Conan the Barbarian

I recommend you go to the manchild general and they can help you.

>>8580786
>The God in The Bowl
>The Hour of the Dragon
>Red Nails
>Queen of the Black Coast
read those and can personally recommend. Beyond the Black River is supposed to be good as well but I haven't read it yet.

>>8580965
I got stuck in my Howard anthology on Beyond The Black River; it starts a little sluggish, but I may have been burnt out from reading up to that point.

>>8580786
Legitimately visit the manchild general. It'll have more info.

You might not want to get into Conan. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser seems generally regarded as a better take on the formula.

Conan is great, I think it has mote value than just entertainment. You should read a bit on Howard's life, he genuinely believed the underlying philosophy in the stories and killed himself as a result of it.

>>8582246
You have to admit that it's pulpy enough to rely on genre quite a lot. It's literature, sure, but it's not good literature.

>>8582246
Howard killed himself because he struggled with depression, had just been told his mother was about to die, and had a revolver handy.

File: blackbooks-fronts.jpg (286KB, 1100x740px) Image search: [Google]

286KB, 1100x740px

Anyway, just buy the big Gollancz: all the published Conan stories as they appeared in Weird Tales, and a good essay/bio at the end.

>>8582252
not challenging you, I just want to understand.
In what way does it rely on "genre"
just what does that mean?

>>8582461
Its always funny watching you genre guys attempts to give your fiction something DnM.

>>8582503
thanks for adding nothing to the conversation.

>>8582461
It leans on the stock plots, characters and clichés of its genre. A fair amount of that was invented by Howard, true, but he used it as much as anyone. That much is empty chaff, written solely to pad out a work.

But he does have his own themes and messages. He had reasons to write other than to simply write.

>>8582866
>It leans on the stock plots, characters and clichés of its genre.

All literature does this.

>>8582893
Some literature does. But what you are thinking of is different. Shakespeare does not lean on stock characters and plots when he uses them, for example. He either uses them as their own device, or he develops them to the extent that they are his own creation.

I am not talking about that.

>>8582905

You are confusing genre and author, though.

Shakespeare shows his greatness exactly because uses the stock plots, characters and clichés of his genre to express something both individual and universal, and so creates something unique.

But there is as much sloppy, forgettable, trash in the so-called serious "literary" genre, as there is in any other. And there are as many unique and individual authors in "genre" literature. Which is if course to say, not that many.

>>8582231
True. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are both more imaginative and have more interesting characters.

>>8583058
Yes. Because he uses them. He doesn't lean on them.

There is no sloppy forgettable trash in literature, because by definition sloppy forgettable trash is not literature. Likewise, there are no unique and individual authors in genre fiction, because they are by definition literary.

The Tower of the Elephant is the best Conan story ever. Howard successfully combined dungeon dwelling, intrigue, mystery and cosmicism there.