Appendix N Review: Black Colossus

Margaret Brundage knew how to sell the hell out of a cover

Returning now to Hyborea, Robert E. Howard's Black Colossus was published in the June 1933 issue of Weird Tales.

It begins, not with Conan, but with Shevatas, master-thief of Zamora (the land where Tower of the Elephant took place) who is exploring a sand-buried ruin of a city called Kuthchemes in the deep deserts south of Koth. By accident he awakens the undead sorcerer-king Thugra Khotan. The Liche-like Thugra, who oversaw horrific blood sacrifices in the name of Set, goes right back to trying to conquer the world. Now assuming the disguise of Natohk, the Veiled One. First on his list of conquests is the small kingdom of Khoraja, and its nubile princess Yasmela.

Tormenting and taunting Yasmela at night through his sorcery, the princess seeks solace in Mitra, the god of her Hyborean ancestors. Guided by a disembodied voice, she is directed to go out into the streets of her city alone at night and put her trust in the first man she meets.

The instructions are bizarre, but desperate for help, Yasmela does so, and so finally Conan of Cimmeria enters the story, who is currently employed as a mercenary.

After a negotiation that was equal parts paranoia and sexual tension, Conan is made commander of Khoraja's army, which then marches forth to meet the hordes of Natohk on the edge of the desert.

What follows is a titanic battle sequence that remarkably fits perfectly within a short story. Its incredible. There is humor, humanizing details for random grunts, and actual tactics that Conan employs to take advantage of the terrain. And rivers of blood, of course, because this is Conan after all.

Through heroic effort, Conan is able to win the field, but Yasmela is taken by Natohk back to Kuthchemes where he intends to take her for himself. Conan gives chase and confronts the sorcerer in his lair, and the way the story ends deserves to be discussed, so here's the recommendation before the SPOILERS start: Its a straightforward story that is deceptive in its simplicity. Its also a rip-roaring good time. Absolutely recommended.

SPOILERS

The fight with Thugra Khotan at the end is hilariously one-sided. The undead sorcerer postures and threatens with a giant black scorpion, but Conan kills him with a single blow by throwing his sword into his chest.

From there, he rescues Yasmela and wants to take her away from this horrid place, but she's the one who initiates the romantic encounter. Thugra had obviously intended to ravish her, but now Yasmela, who has been the actual protagonist of the story who got things moving (Conan has been merely reacting to situations thrown at him), decides that Conan has earned her embrace.

“No!” she gasped, clinging with convulsive strength as barbaric for the instant as he in her fear and passion. “I will not let you go! I am yours, by fire and steel and blood! You are mine! Back there, I belong to others – here I am mine – and yours! You shall not go!”

Here, in this ancient ruin, Yasmela is above any societal obligations befitting her rank and sex. Here, away from civilization, she is able to choose her sexual partners according to her own will, and she chooses Conan. A lot is conveyed about her character in these last few paragraphs when she is freed of the specter of Thugra's unholy lust.

The story caps off with Conan and Yasmela implied to have consensual sex in the chamber of the evil sorcerer-king that Conan just killed to prevent from raping her. That is the most Alpha Chad ending I think I've ever read. Its a wild ride. 

Appendix N Review: The Scarlet Citadel

The Phoenix on the Sword was published in December of 1932, and was an immediate success for Robert E. Howard. The following month, January 1933, Weird Tales would publish the next Conan story: The Scarlet Citadel.

Conan, King of Aquilonia, is having a very bad day. His army was drawn into a trap and he himself is captured by a band of would-be usurpers: the traitorous ally Amalrus, the king of Koth, Strabonus, and Kothian sorcerer Tsotha-lanti. The first two want to kill him and be done with it, but Tostha wants to play with him before killing him because that's what evil sorcerers do.

Conan refuses an offer to let him abdicate, and Tsotha has him thrown into the dungeon of his bright red fortress (a scarlet citadel, if you will). Chained to a wall and facing down a giant snake, Conan escapes partly by luck, and wanders the dark recesses of the dungeon, encountering one of the sorcerer's horrific experiments after another.

Eventually he rescues another prisoner from a giant plant monster. The grateful man recovers and reveals himself as another sorcerer: Pelias, and old rival of Tsotha-lanti's who was imprisoned for a decade.

Conan, knowing that Aquilonia would be thrown into chaos, needs to get back in a hurry, but has no way of getting there. Pelias has a solution. He magics up a strange flying beast and tells Conan not to think too hard about where it came from. Conan reluctantly does, and it flies him back to his capital where the beatings commence.

The story segues into the chaos engulfing Aquilonia and how Conan's loyal retainers tried and failed to maintain order against a group of grasping nobles, and then a would-be usurper named Prince Arpello, who turns out to be an instant tyrant. Conan drops down onto a roof ready to go and after a very brief fight, grabs Arpello and throws him off the roof with a mighty heave, causing the usurper to smash on the stones below “like a mangled beetle.”

Sort of like A Song of Ice and Fire, only actually satisfying and not wasting your time with pages and pages of awkward sex and food descriptions.

But we're not done yet. We're going into SPOILER territory because the ending is really worth discussing.

Conan rallies his army for a pitched battle that deals with the mortal usurpers, and he runs down Tsotha-lanti on horseback and beheads the wizard.

Being a sorcerer, this doesn't stop him from trying to re-attach his body, but suddenly an eagle swoops down and carries the head off, laughing with Pelias' voice. The headless body takes off after it, and Conan is left wondering what the hell is wrong with wizards and their feuds and he just wants a drink.

Both here and in The Phoenix on the Sword, there are moments of dark comedy, and Howard delivers them exceptionally well. After the high tension of the entire story and the catharsis of the battles, dipping into screwball comedy doesn't hurt. It has to be deliberate comedy, since Conan's deadpan “I hate wizards” reaction is completely in character with a man used to dealing in concrete situations.

That said, The Scarlet Citadel features a similar plot to Conan's debut: King Conan has to deal with a plot to overthrow him. The solution involves stabbing many men. The execution is different. The fighting is larger scale and the Weirdness factor is ramped up dramatically. Tsotha-lanti's dungeon is a carnival of horrors, from plant monsters, invisible creepy things, a bloated monstrosity that weeps with a woman's voice, and deep pit leading down that feels wrong. The giant snake is mundane by comparison.

The Scarlet Citadel expands the scope of the Hyborean Age in every direction. Conflict is bigger, magic is stranger, and there's a bit of continuity discussing the “Mad Bard” Rinaldo from the first story.

Come for the badass fighting, stay for the weird magic. Its Robert E. Howard. Its Conan. Its a good time.

Pulp Review: Black God's Kiss

Its such a common narrative among modernist Sci-Fi/Fantasy pundits to say that the genre was always a boys' club and that women are only now assuming their rightful place at the top of the field. (There's probably an io9 article about the subject right now.)

This is bullshit because it erases women who were writing at the top of their game to great commercial and critical success almost a hundred years ago. Catherine Lucille “C. L.” Moore being among the best and brightest of that group.

An Indiana native, Moore made her first professional sale to Weird Tales in 1933. In 1934, she made the cover story of Weird Tales' October issue with Black God's Kiss. It's weird.

Jirel is the tall, fiery, red-headed, yellow-eyed warrior commander of Joiry, a castle somewhere in France that has just been captured by the arrogant and dashing Guillaume. He takes something of a fancy to her spirited defense of the castle and cavalierly kisses her.

Imprisoned and seething with wounded pride and rage, she escapes her cell and with the help of Father Gervase, she sneaks into a dark, forbidden part of Joiry Castle where a dark tunnel will lead her to a dark place where she might find the means of her revenge.

Gervase's pleas fall on deaf ears. Jirel will have her revenge, even at the cost of her soul, and she descends into a bizarre Hell that isn't like the kind described in Dante.

It would be a crime to spoil what follows, but it entails physical peril, moral peril, spiritual peril, and some very difficult decisions and repercussions.

Jirel is an incredible female heroine: strong and flawed, skilled in battle but with so much growing up left to do. Her battle prowess isn't what can help her, though, and she must use her judgment to reach the end of the story, which arguably moves it away from Sword & Sorcery (where cutting a bloody swath through one's enemies is de rigueur) to the kind of weirdness that marked the beginning of Merritt's The Moon Pool. There's no mistaking that Moore is a female author, though, and her perspective adds another layer to the experiences of young Jirel that wouldn't be found in Robert E. Howard's work.

Less action-packed and more weirdness & wonder, Black God's Kiss is an incredible introduction to an incredible character written by a Grandmaster of the genre who is leagues better than the modern SF/F writers (male or female) who've forgotten her legacy. She stands shoulder to shoulder with Burroughs, Merritt and Howard and deserves to be a household name.

Respect due.

Essential Reading.