With the jack-o-lantern rotting on the front porch and a half-finished list of items needed for Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen drawer, the bombardment of Christmas sales and advertisements that unmercifully pound our senses has begun. In this tempest of holiday commercialism, where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, there is solace within the pages of a spate of new Howard books and publications to calm one’s shattered and battered nerves. This year end publishing surge is a well-deserved reward for having survived yet another year of living on a planet that is seemingly coming apart at the seams. Escapism is the watchword for these troubled times, so let’s see what is on the reading menu for the waning weeks of 2014.
Now shipping is the third volume of the collected boxing stories of Robert E. Howard, Fists of Iron, Round 3. The volume is a smorgasbord of Costigan misadventures. If you are not onboard with the boxing stories, it is not too late. Volumes one and two are still available on the Robert E. Howard Foundation website. While you are there, check out the Membership details; being a member of the foundation is a great way to support REH, get discounts on books, the quarterly newsletter and some free swag to boot!
Neil Meacham over at Girasol Collectibles has been making many a Howard fan happy with the flurry of Weird Tales replicas featuring Conan stories he has been publishing the past months. The latest is one of Two-Gun’s best Conan yarns, “The People of the Black Circle.” Part one of the three part serial originally published in the September 1934, with a Brundage cover based on the story was published last month by Girasol, part two this month and part three will appear next month. It is really great to read Howard as he was originally published.
Also available from the Cimmerian Press is John D. Haefele’s A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos: Origins of the Cthulhu Mythos. This is the first volume from Leo Grin’s new publishing venture. The Cimmerian Press falls under the umbrella of LMG Books. Check out the website for more information. I am very please to see Leo get back in the publishing game. His The Cimmerian journal was far and away one of the best Howard zines ever, second only to Glenn Lord’s The Howard Collector.
Swords of the North from the REH Foundation Press is shipping next month. The book is one that the late, great Steve Tompkins dreamed of, what he called “The Northern Thing.” The volume is a comprehensive collection of all Howard’s “Northern Adventures,” featuring Cormac mac Art, Turlogh O’Brien, James Allison, and a number of other stories and poems. In a perfect world, this would have been the twelfth volume of the Del Rey series of Howard books.
A new volume from McFarland might be of interest to Howard fans: J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard and the Birth of Modern Fantasy by Deke Parsons, edited by Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III. Per the website “The birth of modern fantasy in 1930s Britain and America saw the development of new literary and film genres. J.R.R. Tolkien created modern fantasy with The Lord of the Rings, set in a fictional world based upon his life in the early 20th century British Empire, and his love of language and medieval literature. In small-town Texas, Robert E. Howard pounded out his own fantasy realm in his Conan stories, published serially in the ephemeral pulp magazines he loved . . . ”
With Christmas coming, any or all of the above items would make great additions to your collection or gifts for other Howard fans, provided they haven’t been naughty and reading Conan pastiches.
