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

[Bedrockgames]

Has there ever been a female fantasy author that did their own take on the "rough and rugged" hero/antihero? Does being written by a woman change anything? Does the protagonist succeed more, or do they fail more? Does their rugged looks still make the ladies swoon, or are they regarded more as ugly? I'm curious.

For context, I've only read a few female authors so far, and the only one that had a male protagonist of any type was Ursula K Le Guin.

I think people way over play the importance of this stuff (a good writer is a good writer in my opinion). And I am not into how people are always wringing their hands over this stuff these days. But I also do think it is good to read both men and women. Women have been contributing to these genres for ages. Especially if you are into horror. My favorite book is Frankenstein, and I do think that isn't a plot a man would have written. Don't get me wrong, a man could write that plot and men should try to write plots like that. I just think it is likely to come out different depending on whether a man wrote it or a woman (but maybe not in ways people expect). So perspective can matter (I just don't think it needs to be our overriding priority for everything, always --------and human is human. Writers should be able to write about whoever or whatever they want

 

[TiQuinn]

Conan not relevant ? Robert E Howard is very relevant.
Solomon Kane, Conan, Kull, Brak Mak Morn, Turlough O'Brien.... The list goes on.
I think in your world it may not be but I suggest you take a read of REH.
While you are at it have a look at Clark Ashton Smith, Abraham Merritt, Edgar Burroughs and Lin Carter.
You can thank me later

What does relevant mean in any of this?

To me, relevancy has nothing to do with whether it’s good, or whether you personally like it. Relevancy suggests influence, popularity or immediacy. It’s why Akira Kurosawa’s movies are decades old, and yet still influential to a number of directors. His movies still have relevancy.

So beyond “I like them” and don’t want to appear to like something irrelevant, how is Howard still relevant? Who is carrying the torch for his work in their own books or movies?

 

[Belen]

Oh, no. The causes of the gap are mostly known, and it isn't that guys just can't find books they like. Just like falling men's college enrollment rates aren't because men can't find schools they don't like.

Broadly, US (and to a significant extent world) culture does not put emphasis on male intellectual achievement. We reward our boys much more for their achievements in athletics than we do in academics. Fathers, if they read to their children at all, are more likely to read to their daughters than their sons. Our images of masculinity are about being physically and socially powerful, rather than about knowing and thinking.

Basically, men don't read as much, because we don't teach our boys to value reading.

Interesting take on the situation.

I think this is partly true, or an outgrowth of the root cause.

It is a more recent phenomenon though. The shift has happened over the last 40 years.

My son and daughter both love to read but their parents are both English majors with one of us an academic librarian.

There is a definite difference in education and boys are underperforming with a steady decline since the 80s-90s.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

What about children’s books? I just find it odd not to have read as many female authors as male.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was specifically talking about fantasy authors. Not all books I've ever read. Most of the books I had to read for school were female authors.

My question was about female fantasy authors writing about male protagonists that are described in the "rough and rugged" way Conan-like characters often are. I have yet to read any like that, but thankfully I now have a long list of authors to try.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

I think people way over play the importance of this stuff (a good writer is a good writer in my opinion). And I am not into how people are always wringing their hands over this stuff these days. But I also do think it is good to read both men and women. Women have been contributing to these genres for ages. Especially if you are into horror. My favorite book is Frankenstein, and I do think that isn't a plot a man would have written. Don't get me wrong, a man could write that plot and men should try to write plots like that. I just think it is likely to come out different depending on whether a man wrote it or a woman (but maybe not in ways people expect). So perspective can matter (I just don't think it needs to be our overriding priority for everything, always --------and human is human. Writers should be able to write about whoever or whatever they want

I never once picked up a book, saw the author was female, and put it back. The books I have read in the past were often suggested by other readers of fantasy I know. Some of my fellow nerds in high school were young women, and they still pointed me to books written by men. The few female authors of fantasy I have read were when I picked up some old used books at thrift stores and flea markets.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Interesting take on the situation.

I think this is partly true, or an outgrowth of the root cause.

It is a more recent phenomenon though. The shift has happened over the last 40 years.

My son and daughter both love to read but their parents are both English majors with one of us an academic librarian.

There is a definite difference in education and boys are underperforming with a steady decline since the 80s-90s.

Well, if you take a longer view, in the 18th and 19th centuries there were far more women novel readers than men. The reason was simple: women of a certain class were not allowed to do anything else.

I think sports, video games and other competitive activities are competing for time with reading. This obviously affects girls as well - reading is down across the board - but boys more.

This is where D&D is great of course - it’s a competing activity that encourages reading.

 

[Mannahnin]

Speaking of women authors...

Elizabeth Moon's first three Paksenarrion books (Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold, often sold as an omnibus edition The Deed of Paksenarrion) are awesome, and build from a super grounded S&S-scale world (Moon was in the US Marines, and this informs her military fiction quite a bit, though her fencing and equestrian interests also show) into a somewhat more epic scale by the end. This is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. Up there with LotR and Vance's Lyonesse in enjoyment and influence on me. They've also got multiple nods to D&D in there.

I really liked Katherine Kurtz' original Deryni books. Very grounded in medieval historicism, as that was her area of scholarship before becoming an author. Her fantasy take on a quasi-Welsh kingdom has a realistically powerful Catholic church, for example, and chapter headings usually include an applicable verse from the Bible. The first five or six Kelson books I really enjoyed and consider worth revisiting.

Elizabeth A Lynn's Tornor books ('79-'80) I found a bit more challenging and mature as a young man. A bit ahead of their time in portraying queer relationships, but very grounded. I'm torn on whether to categorize them as S&S, thematically, but definitely in scale and grittiness.

N. K. Jemisen is a more modern and current author who's been mentioned earlier in the thread. I've just dipped into her stuff with The Fifth Season but was very impressed by and definitely going to read more of her.

C. L. Moore OTOH is a first-gen S&S writer from the '30s. I started with her story Black God's Kiss, about her heroine Jirel of Joiry, and it was enough to get me to back a kickstarter for a game based on it.

 

[Mannahnin]

Well, if you take a longer view, in the 18th and 19th centuries there were far more women novel readers than men. The reason was simple: women of a certain class were not allowed to do anything else.

I think sports, video games and other competitive activities are competing for time with reading. This obviously affects girls as well - reading is down across the board - but boys more.

This is where D&D is great of course - it’s a competing activity that encourages reading.

Video games are big there, I think. Women are into them too, but not quite as much so. Socially it still seems more acceptable for dudes to be super into that and spend a ton of time on them. Although some women definitely do as well.

 

[Scribe]

Then, there is the life-affirming vibrancy and vitality, which Howard expresses very well through his prose, and is really all about constructing and finding meaning for oneself. It simply oozes existentialism. Take his famous statement in Queen of the Black Coast:

"Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

This brings to mind, for me, first Nietzsche's treatment of the collapse of meaning. There's an undercurrent of Conan feeling lost, adrift, unmoored, and responding to that by basically doubling down on physical pursuits, on adventure, on outrunning and outachieving this deep fear of the void that lies in his heart. (It's very easy to see the parallels to Howard's own life). Ultimately he is driven by the desire to do something, to affirm that life is for the living. I think this explains a lot of his appeal to certain readers.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Elizabeth Moon's first three Paksenarrion books (Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold, often sold as an omnibus edition The Deed of Paksenarrion) are awesome, and build from a super grounded S&S-scale world (Moon was in the US Marines, and this informs her military fiction quite a bit) into a somewhat more epic scale by the end. This is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. Up there with LotR and Vance's Lyonesse in enjoyment and influence on me. They've also got multiple nods to D&D in there.

Not just nods, head bangs. Paks is straight up a paladin, there's a druid, and no doubt I've forgotten a lot. (Been thirty years.)

I really liked Katherine Kerr's original Deryni books.

Kurtz. Kit Kerr writes a different set of books, and I think they're grrrrreat.