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Being a female fan of Robert E. Howard’s work is as rare as being a panda capable of breeding in
captivity. And openly admitting to such puts me on the same scarcity scale as a breeding panda that’s also
carnivorous. But then again, I was never typical in my tastes, not as a kid and not as an adult.
My initial exposure to Howard, like most fans my age, had nothing to do with his actual writing, but from the
comic book based on his signature creation, Conan the Barbarian. In this case, my kid sister brought home
the oversized Marvel Treasury #4, which featured Conan the Barbarian and reprinted a colorized version of
Barry Smith’s adaptation of “Red Nails”, which had previously appeared in Marvel’s black & white mag,
Savage Tales #2.
I was fourteen years old and although I had been reading comics all my life, I’d just recently gotten into
collecting Spiderman, Fantastic Four and Dr. Strange. I had never seen anything like “Red Nails” before. The
art style, combined with the feeling of a lost, mysterious world of which I was only granted the briefest of
tantalizing glimpses, intrigued me. I quickly added Conan the Barbarian to my own must-buy list.
It was around that same time that the Lancer reprints of the original Conan stories, with their striking
Frazetta covers, started hitting the paperback racks at my local grocery and drug stores.
I can honestly say, if it had not been for my spotting Howard’s name on a back of an anthology of short
stories from the pulp era, I might never have learned of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Manly Wade Wellman,
E. Hoffman Price, etc. (The Howard story in the collection, in case you’re wondering, was Pigeons From Hell)
Geek culture in the 1970s was nowhere near as prevalent (and lucrative) as it is today. Despite the
popularity of the comics, it wasn’t until the 1980s, and the big-budget Conan movies featuring Arnold
Schwarzenegger that the character managed to become a genuine pop culture icon, recognizable by
people who have never heard of Robert E. Howard before. As they say, the rest is history.
Poor ol’ Bob Howard’s signature character, Conan the Barbarian, has long been the red-headed stepchild
of modern fantasy. If you go to the World Fantasy Convention or any of those high-falutin’ conferences
where the self-anointed cognoscenti of fantasy fandom go to discuss the genre, you’ll find plenty of people
willing to go on at lengths about the most recent multi-volume horse/dragon/cat fantasy or the umpty-umpth
reworking of a certain quest trilogy; but woe to those who might mention Howard in anything but dismissive
tones.
In fact, the very concept of “sword and sorcery” is a sore subject amongst those who call themselves High
Fantasy fans, who easily dismiss it as base adolescent wish-fulfillment, best left to pimply teenaged boys
stewing over being pantsed and dragged around the track after gym--as if those who prefer fantasies of
skilled minstrels with the ability to charm and tame flying dragons have never suffered such a fate.
The Sword & Sorcery fan is the reader who is looking for something visceral, immediate and real.
Something they can identify with on an emotional level that will excite them, jazz them up. They’re
dissatisfied with vapid, overly sentimental product, and disdainful of that which they perceive as bloated
and pompous. They’re looking for something with a hint of a danger, a dash of adventure, a whiff of
romance. They want something rebellious, something imbued with a sense of chaos and, more importantly,
fun. They want their spines tingled; their senses shattered, and kept on the edge of their seats. These are
the readers attracted to tales of lust, murder, and the weird unknown, featuring derring-do and dashing
heroes. They want action, and plenty of it.
The High Fantasy fan is far less confrontational, and far more sedate and leisurely. Their interests are more
cosmic in scope, rather than immediate. They seem more intent in actually creating a world for them to live
in than telling a story--and, more often than not, that world is one where everyone lives happily ever after,
or at least appears to, and all sharp edges have been rounded off to ensure that no one gets hurt.
In essence, the difference between Sword & Sorcery and High Fantasy is the difference between a
Ramones song and a cut by Yes; the difference between Philip Marlowe and Murder She Wrote; the
difference between a muscle car and a minivan; the difference between Fight Club and The Ya-Ya
Sisterhood; the difference between Conan and your standard-issue half-elf hero from the most recent best-
selling fantasy cycle.
Yeah, that’s right--I’m talking that certain something known as cojones.
I’ve always admired the ballsy and the work they produce. And that includes women. You don’t get much
ballsier than Joan Jett, Flannery O’Connor, Mrs. Peel, Pam Grier and Patti Smith, either. Having balls isn’t a
gender thing or a physical thing—it’s an attitude. Just ask Molly Brown.
What has always set Howard’s prose style apart from that of other fantasy writers is its sheer muscularity. It
is unabashedly masculine. His sentences all but roll their shoulders. Compared to many who toil in the high
fantasy vineyard, who feel the need to describe every fold in the drapery hanging on the wall behind a
minor character that will never appear again during the novel’s interminable thousand pages, Howard’s
style seems positively minimalist. Yet, despite its leanness, his descriptive passages possess the grace
and agility of a boxer, and pack the same punch. His prose might be purple on occasion, but you could
never call it ponderous.
Howard’s Conan stories are as sharp and pointed as any blade his protagonist might wield, and it is this
brevity that makes them so amazing. This was a world built via short stories and poems, mind you, not
thousand-page multi-volume tomes. Indeed, the very idea of Howard sitting down and writing something as
long and convoluted as the Rings trilogy or the Thomas Covenant cycle is impossible to imagine.
The fact that Howard’s Hyborian Age is as rich and vibrant as it is, with only a handful of short stories,
poems and a single original novel-length piece of fiction as its base stands in a testament to his ability as a
storyteller. It’s even more impressive when you reflect upon how much was written before Howard snuffed
out his own life.
Those who look down their noses at heroic fantasy have a tendency to dismiss Howard’s penultimate
creation as a sword-swinging brute, comparable to the grunting muscle-men in the Italian sword-and-sandal
epics of the early 1960s. But there is something far more essential, far more complex to Conan than simple
muscle and oiled skin dressed in a loincloth.
Conan was in many ways a reflection of a uniquely American archetype; one best exemplified in the cowboy
genre: the Quiet Man. The Quiet Man is invariably a loner, an outsider—one that might have a rough past,
but whatever misdeeds he may have done was out of necessity or survival, never cruelty or evil. The Quiet
Man may not share civilized society’s view of what’s right and what’s wrong, and have very little use for the
niceties of polite society, but will never waver from his own primal moral compass. The Quiet Man is both a
pragmatist and a hopeless romantic. When they love, they love big, when they hate, it is with a passion; and
the suffering they endure is silent but profound.
If I had to assign a recognizable face to what I perceive as the true essence of Howard’s Conan, it wouldn’t
be that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, or any other beefy, buff bodybuilding hunk. It would be Clint Eastwood’s
Man with No Name—especially the incarnation from High Plains Drifter: dangerous, fearless, contemptuous,
mysterious, darkly sardonic, confident, lustful, and possessing a sense of honor that is as unshakable as it
is unknowable.
With the existential anti-hero of Conan, Howard was using the romantic fiction of the Distant Past to draw a
portrait of Twentieth Century Man—red of hand and dark of eye, pursued by demons both real and
imagined, who worships a god who refuses to help those who pray to it, and is simply doing whatever it
takes to get by, whether its stealing jewels, splitting a guard’s skull, skewering a wizard, or usurping a
kingdom. You can quest until the cows come home, with allegory out the ying-yang, and still never get any
more profound than that.

Copyright 2006 Nancy A. Collins

Of Red-Headed Stepchildren & Cojones:
An Appreciation of Robert E. Howard’s CONAN
by Nancy A. Collins

REH: Two-Gun Raconteur
The Definitive Howard Journal