D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[Dioltach]

Too late - you piqued my interest.

Seriously, I know Saladin Ahmed from his work in comics but didn't realize he wrote a fantasy novel, so even if incomplete, I need to check it out.

He has a collection of short stories as well, called "Engraved on the Eye (which includes "Where Virtue Lives"). They're quite diverse, but consistently excellent. "The Faithful Soldier, Prompted" and "Iron-Eyes and the Watered-Down World" are among my favourites.

 

[GobHag]

Actually I'm just gonna straight up and say that Isekai is the modern pulp sword-and-sorcery.

 

[TiQuinn]

Goddamn what happened in the 2010s that so many authors just stopped writing really cool series for seemingly unrelated reasons.

It's kind of why I appreciate self-contained series like Harry Dresden or Jack Reacher on the crime side of things.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And collecting hypersexualized child-faced girl is more gender neutral?

???

Me confused. Did I imply that? It's obviously very sexist and objectifying of women/girls, isn't it? I thought that was implicit.

I would distinguish Japanese vs. Korean and Chinese gachas slightly here, as the latter two tend to have attractive male characters to collect (some Japanese gachas literally have zero male characters because apparently a lot of Japanese gacha fans find male characters objectionable!) and don't make everyone quite as child-faced or young-looking, though some manage to combine male characters and young-looking in quite dodgy ways too (looking at you, Genshin).

I'm struggling to think of a particularly strong example of active racism in either though I'm sure there are plenty out there, I'm just not familiar enough I guess. One could easily argue passive racism because of the exclusion of non-pale characters though.

 

[Retreater]

I'm not trying to defend Howard or Lovecraft's world views, but what they offer is short fiction that isn't a 900 page Brandon Sanderson epic. It's episodic and a good basis in pacing for a gaming adventure.
I've been unable to find contemporary and less problematic writers who can do the same thing.
Even a novel-length work that isn't a part of a 3000 page epic that I can read in a weekend would be preferable.
Open to your suggestions.

 

[Voadam]

I'm assuming (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here) you have the privilege to view it at a purely academic level and you relate to Conan vs say the Kushites or Stygiansm...but for someone who is on the other side of that equation... what does Conan offer that other, less racist sword and sorcery , doesn't.

Really good pulp fantasy action writing.

Conan goes all over the Hyborian world and there are a lot of stories that do not involve the Black Kingdoms or Kushites that should not raise up those specific issues. Be aware of the issues and it is reasonable to avoid the ones with the issues you don't want to be provoked by but there are plenty of good ones to enjoy that do not involve those issues if you want. Tower of the Elephant, The Frost Giant's Daughter, etc. all from my memory of reading them a couple decades ago should be fine. It would be a personal choice on where your lines are, but I would say there is really good writing of his I would enjoy that I do not remember raising such issues directly for a reader. Going with no reading of any of it all is a defensible choice and line, but I would not suggest that as universal. You would know your friends more than I would and they would know themselves more than you would.

I started off with the Savage Sword of Conan and Marvel Conan comics and the original movie and enjoyed them and moved on to Conan novels that were easily available, which were a bunch of later authors after his death. The novels were OK fantasy. Eventually getting Howard originals the writing is significantly of a different cut for action fantasy and cool pulp feel. I heard the Robert Jordan later ones were decent too but I have not read any.

 

[Dioltach]

I heard the Robert Jordan later ones were decent too but I have not read any.

I read them, and I thought they were awful. And that was in the mid-1990s, when I was prepared to devour anything RJ wrote.

The writing is nowhere near as vivid and vigorous as REH's, and to my mind RJ just didn't get the character or the world. For instance, there's a scene where a strange non-human race are forcing humans into manual labour, and one of them mocks a human for being weaker and not being able to carry a rock. So Conan picks up the rock and manages to carry it as far as the non-human did. This just struck me as so out of character for REH's Conan, who'd be more likely to keep his head down, mind his own business and look for a chance to escape. Not put himself forward as the champion of humans.

 

[SteveC]

It seems that this topic comes up every time we talk about fantasy not of the current era. The best professor I had when I was in college always started a particular book or play off by discussing the context of the world at the time of the play. If you read Shakespeare and notice that the Catholic characters are ... less than stellar, it's helpful to know about the context of the real-world political situation and who Shakespeare was writing for.

Can we read Howard or Lovecraft in 2025? I think we definitely can. I know that a lot of novels of that era and the pulps in general were written from a particular worldview that's changed since then. I think that I'm able to deduce that fact from any book I'm reading.

In the real world outside of gaming, I have been involved in discussions about removing Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird from schools. I argued against removing them as examples of writing that talked about America at a particular time and place. I'd say the same thing about Conan, even if it's a lot less important.

I've been around for a long time, but in terms of political or literary movements, I'm just a baby. When we stop reading books of an era because their worldviews are different (and repugnant) to us, we lose a profound connection to the past. And even if we don't know it, we place ourselves to be removed when the views of what's acceptable or not change, as they undoubtedly will. I don't want to step into territory we don't talk about here, but stop and think of how views have changed in the last 20 years. Then, think about the last 40. I find it difficult to share movies I really enjoyed as a kid with my daughter because of some of those changes.

In my opinion, read Howard, or Lovecraft, or not as you like. I recommend them to people who are interested in Swords and Sorcery or otherworldly horror, but I give them a caveat. Just like I do with The Goonies.

 

[SkidAce]

Well I think my author insert character should be played by Sean Connery too! Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Me too...this version!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah definitely. I couldn't even comprehend it when I first came across it, it was so wack and specific.

He sets a lot of his stories right places where I lived growing up. The Festival was set in a town called Kingsport, but it was obvious that was Marblehead, which is two towns over. And Marblehead has long been a Yankee enclave (not so much these days but when I was a kid, it was). He was also fascinated by Salem, which is also just two towns over. So I think a lot of the New England specific things tend to leap out at you if you from the region (especially if you are my age or older)

I think one thing that doesn't always come across from that era too is that because a lot of racism was so mainstream, people were very picky about their racism! Like, they'd believe a bunch of horrendously racist and obviously untrue nonsense, but think that some other horrendous racist thing about the same group was obviously false and only dumb people believed that, and would get into arguments about it in the letters sections of newspapers and stuff (not having online forums to do so, I guess!).

I'm not trying to defend Howard or Lovecraft's world views, but what they offer is short fiction that isn't a 900 page Brandon Sanderson epic. It's episodic and a good basis in pacing for a gaming adventure.
I've been unable to find contemporary and less problematic writers who can do the same thing.
Even a novel-length work that isn't a part of a 3000 page epic that I can read in a weekend would be preferable.
Open to your suggestions.

One of the reasons I love Howard is the same reason I love Pu Songling. When I read one short little story from them, I instantly get ten ideas for an adventure to run that week