I generally know if a film’s been worth my while if my thoughts are conflicted. Such was the case with James Cameron’s long-gestating epic Avatar, which already has climbed past the 1 billion mark at the international box office in a matter of weeks. Plenty have already offered their thoughts, but I feel sufficiently moved to join them.
Al Harron’s impassioned post regarding Almuric got me to thinking about that novel’s primary inspiration and the fact that The Cimmerian has yet to even mention the forthcoming screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic novel, A Princess of Mars.
I’m not entirely sure why I’ve been holding off on writing about Almuric: perhaps it’s difficult for me to write about perhaps the single most important Howard work in my personal journey. Almuric was the first Howard story I read, one of a glut of adventure stories I devoured when I was still in the single digits, and so it’s obviously quite special to me. It’s one of a few books that I’m fairly comfortable in saying shaped my future reading tastes in genre fiction. As part of my New Year’s Resolution, I plan on writing about Almuric throughout 2010, chapter by chapter, discussing the themes, characters, plot, writing, and extended history of this unusual and controversial story. I’ll also be looking at the various editions of the story: Grant, Leonaur, and the recent Paizo, among others, in order to judge which is the best edition of the novel.
“I knew it!” Leigh shouted, punching her fist into the air. “I told you sons of… sons what it would be like years ago!”
A rebel yell cut loose, and suddenly the room was a babble of voices.
– Leigh Brackett (in an alternate timeline), as envisioned by S.M. Stirling in his novel, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings.
Looks like Leigh Brackett and Edgar Rice Burroughs were more right than some scientists. Ever since NASA’s Mariner 4 did a drive-by look-see at Mars in 1964, there have been plenty of astronomers and planetologists lining up to “debunk” the idea that the Red Planet was ever anything but an arid rustball since the formation of the solar system.
James Maliszewski, the proprietor of Grognardia and a Friend of The Cimmerian, has posted an article on The Escapist website. It is called “The Books That Founded D&D” and I found it quite interesting. I thought it worth some commentary.
Mr. Maliszewski starts his essay noting the various reasons why J.R.R. Tolkien should be dismissed as major influence upon the role-playing game that Gygax and Arneson developed. Most of the evidence used to back this up is cited from Gygax’s own writings. The fact that these writings date from before and after the threatened lawsuit by Tolkien Enterprises means very little, in my view.
Tolkien deeply influenced Dungeons and Dragons. That is my humble opinion and I stand by it. The Elves as portrayed in D&D would be far different if JRRT had never written his novel, The Lord of the Rings. The same for D&D dwarves. Double ditto for “orcs,” which species (with that particular appellation) would never exist, but for Tollers. Triple ditto for the “halflings” in the game (whom I always considered ridiculous, in game terms). All of that, however, is fodder for another blog entry. Now, let’s get to all the stuff that James Maliszkewski and I do agree on (more or less)…
I’ve long believed that Edgar Rice Burroughs tenth novel, The Mucker, had a stronger impact on Robert E. Howard than those of Burrough’s works featuring his better-known characters. This occurred to me when I worked up a small article on the evolution of Conan’s character; how the wandering barbarian is at first a careless thief, than a mercenary soldier and pirate, and at last evolves into a responsible frontier scout, and finally a benevolent king. Burough’s Billy Byrne undergoes an even more drastic change of character though the two lengthy serials that ran in “All-Story Cavalier Weekly” in 1914 and 1916, and gathered together in book form in 1921. We do not know for sure if Howard read the magazine appearances, but the book was among those in his library, along with several other works by Burroughs.
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