When I did a posting on Fred Blosser‘s guides to Robert E. Howard‘s writing, I noted that his The Annotated Guide to Robert E. Howard’s Weird Fiction was originally written in the 1970s to be a companion to Robert E. Weinberg‘s The Annotated Guide to Robert E. Howard’s Sword & Sorcery, which was published in 1976 through Starmont Books.
I didn’t have a copy of Weinberg’s book and wanted to get one. I looked around and was finally able to get a copy at a reasonable cost. I wish someone would reprint this, maybe with some minor editing to cite the volumes (Del Rey or REH Foundation Press) where the stories may be found today.
This volume comes in at about 150 pages, about half of it covering Conan. We also get chapters devoted to Solomon Kane, King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, James Allison, Turlogh Dubh, and non-series stories. Each starts off going over the character, listing the stories with the character, then takes a deeper look into each story. As I’m about to write posts on both Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn, this will be useful.
Then we get to Conan, REH’s most well-known creation. We get a longer article on him. It should be pointed out that at the time, the Conan stories available included not just Howard’s original stories, but several additional works by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and others. This appeared as a dozen or so paperbacks. These additional works included outlines or fragments by Howard that were finished by others, or non-Conan pieces turned into Conan stories; the rest were pastiches. For better or worse, these additional works aren’t as readily available today.
Then, as with the rest, we get a detailed look at Howard’s Conan stories.
This is a nice addition alongside Blosser’s other guides. As I noted, I really wish someone would bring this back into print. Until then, look around and hopefully you’ll find a copy as well.
As a bonus, I also got a new volume from Fred Blosser: Exploring the Worlds of Robert E. Howard: 2024 Supplement, which is a companion to his Exploring the Worlds of Robert E. Howard: Omnibus Edition. This thin volume has six articles. One is reprinted from the 1970s Marvel Conan magazine. I have no idea about the rest.
The articles cover various topics, including Steve Harrison, Cormac Mac Art, Brent Kirby, and Butch Gorman.
I wonder if this will be a regular occurrence? I’ll have to keep an eye out for them.
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