Despite my best efforts, occasionally an order gets damaged in transit, or affected by even more minor factors. I just received word from one customer that the Cimmerian Library issue from his most recent order made a subtle impression on the cover of his deluxe V4n2, due to the tightness with which both issues were packed together.

Just to reiterate for those who don’t know, I have a pretty liberal return policy. If you are unsatisfied with your issue for any reason, simply mail it back with a note (the package doesn’t have to be fancy, as I’ll be destroying the ish upon receipt anyway), and I’ll send you out a new one along with a cheque covering your postage. In the meantime I’ll be thinking up new ways to solve this latest wrinkle in my shipping procedures.

Our fourth year of production continues with the release of V4n2, an issue that took a long time to put together. It features a deep symposium about the two anthologies released last year, and a lot of research went into the creation of each article. This is the most text-heavy issue I can remember in a long time. Nary a picture breaks up the flow, save of course the art of Andrew Cryer. Just tens of thousands of words that are sure to stimulate your mind and provide you with new avenues of thinking about Howard’s work. I’ll be interested to see how readers like it. It’s probably the most intellectually confrontational and incendiary issue since V1n1 rocketed TC onto the Howardian scene in April, 2004.

Another pleasure to be found in this issue is the poetry. Longtime Lovecraft fan Fred Phillips provides the verse, and I daresay he is one of the more talented poets I’ve featured. I’ve already bought another one from him, and hope he keeps contributing for years to come.

Subscriber orders are all packed and ready to ship — they should get out this weekend. But this month you are in for an added treat. I’m also releasing the fourth volume in my Cimmerian Library line of booklets, and this one is loads of fun, definitely one of the best yet:

Not only does this booklet reprint one of the classic Howard essays, but it offers a number of other articles written by Herron that expand on the themes begun in the original “Conan vs. Conantics.” Karl Edward Wagner comes under some scrutiny, as does Richard Tierney and his fellow pasticher David C. Smith. And of course, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter are analyzed in that way that only Don Herron can pull off. Everyone who has seen the cover thinks this is one of the all-time great cover images, based on pure entertainment value as well as the subtext present, and I’m inclined to agree. Says It All.

My next goal is to get the June issue edited and published in time for Howard Days, along with another Cimmerian Library book I think you will all enjoy. I’m still working on the V3 Index, and that might appear soon after Howard Days, perhaps in time to ship out with the August issue. The slipcases for V3 are coming too, but they have proven to be quite expensive and time-consuming to make at this unique extra-large size, and so it’s been slow going. The price on those will likely be $80, due to having a footprint double the size of last year. Making them two pieces rather than a typical one-piece open-faced slipcase also adds $$$ to the cost. I think that for V4, with a standard bi-monthly galaxy of issues, I’ll be able to reuse some of the old dies and designs and get the price back down to $40.

Quick — name the opposing sides at the battle of Pelusium. No? Okay, who were the besiegers and the besieged at Halicarnassus? If you don’t know, but would like to, or do know, and are intrigued by the thought of fiction that re-creates these ancient history flashpoints, I recommend unto thee novelist Scott Oden, the author of Men of Bronze (2004), Memnon (2006), and the upcoming Lion of Cairo. It might seem as culturally improbable for rural Alabama to produce a superior historical novelist as it was for Cross Plains to produce a world-class adventure writer and weird fictionist, but the hinterland, Erlik be thanked, continues to be full of surprises.

In a December 23, 2004 post to his blog (one of the friendliest to initiated and uninitiated alike that I’ve yet seen) Oden wrote “I am, and will always be, my first reader. I write stories I’d enjoy, stories I’d buy.” That must be the reason why others have been enjoying, buying, and even translating him into different languages (the best historical fiction sneers at borders, linguistic or political). In March Men of Bronze gave me one of the best calling-in-sick days of my entire life in the workforce, and Morgan Holmes also took time out from his recent agenda of drop-kicking a certain newcomer to matters Mak Morn-ian off the white cliffs of Dover to devour the novel.

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Mark has been disturbingly absent from this blog for months now — either his experiment with buying and running a movie theater is going great or my watch has stopped (read his personal blog for all the details of what’s happening on that front). But his biography of Robert E. Howard continues to dominate Howardian news cycles. This time word comes down that the book has made the cut for the 2007 Locus Awards for Best Non-Fiction Book (hat tip: Rusty Burke). That’s great news, a continuation of the shockwaves generated by the hugely successful Centennial year.

At the end of 2005 the rumor was that someone was planning on re-releasing Dark Valley Destiny sometime during 2006 (click on the preceding link and scroll down to the bottom of the linked page for Ed Waterman’s classic review). It never happened, and hence Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard is the book educating fans and changing minds in this modern era. That’s about as good a situation as we can expect at this point in the game, and Mark is to be commended for busting his ass so that a Howard biography would indeed appear during the Centennial.

I’ve been told that over at Gary Romeo’s new L. Sprague de Camp Yahoo! Group Darrell Schweitzer is making waves about getting DVD back into print. Yeah, good luck with that — on eBay it’s difficult to sell even signed, slipcased copies for more than $20, and de Camp’s name no longer holds any serious sway in publishing circles. My guess is a reprint would be a losing proposition for any mainstream publisher.

A savvy print-on-demand outfit like Wildside could make a bit of mazuma with it, but it would first have to get in the back of the queue of books John Betancourt needs to shepherd through the production process. The reprint of the Charles Hoffman/Marc Cerasini book on REH (the old Starmont Reader’s Guide) has yet to appear from Wildside even though the revised manuscript has been ready for well over a year. Judging by that, I’d say that those who hate DVD have nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future, and Mark’s book will continue to dominate the scene, massaging de Camp’s death grip off of Howard’s biographical reputation.

In fact, if Darrell or Gary don’t step in and become more proactive about keeping de Camp in print, I’m guessing that he’s in deep trouble. His sons dumped a huge amount of his library onto Half Price Books, which struck me as a sign that they couldn’t care less about their pop’s legacy. If publishers come calling I’m sure they would cooperate, but as far as doing any preservation or popularization on their own, don’t hold your breath.

My guess is that Mark’s book will be the beginning of a steady stream of new biographical tomes in the coming years, with each one diluting the longstanding de facto preeminence of DVD that much more. By the time there are four or five to choose from, I can’t see many people prizing de Camp’s bio enough to justify a reprinting. A book of de Camp’s source materials — interviews, letters, etc. — would be valuable, though. Gary is poking around the Harry Ransom Center, where de Camp’s papers are kept, so perhaps he’ll make the effort someday.

For the record, the picture above was taken during the release party for Blood & Thunder at the World Fantasy Convention in Austin. The motley horde surrounding Finn includes (from Left): Dennis McHaney, Steve Tompkins (obscured), Chris Gruber, Rusty Burke, Finn, Leo Grin, Damon Sasser, Bill “Indy” Cavalier, and Tim Arney.

A few months ago I posted an analysis of the photo of Robert E. Howard posed near Galveston with his father and two members of the Chambers family, Dr. Solomon Chambers and his daughter Deoma. When we left off, I was intending to get a scan of the original photo from Solomon Chambers’ son, Norris, along with a scan of the writing on the back of the picture. Here, then, is an update.

The scans Norris sent me aren’t very good, owing to the brightness and contrast apparently being adjusted by the scanner. Nevertheless, there is more detail here than in the best copy of the photo known to date, the one Glenn made of this same original years ago:

Note the nice color tinting on the original photo, and the increased detail in Dr. Howard’s suit and REH’s pants over Glenn’s copy, as well as the details on the ground and in the grass. It appears that the writing that is on Glenn’s was added after he made his copy — or else he made his copy from another copy of the original, one with writing on it — for the original has no writing on the front at all. This original looks a bit worse for wear than the one Glenn copied — the lower left corner is now missing. Unlike other Howard photos I have hunted down the originals for (such as the three photos stored at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley), there is no significant difference in cropping between these two.

On the back you can see that someone scrawled some basic information about the photo: “Robert Howard — about 12 yrs / Dr. Howard / Dr. Chambers / Deoma Chambers / in Feb 1918 near / Alta Loma Tx — in Galveston Co. / Tex Chambers Home burned at / sight [sic]” At least I think it says “burned.”

So who wrote this inscription? One of the Chambers family, or one of the Howards? I guess some handwriting analysis will have to be applied by someone with examples from all the primary suspects.

I’ve been doing some more poking around looking for original Howard photos. The pics I would most like to find are the ones Tevis Clyde Smith used in his self-published books on Brown County (Pecan Valley Days, Frontier’s Generation, etc.). But I e-mailed Tom Munnerlyn, who had handled TCS’s papers after he died, and he referred me to Roy Barkley, the heir to Smith’s effects. Roy says the REH shots were not among Tevis’ belongings at his death, and he has no idea where the originals are. Perhaps some distant relative inherited a photo album containing them, or perhaps they are truly lost. If so, that’s a blow. Some of those photos are among the best images of Howard on record, and it would be wonderful to see the originals in all their detail and glory.

At some point we have to hunt down the heirs for Truett Vinson and see if they have any letters or photos. I can’t help but think that they must, that although Truett refused to talk about REH at the end of his life he still may have quietly retained some items of interest. There’s just too much biographical research to still undertake, and not enough people on the trail of the ghosts.