Robin D. Laws is a Canadian game designer, someone I’ve long admired for his unique game systems and story ideas. That is, until I ran across something from his role-playing game based on Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories. It’s on page 31, under the heading of “Other Inspirations,” meaning, if Jack Vance’s Dying Earth isn’t enough source material for you enterprising game masters out there, here are some other authors you can steal from. After praising Clark Ashton Smith, Laws devotes his last paragraph to a certain Texas author:

Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories are in print, too. Although that author is by modern — and was perhaps even by contemporary — standards a monstrous bigot, his writing is worth a look for his vivid, action-packed English. Hyboria — Howard’s invented world — has few obviously Vancean traits, although there is a creepy familiarity to it. There’s a prodigal distribution of lost cities, massive ruins and strange customs. Demons, nasty magic and near-unstoppable evil crawl out at night, and more than anything else there’s a sense of age. Hyboria is massively old. Not end of time old, but ancient enough for the unwilling heels of human sacrifices to wear a deep groove between the threshold and the altar. On a lighter note, Howard’s lost world is thick with floosies, just like the Dying Earth is; and the obliging, dark-haired women of Zamora would certainly feel as much at home in White-Walled Kaiin as in Shadizar the Wicked. Finally, Conan himself fits the Turjanic mold like a glove, aside from his detestation of magic, anyway. The steel-thewed barbarian is a pure psychopath, amoral, selfish, and sentimental. He’s also fit, big and attractive, and has very, very good hair.

I know Laws probably felt that he was doing REH a favor when he wrote the above paragraph. It’s interesting to me how much the entire screed fits the pattern of a de Campian backhanded compliment. What I can’t quite get over is the size of Laws’ stones. I can almost forgive someone like Laws, the very model of a modern gaming Canadian, for considering Howard to be a “monstrous bigot” by modern standards, but anyone who claims that Howard was a “monstrous bigot” by the standards of the 1930s demonstrates a monumental ignorance of the pulps, the 1930s, and Robert E. Howard, not necessarily in that order. Even more upsetting was the fact that his misguided observation was the first point about Howard’s work that Laws chose to make, even before conceding to the author’s “vivid, action-packed English.”

Most of the Laws opinions in the middle of the paragraph are not worth mentioning, even the floosies comment — Bàªlit, Valeria, and Yasmeena notwithstanding. But his final point regarding Conan himself: “…pure psychopath, amoral, selfish, and sentimental” seems culled straight from all of Howard’s detractors. Was Laws reading the same Robert E. Howard stories as me? Or did he, like so many other critics, authors, and well-meaning nincompoops before him, miss the point completely?
Those of you that read “Hunting Howard,” in Dennis McHaney’s The Man from Cross Plains, may have noticed that I’m just a tad obsessive about collecting the works of Robert E. Howard. Back in February, when I was finishing that piece up, I never would have believed how very few changes I’d need to make to it by the end of August. I thought that cool new Howard items, filled with rare, or even unpublished, fiction would be appearing left and right. Well, that hasn’t happen — at least not yet — but there’s still time.

Despite my dreams of easily acquired, rare Howard material so far going up in smoke, the first part of 2006 has still been a banner year for Howard collectors. January started off with the Gollancz release of The Complete Chronicles of Conan. I wasn’t interested in this, having the collected Conan in the Del Reys, but it was nice to have such a significant volume appear at the dawn of the Centennial. And I didn’t have to wait too long to start spending my hard-earned cash — just in time for Howard’s birthday Paul Herman, with an assist from Dennis McHaney, published Odes at the Black Dog. This slim volume, limited to 100 copies, was available at the Birthday Bash in Fort Worth and, later, on eBay. Loaded with poetry, reproductions of McHaney’s and Bill Cavalier’s event posters, and sporting a cover by Tom Foster, the booklet was a great way for collectors to start the Centennial. The booklet even came with a cool REH bookmark with “Musings” printed on it, and the proceeds went to help the Cross Plains Fire-Relief Fund. Also, those that attended the event picked up a copy of Bill Cavalier’s Robert E. Howard at the Black Dog, which contains several original drawings and a poem. All of these items are especially unique, because the event ended up not happening at the Black Dog! It had to move to The Torch at the last minute.

Hot on the heels of this event, Damon Sasser released Two-Gun Raconteur #9 which I received in February. This is what I’d been hoping for: TGR contains the first appearance of “The Shadow of Doom” since Joe Marek’s “New” Howard Reader #1, and we all know how easy it is to find that — not. February also brought West Is West & Others, which is crammed to capacity with hard-to-find Howard nuggets. My partner and I had labored long on this volume, hoping to get it out in time for Howard’s birthday — close, but no cigar. At this point, having done my part for the Centennial effort, I prepared to sit back and wait for the next big thing. Then McHaney kicked the legs out from under me.

When he announced on the Inner Circle Yahoo group that he was planning a fire relief book, I wanted to help out. So I pulled out my “Hard-to-Find” list and hammered out “Hunting Howard.” Little did I know that McHaney was including one of those hard-to-find items in his book: “The Ghost with the Silk Hat.” Despite its inclusion, collectors still need to acquire Writer of the Dark, where it first appeared, for another story, “The Mark of the Bloody Hand.”

Shortly after I’d finished my piece, Girasol Collectibles dropped a bomb on the Centennial: The Weird Writings of Robert E. Howard. These two massive hardcover books collect every scrap of Howard that appeared in Weird Tales: stories, poems, letters — including the original art. The first volume appeared in January, but the collection was not complete until the second volume shipped out in late March; I got mine in April.

Also in April, Wildside Press released the fifth of its own Weird Tales (and others) collection, The Valley of the Worm. While the Conan stories that are included in this volume are readily available elsewhere, most of the others could only be found in out-of-print paperbacks — not counting the Girasol collection, which may have priced itself out of some fans’ hands. Later, in May, I reprinted Glenn Lord’s Ultima Thule, which contains a couple of Howard’s letters, and a passel of rejection letters that he received from various publishers, other things, too. And, at the end of the month, The Man from Cross Plains appeared.

The annual Howard Days Celebration at Cross Plains in June brought several items for collectors to drool over, but not much in the way of Howard prose. Damon Sasser brought out his second effort of the year, The Chronicler of Cross Plains #2, which contains the spicy story “Desert Blood.” Sasser also did a special reprint of Two-Gun Raconteur #1 for the centennial. Another Howard Days first was the “Centenary Edition” of Rusty Burke’s Robert E. Howard in Cross Plains, newly revised. The first number of The Dark Man‘s second volume, a combined double issue, also made its appearance. But probably the most exciting item was Chris Gruber’s Them’s Fightin’ Words, Volume II of The Cimmerian Library. This interesting collection of quotes from Howard’s letters reveals just how passionate REH was regarding the “Sweet Science” of boxing.

And, speaking of The Cimmerian, who would have thought that a journal devoted to REH would ever show up monthly? Not me. When Volume 3, Number 1 showed up in January, I knew the Centennial was going to be something special. And while the July issue did not show up on schedule, I know it’ll be in the mail soon, with the August issue.

Things have slowed down considerably since Howard Days. With the July TC delayed, I’m not aware of anything new for that month. August would have been the same if not for Pulpville Press. They’ve just released a hardback version of Almuric, illustrated by David Burton. And unless something else shows up soon, that’ll be it for August.

So, what’s left, with two-thirds of the year gone by? Besides the two-volume Weird Writings, Girasol has been steadily producing pulp replicas containing Howard’s works; four so far this year. They’ve also announced another collection, The Exotic Writings of Robert E. Howard, which is due out soon. Wildside Press’s Weird Works Vol. 6 should hit the streets before too long, as well. But, what we’re all really waiting for is the Del Rey Kull collection, and Mark Finn’s bio, and wasn’t there supposed to be a bibliography or two? And Dennis McHaney is making noise about another Howard Review. There’s still some time left in this extraordinary year, let’s hope they saved the best for last.
Strangely enough, I don’t think so. I think Laws is probably a fan of Robert E. Howard. So, where did this diatribe come from? Well, in the Science Fiction community, this is how Robert E. Howard has been discussed for the past forty — “for a fat chick, she sure doesn’t sweat very much.” The slightly judgmental tone, the almost apologetic language, as if liking something so “psychotic” is a guilty pleasure and shouldn’t be taken as a reflection on the person who likes it.

That was how de Camp most frequently described his love of Robert E. Howard to his various uncomprehending colleagues in the hard SF community. He might have felt that he needed to make excuses for it, but I don’t, and neither should anyone else that comes to Robert E. Howard honestly. It’s been so long since anyone wrote anything positive about REH, that most people feel that they can’t. After all, if de Camp was embarrassed, why should Robin D. Laws feel any differently?

This is not to pick on Laws (well, not very much, anyway), but rather to show how even in such cottage industries as role-playing games this attitude of “it’s good because it’s so bad” has shown up. This is why it’s imperative that Howard Studies continue, and not just in a vacuum, either. Fans and scholars need to get their viewpoints out in articles, blogs, emails, essays, academic papers, book reports, customer comments on Amazon — anywhere you find that you can put a positive slant on Robert E. Howard’s literary endeavors and maybe even say something positive or thought-provoking about his work. Liking something without prejudice is okay. Writing laudatory articles is okay. It’s really okay to be a Robert E. Howard fan in the twenty-first century, during the Centennial Year. The sooner we replace the outdated language of de Camp with our own vocabulary and context, the better.