The late Robert E. Howard’s public profile has never been higher, with a new comic book anthology series from Dark Horse, a continuing line of Del Rey collections, a Conan movie later this summer, and now a the release of Dreams in the Fire, a new anthology of stories and poetry honoring his legacy. Edited by noted Howard historians and editors Mark Finn and Chris Gruber, proceeds from Dreams in the Fire benefit the Robert E. Howard United Press Association. I recently spoke with co-editor Finn regarding the new anthology, Howard’s life and what might have been had the brilliant young author not killed himself at the age of 30.
What is the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, and how did you first become involved with it?
The Robert E. Howard United Press Association, or REHupa for short, is an APA that was started in the early 1970s to talk about Conan, REH, and sword and sorcery. For folks who don’t know what an APA is, there’s a decent explanation of them here. Over the years, REHupa has attracted a number of people who were really serious about Robert E. Howard, either from a research standpoint or a critical standpoint. It became the place to go for people who were in the know. I got into REHupa for several reasons, about ten years ago, after running into many of the members every year in Cross Plains, during Howard Days. A few of them talked me into it, and aside from a few slapfights, I’ve not regretted it since–and make no mistake, it’s far and away the geekiest thing I do. I don’t do fanfic, don’t do cosplay, I’ve largely stopped gaming completely, and I don’t belong to any other clubs. I don’t speak Klingon, nor Elvish…but every other month, I create an original ‘zine and fill it with my thoughts and rants on REH in general and participate in this weird, hermetic thing.
Tell me a little bit about the book. Who are some of the authors? What kinds of stories are these? What was the criteria used to select stories for inclusion?
Dreams in the Fire is a collection of fiction and poetry from the members, past and present, of REHupa. Over the years, some notable people have been members, however briefly–folks like Mike Stackpole, Nancy Collins, Karl Edward Wagner, Charles de Lint, and L. Sprague de Camp. I’m sure I’m leaving some folks out. But more recently, we’ve had a number of noteworthy and talented folks in the APA–people like James Reasoner, who writes great, terse action-filled prose, and has been doing so for decades now. As someone who loves anthologies, I thought it would be a cool book to get everyone together who writes fiction or poetry and let’s do something we all hardly EVER do in our ‘zines–write some yarns!
I knew that I could get a number of folks who are working writers to help me out. Angeline Hawkes and Chris Fulbright, Charles Gramlich, and of course, me. I was hopeful about getting James Reasoner involved. And I never thought I’d get something from Bob Weinberg. Add to that a number of people in the APA, who don’t ever make a big deal out of it, turned in some absolutely great stories. I just re-read Rob Roehm’s “The Debt” and it’s such a gut punch of a story. I can’t wait for folks to read it. Same with Chris Gruber’s epic historical.
Genre-wise, we didn’t limit ourselves, mostly because Howard himself didn’t. But everything in the book falls under the broad umbrella of Howardian prose–sword and sorcery, epic fantasy, humor, boxing, western, historical, sword and planet…it’s all in there. And I think you can see the Howard in all of the stories, too, which is nice. That’s not to say that anyone did a pastiche–in fact, just the opposite. All of the stories in the book feature original characters.
Why the fundraising? What does it go toward?
Project Pride is the organization in Cross Plains that performs upkeep and maintenance on the Howard House, which has become an amazing literary shrine of a museum. As a non-profit, they depend on contributions, grants, donations, and so forth to get the job done. Many of the folks are older and spend a lot of hours on the home. It’s really amazing what they do, and they have become great stewards of Howard’s memory and his place in Texas and American Literature.
In the past, REHupa and other folks have done projects to help line their coffers, and it has been a few years since we’ve done a fundraiser for them. This being the 25th anniversary of Robert E. Howard Days, it seems like a good time for another one.
Why should people care about Robert E. Howard?
You know, Howard is one of those influences that I think most people take underground with them. I mean, Howard fans show up in the weirdest places. As a stylist, he is largely responsible for the American fantasy story, much in the same way that Raymond Chandler created the American private detective. Even if you discount the world-wide impact of Conan the Barbarian in popular culture, Howard’s influence on the Cthulhu Mythos through the Lovecraft Circle, his invention of Heroic Fantasy (or sword and sorcery) with the first Solomon Kane story “Red Shadows” and the first Kull story “The Shadow Kingdom” and his ability to bend and combine genres (such as the very early weird western “The Horror on the Mound”) really all earmark him as one of the most influential pulp writers for both horror and fantasy of the 20th century.
And if you’re a Texan, then you HAVE to care about Howard, as he is one of the most widely read Texas authors ever. He put Texas in a bunch of his work–mostly his humor, of which I am a staunch advocate, but also in his more ’serious’ work, too.
As a Howard biographer, you probably know a great deal more about the man than many of us. Are there any misconceptions about him that you’d like to clear up? What is your favorite Howard fact?
The misconceptions continue to abound, particularly here on the Internet where information can be scanned at the speed of idiocy, copied and pasted with zero context or forethought, and disseminated rapidly to people who would rather paraphrase and get it wrong than read a single sentence and get it right. It makes me so mad, I don’t even want to get into it. I actually wrote a manifesto that spoke to that very topic. Of course, the people who criticized it were exactly the same people who didn’t read it in the first place, but that’s nothing new.
If you take away anything from this interview, know this: L. Sprague de Camp’s portrait of Howard, which appeared in every Conan paperback from Lancer to Ace and all points in-between, has been thoroughly debunked at this point. He wasn’t a loner, he wasn’t mother-obsessed, he wasn’t maladjusted to the point of psychosis. That Freudian balderdash is no more. That’s not to say Howard didn’t have some problems. He did. But when you’re talking about your favorite author, or even just someone you admire, why on Earth would you lead off the discussion with a catalog of their faults? It’s just…I dunno. Distasteful. Disrespectful. Maybe just Dis. But Howard’s “admirers” are so used to reading de Camp’s libelous reconstruction that they feel they have to tee off on Howard to excuse liking him as an author. Ridiculous. No one in science fiction circles talks about James Tiptree, Jr. and starts the paragraph off by talking about her murder/suicide pact. No one does that, out of respect for what was clearly a tragic set of circumstances.
All I want is the same measure of respect for Howard. Particularly since he was a founding father. I don’t think that’s asking for too much.
Howard killed himself at a young age, and at the height of his powers as an author. Do you think that he may have been mentally ill? you think modern psychiatry could have prevented his suicide? A follow-up question: what kind of writing do you think Howard would have moved into had he not killed himself?
The current theory, one that most of the Howardists subscribe to, is that Howard suffered from some form of depression. I think it was aggravated by being his mother’s primary caregiver–she was terminally ill, and Howard had to stay at home to look after her. It was considered “just what had to be done.” But that’s not to say that Howard liked it. Now, since we will never really know why Howard did what he did (he left no suicide note), all anyone can do is just guess. Joe Lansdale has a great quote–”I think if Robert E. Howard would’ve had some Zoloft, he’d have been all right.” And he’s probably correct. Back then the cure for depression was to “get over it.” So, maybe Howard was doomed from the start. I think that if he’d been allowed to leave home, he might not have gotten to the point where he was in an altered state about his mother’s death. It’s all guesses at this point. We’ll never really know.
I think that had Howard not killed himself, he would have moved into serious westerns, perhaps even hard-boiled westerns, and when the paperback market hit in America in the forties, he would have transitioned over to doing historical fiction for them.
A new Conan film is coming this summer. Were you to suggest a single Conan story to a reader unfamiliar with the original tales, what would it be?
Well, what I’d suggest isn’t necessarily what I think is the best Conan story–but it’s pretty close. I think reading either “The Tower of the Elephant,” “Rogues in the House,” “Red Nails,” or “Beyond the Black River” would be great introductions to Conan for the non-Conan reader.
