I mentioned in a previous post the “Planet Stories” publications, which are reprints of classic pulp fantasy, horror, and adventure stories. I finished recently one of those publications, Black God’s Kiss, the collected stories of C.L. Moore’s character Jirel of Joiry. The character of Jirel is especially notable as being the first strong female sword-and-sorcery character written by a woman!
Now that I’m thinking of Solomon Kane, I thought I’d do a brief post about the character, his adventures, and the clear influence Howard’s religious beliefs had on both.
Solomon Kane is a 16th century English Puritan, warrior and wanderer. Stereotypically dour and fanatical, he wanders the globe, primarily traveling through Europe and Africa, in search of evil to vanquish and, in later stories, answers to his own theological unease. Like all of Robert E. Howard’s fictional heroes, he is larger than life and almost elemental in his pursuits.
I put this in the category of things I found that I wasn’t looking for: it looks like a movie based on Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane is slated for release sometime in 2008! My blog title, of course, is taken from the title of one of my favorite Kane stories. It will be interesting to see what is done with Kane in movie form, but if it’s anything like Hollywood’s various takes on Howard’s other character, Conan, I’m a little scared…
When I was younger, I was heavily into role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. I also ventured occasionally into other RPGs, and one of the popular ones was (and still is) Vampire: The Masquerade, in which one plays an Anne-Riceian vampire living secretly in contemporary society. I quickly got rather tired of Vampire, though; playing a character that is so much more powerful and special than ordinary folks left me with the pathetic feeling that I was trying to role-play somebody “cool”.
The ultra-trendy, ultra-sexy vampire seems to have become the standard image of the mythical bloodsucker. Alternatives exist, however; I thought I’d write a blog post highlighting some of my favorite stories in which vampires are depicted in a very different fashion…
While on vacation, I stumbled across one of Brian Lumley’s early novels, Khai of Khem, a fantasy adventure story set in pre-historical ancient Egypt. One of the major plot points of the story is the idea that Khai has, in essence, already lived a reincarnated life in the future, and his knowledge helps him fight his foes. That reminded me of a few other horror tales in which reincarnation is a major plot point, and it seemed worth a post to discuss them!
I’ve been kind of busy the past few days, preparing for the holidays (you hear me, Bill O’Reilly? I said ‘holiday’!!!), so I haven’t been able to post much. This seemed like a good time to share one of my favorite little passages from Robert E. Howard’s Conan book The Hour of the Dragon. It’s a nice insight into Robert’s views on religious tolerance…
Here’s an interesting tidbit for Robert E. Howard fans: an animated film version of the Conan story Red Nails is in production. I stumbled across the web site for it a few weeks ago, and it looks like it is aiming to be a truly faithful adaptation of the original story. To get really excited about it, just look at the cast, and in particular who’s been chosen for the voice of Conan. (This actor would probably be a great choice to play Conan in a live-action movie, except that he probably couldn’t muster up the full mane of black hair any more.)
The only problem? The film has been in production for quite a long time and it’s unclear if production has been halted or not. The movie blog, which was supposed to be updated every two weeks, hasn’t been updated since June. Here’s hoping it gets released — it would be nice to see a proper depiction of the barbarian, which doesn’t depict him as a steroid-addled buffoon or part of a ‘Conan and friends’ ensemble.
