When Conan met Elric…


‘Cimmerian September’ has got me over another ‘reading slump’; I’m really excited to see what I can read this month as far as ‘Conan’ tales go. The plan is to write about at least a couple of Howard’s original tales but I’ve also been having fun just looking through my bookshelves to see which books I’d forgotten that I owned. Any excuse for a ‘bookshelf browse’ and a re-read ;o) All of which led me to Conan’s team-up with one Elric of Melnibone…

Conan first met Elric back in #14 (A Sword Called Stormbringer) of ‘Conan the Barbarian’ back in 1972. It was a short-lived team-up, concluding in #15 (The Green Empress of Melnibone) and then they both went on their merry (well, ‘doom-laden’ in the case of Elric) ways. Moorcock, and James Cawthorn, supplied the plot; Roy Thomas and Barry Smith adapted it. I first came across the story in the early 2000s, working in a psychiatric hospital where one of the patients had an extensive collection of Moorcock books. It took me a little while longer to find a copy of my own (a sweet little paperback edition), which I promptly lost in a house move so, no change there ;o) I finally came across it again in the Marvel collection ‘Hawks from the Sea’ and to be honest, that’s your best bet if you’re looking for this story yourself. Is it worth the hunt though? Hmmm, maybe…

Having rescued Zephra, the daughter of a wizard, from a band of hooded men, Conan finds himself taking up the offer of easily obtainable gold… If he helps the wizard’s daughter defeat Kulan Gath, a Stygian sorcerer who seeks to rule the world by resurrecting Terhali the Green Empress of Melnibone. Conan agrees to the quest, with no idea of the greater conflict at play and what he will face as a result. He won’t face it alone though, Zephra has her own part to play and a traveller from Terhali’s own world will also make an appearance, with a soul devouring sword and plans of his own…

This team-up is a bit of fun and a decent read for an hour or so. You’ve got plenty of action along with Conan and Elric jostling for position, more than enough to hold your interest. Without giving too much away though, it is a bit of a wrench to see Conan relegated to basically being the ‘muscle’ in a tale that is heavily weighted with magic. I mean, you do get to see Conan deal with a big fear of his (mystical business really unsettles him) and you’ve got to respect him for just getting on with the job in the face of that fear. Seeing him relegated to a bystander though… He deserved a little more than that.

Or maybe that’s the wrong way of looking at it. This tale can be more effective than you think if you look at it in terms of Conan operating way outside his comfort zone and still doing alright for himself. And that’s more like the Conan we know, isn’t it? A man who makes the world his by sheer presence and force of will. This situation pushes that to its limit but Conan can be pretty pleased with how it turns out. Well, he’s alive isn’t he? ;o)

Karl Edward Wagner built Kane up to be better than Elric (in ‘The Gothic Touch’) and you can’t help but wonder if this Moorcock plotted tale is trying to do the same thing to Conan, just with Elric this time. Maybe, maybe not… Either way, not a bad tale in itself but Conan gets treated a little shabbily from where I’m sat. Not every story is a massive hit, onto the next one ;o)

EDIT: I've since found out that these issues were plotted more by James Cawthorn than Moorcock. Honestly, I'd never have spotted it so thanks to Charles Rutledge for pointing it out. I still think Conan was hard done by but now I know where that came from.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘The Long and Hungry Road’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Black Library)

Image
After not finishing ‘Witchbringer’ (not the book’s fault, I still think it could be worth your time), I thought I’d change pace a little and go for a short, sharp burst of something instead. Something that would blow a few cobwebs away and wake me up a bit :o) Now in my experience, there’s nothing shorter and sharper than a Warhammer short story so that was the direction of my reading taken care of. And as far as the focus went… I’ve read a few Warhammer tales, in my time, but I’ve never read a tale that looks at the events of the 41st Millennium through the eyes of the rapacious Tyranids. So when I saw ‘The Long and Hungry Road’ on Amazon, it pretty much chose itself. To face a Tyranid invasion is a waking nightmare. The skies darken with spores, your mind echoes with alien screeches, and countless weapon-organisms descend upon you with razor teeth and claws. How much greater would your horror be, to realise that the hive ship above thinks nothing of your fate – that it crushes you
Read more

‘Day of Ascension’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Black Library)

Image
Page Count – 196 Pages There isn’t a lot that’s good about moving house (especially when it slowly dawns on you just how much the new place is going to cost to run, I need to get another job…) but there are some good bits if you look for them. For me, it was mostly around getting all my books unpacked and back on shelves around me again, not stuffed up in the loft where I couldn’t see them. Old favourites were back within easy reach, along with a whole load of new books that I really should have read ages ago. You can probably guess what my main New Year’s resolution will be… ;o) ‘Day of Ascension’ was one of those new books and I figured it was as good a place as any to start over in making a dent in the ol’ TBR Pile. And I’m really glad I did. On the forge world of Morod, the machines never stop and the work never ends. The population toils in the mines and factoria to protect humanity from the monsters in the void, while the Adeptus Mechanicus enjoy lives of palatial comfort. Gene
Read more

‘Worms of the Earth’ – Robert E. Howard.

Image
Page Count: 27 Pages I have a copy of this on my shelf and the plan was to pick it up for a read on the way into work this morning. Well, that was the plan but I was half asleep, leaving the house, and totally forgot… No matter though, that’s what the Kindle app is for (although if I’d been a little more awake, I’d have read it off Project Gutenberg instead, you can find ‘Worms of the Earth’ Here ). 99p later and my ‘commute reading’ was secured 😉 I always seem to fall into the trap of just reading ‘Conan’ stuff whenever I fancy reading a little Howard. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that there’s a lot of his other stories out there that are more than worth your time when you come across them. ‘Worms of the Earth’ is very much one of those tales but you knew that already, didn’t you? You didn’t? You should do something about that, take it from me… After witnessing one of his subjects die at the hands of Roman governor Titus Sulla, Bran Mak Morn vows vengeance on Sulla but at w
Read more