Is Conan really that good

[Anonymous No.20811691]

Or was it just a good turn your brain off pulp to pass an afternoon back in the day

[Anonymous No.20811722]

He's not really as brainless as the memes painted him to be

[Anonymous No.20811727]

>>20811691
Good fantasy writing starts with a personal philosophy and a world to work it with.

[Anonymous No.20813411]

>>20811691
Both. Pulp is good.

[Anonymous No.20813605]

>>20811691
it's good, it also sounds good

[Anonymous No.20813636]

Howard wrote the stories in schizophrenic fits where he believed that Conan was standing behind him ready to kill if he stopped chronicling his tales, and that's a good thing.

[Anonymous No.20813647]

>>20813636
proofs

[Anonymous No.20813662]

>>20811691
It mogs 99% of modern fantasy

[Anonymous No.20813677]

>>20811691
"Jurassic Park" is a detail in the backstory of "Red Nails."

[Anonymous No.20813764]

>>20811691
Both. He’s legitimately good, but like Tolkien he can also be someone you can turn to when you need to escape the real world.

[Anonymous No.20814450]

>>20811722
But he is. He's a terrible king and he doesn't even have a tax policy.

[Anonymous No.20814478]

>>20811691
It is, and you also ought to try The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane as well. another work of Robert E. Howard's (and his first character to take off), the Solomon Kane pulps are incredibly underrated and really showcase Howard's skills as a writer as much if not more so than Conan.

[Anonymous No.20814634]

>>20813647
Howard told that to other people in letters, but he probably just hyping himself up. In reality he wrote multiple drafts sometimes as many as 5, which was too careful in the pulp age where 1 draft was enough. Also he cannibalized plots from earlier stories so they couldn't be told by ghosts of Conan. He cannibalized a Kull story into a Conan story.

[Anonymous No.20814645]

>>20811691
He's better than his reputation. His prose isn't too thin like other pulp hacks who write for speed, and not really purple. A nice middle ground. Gives the impression of the world detail but efficiently. Also different from the "Sword and Sorcery" pastiches made from other authors after him. With Conan each one is different. It could be a pirate story, a Heist, a political thriller, a war story, but with a supernatural element.

[Anonymous No.20814935]

>>20811691
The original REH stories are excellent. A genuinely interesting world constructed by a jack-of-all-trades pulp author. As one anon points out, there's a lot of variance between the stories as Conan adventures around, eventually becoming the king of Aquilonia. His prose is better than his contemporaries (ie Lovecraft, Smith) - I'd check it out anon. You can get complete Conan omnibuses off the kindle shop for like a few bucks. His other fantasy is great too - Bran Mak Morn and Kull of Atlantis remind me of something like Vance's Lyonesse or Anderson's King of Ys in that they have pseudo-historical settings and the fantastical world and characters interact woth real life civilisations. Check out As the Grey God Passes, Worms Of The Earth, and the Kings of the Night.

[Anonymous No.20815766]

>>20811691
He's great. You'll need your brain. One of the few authors I'm constantly looking up the definition for his words.