It has been a long
time since I wrote about Robert E. Howard’s Conan. I’ve been meaning to write
stuff for the blog more often this year. If you’re reading this in 2020 you
know the kind of year we’ve had. If you’re reading this from sometime in the future,
then I would like to apologize from bringing up the horrors we went through.
Suffice to say that
it’s been too long since my last time hanging out with the Cimmerian. Long ago
my goal was to read all of the Conan
stories written by Howard and write something about each one as I go along.
Unfortunately, since writing about each story requires time and effort, the
project stalled a few years ago. Recently, I’ve been taken by the Conan bug
again (lucky for me it wasn’t another altogether dangerous bug, yes more
dangerous than Conan) and decided it was a good idea to give this another go.
Another reason to
pick up this project again is that I’m looking forward to reading Conan in
physical medium. The edition I’ve been reading so far is an ebook compendium of
all of Howard’s Conan stories. I also
have the three-volume set edited by Karl Edward Wagner. It found it randomly in
my local used bookstore and, liking the covers and having always wanted to read
these stories, I picked it up. I didn’t find out about how well-regarded they
are by fans of Howard and Wagner until after I have purchased them. They do not
collect all of the stories, mostly the later ones. I’ve got a three or four
more to read as ebooks before I start reading the Wagner edited volumes. That’s
extra enticement.
