Covers That Awed Me (and still kinda do)

   One of the reasons I picked up a lot of books when I was a kid was because of their covers.  My dad had hundreds of sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks in the attic.  He rarely recommended anything to me (except for LOTR), leaving me to discover authors on my own.  Often it meant going for the coolest, most exciting cover in the box.  Later when I bought my own books from spinner racks in the Staten Island Ferry Terminal or Barnes & Noble, eye catching covers helped in sorting through the vast selections.

   These covers are among the most vivid from my childhood and teenage readings in swords & sorcery.  Clearly the late Frank Frazetta's talents had a lot to do with shaping the visual presentation of S&S in the era.  It's easy to see why.  It's big and brutal with dark, brooding figures committing or at least contemplating great acts of violence.  Not to get too psychological but the appeal of the powerful characters he painted have a strong pull for the typical teenage guy bursting with energy and testosterone who feels like he's indestructible while feeling at deep odds with the world.  Or maybe teenage boys just like big honking barbarians swinging swords, cleaving monsters and getting the girl 'cause it looks cool.

   These covers still overwhelm my senses in the best possible way when I look at them.  They possess none of the photo realism of so many modern covers, a style I really dislike (they look like bodice-rippers).  Instead, with "Conan the Warrior" we get swirling flames and smoke and flailing Picts caught in mid strike.  There's an impressionism in Frazetta's art that does more to conjure Conan and his ilk than any host of photo shopped book cover models.  

   "Flashing Swords! #2's" second cover (this one replaced a weaker Frazetta cover on the first printing) brings us Frazetta's original "Death Dealer" in all his malefic glory.  His eyes burn as brightly as the fire in the background and are as crimson as the blood dripping from his oversized axe.  Above swoop vultures which surely travel in his wake awaiting in anticipation of their next meal. 

   I find a dream quality in paintings as well a feeling of motion conveyed by the blurred shadows and body contours.  There's none of harsh unreal realness of CGI animation.  "Conan the Warrior" may depict one moment of combat but it doesn't feel like a snapshot but a frame from a film unreeling in my head.

   "Death Angel's Shadow" is minimalist next to the Frazetta pictures.  It was done by an artist named Stan Zagorski who looks like he's mostly done album covers.  In this one picture he captures Karl Edward Wagner's "mystic swordsman" like none of the subsequent covers by Frazetta did.  

   The latter picture a bare-chested barbarian with a red beard.  Zagorski's Kane is a man in full armor in an almost relaxed pose despite looking as if he's in the midst of a fight.  Behind him rises what I'm guessing is his cloak formed into skulls.  Where Kane treads, murder and bloodshed trail him.

   Because of e-books covers don't influence my impulse buying as much and limited shelf space means I won't just get a book to get a book anymore.  I rarely buy books in Barnes & Noble so my eyes aren't caught up by the dazzling colors on the new releases' shelf either.  Sadly, I suspect this is true for a lot of readers.

   Does anyone else have covers stuck in their head or that helped shaped how they thought about S&S or fantasy in general (anybody else still in love with the psychedelic LOTR covers by Barbara Remington for Ballantine?)

Initiation: Conan the Warrior

The first Conan stories I read were the three collected in the Lancer Books collection "Conan the Warrior"; "Red Nails", "The Jewels of Gwalhur" and "Beyond the Black River". For my money the first and the last are two of Howard's best stories and still my favorites.

I found the book in one of the numerous boxes of science fiction and fantasy books in my attic when I was thirteen or fourteen. While I'd read the Elric and Hawkmoon stories by Michael Moorcock, most of the fantasy I'd been going through was of the Tolkien and Tolkien derived variety. Terry Brooks' "Sword of Shannara" had come out only a few years earlier when I was eleven and that sort of pastiche was the rage at the time. Most of the fantastic fiction I read was full of elves who spoke poetry, dwarves with long beards and axes and goodhearted small folk.

There had been some other exceptions, of course. My dad had the first couple of Lin Carter's "Flashing Swords" anthologies and Karl Edward Wagner's "Death Angel's Shadow" and I'd read them. But none of them compared to what I found in "Conan the Warrior".

"Red Nail" pits Conan and the female mercenary, Valeria, against dragons and the warring denizens of Xuchotil. Xuchotil is an entirely enclosed city made of jade and other rare minerals. Within, two factions have been fighting each other for generations. With Conan's arrival things come to a bloody head.

I was taken by the grim brutality of the story and the confidence and ferocious efficiency of Conan. The violent action is, suffice it to say, exciting and the setting fascinating. There is color and directness to Howard's writing and it grabbed me by the collar and shook me hard.

The second story is okay. I've never gone out of my way to reread "The Jewels of Gwalhur", but the third story, "Beyond the Black River" is the one the secured my respect for REH. I've read it numerous times and even listened to a pretty serviceable audiobook version.

It is different from the rest of the Conan cycle - Conan is a secondary character. It's told from the point of view of an Aquilonian settler, Balthus. He encounters Conan and together they're caught up in the beginnings of major uprising by the Pictish tribes. There are sorcerers, swamp demons and hordes of very Mohawk-like Pict warriors.

It's simultaneously my favorite Howard and Conan story and I can't recommend it enough. On a simple level the story is fast paced, violent and colored with bloody red strokes. It also presents Howard's ideas about civilization and barbarism forcefully. If you don't like the story you probably won't go for the rest of Howard's stories but if you don't like it then you probably wouldn't be here in the first place.