadows which forced Zebra Books to scramble at the last minute for a replacement.

Tierney picks up immediately with Ghor on the run from the pursuing Vanir.  The Ice Woman Ythillin comes to him sent by the Ice Gods to bear a prophecy that Ghor will help lead the Aesir against the gods of the South. Ghor meets up with the Aesir, Hialmar, the very same Hialmar mentioned in Howard’s “The Hyborian Age.” Tierney not only knows his Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith, he studies them. He even remembered to make the Vanir a red-haired people again. There is some well done blood letting in the Aesir camp to firmly establish Hialmar’s primacy against all comers. Some Vanir captives are also given the choice of joining on the southern migration. Tierney has given a great new set up for the rest of the writers to follow. Part of it is laid out in “The Hyborian Age.”

One quibble, Tierney wrote the ground breaking essay “The Derleth Mythos” which began the process of separating Derleth out of Lovecraft and Derleth’s Catholicism out of Lovecraft’s original vision.  He then turned around and has the whole hero cursed by the gods and also tool of the gods against other gods plot coupon. This is what de Camp & Carter did with Conan in Conan of Aquilonia and therefore not an idea that I warm up to.

The third installment of Ghor Kin-Slayer/Genseric’s Fifth Born Son was by Joseph Payne Brennan. Brennan would not come immediately to mind as someone for a Robert E. Howard inspired round robin novel. He is best known for writing poetry and short horror stories.  Brennan did serve in the Marine Corps in WWII and got his start writing westerns with titles such as “War Party,” “Vengeance Trail,” “The Scalp of Milo Rue,” and “Twin Holsters” in the pulps.  In fact, there are enough Brennan western stories to fill out a book. In addition, Brennan also wrote at least two stories about Kerza the Celt warrior woman. His installment, “Ghor’s Revenge” continues Ghor’s quest for revenge against the family that abandoned him. I like this chapter for the little things among others. Brennan mentions larch groves, a snow owl hooting, and Ghor’s use of wolf tactics. The section ends with a bloody frenzy of revenge as Ghor kills his four brothers rapidly and carries off Gudrun, whom he feeds to the wolves. The writing itself is very good.

There are problems. First Brennan mentions Gudrun’s yellow hair (when it should be red). There is also the feeling that he blew the whole revenge scenario. This past summer at Pulp-Fest, there was some discussion about the novel. Rusty Burke is of the opinion that Karl Edward Wagner had a set-up for a family member getting whacked in each section. I will say that the suspense factor would have been increased. I will play Devil’s Advocate. If you had a line up of writers such as David Drake and Donald Westlake in Richard Stark mode, that would have been possible. I don’t think it was possible with most of the future installment writers in waiting. That sort of hard-boiled type story would have been alien. Also- Jonathan Bacon could have sent this section back to Brennan for only one brother to be knocked off.  Maybe Bacon wanted the Family Ties situation dealt with expeditiously so the story could move into more fantastic directions. I can try and make a few contacts and see what I can dig up. The main problem with the Brennan section is more about what could have happened versus the actual writing. You can’t quibble with Brennan’s writing. I will recommend Brennan’s other fiction. You might find the old Ballantine paperback edition of Seven Horrors and a Dream or The Shapes of Midnight (Berkley, 1980). Both books are uncommon but worth searching out. Midnight House Press has also published a hardcover collection of Brennan fiction called The Feasters From Afar (2008). Mike Chomko Books is a good place to get that.

Fantasy Crossroads #10-11 (March 1977) contained  the first three installments of “Genseric’s Fifth-Born Son.”  The second section entitled “The Coming of Ghor” was by Karl Edward Wagner.  Wagner at this time was viewed in the small press as the second coming of Robert E. Howard.  His Kane novels and stories had gathered a cult following by this time. Wagner got it, you could read his heroic fantasy and not be embarrassed. He was a logical choice to get some sort of story going from the short Robert E. Howard beginning. Wagner does a pretty good job of mimicking Howard’s prose style.  He briefly touches on the life of the feral child raised by wolves that includes the leg deformity straightening out. During the course of this segment, the narrator mentions learning of men’s words but does not explain how this happened. The feral child gains a knife from a hunter slain by the wolf pack.  Later when around age ten, he watches a battle between two groups of men. Deciding he wants the sword carried by the badly wounded lone survivor, he finds it is no other than his father, Genseric, who recognizes him. The feral child slashes his father’s throat while Genseric inflicts a wound on his head. A group of Aesir find the feral child and nurse him back to health in addition to taking him in. They name him Ghor. At the end of the story, Ghor kills Bragi who witnessed the infant Ghor taken by the wolves. Bragi proclaims “You are a child of evil!” just before Ghor runs his sword through him.

Time to go into Hyborian scholarship nerd mode. Wagner is not paying attention to details when he describes Ghor as having snow white hair. He also describes Genseric as having a “blond mane.” Genseric and Ghor are both Vanir who Howard describes in “The Hyborian Age” as being a red haired people. The Aesir are the blond people. He was not paying attention and needed to go back and reread “The Hyborian Age” and take some notes.

Wagner’s plot idiosyncrasies are also present. In this case, patricide. His Kane is a fratricide. Wagner seemed to like killing of family members in his stories. Wagner’s promise at this time never panned out. He never wrote the Kane stories and novels he talked about. He wrote one Bran Mak Morn novel and walked away and later barely got his Conan novel written. On one hand, he styled himself as a professional writer like E. Hoffmann Price or Hugh Cave. In the end, he was more like H. P. Lovecraft, producing infrequently and unable to become a high production author.

Last week my computer was infected with a nasty malware called Security Tool. The bad part is it blew right past my internet security program. So while my computer was down, I had more time for reading. I dug out my Necronomicon Press edition of the round-robin novel, Ghor Kin-Slayer. I had first read a good portion years ago in Fantasy Crossroads. The novel was never finished as that magazine ceased publication. I was surprised years later when Necronomicon Press published  the complete book as a slender trade paperback in 1997. I decided to reread and blog my response to each section.

First, the idea of a round-robin novel, that is a novel with sections written by different authors sounds great.  Generally, the results are more often disastrous as the story spins out of control. Ghor has a total of seventeen authors and sections. The authors are mix of the good choices, some oddballs, and a couple of WTFs.

The first section by Robert E. Howard is a short one meant as the beginning to a James Allison story. Howard must have liked the idea of the James Allison stories as he kept going back to the character. The series never panned out well as Farnsworth Wright rejected the epic “Marchers of Valhalla.” “The Garden of Fear” found a home in the small press in Marvel Tales. “Brachan the Kelt,” “Akram the Mysterious,” “The Guardian of the Idol,” and an untitled 1400 word fragment were all unfinished. The untitled fragment tells of the new born infant son of Genseric the Sworder and Gudrun of the Shining Locks of Vanaheim. Born with a crooked left leg, the baby is left outside exposed to the elements to die. A she-wolf adopts the baby which is the basis of the raised by wolves legends.

Some observations–Robert E. Howard was again in Jack London mode, especially with the wolf element. James Allison refers to this incarnation as “the Strong One,” a Londonesque name if there ever was one. The story is also unusual in having a Vanir character. The other James Allison stories feature either Aesir or Aesir descended characters. In the middle of the fragment, Robert E. Howard sounds very much like Donald Wandrei, a writer he admired:

“Even the destruction of the planet can not kill that spirit, whether its end be blackening frost under a dead, icy sun, or the melting wrath of cosmic fires. Let the earth burst like an iridescent bubble floating in the gulf of infinity, yet life is not destroyed. I have seen visions, vast and terrible and wonderful, of the cataclysm that shall not destroy the spirit that is in me, but hurl it into unguessed infinities, into undreamed oceans of suns and stars beyond the ken of man, to take up the endless succession anew in gorgeous, weird worlds beyond the echoing voids.”

That paragraph reads like something excerpted from “Colossus” or “The Lives of Alfred Kramer.” Looks like Donald Wandrei’s cosmic imagery had some influence here. So, we have an intriguing start with REH out the gate.

I recently polished off Charles Willeford’s Miami Blues in a couple of days. I have read a few Willeford novels. Pick-Up is considered a noir classic. It is a scary story of a descent into alcoholism. Cockfighter is a difficult novel to peg and that is emblematic of Willeford. Miami Blues was his breakout novel late in life. This novel is a more straight forward crime or detective novel. Frederick J. Frenger, Jr. is fresh out of San Quentin and told to leave California. He mugs someone and uses the stolen credit card to fly to Miami. He breaks a finger of a Hari Krishna who sticks a pin into his brand new leather jacket. The Krishna dies of shock and then the novel gets going. Willeford writes an 1980s version of Hammett and Chandler’s hardboiled detective story. My guess this novel clocks at 80,000 words coming in at 213 pages which in my view is the perfect length for a novel. Willeford has some amazing humorous dialogue and scenes that make you want to gasp and laugh at the same time.  The tale of Enoch Sanders makes you laugh even though you shouldn’t.  Frenger asks the question, “Why would any man want to carry around photographs of ugly children in his wallet?” The movie with Alec Baldwin as Frenger is not too bad. There are some changes from the novel.  Willeford went on to write three more novels about detective Hoke Moseley. If the others are as entertaining as Miami Blues, I will be reading them soon.

The 1970s was a golden age for sword and sorcery fiction in the small press. Young writers such as Charles Saunders, David C. Smith, Lew Cabos, David Madison, Charles de Lint, Richard L. Tierney breathed new exciting life into the genre in crude, saddlestapled magazines such as Space & Time, Fantasy Crossroads, Dark Fantasy, and Fantasy Tales to name a few. One of these young Turks was Adrian Cole. Cole hails from Devon in Britain, Solomon Kane country. He represents the fantastic edge of sword and sorcery fiction. Oblivion Hand (Wildside Press) is a collection of stories culled from those magazines 30 or more years ago. All feature the Voidal. The Voidal is a sort of destroying angel used by the Dark Gods to work their will and vengeance. Stripped of memory, in each story, he attempts to gain knowledge of who or what he is and regain his memory. To describe the stories, think of H. P. Lovecraft writing sword and sorcery, returning to the Dreamlands but written in his later, darker style. There is some Michael Moorcock influence present with the idea of the “omniverse” and the Voidal being sent to different dimensions. Cole uses words to create names in the manner of Tolkien. Names such as Tallyman, Nighteye, Windwrack appear. Cole combines simple Anglo-Saxon words to create new ones. He has a very unique style and good command of language. Fans of Clark Ashton Smith take note though I would not call Adrian Cole’s writing style Smithish. Generally with collections anymore, I like to space the stories out one a week or even one a month to prevent repetition. I ended up reading one per day. Years ago, I had read “Astral Stray” in the anthology Heroic Fantasy which I mentioned yesterday. The story failed to make much impression with me twenty-five years ago. Turns out “Astral Stray” is a sort of bridging story on how the imp Elfloq came to serve the Voidal. Reading the stories sequentially was the way to go. Reading these early stories by Cole gave me a greater appreciation for his greatest work, the Omaran series. This is Cole’s big four volume fantasy series that includes A Place Among the Fallen, Throne of Fools, The King of Light and Shadows, and The Gods in Anger. I once described the series as reading as if Tolkien had written for Weird Tales. I consider it to be one of the most important fantasy series of the 1980s.

I have a fever and the only prescription is more sword and sorcery. Oblivion Hand helps feed that hunger.

Hank Reinhardt co-edited (with Gerald Page) one of my all time favorite original anthologies- Heroic Fantasy (D.A.W. Books, 1979). He became an expert on edged weapons by using them. He supposedly often would want to take a museum piece out and “see what this can do.” He died a couple of years back due to complications after heart surgery. He had been working on a book on swords and his papers were put together to make this book. This book is a hell of a lot of fun to read. Anyone thinking of writing fantasy or historical fiction needs to read and absorb this book. Reinhardt explodes myths such as clashing swords together in combat like in the movies. He also points out that fighting is not the same thing as fencing. Chapters are devoted to metal working, design and geometry of swords, wounds, Viking era, Rapier & small sword, Sabers, Two-handed swords, the Katana, Eastern Tw0-handed swords, African swords, basics of cutting, fighting with a sword. Unfortunately, Reinhardt did not write the chapter on Middle-Eastern swords when he died. I wish this book was double the size. I finally got around to reading Richard Cohen’s By The Sword this summer which I did not care for. That book struck me as being a bunch of anecdotes strung together. Reinhardt has come closest to a unified theory on the sword yet. This could have been a very dull boring book but Reinhardt writes in an engaging style that makes for relaxing reading. You also come away knowing a few more things. Robert E. Howard would have loved this book.

Quite a furor going on over at Conan.com regarding the new Conan movie. Someone unveiled the “casting call”, and Deuce the Wise put together a plot line based on who those designated characters are, and what the hell are they doing in any movie with “Conan” in the title.

Right on, Sword-Brother, but aside from a comment on the phrase “swords n’ dorkery” and a blog posting here, Ol’ Uncle Indy is staying far away from any commentary on that train-wreck in progress. (Oops, just flubbed that one, huh?) But Uncle Indy, I can hear some of you saying, what do you think about all this?

Thanks for asking! Funny how if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Why, “back in the day”, before I was involved in any organized Howard fandom, I wrote an article on the first Conan movie for the now legendary AMRA. I posed a lot of the commentary and arguments that are going on right now, but unless you have the September 1981 V2N70 issue of Amra, nobody has seen it in quite awhile.

Well, here it is. I made my bones in Howard fandom with this bit of commentary. Phrases like “What goes around comes around” or that “learn from history” one up there come to mind, but mostly what this grey-bearded old fart has to say is “Neener neener!” Take from this what you will. Hope y’all have fun grumbling in your mead, but take it from someone who has been there and done that, what you as a Robert E. Howard fan thinks about how Hollywood handles Conan does not mean jack-shit to Hollywood. Sorry.

WHITHER GOEST, CIMMERIAN? (A Dissenting View of the Conan of Late) by Gordon W. Cavalier

 Being a devotee of the purely Robert E. Howard stories since the Lancer series appeared in the mid-sixties, I’ve never quite been able to accept any of the now numerous pastiches and interpretations as being the “official chronicles” of the mighty Cimmerian. The de Camp/Carter adaptations from Howard fragments should be considered the only exceptions, I suppose, but hard-core fans like myself know that these are not the pure Conan of Robert E. Howard.

 The seventies and now the early eighties have brought Conan into prominence with a comic-book version and several very badly written pastiches, and now Hollywood has taken over the furthering of Conan’s career. It’s enough to make a Howard diehard like myself wince at what has happened to Conan.

 Having relegated myself to the role of “Interested Observer but Non-Believer” in the non-Howard Conan continuation, it is with mixed feelings that I read the news and information concerning the upcoming Conan movie. How great that venture would be if it could be true to Howard, above all considerations. Unfortunately, it appears to be headed every direction except a Howardesque one. Time magazine shows us a pre-production photo of a bearded, Arnold Schwarzeneggered Conan. Marvel Comics and Amra report the indecision and delay concerning all phases of the movie’s production: script, director, producer, budget, location, ad infinitum.

 This influx of varied information presents a topic of note for Howard fans: How Conan is being “handled.” In turn, some questions are raised: Why does Conan have to be “handled” at all? Why can’t the Conan of Robert E. Howard just be left ALONE, not handled, merchandised, pastiched, comick-ed or Hollywood-ized?

 I state my case for retaining only the image of Conan as conceived and written by Robert Howard. I feel strongly about not allowing any more weakened imitations to erode individual conceptions of Conan as given to us by his creator. I fear the Conan movie will do to the Cimmerian what the Tarzan movies did to the Ape-man.

 How can any discerning fan of the Tarzan of Edgar Rice Burroughs relate to the pitifully anemic movie version? With the possible ex­ception of one or two of Gordon Scott’s movies, Tarzan fans put up with wimps like a flabby Jock Mahoney, a blond Denny Miller, a pretty Lex Barker, and a mono-syllabic Johnny Weismuller. The movies scripts in no way rep­resented Tarzan from Burroughs’s point of view. What great Tarzan movies could have been made if just one of Burroughs’s plots or character treatments had been properly util­ized: La …Opar … At the Earth’s Core. In­stead, we now hear Bo Derek will portray Jane in an upcoming remake of Tarzan the Ape Man, with Lee Canalito’s Tarzan “dereked” in­to media unimportance. Over the years, the concept of Tarzan as envisioned by Edgar Rice Burroughs has been destroyed by Holly­wood, and we have been left with an unrecognizable skeleton, picked clean by vulture-like entrepreneurs. Does the same fate await Conan?

 In the case of the Conan movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger may physically pass more for Conan than did most of the actors portraying the movie Tarzan. However, we read varying (and ominous) reports concerning the Conan script, and how this author or that script writer or this director or that producer views the concept of Conan . . . how he should be “handled.”

 Conan is going Hollywood, and nothing I have to say or write is going to change that. So, why can’t a Howard story be adapted to appease Howardians like myself? Why all the searching for the right story line? Imagine “The People of the Black Circle” created with the screen magic Hollywood is capable of! The concise images that flowed from the type­writer of Robert E. Howard would readily adapt to produce an acceptable Conan movie.

 But, as with Tarzan, everyone involved seems to have an angle, and well enough (read: Robert E. Howard’s Conan) cannot be left alone. The de-Howardization of Conan con­tinues, at an ever-increasing pace; I, for one, am saddened to witness it.

 Today, with the sword and sorcery surge that we are experiencing, (what with books, magazines and fantasy role-playing games), we seem to be set for a Conan-inundation, if we aren’t already in the midst of one. The more new Conan material that is presented, regardless of type or form, the further away we retreat from Howard’s creation. The less Conan comic books, paperback pastiches, merchandising and movies we have, the better off a fan of the true Conan will be. We must retain only that wondrous vision of this imaginary barbarian hero implanted in our minds by an author dead 45 years.

 LONG LIVE THE CONAN OF ROBERT E. HOWARD!

A couple of notes: Yeah, “Gordon W. Cavalier” is yerz trooly. Don Herron was so convinced my name was a made up one, he was inspired to use a pseudonym of his own – George Knight - in his classic THE DARK BARBARIAN collection that is and will always be the benchmark of REH criticism. Get it? George: Gordon; Knight: Cavalier. That tickles the hell out of me to this day. You’re welcome, Don!

Regarding “Lee Canalito”: he was the actor slated to play Tarzan opposite Bo Derrick in Tarzan the Ape-Man in the early 80′s. He was replaced by Miles O’Keefe, who later went on to be Ator the Eagle.

Hope y’all enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Let the gnashing of teeth and sword rattling continue. Indy out.