My Five Favorite Howard Yarns

On Robert E. Howard’s birthday yesterday, I was thinking about my favorite stories by him. It can be tough to choose--there are a lot of good ones to consider. Here, in no particular order, are what I think are my top five:

"Worms of the Earth": Bran Mak Morn, King of the Picts is (almost literally) willing to make a deal with the devil to get revenge on the hated Roman conquers. This is a tour de force by Howard with some great elements--the clash of cultures Howard loved in his historical fiction, a brooding hero, and weird horror.

"Xuthal of the Dusk": Also called "The Slithering Shadow." This may not rank among the best of the Conan stories for most folks, but I love the setting of a lost city full of drug-addled inhabitants awaiting an inevitable--but unpredictable--death from a weird menace. The original title is suitably enigmatic, too.

"Blades of the Brotherhood": Apparently, Howard’s original title was “The Blue Flame of Vengeance,” but I first encountered it under this title in the Marvel 1986 comics adaptation, with great art by Bret Blevins. Solomon Kane takes on a gang of pirates he’s been dogging, as he’s wont to do. Kane gets some great, badass lines, and deeds to match.

"The Shadow of the Vulture": My favorite of Howard’s historical actioners, its got an epic plot that would make a great film. It's got German Ritter Gottfried von Kalmbach with Howard’s real Red Sonya (no “j” or chainmail bikini) against the Turkish Empire, culminating in the siege of Vienna, 1529.

"Queen of the Black Coast": While there are plots, and settings I like better in other Conan tales, there are spots in this story where Howard’s writing really soars, and Conan’s musing on philosophy are great.

Close to these are “Pigeons from Hell,” “Red Nails,” and “People of the Back Circle.” I fact, ask me in a week and one of those will have bumped one the ones above out of a top spot. In fact, in most of Howard’s fantasy stories I find some elements I like even when the whole thing may not work for me.

Happy belated birthday, Bob!

One Year with the Sorcerer's Skull

Today is this blog’s first anniversary--or it will be, at exactly 1:22pm. That's one year and over 300 posts of the sorts of things my friend and first follower, Jim Shelley, was tired of hearing about over email, so he suggested a started blogging about them.

115 public followers (and about 60 shy folks on feed only) later, I’d like to think my ramblings have found some sort of audience.

Here are some interesting stats from the year:

Heaviest Traffic Day: May 3, 2010, with a bit over 5,000 unique visitors, riding off the popularity of my cousin’s Temple of Kazoth map, and my first AD&D character, after my friend Chris “Invicible Super-Blog” Sims twitted about it, and somebody linked to it on metafilter.

Most Popular Post Otherwise: My posting of the map of H.H. Holmes’ Murder Castle on May 16. It’s also the post with the most “legs”, still getting a fair number of hits to this day.

Most Commented Post: "The Old-School RPG Blogger Advancement Table" with 35, on September 17 (it’s good to know I didn’t totally peak in May!).

Media Inspiring the Most Post Titles: Song titles and lyrics apparently give me the most inspiration, as I’ve gone to that well for titles around two dozen times, with lines nicked from old spirituals, David Bowie, Steppenwolf, and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, among others.

Anyway, thanks to all of you commenters, followers, and linkers for giving me the encouragement to keep this going!

100 from the Sorcerer's Skull

This is my 100th post--somewhat artificially because I didn't want it to fall on the sarcosanct Warlord Wednesday.

It's been an interesting 127 days, particularly the past few that have seen a crude dungeon map drawn by my cousin twenty plus years ago bring in about 5200 viewers--which is around 100 times as many as I get on a usual day.

I'd like to thank my friend Jim who pestered me until I did this (so he could stop having to read my essay-like emails on gaming topics, probably), put together the banner to my specifications, and became my first follower.

Then there's the Old School Rant (now Jump) that found my "Saturday Morning Sorcery" post worth passing on, and James of the Underdark Gazette, whose generous review brought a lot of folks by.

And  of course, I'd like to thank the 41 (as of this writing) followers I've got, and the RSS feed-readers--from the ones who've been around for months, to the one's who've just arrived.  It's nice to know my ramblings have an audience.