I’ve never been much of a Clive Barker fan, so I never saw “Lord of Illusions” when it came out. It’s been playing on our cable though, so we gave it a try. Despite Leonard Maltin’s half-hearted endorsement (“Intelligent thriller […] better than the usual genre fare, but it’s thinly plotted, and condescends slightly to its audience”) it was entertaining enough and I never saw any condescension.

It stars “Quantum Jump”-er and “Star Trek Enterprise” captain Scott Bakula as a out-of-his league gumshoe and a very hot, young Famke Janssen (Jean Grey of “X-Men” ) as the damsel in distress. The plot, which involves cults and real magic, has several Howardian elements, which makes me wonder if Barker is a fan.

At the start, two cultists murder a mystic, and one of them has filed teeth (not that that necessarily owes anything to Howard’s “Shadows in Zamboula”) — but the other one is the creepier. This is a prelude to the main plot, which involves the PI being hired to check into whatever problem is haunting an illusionist, who then apparently dies in a stage accident. He has been hired by the sultry wife/widow whom he promptly bangs. What the illusionist feared is a man who has been dead for over a decade –a man who taught him that magic was real. In a very creepy sequence with echoes of Acheron, this dead sorcerer is brought back to life by his faithful cult.

For our P.I. hero, who seems not too far removed from Howard’s River Street, handgun fire is a hearty incantation, but in the end, it is the borrowed power of a formerly subordinate mage (the illusionist, not actually dead after all, but now getting there) who tried and failed to stem the black master’s evil — as in “People of the Black Circle” — that lets our braver and more determined hero throw the sorcerer back down to hell, in a sequence that relies on flashy special effects to the detriment of good storytelling. Still and all, a very interesting film.

I would guess it’s been well over a decade—perhaps 15 years or more—since I bought my last issue of The Savage Sword of Conan, the great old magazine that was my introduction to the writings of Robert E. Howard. But I’ve kept all my back issues safely tucked away in a magazine box and I still break them out from time to time. They remain great reads.

Given that I’m hardly a collector of the magazine it was with great surprise that I opened a birthday present from by brother last week to find SSOC # 1 inside. I’m not sure why he bought me the issue—perhaps because he knows I now write blog posts for The Cimmerian—but regardless, I was thrilled.

For those who don’t own a copy—or for those die-hard collectors who have it hermetically sealed and have never read its contents—I’m including a full review of SSOC #1, and my initial thoughts on opening this holy grail of Conan collectables.

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The tortured, transcosmic being that the teenaged Conan encounters in “The Tower of the Elephant” seems to have a bit of an identity problem. Said entity refers to himself as “Yogah” once and as ”Yag-kosha” twice. Robert E. Howard, in his role as omnipotent narrator, refers to the last exile of green Yag as “Yag-kosha, or Yogah” and as “Yag-kosha and Yogah.” 

 What to make of this? How should Yara’s otherworldly thrall be called?  By what name did that pathetic entity refer to himself, in his innermost thoughts?  Short of finding a lost letter relating to the matter, or the discovery of more “Hyborian Age Notes” of some sort, nothing absolutely definitive can be stated. However, I think something can definitely be speculated. (Continue reading this post)

That’s the deal going on at Subterranean Press through July 3. If you’re interested, check it out (hat tip: Jack Jones).

At long last, Fabrice Tortey reports that his large and meaty French tome about Robert E. Howard, Échos de Cimmérie, is at the printer and will be available shortly. It promises to be filled with interesting essays about Howard from both French and American writers. Last year Donald Sidney-Fryer read the galleys in the original French and reviewed the book in TC V5n6. I also published some of the contents of the book, translated into English, in TC V5n2.

Information on ordering the book, and a breakdown of the contents, can be found here.

UPDATE: The book is now available at Amazon here.

A quick recap: in my previous post, I started a look into one of my favourite Robert E. Howard creations, Cormac Fitzgeoffrey. I briefly discussed certain elements of Cormac’s character, specifically his anger, and his relation to Conan. In this post, I will go into more depth about Cormac’s life, as well as a bit of amateur psychoanalysis of his personality and character.

Unlike some of REH’s other historical characters, it is quite a simple matter to date and age Cormac Fitzgeoffrey.  In “The Slave Princess”, Cormac divulges some fascinating information about his origins in Ireland.

“Wars and massed battles I have seen in plenty,” said he, lifting his great goblet.  “Aye–I fought in the battle of Dublin when I was but eight years old, by the hoofs of the Devil!  Miles de Cogan and his brother Richard held the city for Strongbow–men of iron in an iron age.” (Continue reading this post)

Robert E. Howard fans usually have a strong opinion regarding the practices of pastiching and “posthumous collaboration”, which has been archly described as a work by two authors whose positions should be reversed.

I remember when the family of the late V.C. Andrews hired a ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, whose name appeared nowhere in the books, to continue her works under her name. I thought that was horribly misleading of them. You had to check inside to find it wasn’t actually her work. I thought that the Howard pastichers would have loved an arrangement like that.

But recently I saw something new in posthumous writing: Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming. Now I get Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman, or Karl Wagner writing as Kent Allard, even, but “writing as Ian Fleming?” Don’t you have to be Ian Fleming to do that? I know if I ever saw a book by Leonard Carpenter or some other twerp “writing as Robert E. Howard” I’d be tempted to set fire to the things right in the bookstore. It’s amazing what’s for sale these days.

More on the book here.

The Boston Globe published a great article last September that I first mentioned over at The Silver Key but thought that readers of The Cimmerian might also like to see. The title of this piece by Joanna Weiss says it all:

Fear of fairy tales: The glossy, sanitized new versions of fairy tales leave out what matters: The scary parts. 

Weiss’ article lays out the case that something vital is lost when children are introduced to whitewashed fairy tales and the old classics are denuded of anything mildly scary. Writes Weiss:

In toys, movies, and books, the old fairy tales are being systematically stripped of their darker complexities. Rapunzel has become a lobotomized girl in a pleasant tower playroom; Cinderella is another pretty lady in a ball gown, like some model on “Project Runway.”

Weiss adds that what makes classic fairy stories timeless are the difficult and often dark elements they contain, which often provide instructive allegory or socially relevant commentary.

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It was almost two years ago to the day that I first learned of the (then) forthcoming audiobook dedicated to The Children of Húrin. Despite the heads-up from Mr. Tompkins, it was only in the waning days of May 2009 that I finally acquired my own copy. Having some unforeseen time on my hands this last week, and an anniversary to commemorate, I sat back and gave a listen to Christopher Lee’s (and Christopher Tolkien’s) performance on the night of June 22, 2009.

I purchased my copy of The Children of Húrin audiobook for twenty-five dollars and received it still in its cellophane coll, pristine as driven snow. HarperCollins cut no corners with this production. The eight compact discs are sturdily packaged in an attractive box (though, agreeing with others, I find the Alan Lee rendition of Túrin to be underwhelming). Nestled snugly within the box are two CD cases, each of which contain four compact discs. Within the first case is a booklet containing a complete table of contents pertaining to all eight discs. The booklet also presents plates by Alan Lee for the print edition. The second CD case contains an excellent reproduction of Christopher Tolkien’s map of Beleriand. The covers for both cases are derived from Alan Lee’s The Children of  Húrin calendar, paintings not found in the print version. All in all, a sumptuous package. (Continue reading this post)

A few weeks ago Subterranean Press had a 50% off sale for some of their books on eBay, including their deluxe edition of Kull: Exile of Atlantis. That’s $75 for what’s been costing guys $150 since it was released. Ouch – I’d hate to be one of the buyers who got screwed like that. Do you think it’s possible that someday soon $75 will look too expensive for this book? Hard to be sure, but recently there was at least one auction on eBay with a starting bid of only $50. If they get down to $25 or so I might have to buy one and replace my trusty Del Rey paperback.

If there was ever a good example of why I’ve decided to destroy my back stock of Cimmerians this fall, this is it. No way do I want them washing ashore on eBay like dead fish for decades to come, saturating the market and selling for far less than what loyal subscribers paid for them, leaving my readers feeling like suckers for paying full price.I got the material out to readers, I paid the contributors — now it’s time to satisfy the collectors who supported the journal and allowed it to thrive.