Type Like a Barbarian

In Which Our Typists Hears the Lamentations of His Editors

One golden summer of childhood, my brother and I had gone swimming at City Pool. Walking home with our soggy swim trunks wrapped up in our towels, we discovered lying on the ground a beat up, weathered copy of Marvel Comic’s Kull the Conqueror #2, a retelling of Robert E. Howard’s “the Shadow Kingdom” novelette.

This was my introduction to Robert E. Howard and sword of and sorcery. And what an introduction it was. I still remember being creeped out by hidden passageways and not knowing which faithful ally would suddenly turn out to be a hideous, evil Serpent Men!

Pulp scholars will tell you that Howard’s later creation Conan is in every way far, far superior to his earlier King Kull, that Kull is a mere prolegomenon, a proto-Conan notable only for being the first sword & sorcery tale, merely a precursor of better things to come, and certainly on a technical level, Conan is more fully realized than Kull, Howard’s later prose is more fully polished.

Be that as it may. I still prefer Kull to Conan, just as I prefer Howard’s Solomon Kane to Conan.

And for the same reason.

Kull and Conan share near-identical trappings of the sword-and-sorcery genre. Antediluvian mytho-historical backgrounds, famous swordplay, fur loin cloths in need of a good dry-cleaning. These shared trappings elide the fact that the two characters are diametrical opposites.

Kull, for all his savagery, is an agent for civilization. Conan, despite a star-turn at rulership, is an agent for civilization’s destruction. The divide is even reflected in their titles: Kull the Conqueror, Conan the Barbarian.

Howard, according to his own statements, held little regard for civilization. He fervently wished to have been born in more primitive times.

I happen not to share that view.

Civilization, law and order, prosperity -- the ages’ slow bought gain -- these are worth preserving, worth fighting for. I prefer stories and characters dedicated to that proposition, to coin a phrase.

Thus, I prefer Kull to Conan, Kane to Kull.

Which brings me, finally, to Raconteur Press’s recent sword & sorcery anthology Daggers & Dark Powers. Last year, Raconteur Press put out an open call for Conan-esque sword & sorcery stories. Blades & Black Magic, they called it. (They had such an outpouring of great Conan-esque stories, they put out two volumes. Conan is popular.)

I wrote and submitted a story for it.

You might be asking at this point why? Why, if what I said about my feelings on the character are true? Raconteur Press anthologies are open calls, written entirely “on spec.” I could very well have simply decided not to submit a story.

First, I’d never written a barbarian swordsman story and I wanted to try doing so at least once. A writer needs to be trying new things so they don’t stagnate.

Secondly, it gave me a good excuse to plow through Howard’s entire Conan canon. The last time I’d read anything with Conan in it, Jimmy Carter was still president. It might very well turn out that my feelings on the character might have changed after a current read-through. (Spoiler: they didn’t.)

I went into the story determined to do my level best at playing it straight. Telling a Conan-esque story of a Conan-esque character with a Conan-esque mindset. I wanted to play fair with the reader. I gave my character valid reasons to hate civilization and reasons for his concerted, deliberate efforts to tear it down.

I also wanted to tell a story that played fair with my own notions.

The artifice I came up with satisfies both, I think. That I did so well enough to slip past an editor somewhat surprised me.

Reviews seem to be mixed. One reviewer thought it added an extra kick to the story, another thought mine was the weakest story of the two-volume set. I suppose it’s all according to one’s Conan Bugaloo situation stands, to misquote Wolfman Jack.

Why don’t you read “Sword of the Mageslayer” in Daggers & Dark Powers and judge for yourself?

With over a hundred professional publication credits, Lee Allred’s award-winning fiction has appeared in Asimov’s SF Magazine, anthologies, online magazines, and various other venues. He’s also scripted for DC (Batman ‘66), Marvel (Fantastic Four), IDW (Dick Tracy), and Image Comics (Madman Atomic Comics).