In 1966, Lancer Books began publishing their purple-edged paperbacks with Conan the Adventurer. This first volume contained only Robert E. Howard originals and one re-write with L. Sprague de Camp, “Drums of Tombalku”.
The second volume, Conan (1967) saw the true beginning of the pastiching of the Cimmerian. “Tower of the Elephant”, “The God in the Bowl” and “Rogues in the House” were Robert E. Howard but the others were “The Hall of the Dead” a Sprague de Camp re-write, “The Hand of Nergal” a Lin Carter rewrite, and two new pastiches, “The Thing in the Crypt” and “The City of Skulls”. It is these new pastiches that I want to talk about here.
“The Thing in the Crypt” has Conan escape slavery only to be hunted by wolves. Escaping into the crypt he lights a fire and sees an amazing sight–a throne with a mummy and a beautiful sword. He takes the sword then lets out a war whoop. The mummy animates and attacks him. He slices off the lich’s hand then goes three rounds trying to destroy it. The severed hand grabs him by the ankle. Conan kicks the mummy into the fire and destroys it. Sword in hand he flees.
This story may have been inspired by the skeleton fights in Ray Harryhausen movies (Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts). The opening of the sequence was used in the movie Conan the Barbarian (1982). When that skeleton didn’t get up I knew I wasn’t going to like this movie much. This story was adapted twice by the Conan the Barbarian comic first in issue #31 (October 1973) by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan, then again in #92 (November 1978) by Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema and Ernie Chan. The first time the skeleton was a shadow and the second time it was done right.
“The City of Skulls” has Conan sent by King Yildez to deliver the intended bride to a powerful Kuigar Khan. The party is wiped out except for Conan, Juma, a black warrior, and the princess, Zosara. They are taken to Meru, a country that is hidden in a tropical bowl in the mountains.
In Shamballah, the capital city, Conan meets the rimpoche (or god-king) of the Meruvians, a toad-like man named Jalung Thongpa, who Conan almost throttles with his chains. The king’s magician, Tanzong Tengri, knocks Conan out with his magical staff. Conan and Juma are sold into slavery.
They are placed as rowers on a ship, where they try to plan an escape with the help of the Meruvians. The locals will have none of it because they fear the power of their king to summon the god, Yama. Conan and Juma escape and crawl through the sewer into the temple of Yama, where Zosara is about to be sacrificed. They rescue her but Jalung Thongpa summons Yama, a gigantic green jade statue.
With his prayers, Yama comes to life. Conan tries to stop the statue with a stone bench but is hypnotized by the burning eyes of the god. Juma grabs Jalung Thongpa and throws him under the giant’s steps. With his death, the statue becomes lifeless. Conan and Juma take Zosara to her intended groom, but not before Conan has his way with her.
Not the best Conan story ever, but quite Howard-like in its motifs of lost cities and god-kings. I prefer the deCamp-Howard tale, “The Flame Knife” to this one. The fact that Conan and Juma escape the ship and just happen to end up in the temple as the girl is being sacrificed is a coincidence worthy of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story was adapted in Savage Sword of Conan #59 December 1980) by Roy Thomas, Mike Vosburg and Alfred Alcala.
Conan the Wanderer (1968) only contains one new pastiche, “Black Tears”. Zardanes the Zamorian betrays Conan and his Zuagirs to a Turanian nobleman, Boghra Khan, setting up an ambush. The Turanians fail to kill Conan and most of his men and get slaughtered or captured. Boghra Khan gives up the traitor without much fuss and Conan let’s him live. He owes Khan an old gambling debt from his days as a Turanian mercenary.
Conan and the Zuagirs go into the Red Wastes looking for the traitor. The Zuagirs abandon their chief because of superstitious fear of a lost city. Conan walks on, still searching for Zardanes, who arrives at the lost city of Akhlat the accursed and is taken by soldiers. Conan passes out from thirst but wakes to find himself in a tent and being tended by the young and beautiful Zillah. Zillah’s father, Enosh, explains everything to Conan.
Long ages ago a sorcerer brought a goddess/demon from the Outside to help him rule the people. The goddess killed the sorcerer and took over herself, first draining the land of its life, then its animals and finally its citizens. No one can flee Akhlat because of a curse that keeps them there. Enosh knows of a prophecy that says Conan will free them. Despite his doubts in the prophecy, Conan goes to the temple of the Gorgon and finds her draining Zardanes, who is now a living statue up to the knees. Conan kills him, partly out of revenge, partly mercy, before looking into the eyes of the Gorgon. He is able to look away after a long struggle and sees the golden face mask of the Gorgon that Zardanes tried to steal.
Using the reflection he stabs the Gorgon in the third eye, making it drip black tears. The Gorgon crumbles to dust and all the souls she trapped in the statues are freed. Conan leaves Akhlat with Zardanes’ 200 silver shekels, despite offers to stay, and heads for Zamboula.
This story is little more than a re-telling of the Medusa story with some Moses thrown in for back-up. The chapter “The Hand of Zillah” where Conan is revived by Enosh and his daughter should have borne a credit to Cecil B. deMille. Marvel adapted it in Savage Sword of Conan #35 (November 1978) by Roy Thomas and Ernie Chan.
Conan the Freebooter, Conan the Warrior and Conan the Usurper are all de Camp & Howard. Lin Carter returned in Conan of Cimmeria (1969). In “The Curse of the Monolith”, Conan is lured with false tales of treasure to a monolith with magnetic properties. His heavy mail shirt and sword pin him to the stone while his deceiver, Count Feng, a spy for a Khitan faction that hates outsiders, plays a flute to summon the monster that lives at the top of the monolith. This shoggoth-like creature devours victims with corrosive liquid. Conan manages to get a hold of a broken, rusty knife and cut the leather thong that holds his mail together. He grabs Feng and feeds him to the monster before torching the monolith. He hurries back to his camp to save his men from an attack by headhunters that Feng arranged.
Probably my favorite deCamp/Carter pastiche. The authors were obviously influenced by Howard’s “Valley of the Worm” where monsters are summoned with flute music as well as Lovecraft’s shoggoths. The comic adaptation appeared in Savage Sword of Conan #33 (September 1978) by Roy Thomas, Gene Colon and Pablos Marcos.
“The Lair of the Ice Worm” has Conan save a young Virunian woman named Ilga from the Beast-men of Hyperborea. They can not get down off the glacier in time so they have to spend a night in a cave. During the night Ilga gets up and walks off while Conan remains in a magical sleep. In the morning he finds her half-eaten body. Conan realizes he is dealing with a remora, or ice worm, and tracks it to its lair. He destroys it by throwing a helmet full of coals into its gullet.
This story was written as a bridge between “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” (which also takes place in the cold north) and the tropical “Queen of the Black Coast”. The plot was reused by Lin Carter for his Thongor story “Demon of the Snows” (1980). Adapted for comics in Savage Sword of Conan #34 (October 1978) by Roy Thomas, Carmine Infantino and Alfred Alcala.
“The Castle of Terror” has Conan crossing the plains of Kush when a pride of lions begins hunting him. To avoid them and an approaching rainstorm, he enters a gigantic black castle with weird Lovecraftian geometry. He surmises the building was built by the Serpent Men in pre-catalysmic times. While sleeping he perceives that souls fly about like bats. These souls collect into a mass of arms, legs and heads. Before the monster can attack Conan, a group of Stygian slavers comes to the castle. While the monster is tearing them apart, Conan sneaks out, steals one of their horses. One of the raiders makes it out, but has gone completely insane.
Probably the weakest Conan story structurally, except perhaps for “Wolves Beyond the Border”. Despite this the Mythos stuff is fun if you are a fan. Probably mostly written by Lin Carter. The story was adapted in Conan the Barbarian #105 (December 1979) by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan.
“The Snout in the Dark” Conan saves Queen Tananda, despot of Meroe from a crowd of angry citizens and gets promoted to Captian of the Guard. The queen’s enemy, Tuthmes, have been using a demon conjured by Muuru the wizard to kill political prisoners and then blamed it on the queen. Tuthmes sends a blond Nemedian slave named Diana to the queen as a present. Tananda whips her to find out why she was sent but Conan takes the girl away to his private home to try softer methods.
Muuru sends the demon to kill Diana and Conan during the execution of an important prisoner. Conan has a strong feeling he should go home and does. He battles with the demon before it can kill Diana. The wounded creature runs to its masters. The crowd goes wild when they see who is behind the deaths and a rebellion takes place. Conan and Diana wisely leave Muuru.
This tale was originally begun by Howard. De Camp and Carter wrote the entire thing from Howard’s unfinished outline. Though not a new pastiche, it is unusual in that both de Camp & Carter worked on it. The pig-like head of the demon was inspired by William Hope Hodgson’s famous pig monsters in The House on the Borderland and “The Hog’. Marvel adapted the story in Conan the Barbarian #107 (February 1980) by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan.
So ends the first rush of Howard gold-mining. De Camp & Carter would write no new short story pastiches until the the 1970s and Ted White’s Fantastic. Those stories would form a long-awaited volume: Conan of Aquilonia.
This list does not contain the novels that L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter penned during this time: Conan of the Isles (1968) and Conan the Buccaneer (1971). The pastiche Conan novels are quite another beast and deserve their own piece starting at Conan of the Isles to going all the way to Conan the Barbarian by Michael A. Stackpole.
