Saturday, January 22, 2005

REH's Birthday

Today is the 99th anniversary of Robert E. Howard's birth in Peaster, Texas (about twenty miles from where I'm sitting, as the crow flies). It's a long-standing tradition in Howard fandom to read one of Bob's stories and drink a toast in his memory on his birthday. I'll probably read "The Phoenix on the Sword", the first of the Conan stories. I'm not much of a drinker, though, so my toast will probably be made with diet root beer or some such. But I'll definitely be thinking of ol' Two-Gun Bob today.

2 comments:

mybillcrider said...

Just re-read that one the other day, so maybe I'll post a comment on my blog about it. As I'm sure you know, THE COMING OF CONAN reprints the magazine version of the story along with the first submitted draf.

James Reasoner said...

Unfortunately, I went to sleep before I got around to reading "The Phoenix on the Sword". Sorry, Two-Gun. I did, however, read the poem "Cimmeria", which leads off THE COMING OF CONAN. Howard was inspired to write it by seeing the Texas hill country in a winter rain, and having been through that area many times, I don't have any trouble visualizing Conan's homeland as looking like that. The poem "Cimmeria" is absolutely beautiful.