Reading Conan: Shadows in the Moonlight and Queen of the Black Coast

I've finally started reading my first Conan stories in a volume called "Conan the Barbarian: The Original Unabridged Adventures of the World's Greatest Fantasy Hero", published by Carlton Books/Metro Books in 2010. I had briefly glanced over the interesting but somewhat dry and exhaustive opening work, a long, textbook like account of the Hyborian Age (set in a fictional historical setting on Earth) before recorded human history) but never got beyond that.

This morning I sat down with it and took in the first couple stories in the compilation.  There are some spoilers below, beware!  I tried to keep them on the vague side (I don't think anything of note or too specific related to the stories are spoiled), but I take no responsibility for you here!

Shadows in the Moonlight

This seems like a fitting introduction for Conan. An enslaved noblewoman, sold off by her own family, is saved from a brutal tyrant king by the barbarian. They then flee to a dangerous island that appears to be haunted, only to find themselves trapped on land by pirates.

Most of the story is actually told from the perspective of Olivia, the noblewoman. She's unfortunately a painful stereotype of the old helpless princess, only slightly redeemed as the story goes on. Watching her bumble about in a pathetic daze is less than appealing, but through her we're introduced to the noble savage. Despite the brute strength, there's some genuine intelligence to Conan, as well as a warm humanity that stands in start contrast to the earlier “civilized” king, the petty pirates or the monsters on the island, perhaps an idealized medium between arrogant, soft civilization and outright animalistic barbarianism.

The writing itself is fantastic in terms of description. It's a very enjoyable prose that paints strong images. Even the slightly lacking story and uneven pace don't hinder the text once Howard gets into his groove.

Queen of the Black Coast

I'm not sure if the stories in this compilation are simply put in the wrong order, or if Conan stories are typically unrelated, but this makes for a jarring transition. No reference is made to Olivia, and Conan almost seems to be a slightly different character. Gone are the noble roots, and he quickly falls in with pirates, professing his love for the lifestyle and caring not who he fights as long as he's fighting.

The female lead in this one, Belit, the titular Queen of the Black Coast, is just as much of a cliché. Sporting only a girdle, she's described as particularly busty (titular indeed!) and attractive, and her personality is about what you'd expect of your typical femme fatale. Her crew see her as a goddess, she's above everyone and highly skilled, and only the equally smitten protagonist can compare with her. Whereas Olivia had a moment or two nearing the end that showed some potential for character growth, Belit never struck me as anything but a blasé pirate female fatale type.

Their meeting is even more embarrassing and downright laughable. While the pirates are slaughtering the crew on Conan's ship, he bounds over to their boat and begins returning the favor. The merchant sailors are killed to the last man while Conan is decimating the pirate crew. Then Belit bounds up to him, and they profess their love for each other.

No joke.

Thankfully, he doesn't describe in any significant detail their rough love shortly afterward right on the deck in front of her crew.

After that rocky start, things really pick up as they stumble across the ancient ruins of an old city. Howard describes in vivid detail the city, Conan's visions, and an inventive backstory to the race that once lived there long before humans came into existence. The second half of the story makes up for the first with wonderful prose that kept my interested and excited for the next.

Although I've written more bashing this story than complimenting it, I can't stress the above paragraph enough: even with the characters falling flat and the opening being utterly absurd, the writing picks up to an exception degree. The descriptions alone are worth reading, and Howard does a great job of taking a somewhat meandering story and giving it some tension and intrigue.  Overall, I probably did enjoy Queen of the Black Coast a bit more than the previous story, which I liked in itself.

Other Thoughts

The pacing of both stories seemed a little off. The setup struck me as disjointed, but once the stories arrived at their prime destinations (the island in the former and the ruins in the latter), things picked up nicely on two accounts. First, the stories began moving much smoother, and second, with more stationary locales, there was more time for Howard to work his magic describing situations, emotions and locations. Both ended on an intense, satisfying note, particularly Queen of the Black Coast.

After the odd transition between the two stories and the changes in Conan's demeaner, I had to look up the chronology. According to Wikipedia, there's no definitive one. After Howard, several writers (some of significant note, like Robert Jordan) picked up the mantle. As expected, between multiple writers, and with more Conan stories by the original author emerging after his death, there's quite a bit of debate and conflict. Writers piece stories before, around and in the middle of existing Howard works. Still, it did clarify that Shadows takes place after Queen, which may explain Conan's personality shift.

I do wonder why then they decided to order the stories in such a way. Perhaps they simply thought Shadows was a better introduction to the character, and in truth he did come off as more likable on the island than later gallivanting with pirates.

Is it a bit jarring to see race blatantly referred to throughout both stories. The term "negro" appears a time or two in Shadows, and "blacks" is used instead in Queen of the Black Coast. To Howard's credit, however, Conan treats every man the same. While explicit culture is often referred to (Conan's Cimmerian heritage, the description of the sailors as Argosean), skin color never seems to be anything more than a physical description. I'm not sure if it was an explicit message on the author's part or simply an aspect of the prehistory context of Hyborian that lacks the racial component we give to skin color, but it was refreshing to see from stories written in the 1920s and 30s after the jarring use of the language.

Apparently many Conan stories are already in the public domain, but it's just so much more appealing to read them in book form. I'm definitely going to keep reading from here (the volume includes seven other stories), if only for the stellar prose (It's really very cool, I'm fairly enthralled with his descriptions). My hopes for the rest: a bit more personality and consistent likability to Conan, female leads that aren't so vapid, and a smoother pace. We'll see how it goes!

Patience is a Virtue

Yesterday reminded me why patience is such a practical virtue - quite the money-saver.

I've debated picking up Coldplay's album "Viva la Vida" for a while and never plunked down the cash. It wasn't terribly high on my album list, and I kept trying to remind myself not to be too impulsive. I hovered over it several times at the store, opting each time to not pick it up just yet.

Last night I popped over to Amazon's MP3 store to nab Junior Senior's wildly infectious "Move Your Feet" after hearing it on a buddy's inventive little flash video for it. There on the front page, at a special price of $2.99, was Viva la Vida. And not just Viva la Vida, it was the Deluxe Edition, which features the Prospekt's March EP: eight addition tracks consisting of two remixes and six songs dropped from the original album.

I got what I wanted and more, for about a fourth of the price, just by waiting several months. I need to use that as a reminder that I don't need the newest right now: that sixty-dollar 360 game will almost assuredly be rocking a twenty-dollar pricetag within a year, and that new album won't be more than a few bucks if I hold out a little bit.

Of course, any points I garnered for being practical are lost by admitting that I like Coldplay.

Chuck

Why destroy the magic?

I've long been a fan of fantasy author Terry Brooks, and his epic Sword of Shannara is still a personal favorite. In recent years my reading habits have moved away from his newer efforts towards more political, philosophical and classic writings, but something strange has come to my attention:

The Four Lands, with it's elves and dwarves, magic and high fantasy, is Earth, far in the future after a nuclear holocaust.

Seriously, was that necessary? Practically speaking, it doesn't add anything significant to the storyline, waving around in the air like some random, mutated appendage on an otherwise aesthetically pleasing creature.

It reminds me of George Lucas using the Phantom Menace to explain that the magical powers of the Force were the result of a high concentration of microorganisms in the blood stream. Nobody was screaming for a rationale behind the Force; It's the answer to a question only Lucas asked. It instead caused a backlash, because fans like the mystery and mysticism, the spirituality behind it.

This entry is a little bit disjointed, bore more out of frustration than any serious attempt at analyzing the trend of authors to turn their magic into the mundane. So it goes, I suppose - the Sword of Shannara remains my gold standard, even if I have to block the later absurdity out of my head.

The Chronicles of Narnia Deserve Better

I'm honestly finding myself a little torn on these new Narnia films. It's great to see Lewis' masterpieces (and my childhood favorites) receiving big-name Hollywood treatments, but at the same time, they're just not getting what they deserve. Much like the newer Star Wars movies, there's a part of me that almost would rather them not have been made, if only because the lower quality in turn sullies the original's legacy.

Having finally seen Prince Caspian in it's entirety, I'm let down a little more than I was with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's not that either of them have been bad movies; in fact, they've definitely been "superior" movies. They're just not what they could be, nor what the stories are deserving of being. They just stray too far from the original works and suffer because of it.

Those gifted with the honor of bringing Lewis' works to life through motion pictures just don't seem to entirely understand the source material. I've seen numerous quotes from the director, screenwriters and even the actors where they miss the mark Lewis laid out for them, and it's evident in the resulting production. It's terribly frustrating to see a mediocre student given a paint set when there are brilliant artists who could work wonders.

That's all I'll say for now, but I may just have to delve further into this at some point. 20th Century Fox has taken over Disney's role as producer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and there's talk of revising the script, so with any luck things will steer back on track. It's hard to watch someone's fantastic creation twisted and altered to become something a little less magical.

Test

Test

Christmas Trees in GTMO

I made the mistake of not pouncing on a tree at the Navy Exchange when they began putting up their Christmas section in, uh, October.  I hadn't thought about just how high in demand they'd be on a tiny island with a single store, so I was fairly dismayed when November turned into December and they still didn't have anything that wasn't several feet tall and pushing two or three hundred dollars.

It was with some luck that I stumbled onto a single four foot tree on Friday.  Sitting alone on the shelf and sporting a rather high forty-dollar price tag, I snapped it up.  I must have gotten lucky, since it appears to have been a display model, so I'm assuming it probably hadn't been on the shelf long.  Thanks to a little cash advance from a friend, I was good to go.

Although "pre-lit" takes away some of the fun (my fun, at least - I may have been the only one in our house who actually enjoyed putting on the lights), it's a perfect little fit for my room.  All that was left was to grab some ornaments...

...which apparently are now in short supply, rather than the trees themselves.  Having gotten paid today, I excitedly headed to the store, only to find they had four packages - yes, a mere four - of the generic bulb ornaments.  It would have been fine if they were multi-coloured, but the only two they had were, as far as I could tell, "Rust Brown" and "Shiny Rust Brown."  I nabbed a single box of "Rust Brown" - excuse me, "Mustang Velvet" - just to have something, with the hopes that they'll throw some more on the shelves in the next eleven days.

Thankfully, the good folks at home had supplied me with a handful of unique ornaments, including a nice, big black English "D," the traditional symbol for Detroit (not for "Dallas" or "Denver" as certain elements would try to assert).  And, of course, the numerous, carefully wrapped gifts rest under the branches, making the tree look all that much more appealing.

Now that I think about it, the tree is looking pretty fantastic.

My Blood Type is (Nintendo) "DS"

I might as well be taking my Nintendo DS intraveinously.  The short story is they told me I needed to bring all my equipment here (turns out I didn't), and on top of that they neglected to inform me it didn't count against my baggage limit on the planes.  Space being that limited, all I brought was my tiny little DS case and some games, and it's been my gaming lifeblood.

It's library is something of a mixed bag, mostly falling in to three catagories.  The first and largest consists of shovelware, the cheaply made, often awful releases used to make a quick buck.  Like the Wii, with a massive, mainstream audience, companies are quick to shovel on to shelves whatever crap they can get their hands on.  Obviously, I don't bother much with those.

The second is a frustrating group of titles: ports of popular PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii titles, stripped down to work on the DS's significantly less powerful hardware.  They're almost taunting, like getting a slice of turkey and some mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving when there's a full course of turkey, stuffing, cranberries, freshly-baked bread, and a dozen other delights sitting just out of reach.  It's hard to refuse a DS version of Smackdown vs RAW 2009 when it's my only option for some wrestling action, but it's ultimately not a very filling experience knowing there are home console versions that are several times deeper and more robust.

Last, and best, are the titles tailored exclusively to the DS, making use of it's strengths and working around it's weaknesses.  These are games like the medieval action adventures of Castlevania, the humorous and intense court-room drama Phoenix Wright, the warm simplicity of Animal Crossing or Nintendogs, and so forth.  They also unfortunately make up the smallest part of the handheld's library.

With the unique exclusives on the rarer side and quickly gobbled up, the second group is garnering a more prominent position in my little library.  It's something, far, far better than having no games at all, but it's also a terribly far cry from what it could be.  It leaves me a little torn, glad to have something but a little frustrated that the cranberries are just out of reach.