2006 Howard News
06-05-2006 Denver
to Cross Plains Carpool Opportunity.
05-31-2006 Dennis
McHaney's Cross Plains Fire Relief book now available.
05-27-2006 Ethan
Nahté gives an update on his REH documentary.
05-04-2006 New
Massively Multiplayer Online Conan Game Coming.
03-11-2006 REH
Documentarian Ethan Nahté at All-Con
02-12-2006 New
book on Talbot Mundy available.
02-10-2006
Robert E. Howard Days - Pre-Registration Information Now Available
01-07-2006
REH Centennial celebration in Dallas Jan. 21
Denver to Cross Plains Carpool Opportunity
Hello,
For any fans that are interested in carpooling:
We are driving from Denver at about midnight on the 7th of June. We will be
driving straight to Cross Plains with a few pits stops. Anybody along our route
is welcome to come with for $60 (for both ways). We will be departing on Sunday
and driving a brand new rental car, so no problems there. If interested, call
Jason at 720-838-8310.
Dennis McHaney's Cross Plains Fire Relief book now available
This book, titled The Man From Cross Plains: A Centennial Celebration of
Two-Gun Bob Howard, it is full of contributions from various Howard fans
detailing elements of Howard's life and work. All proceeds go to the Cross
Plains Fire Relief Fund. In late December 2005, Cross Plains was devastated by
raging forest fires, and they need all of the help they can get to rebuild.
Consider buying the book, both because of its Howard content and also because of
it's charitable value.
The book is available through
Lulu Books.
The description from the Lulu website:
Description: The Man From Cross Plains: A Centennial Celebration, is a
collection of essays by some of the top Howard scholars in the field today. The
book is being published as a benefit for The City of Cross Plains Fire Relief
Fund, and all profits will be donated to the fund to benefit the victims of the
terrible wild fire that destroyed much of the town in December, 2005. The book
also contains the first U. S. publication of "The Ghost with the Silk Hat," a
nine chapter novella by Robert E. Howard. The book will only be available until
May, 2007.
Printed: $19.95
Ethan Nahté gives an update on his REH documentary
MAY 26, 2006 - Well, I’m under the blade, attempting to get the first part of
the two-part documentary cut in time for Robert E. Howard Days. We shot the
segues and narration with the host, Katrin Chittick, at Castle Douglas in
Rockwall, TX this past Tuesday. I only have 3 more hours of footage to log out
of more than 60 hours of tape and then I begin the first cut on the full-length
piece. I don’t expect this to be a final version of the documentary, but at
least a decent first pass.
Some of you may have seen the demo I was showing at conventions to raise
awareness of the documentary and to inform people about Robert E. Howard and the
annual event in Cross Plains. This edit I’ll be starting this weekend will be
focusing on Howard and his life. There won’t be as much material on his
characters as there will be in the second part, but hopefully this will prove
interesting and informative all at the same time.
Some of the guests to appear in the first part will be Rusty Burke, Don
Herron, Leo Grin, Jack Scott, Jack & Barbara Baum, Billie Ruth Loving and
possibly a few of the media celebrities that have been interviewed such as
artist Gary Gianni, composer Basil Poledouris, author Joe Lansdale and
screenwriter Michael Scott Myers. There will probably be many others appearing
in the program, but we’ll have to see what makes the cut and what hits the
digital floor.
Everyone keep your fingers crossed that I make it through this insane process
in one piece…and get it right, to boot! The premiere of Robert E. Howard: Man of
Mystery is scheduled to begin @ 5:00PM on Thursday, June 8 - the first day of
REH Days. If you haven’t made your plans to come celebrate the centennial event
of Howard’s birthday with Glenn Lord and Roy Thomas as the Guests of Honor, then
you should visit http://www.rehupa.com for
details.
Hope to see you there, by Crom!
New Massively Multiplayer Online Conan Game Coming.
Fellow Howard fan Dan Simmons sends in the following link:
http://www.ageofconan.com
This game, based on Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age, will compete with
popular titles such as World of Warcraft and Everquest. A
presentation of the game will be held at this month's
E3 computer gaming conference,
for those who are interested and can attend.
REH Documentarian Ethan Nahté at All-Con
LIVE’N’LOUD @ ALL-CON
LIVE’N’LOUD, producers of the Robert E. Howard documentary, will be appearing
at the 2nd annual All-Con convention in Dallas, TX March 17-19 @ the Sterling
Hotel. Producer/Director Ethan Nahté will be showing demo footage from the
upcoming documentary, handing out material on Robert E. Howard and talking to
conventiongoers about REH Days 2006. The LIVE’N’LOUD gang will be sharing an
endcap booth with Titan Comics for the 3 day event.
Ethan will also be holding 3 panels - 1 each day, along with book editor &
REH scholar Paul Herman. They will be doing a panel called “Beyond Conan & Kull”
where they will discuss some of Howard’s other characters that casual or new
fans may be unaware of such as the mountain man, Breckinridge Elkins, sailor
Steve Costigan or possibly a genera discussion on his horror tales or stories
about the crusades.
As of March 10, 2006 the schedule for the panels is:
Friday, March 17 @ 8:00 PM
Saturday, March 18 @ 2:00PM
Sunday, March 19 @ 10:00AM
For more information about the event, tickets and location, visit the official
All-Con site: http://all-con.org/.
New book on Talbot Mundy available
Talbot Mundy was one of the 1920s adventure authors that most
influenced Robert E. Howard. Mundy scholar Brian Taves has issued the following
press release about his new Mundy book:
Hi, I've corresponded with a number of Howard scholars over
the years, particularly Rusty Burke, and wanted to let interested people
know my new book on Talbot Mundy has finally come out. Unlike previous books
on Mundy, this is largely a literary study, and so may be of more interest
to those interested in Howard. If you could forward this, I'd appreciate it
... all my correspondence was back in the pre-internet age! Gratefully,
Brian
In 1895, 16-year-old Talbot Mundy fled the strait-laced Victorian upbringing
of his native England for a life of adventure. He crossed the entire
northern frontier of India, into Tibet, spent four years in Africa, and
traveled the Middle East in the wake of World War I.
Colonial odysseys of the time led most writers to echo
Rudyard Kipling's support of British imperialism, Sax Rohmer's "yellow
peril," or Joseph Conrad's bleak "heart of darkness." Not Mundy. His
fantasy-adventure books challenged assumptions of Western cultural
superiority.
Mundy's writing was based in Eastern religious teaching,
informed by his membership in the Theosophical Society in San Diego,
California. There he wrote Om–The Secret of Ahbor Valley, Tros of
Samothrace, and Queen Cleopatra.
Radio won him an audience of millions of daily listeners in the 1930s. Such
classic Mundy novels as King of the Khyber Rifles have also been
adapted for the screen.
Talbot Mundy: Philosopher of Adventure is the first
scholarly examination of this influential writer, and an appendix includes
the original publication of all of Mundy's work.
Brian Taves has authored six books on aspects of popular
culture and media, including The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of
Historical Adventure Movies. Taves, who earned his Ph.D. at the
University of Southern California, is a film archivist at the Library of
Congress.
Talbot Mundy, Philosopher of Adventure
A Critical Biography
Brian Taves
1ISBN 0-7864-2234-3
photographs, appendices, notes, index
310pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2006
$39.95
Published by McFarland:
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2234-3
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=S51719OC9K&isbn=0786422343&itm=1
(for $31.96, 20%off)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786422343/qid=1133991499/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-6931099-0176003?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Excerpt from Preface:
Preconceptions of empire adventure view it as a genre that
uniformly celebrates the hegemony of white imperialists and Western culture,
at best with a minor, patronizing glimpse of Eastern "exoticism." Countless
studies have relied on the example of Rudyard Kipling as the model of such
literature during the late 19th and early 20th century. However, there was a
significant counter-example, largely overlooked: an Anglo-American writer
who also achieved wide popularity. While writing for the same readers and
within a similar framework, he was not only overtly anti-colonial but one
who also championed Eastern philosophy and culture.
Talbot Mundy (1879-1940) spanned the interval between
Victorian classicism and the modernist era, writing 45 novels, most
appearing in multiple editions during his lifetime. Mundy's short stories
and novels have been translated into such languages as Armenian, Danish,
Dutch, French, German, Hindustani, Hungarian, Japanese, Norwegian, and
Swedish. Equally well-known in his time were short stories and serials in
magazines, and he penned 156, including essays and poems, in addition to
hundreds of radio scripts. Utilizing the genres of adventure and fantasy, he
used as his settings the contemporary colonial locales of Africa, the Middle
East, and especially India and Tibet,. Mundy's writing reflected his own
youthful years roaming these regions, and his firsthand observations of
occult teachings. His spiritual interests led him to explore a wide variety
of faiths, becoming especially involved in theosophy.
Mundy was more than a mere writer of diverting tales;
through his literature he was engaged in a lifelong discourse on philosophy
and religion. Long before Eastern religious ideas became diluted and
mainstream under the label "New Age," he effectively translated such ideas
as karma and reincarnation into a western idiom in such classic tales of
India as King of the Khyber Rifles and Om--The Secret of Ahbor
Valley. These and other stories of Lamas and Tibet, such as The
Devil's Guard, Black Light, and Old Ugly-Face, situate
Mundy as one of the first prominent genre writers to chronicle such
teachings from a sympathetic, understanding viewpoint. They paved the way
for an acceptance of new literary norms, as epitomized by James Hilton's
Lost Horizon. From 1925 to 1936, Mundy changed literary expectations
again when his Tros of Samothrace saga of imperial Rome departed from
conventional portraits of Caesar and Cleopatra to offer a feminist,
anti-imperial critique of the foundations of Western thinking. Mundy's books
continue to find new readers; 25 titles, including two published for the
first time posthumously, have been issued over 50 times in the 65 years
since his death.
My principal goal has been to investigate an important
author who will need to be acknowledged in future studies as one who
flourished despite defying all the "rules" supposedly dictated by the genre
and publishers at the time. Yet these deliberate decisions also kept Mundy
from the bestseller status achieved by authors like Sax Rohmer, who framed
the East as an "other" and menace to the West. Joseph Conrad provides the
closest parallel to Mundy of a major adventure author, sharing philosophical
concerns, but without the religious overtones so vital to Mundy. This
sensibility, and Mundy's hopeful conclusions, also placed him outside the
realm of the bleaker currents of literary modernism represented by Conrad's
"heart of darkness."
I traveled to the various locales where Mundy resided in the
United States and England, walking in his footsteps to better understand the
man, thereby uncovering a variety of local resources which have helped to
fill gaps in his life story. These have ranged from the Hammersmith, London
neighborhood and Rugby School of his birth and youth in England; from New
York City to Norway, Maine; from Reno, Nevada to San Diego, California; from
Manchester, Connecticut to Anna Maria, Florida. Significant archival
resources have been provided by New York Supreme Court records; the court
records and attendant newspaper publicity surrounding Mundy's attempted 1923
divorce in Reno, Nevada; the Theosophical libraries in Altadena and Point
Loma, California; the Bobbs-Merrill and Curtis Brown papers at Indiana
University; the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection at the University of California at
Riverside;the Rose Wilder Lane papers at the Herbert Hoover Presidential
Library; the Library of Congress; the Charles Scribners Sons papers at
Princeton University; the Fox and Universal scripts at the University of
Southern California; the University of California at Berkeley; the Jerusalem
News at the Boston Public Library; the Anna Maria Historical Society; the
Arthur Sullivant Hoffman papers at Pennsylvania State University; the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library; the British Film
Institute; the Wincenty Lutoslawski letters; the Nicholas Roerich Museum;
and most notably the private collection of Mundy's stepson, Richards Ames,
by his marraige to his wife Sally. I have had complete access to the Ames
papers, and am especially grateful for the unfailing kindness and patience
of his widow, Betty Ames.
Most of these sources were unknown until found during the
research for this book. No one previously seems to have comprehensively
looked into Mundy's writing for film or radio, although the limited
resources on the latter medium have long been in existence. By contrast, the
Thomas H. Ince papers (relating to Mundy's 1923 employment in Hollywood) did
not become available until 1998. The manuscript of Mundy's film treatment of
Rung Ho!, entitled FIFTY-SEVEN, only emerged for a brief time
in the 1980s, in the hands of a series of dealers, before it was abruptly
sold (after my own examination for this book) to an unknown collector,
rather than an archive.
I first began reading Mundy when I was in high school, and
realized that he was an author meriting serious interest. University studies
permitted locating many rarer Mundy stories as well as discovering the
dearth of information about him. Beginning the research that would
eventually culminate in this book allowed me to receive first-hand the
recollections and insights of many who knew Mundy, including his widow Dawn
and stepson.
REH Centennial Celebration in Dallas Jan. 21 - VENUE
CHANGED
Paul Herman has reported that the January 21, 2006 celebration
in Dallas outlined below is no longer taking place at The Black Dog Tavern, but
at another bar a few blocks away. His press release in below.
I swear, I'm not going to
kill him, I still got kids to raise, can't do that from prison.
Ok, the party has moved.
It will now be at The Torch, another of the more
well-known FW bars. The address is at 711 Barden, just a
couple blocks from the Black Dog, one block north and one block
west of the intersection of 7th and University.
The Black Dog owner called
and said that he just could not get it opened in time, the city
inspectors were just yanking him again and again, and now he's
got to rip out all the sinks and raise them ONE inch. Oy.
So, for those of you
coming, be sure to bring your Sharpies, so you can take ALL THE
GOODIES we've made for the event and scratch out BLACK DOG and
write in TORCH. Huge sigh.
The original press release follows:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JANUARY 06, 2006
ROBERT E. HOWARD 100th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
FORT WORTH, TX – Robert E. Howard was the first great fiction author born and
bred in Texas. He is now considered an inspiration to a who’s-who of modern
horror and fantasy fiction writers and illustrators. On January 21 2006, from
2-5PM, the 100th anniversary of his birth will be celebrated in Fort Worth,
Texas. An open mic will be available, and various people will be reading
excerpts from the vast range of REH works, from Sword & Sorcery (REH was the
creator of Conan the Barbarian, and generally considered the godfather of the
entire genre), to horror, fantasy, boxing, westerns, humorous, pirate, and
historical adventures. Excerpts from letters will also be presented, as REH
tells others about his love of Texas, the creation of his characters, and his
views on the times he lived in. And various poems from his extensive portfolio
of over 700 works will be presented. REH was a master poet, and skilled at all
the various forms in which he worked. Guests are invited to participate, reading
either their own favorite excerpts and verses, or serving as a reader of
material that will be provided to them there. Or just come and listen.
The event will be at The Black Dog Tavern, recently moved to 2933 Crockett, just
a block east and south of the intersection of 7th and University in the city of
Fort Worth.
Admittance is only $5/head with all proceeds benefiting the town of Cross
Plains, TX, a small ranch and farm community in West Texas (and REH’s hometown)
that was recently consumed by wildfires, with over 100 homes destroyed. Books
will be on sale, there will be door prizes and various scholars and editors will
be on hand to sign books. Your envoy for the afternoon will be Paul Herman, a
somewhat wizened and knowledgeable character familiar with the works of he who
shall be honored, toasted and commemorated. Other REH editors and scholars will
be on hand as well to sign books, answer questions and discuss topics of
interest.
If you are unfamiliar with Howard's work or would like to get to know it better,
this is the perfect opportunity to meet people and fans that will happily tell
you everything they know about this true Texas legend. There’s a lot more to him
than you think.
The Robert E. Howard 100th Birthday
Celebration:
Saturday, January 21, 2006
2:00 - 5:00 PM
The Black Dog Tavern
2933 Crockett (new location)
Fort Worth, Texas
$5.00 Per Person - All Proceeds will go the Cross Plains Fire Relief Fund, to
benefit the city of Cross Plains, TX, home of the Robert E. Howard Museum
For More Information - Contact Paul Herman @ 972-418-3571, or
paul.herman@halliburton.com.
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