Monday, July 08, 2019

Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography - David C. Smith



I met David C. Smith at the very first Howard Days get-together I attended, back in 1996. Back then it was more like Howard Day, since all the activities—what few of them there were—took place on Saturday. The big appeal was just being able to visit the Howard House and talk to fellow fans. I had a great time and have been back many times since.

Dave and I met again face to face at the most recent REH Days last month, where he was the guest of honor, and once again it was great to be able to talk with him. For those of you not familiar with his work, he co-wrote the Red Sonja series of paperbacks published by Ace and wrote Black Vulmea and Bran Mak Morn novels for Zebra during the Howard Boom, as well as authoring numerous sword-and-sorcery novels featuring his own characters. He’s a really fine writer, a great guy, and very well qualified to write a book that I’ve had for a while and was prompted by our visit to go ahead and read—ROBERT E. HOWARD: A LITERARY BIOGRAPHY.

The wording of that title is important. While Smith includes plenty of biographical details, his focus is on Howard’s writing career and how it developed, both commercially and creatively. I’ve always been very interested in the way Howard conducted his writing career since I feel a certain kinship with him (small town Texas, not knowing any other actual professional writers, etc.). Howard’s success was an inspiration to me when I was trying to break in, and it’s always nice to read about how he accomplished that.

Smith also examines a number of Howard’s stories in depth to show how his writing became richer and more polished as he went along. Because of this, there are a number of spoilers, as well, so this is more of a volume for readers who are well acquainted with Howard’s fiction. However, if you’ve read the stories, Smith’s analysis of them is very rewarding. The first time I read the Conan stories was in the old Lancer editions, where they were arranged in the “chronology” imposed on them by L. Sprague de Camp. Reading them in the order in which Howard wrote them, which I did about ten years ago, is a much different and, to me, more interesting and enjoyable experience. ROBERT E. HOWARD: A LITERARY BIOGRAPHY applies this technique to Howard’s entire output and proves to be fascinating.

This might not be the best book for someone who’s new to Howard, but for long-time fans such as myself, it’s a real treat. Well-written and insightful, ROBERT E. HOWARD: A LITERARY BIOGRAPHY is one of the best books I’ve read this year and gets a very high recommendation for me.

1 comment:

Adventuresfantastic said...

I read this book last month, and I agree with what you say, James. This is a great book for fans familiar with the bulk of Howard's work.