2009 will go down as an eventful year for Howardom, Tolkiendom, Sword-and-Sorcery, fantasy, history, and The Cimmerian itself. A year of final print runs and new releases, sub-literary hackwork and excellent scholarship, terrible losses and welcome debuts, bad omens and promising news, and all manner of excitement. Following  fellow blogger Brian Murphy’s top five reads of 2009, mine is more an overview of all that was noteworthy this year, concentrating on the best the past twelve months had to offer.

Let’s have a look back on the year’s highlights.

January started off with a bang, with the literal decades-long wait for a reprint of Charles R. Saunders’ third Imaro novel The Trail of Bohu came to an end. Steve Tompkins discusses it in one of his final posts for The Cimmerian. I was a latecomer to Saunders’ Sword-and-Soul style, but the purchase and perusal of his previous novels, Imaro and The Quest for Cush, made this a must-buy for me.

Another release was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Graeme-Smith’s rather cute genre-mixing of Jane Austen with the classic Undead Apocalypse schlock exemplified by George A. Romero. Unfortunately, this genre has since outworn its welcome with an avalanche of classic public domain literature or historical figures mashed together with pop culture monsters: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter… Generally this sort of fiction is more suited for short stories, the type Neil Gaiman or Robert Silverberg does. Doing an entire novel one such an idea would require more than simply adding pop culture references. Greg Bear’s Dinosaur Summer not only acts as a sequel to The Lost World, but includes such wonderful homages as Willis O’Brien & Ray Harryhausen, having become the Summerlee & Challenger of the new expedition.

For February’s book releases, The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard dominated discussion, courtesy of the REH Foundation press. Leo Grin & Deuce Richardson offered their impressions. Collected Poetry sold out quickly, and is now on its third print run. A second poetry collection from Project Pride, A Word From the Outer Dark, also came out this month. In addition, Steve Tompkin’s last blog discussed Dan Simmons’ Drood, a dark and terrifying completion of Dickens’ uncompleted The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

A couple other things of note are the new bloggers gracing The Cimmerian, joining recent recruits Brian Murphy and Steve Trout. February saw the first of these newcomers: Deuce Richardson made the leap from moderator on the Official Conan forums to blogger status, with his debut article “The Call of Kathulos: Kull, Skull and “Call.”” Also that month was the unofficial debut of myself, via Steve Tompkins, in “Wheel of Pain, Tree of Woe, Throne of Tinfoil, Or, The Daze of Highly Insulting Adventure.” I take Steve’s approval of El Ingenioso Bàrbaro Rey Konahn de Simaria (and the resulting debate with Leo) as a badge of great pride, that my daft little story could elicit such discussion.

March did not see any new releases of note, though there was plenty of discussion on upcoming releases, such as Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold, and the impending appearance of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.

April saw an outpouring of grief and sorrow, as news of the Steve Tompkins’ passing filtered through the aether. Some of the tributes include the following from Charles R. Saunders, Charles Gramlich, Howard Andrew Jones & John Chris Hocking, Bret Smith, Damon Sasser, Rusty Burke, Morgan Holmes, Leo Grin, Brian Murphy, Steve Trout, Deuce Richardson, and myself, as well as many others on the Conan forums.

May saw the release of Tolkien’s retelling of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, a much appreciated non-Middle-earth book, though no doubt cynics would view it as desperate milking of the author’s name. With The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Middle-earth paraphernalia still going strong, I don’t see Chris Tolkien needing to do anything of the sort. There was also the somewhat controversial Prion Edition Conan the Barbarian, which I would still recommend over …And Their Memory Was A Bitter Tree for Howard newcomers. Purchasers of Collected Poetry or Outer Dark didn’t have long to wait for Barbara Barrett’s The Wordbook: An Index Guide to the Poetry of Robert E. Howard.

Also in May, a mere three months after my comic piece, I managed to sneak onto The Cimmerian, with my official introduction “Nameless Tales.” It’s still probably my favourite contribution to Howardom, as to the best of my knowledge, nobody attempted to use this system of categorization for the tales to this degree before. I plan on a sequel at some point, going beyond the Kulls, Conans and Brans to the many other untitled stories.

June was a great month for Francophone Howard fans, as Échos de Cimmérie – Hommage A Robert Ervin Howard–which would go on to win the prestigious Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in September–was released. But fret not, Anglophones: REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #13 was unleashed, with several fantastic articles and illustrations, as well as a fond farewell to Steve Tompkins, and The Dark Man V4N2 (#13) echoes those sentiments. The Man from Cross Plains offers a smorgasbord of Howard, Conan and Cross Plains related pieces. Tantor Media released the audio book of the essential The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, read by Tom McLaren over eighteen hours of Howard Jackanory. After the success of Return of the Sword last year, Rogue Blades casts Rage of the Behemoth into the Lion’s Den, and boy does it hold its own! Just about every one of the stories I’ve read so far has something to offer, but I particularly liked “Black Water” and “The Wolf of Winter.”

July also saw the beginning of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, another brave bastion holding back the black hordes of The Mundane, as well as a mysterious new edition of Almuric from IAP. Those following Howard’s excursions into sequential art were rewarded with The Saga of Solomon Kane, which collects the Kane stories that appeared in The Savage Sword of Conan and others. Savage Sword contained some of the finest adaptations of Howard into any visual medium, let alone comics, and so anyone with a bit of a comic mind would do well to add this to their collection.

August was a landmark month, as Howard gained another measure of literary acceptance into mainstream literature. The Library of America’s American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps includes “The Black Stone.” It is the first concrete example of Howard being included among the greats of literature, but to the delight of Howard defenders, it wouldn’t be the last–even this year. Tantor Media follows up on their previous audio book with The Bloody Crown of Conan, again read by Todd McLaren.

Also in August, one of those fine, rarest creatures of Howardian fauna–a female Howard fan!–makes her official Cimmerian debut. Barbara Barrett’s credentials are high, and her continuation of “Word of the Week” is a fun and informative addition to The Cimmerian. Like myself, she debuted “unofficially” on The Cimmerian before coming on board properly, via Leo. Her occasional forays beyond “Word” have been exceptional, from an epic tribute to The Charge of The Light Brigade (part of a series of posts dedicated to October 25th), to an eerie Hallowe’en tale.

September continued with the landmarks. Right on the heels of American Fantastic Tales came Heroes in the Wind, only two years after Howard’s Penguin Books debut. Though marred by a limp title and atrocious cover, it boasts an intriguing collection of Howard tales, arranged by rehabilitated deCampista John Clute. It’s yet another axe in the door. Clark Ashton Smith got a word in, with Clark Ashton Smith – Collected Fantasies Volume 4 – The Maze of the Enchanter from Night Shade Books. Here’s Deuce’s review. The last week saw the two-volume A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, collecting the correspondence between two members of the Weird Tales trinity, with an excellent introduction by Rusty Burke and S. T. Joshi.

The Witching Month of October saw Tantor Media complete its quest, with The Conquering Sword of Conan & Todd McLaren embarking on the final 18 hours of Howard’s Conan stories. While Howard news might’ve been light this month, the paperback edition of The Children of Hurin came out, leading to a flurry of discussion and interest from casual Tolkien fans who couldn’t make it through The Silmarillion or The History of Middle-earth. Deuce embarks on an epic exploration in three parts.

The fifteenth anniversary of Karl Edward Wagner’s death was marked, with many contributors to Wagner October. 25th October saw Cimmerian contributors commemorate the great events in history coinciding on that date: Barbara takes on The Charge of the Light Brigade in three parts, I celebrate The Thin Red Line, Brian chats about Iron Maiden, and Deuce rounds out the day with a piece on The Battle Off Samar.

November blessed us with a great surprise: The Collected Drawings of Robert E. Howard. Howard’s fame may be as a yarnspinner, but he wasn’t a half bad draughtsman either. Frank Coffman brought us Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems. Subterranean Press released a special edition of Crimson Shadows: The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1, 750 limited editions signed by Jim & Ruth Keegan, and 50 leather-bound deluxe editions ,also signed, and with a leather slipcase. The redoubtable Stephen Jones, who almost always finds a spot for Howard in his dozens of speculative fiction anthologies, includes “Black Canaan” in The Dead That Walk. This month saw Jeffrey Shanks, archaeologist, pulp collector, adventurer, and Howard fan, join the shield wall. Jeff’s historical knowledge & experience is naturally appreciated, and his ongoing series on collecting Howard is a great read.

December has two more comic adaptations out on the stands: A King Comes Riding: The Chronicles of King Kull, and The Chronicles of Solomon Kane. Both trade paperbacks include wonderful illustrated adaptations of Howard poems, just as he wrote them: “The King and the Oak” in the former, and “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” in the latter. A true gem in Sentiment, An Olio of Rarer Works, featuring stories from Howard’s early years of writing. There are still a great deal of unpublished Howard stories out there, proving just how prolific Howard was as a writer: seventy years later, there’s still work that hasn’t experienced the printer’s kiss to the virgin page. Finally, Dennis McHaney gives Howard fans a lovely Christmas present in the form of A Gent From Bear Creek, a restoration of Howard’s first published novel. The last new recruit to The Cimmerian’s shield wall was in this final month: Miguel Martins offered his sword-arm: being the lone European on the site up to then, it was most satisfying to make a miniature reformation of the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, to lend our swords to our American allies.

This year was also marked by sad deaths. Howardom was shocked by the untimely loss of Steve Tompkins, and was saddened to lose Joan McCowan, Ellie Frazetta, Donald M. Grant, and Ben P. Indick. The world of literature lost some great names: Donald Westlake, Dave Arneson, Elmer Kelton, and Robert Holdstock. In the realm of print, there were also casualties: 2009 was the first year since 2003 without The Cimmerian print journal, the last year of Realms of Fantasy, and the final The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Though The Cimmerian suffered the loss of its editor, the site recovered as best it could: with five new bloggers, the continuing support of founder Leo Grin, and the tireless efforts of Managing Editor Deuce Richardson, the site has reached new heights. October set a new high for hits at over 30,000 altogether–a record which was itself broken in November, with an astronomical 40,000–and in the closing days of 2009, December has just broken even that record. The Cimmerian is going from strength to strength, and with all the Howard film adaptations and book releases on the horizon, discussion of REH and Sword-and-Sorcery will only rise in the coming year.

Bring on 2010, I say!