EXTRACTS: The Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 3 © The Book Palace (416 PAGES in Full edition)

particular story are not cardboard characters, but are as alive and vibrant as Conan himself. Few are the writers of fantasy stories who have succeeded in mingling fantasy with realism with such mastery. The story is a masterpiece because Howard didn’t let any damsel in distress get in the way, because he subdued the more fantastic elements of the tale, and refused to resort to pulp magazine conventions: he carried his grim opening predicament through to its bitter end, and didn’t let melodrama get in the way. The last Conan stories are much more realistic than fantastic, and it is that realism which sets them apart. Howard was very much aware of this. Just after he had sold Red Nails he commented to Clark Ashton Smith: “Too much raw meat, maybe, but I merely portrayed what I honestly believe would be the reactions of certain types of people in the situations on which the plot of the story hung. It may sound fantastic to link the term ‘realism’ with Conan; but as a matter of fact – his supernatural adventures aside – he is the most realistic character I ever evolved.” If Beyond the Black River represents Howard’s definitive statement of his views concerning barbarism, he chose, in Red Nails , the other Conan masterpiece, to explore the other side of the coin: decaying civilizations. Once again, it was definitely not a new theme for the Texan. For example, Conan’s predecessor, Kull of Atlantis, was the king of the decadent empire of Valusia, and countless Howard stories are set in locales that usually were somewhere between decadent and decayed. The situation inevitably led to a final destruction, usually at the hands of the barbarians who were always, conveniently, at the gates, waiting for such a moment. In Red Nails , however, Howard dispensed with the barbarians and made sure his city was utterly isolated. Red Nails would thus be the story of a decaying process that would be carried to its logical conclusion. Written at a time when Howard’s mother’s health was declining at an alarming rate, her body slowly decaying under her son’s eyes toward a conclusion that was as inevitable as it was obvious, the last Conan story is a tale which is particularly rich in resonance with the terrible events that were happening in Howard’s life and mind at the time he was composing the story. (For a fuller explanation of the background to each story, see “Hyborian Genesis Part III” at the end of this volume.) With the Conan stories, Howard ensured his literary legacy. His suicide at age thirty cut short a career that had promised to be an exceptional one. Less than a month before his death, he wrote Lovecraft: “I find it more and more difficult to write anything but western yarns. . . . I have always felt that if I ever accomplished anything worthwhile in the literary field, it would be with stories dealing of the central and western frontier.” Howard would probably have become an important writer in that field, but fate decided otherwise. However, the Conan stories transcend by their very nature the genre they are derived from, whether it be vi Conan of Cimmeria Volume 3