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Hither Came Scott Oden: The Shadow of Vengeance, a Sequel Robert E. Howard SHOULD have Written

Hither Came Scott Oden: The Shadow of Vengeance, a Sequel Robert E. Howard SHOULD have Written

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Conan: The Shadow of Vengeance (Titan Books, January 30, 2024)

Octavia tore her gaze from the grisly noose. Hope fluttered in her breast, for through the guttering smoke from scores of torches she saw the Cimmerian astride his mighty stallion. He stood motionless, a statue hewn from whalebone and gristle — save for his eyes. Even with the breadth of the Red Brotherhood between them, Octavia recognized the death fires kindled in those cold blue orbs.

There is a magic to some writer’s prose; it pulses and pounds, like Robert E. Howard writing about Conan, or has a clever, articulate subliminity in which a bright man finds himself feeling the fool in a genius’s shadow (Doyle’s Watson writing about Holmes), that infuses a character and their canon.

This is part of what makes pastiche such a tricky business to evaluate and review. Some hate the idea of pastiche, in which case, any review is pointless. On the other hand, pastiche — the continuation of an author’s characters in new adventures is a long-established tradition that reaches back to the tales of the pre-Classical world and continues on the reams of unlicensed fan-fic. So, let’s leave that debate for elsewhere, and just assume that you are this far because you love Robert E. Howard, you love Conan, and you want that pulse-pounding, blood-and-thunder sense of adventure you experienced long ago.

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John C. Hocking’s Conan Pastiches Emerald Lotus and “Black Starlight”

John C. Hocking’s Conan Pastiches Emerald Lotus and “Black Starlight”

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Ken Kelly cover art for Conan and the Emerald Lotus

John C. Hocking’s Conan Pastiches

Conan and the Emerald Lotus by John C. Hocking emerged from Tor in 1995 (Ciruelo Cabral cover artist), and was reprinted in 1999 (with a Ken Kelly cover); both paperbacks are insanely expensive now (i.e. $500+ on Amazon, 2021 price). In 2019 Hocking released a 12-part serialized novella “Black Starlight” published in the back of the recent Conan the Barbarian comic (the comic portion was written by Jason Aaron), a direct sequel to “Emerald Lotus” that tracks Conan’s adventures as he returns from Stygia.

An indirect sequel novel by Hocking called Conan and the Living Plague was pulled from publication in 2019 at the last minute. Its future is unknown (by certain graces, the author did provide me with a copy of the manuscript, and we plan to discuss it in an interview planned for 2022).

This post covers Hocking’s Conan pastiche as it evolves from Emerald Lotus in “Black Starlight,” with hints of more.
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By Crom: A Pair of Perrys (Conan)

By Crom: A Pair of Perrys (Conan)

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I have talked about Conan pastiches in a couple of prior Black Gate posts; and I’ve linked to them at the bottom of this one. Here’s something from one of them:

From 1982 through 2003, eight authors (though primarily four) cranked out 43 new Conan novels for Tor. At two per year, the quality varied wildly, as you can imagine. John M. Roberts’ Conan the Rogue is an homage to Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest and one of my favorite Conan books. Steve Perry’s Conan the Indomitable is one of the worst fantasy books I’ve ever read (even though it is a direct sequel to Perry’s Conan the Defiant, which I mostly liked.)

So, let’s take a look at those two Steve Perry books. I think that Ryan Harvey may hold Roland Green in less esteem than he does Perry, but I suspect it’s a close call. I think that Perry was the Tor author cranking out Conan books just for the money. On the whole, they’re bad, and I recommend everyone else ahead of him. Though I don’t recommend Green much, if ever. I talk about the books, and Conan writers, who I like, in the other posts below. You can see what I consider good about them. I don’t think Perry respected the character, or cared about the quality of the plot. Having said that, Conan the Defiant wasn’t too bad as a sword and sorcery paperback. Unfortunately, its follow-up was tripe.

Conan the Defiant

Conan the Defiant is the second of the five novels which Perry wrote in the Tor Series. In William Galen Gray’s chronology it is the fourth Conan tale (following Conan of Venarium, “Legions of the Dead” and “The Thing in the Crypt”), and taking place before Sean Moore’s Conan the Hunter.

The young Conan comes upon a lone priest being waylaid by five bandits. Impressed with the stranger’s skill with a wooden staff, the Cimmerian wades in and helps the man dispatch his opponents. Cengh, a priest of the Suddah Oblates, is later murdered, sending Conan on a quest of justice for his short-time friend.

In typical Conan fashion, he beds Elashi, a desert-bred warrior maiden, as well as Tuanne, a beautiful zombie. Yep, a zombie. Being the irresistible stud he is, the trio engage in threesomes all along their trek to the bad guy’s castle. This one seems to rate higher than normal on the Conan adolescent fantasies scale.

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R. J. Myers and the Crucifixion of Mary Shelley

R. J. Myers and the Crucifixion of Mary Shelley

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NOTE: The following article was first published on May 16, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

Myers Cross 2Myers Cross 1Robert J. Myers is a study in contradictions. A veteran CIA operative, he became the publisher of The New Republic. In the mid-1970s, Myers authored two sequels to Mary Shelley’s classic, Frankenstein or: The Modern Prometheus (1818). Having a longstanding interest in literary pastiches, I tracked down these two long out-of-print titles and read the first, The Cross of Frankenstein (1975). The prolific nature of the Universal and Hammer Frankenstein movies was understandable, but the original novel has always seemed more challenging to extend – even more so than Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Neither story demands literary sequels, nor did their authors choose to pursue them – a fact that makes the ambitions of prospective continuation authors all the more difficult to realize with any degree of success.

Mary Shelley’s original reads like a modern fable. The scientist who transgresses nature’s laws is destroyed by the abomination he brought into existence with his own hand. It is the same fable Michael Crichton fashioned nearly 200 years later into Jurassic Park. Shelley’s alternate title for the book, The Modern Prometheus is frequently forgotten, but it is critical to an understanding of how the novel differs from the 1931 Universal horror classic that imbued itself in the public consciousness. The monster of Shelley’s novel may be lacking a flat head and neck bolts, but he makes up for it in spades with his philosophical yearning for his own place in the universe and with the father/creator who abandoned him.

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