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

[The Soloist]

You could read Imaro by Charles R Saunders.

Imaro is a sword and sorcery novel written by Charles R. Saunders, and published by DAW Books in 1981. It may have been one of the first forays into the sword and sorcery genre by a black author. Saunders wrote and had published two more books in the series, The Quest for Cush in 1984 and The Trail of Bohu in 1985. In 2009, Saunders released The Naama War, the fourth and last Imaro novel, through Lulu.

 

[MGibster]

I teach literature. In graduate school at Queen's University, my specialty area (meaning the one I sat my PhD specialty exam on) was post-Civil War American Literature. I'm pretty familiar with the literature and culture of that place and time.

Stop it! I can't possibly love you any more than I already do. You've struck oil, my friend, stop drilling!

I'm pretty familiar with the literature and culture of that place and time. Lovecraft and Howard stand out, and arguing otherwise is nonsensical. Particularly Lovecraft, whose various prejudices are probably symptomatic of deep mental health issues.

I don't come at it from a literary background, I come at it from someone who went to graduate school for Public History and specialized in the post Civil War period through about 1939 studying mostly prohibition and lynching in the United States. From my perspective, Lovecraft's bigotry wasn't all that far outside of the norm as millions of white Americans shared his prejudices. I'm with you on the mental health thing.

You can love the material while recognizing that a lot of it is messed up and has no place today.

Bingo. And people can always take comfort in knowing that Lovecraft never really knew success as an author while he was alive.

 

[overgeeked]

What I think the issue is that the 'power fantasy' that Conan provides isn't quite what modern audiences want anymore

Exactly. Conan is too weak, incompetent, and prone to risk and failure.

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

It’s certainly a pulp power-fantasy genre. I’m not sure it even compares to sword & sorcery. Essentially none of the elements line up other than powerful MC and a secondary world.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You could read Imaro by Charles R Saunders.

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Charles R. Saunders

English

Imaro

Fantasy novel

Daw books (first edition) Night Shade Books (second edition)

1981 (first edition), 2006 (second edition)

United States

Print (Paperback)

224 pp

1-59780-036-8 (USA paperback) second edition

N/A

The Quest for Cush

Imaro

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Cover of Imaro 1981 Daw Books


Cover of Imaro 2006 by Night Shade Books

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Imaro is a sword and sorcery novel written by Charles R. Saunders, and published by DAW Books in 1981. It may have been one of the first forays into the sword and sorcery genre by a black author.[1] Saunders wrote and had published two more books in the series, The Quest for Cush in 1984 and The Trail of Bohu in 1985.[2] In 2009, Saunders released The Naama War, the fourth and last Imaro novel, through Lulu.[1][3]

I think the text formatting on that post got thrown off a bit

 

[The Soloist]

I think the text formatting on that post got thrown off a bit

Fixed while you were typing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't come at it from a literary background, I come at it from someone who went to graduate school for Public History and specialized in the post Civil War period through about 1939 studying mostly prohibition and lynching in the United States. From my perspective, Lovecraft's bigotry wasn't all that far outside of the norm as millions of white Americans shared his prejudices. I'm with you on the mental health thing.

This is the point I am trying to make. Given what was going on during that time, his racism seems not outside the kinds of prejudices that were rampant in those days.

 

[overgeeked]

There were some earlier in this discussion, not giving names, that made it seem like they thought there was something wrong with people wanting to read REH or HPL when there's other options for those genres. It sounded like the thinking that leads to calls for book burning to me. I personally don't see any issue with enjoying works with problematic elements.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying problematic works as long as you acknowledge they are problematic works. Pretending they’re not problematic is itself hugely problematic.

 

[SJB]

I find it interesting how non-chalantly Howard's racism is dismissed by some... Honestly I don't find Howard foundational to D&D, even in reading older editions I failed to see what exactly his stories contributed at a foundational level to the game or why they are held in such high regard by some. If anything I think Lieber, Vance and Moorcock were all more influential and foundational to D&D, but whatever.


Personally I'm seeing a move (at least amongst those I know) towards more non-western based fantasy drawing from traditionally less acknowledged mythologies, a large dosage of fantasy manga, and even videogames like the new Monster Hunter Wilds as insopiration for their games. I'd love to see more of this become part of official D&D.

Peterson went to considerable trouble to disentangle the relative influence of Howard, Vance, Leiber, Moorcock and Tolkien. TL;DR Howard’s influence was foundational.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying problematic works as long as you acknowledge they are problematic works. Pretending they’re not problematic is itself hugely problematic.

I few thoughts on this:

1) I think fundamentally we agree. You can like stuff that has problems (I do think we are living through a time though that has an unhealthy obsession with finding problematic things)

2) People can disagree about whether something is problematic. I don't think that it makes someone problematic because they don't find something to be so (they just have a different interpretation of the text than you). This is the part of the conversation that generally bothers me: people insisting that other agree with their degree of being offended by something

 

[Imaro]

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.

See I find Lieber & Moorcock's stories (at least for Elric, Hawkmoon and Corum) better written with more imaginative and intriguing ideas also with the bonus of much less to no racism...I have read Conan and it jysy feels simplistic compared to Moorcock and Liieber... yet I feel there's this weird fascination with Conan by older white men that has allowed him to basically be the face of sword & sorcery... and I'm not sure amongst more modern audiences it does the genre any favors with being more widely read...