Thank you for a very insightful and fascinating and intelligent talks on Howard's works, characters, ideas, and generally talking about sword and sorcery. It's the first time I have ever heard such serious treatment of Howard's work, it's really great. Like many people I love Howard's work, it was really pivotal in my reading life. Thank you.👍🏽🤝😊😍
Interesting discussion. I like how different everyone’s definitions of the genre are. Pretty hilarious. Shows just how silly genre definitions can be. The best thing they do is help to create conversations like this one. :).
22:00 This is really one of the big problems with writing Sword & Sorcery today, and in my opinion the main obstacle in the way of Sword & Sorcery regain a more prominent spot in the market. I love the classic S&S aesthetics of old, but you can't really recreate them today. Modern Sword & Sorcery needs to be something new, but we also want it to feel like the classic works we love.
Thanks a lot... I have my own theory: Howard invented Solomon Kane earlier than he did Conan. The times were relatively good in USA. So Cane is a man who in fact goes to barbaric, even savage places, where dark cruel deities and evil rule. He fights them, save the innocents - in fact brings law and order + humanism = civilization to those backward primitive evil places. The 1929 struck hard. And now came Conan the Barbarian, who also fights all kind of human and supernatural evil, does that both in wilderness and in the cities. And really despises the so-called "civilization". He believes that "civilized" people are liars, hypocrites, ever ready to cheat and betray each other. At best, if nor rascals, "civilized" people are cowards and cannot survive without the comfort they grew up. Thus, sorry - only my opinion, Kane is a kind of "civilizer", while Conan has no wish to be "civilized". I suppose that is because Robert Howard perceived the events of 1929 and after it as a kind of the collapse of the civilization as he knew it. It came as a dramatic, even tragic eye-opener to him, who before 1929, I am sure, earnestly believed in progress - scientific, social, all. He was terribly disenchanted and turned to "the good old past", when people, at least some of them were more frank, honest and simple, as different from his far too many contemporaries. I beg your pardon for my somewhat lengthy comment. Maybe also my idea is not quite original. Also Kane's loving and caring Jesus and Conan's practically indifferent Crom are quite different gods.
Dude I loved your comment. I’m learning about Howard for the first time so I don’t know whether you’re right, but I find what you’re saying very insightful! Thanks for taking the time to say 🙂
@@younggrasshopper3531 You are welcome. I'm closer to 70. I live in Russia, but I was fortunate enough to have an accidental access to Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear" collection in a cheap paperback book in 1970. My English was already good enough to appreciate it. And then in 1980 I literally devoured the thick paperback volume of "The Lord of the Rings" that amazingly was there in a district public library in Moscow. Regretfully R.E.Howard came to me later - after the film with Arnie. Funny, HPL and REH were very close thru extensive correspondence. I wonder if HPL knew about his friend's non-standard orientation. Hardly, I think. Yesterday I listened to the English audio of Howard's "Footfalls Within" short horror story. Really, it reminds me of " Indiana Jones" series in some respects. Gallant and brave WASP adventurer-liberator, poor hapless black slaves, evil Arab slavers, a much more evil supernatural entity sealed by King Solomon in a mausoleum in the depth of African jungle and a magic staff carved from wood that was old when the world was young. I loved it when I read it 30 years ago. Good luck to you.
"Star Wars" - "[laser] Swords and [technological] Sorcery"...I've read some novels about Conan written by other authors, There has been nobody to write a novel about Solomon Kane. The matter, I suppose, is that Conan acts in the ancient past - the countries and nations are totally invented. But a contemporary novel about Kane might well raise an outcry on the part of some about hate attitude to French. Arabs and Black Africans. Well, probably French would not get offended. You know very well about accusations of "racism" against Lovecraft in this century, and no explanations are accepted that one should take into account the fact that HPL wrote almost 90 years ago, in an era quite different and that he was in no way a Nazi or KKK, just professed a kind of a rather mild and non-violent apartheid. A contemporary politically correct version of a novel about Solomon Kane who does not call French pirates "French dogs", respects peaceful Arab "travelers" in Africa and fights interstellar alien invaders in African jungle instead of evil African priests and witch-queens would look ew!
Thank you for a very insightful and fascinating and intelligent talks on Howard's works, characters, ideas, and generally talking about sword and sorcery. It's the first time I have ever heard such serious treatment of Howard's work, it's really great. Like many people I love Howard's work, it was really pivotal in my reading life. Thank you.👍🏽🤝😊😍
Interesting discussion. I like how different everyone’s definitions of the genre are. Pretty hilarious. Shows just how silly genre definitions can be. The best thing they do is help to create conversations like this one. :).
Thanks for filming and posting these Ben! Always great!
I love Robert E howard stories but mostly kull and Conan.
Very interesting discussion, thank you for posting it!
Yes, thanks for recording and posting these, Ben.
Great work, Ben, thanks so much.
This was great to watch. Thanks!
Thank you for your hard work, Ben :)
22:00 This is really one of the big problems with writing Sword & Sorcery today, and in my opinion the main obstacle in the way of Sword & Sorcery regain a more prominent spot in the market.
I love the classic S&S aesthetics of old, but you can't really recreate them today. Modern Sword & Sorcery needs to be something new, but we also want it to feel like the classic works we love.
This should be called "The Debate on Sword and Sorcery" ;) thanks for posting!
I thought Jason C's observation of all the different names of Conan quite insightful.
Some of this video puts me in fits, making me wag my head in disagreement. And, for some of it, I'm fist pumping and saying, "Yes!"
Haha. Yes. Same.
A thought for discussion:
are the characteristics of Conan comparable to those of "The Man With No Name"?
Thanks a lot... I have my own theory: Howard invented Solomon Kane earlier than he did Conan. The times were relatively good in USA. So Cane is a man who in fact goes to barbaric, even savage places, where dark cruel deities and evil rule. He fights them, save the innocents - in fact brings law and order + humanism = civilization to those backward primitive evil places.
The 1929 struck hard. And now came Conan the Barbarian, who also fights all kind of human and supernatural evil, does that both in wilderness and in the cities. And really despises the so-called "civilization". He believes that "civilized" people are liars, hypocrites, ever ready to cheat and betray each other. At best, if nor rascals, "civilized" people are cowards and cannot survive without the comfort they grew up.
Thus, sorry - only my opinion, Kane is a kind of "civilizer", while Conan has no wish to be "civilized". I suppose that is because Robert Howard perceived the events of 1929 and after it as a kind of the collapse of the civilization as he knew it. It came as a dramatic, even tragic eye-opener to him, who before 1929, I am sure, earnestly believed in progress - scientific, social, all. He was terribly disenchanted and turned to "the good old past", when people, at least some of them were more frank, honest and simple, as different from his far too many contemporaries.
I beg your pardon for my somewhat lengthy comment. Maybe also my idea is not quite original.
Also Kane's loving and caring Jesus and Conan's practically indifferent Crom are quite different gods.
Dude I loved your comment. I’m learning about Howard for the first time so I don’t know whether you’re right, but I find what you’re saying very insightful! Thanks for taking the time to say 🙂
@@younggrasshopper3531 You are welcome. I'm closer to 70. I live in Russia, but I was fortunate enough to have an accidental access to Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear" collection in a cheap paperback book in 1970. My English was already good enough to appreciate it. And then in 1980 I literally devoured the thick paperback volume of "The Lord of the Rings" that amazingly was there in a district public library in Moscow. Regretfully R.E.Howard came to me later - after the film with Arnie. Funny, HPL and REH were very close thru extensive correspondence. I wonder if HPL knew about his friend's non-standard orientation. Hardly, I think. Yesterday I listened to the English audio of Howard's "Footfalls Within" short horror story. Really, it reminds me of " Indiana Jones" series in some respects. Gallant and brave WASP adventurer-liberator, poor hapless black slaves, evil Arab slavers, a much more evil supernatural entity sealed by King Solomon in a mausoleum in the depth of African jungle and a magic staff carved from wood that was old when the world was young. I loved it when I read it 30 years ago. Good luck to you.
Kane was before Conan yes because Kane first appeared in 1928 where Conan came out in the 1930s.
"Star Wars" - "[laser] Swords and [technological] Sorcery"...I've read some novels about Conan written by other authors, There has been nobody to write a novel about Solomon Kane. The matter, I suppose, is that Conan acts in the ancient past - the countries and nations are totally invented. But a contemporary novel about Kane might well raise an outcry on the part of some about hate attitude to French. Arabs and Black Africans. Well, probably French would not get offended.
You know very well about accusations of "racism" against Lovecraft in this century, and no explanations are accepted that one should take into account the fact that HPL wrote almost 90 years ago, in an era quite different and that he was in no way a Nazi or KKK, just professed a kind of a rather mild and non-violent apartheid.
A contemporary politically correct version of a novel about Solomon Kane who does not call French pirates "French dogs", respects peaceful Arab "travelers" in Africa and fights interstellar alien invaders in African jungle instead of evil African priests and witch-queens would look ew!