Agreed, the man was a genius. I often feel like he’s the Alexander the Great of literature, and have wept a few times at how little I’ve accomplished in comparison to him by the age of 34! It fills me with shame and horror and guilt.
I hope to live to 70 or 80 that I might produce 100 times as much as him to make up for it.
I have only read one of his sports stories (a boxing one - one of his favorite subjects, it seems), but those are supposed to be just as good as his other stuff - and his "Western" stories - more akin to "tall tales" like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill than, say, Zane Gray, are hilarious. His influence is far beyond fantasy and horror, even though those were his biggest area (and his sense of humor shows through in all but the darkest of tales)
I only discovered them in the Kindle Omnibus edition of his work (IIRC it has about 2/3 of the Conan stories, a solid sampling of his horror stories, all but one Kull story half of the Solomon Kane ones most or all of the “Westerns” and most of all of his sports stories)
For a man who didn't live past his early 30s, he produced an enormous and highly varied amount of fictional material.
Agreed, the man was a genius. I often feel like he’s the Alexander the Great of literature, and have wept a few times at how little I’ve accomplished in comparison to him by the age of 34! It fills me with shame and horror and guilt.
I hope to live to 70 or 80 that I might produce 100 times as much as him to make up for it.
Our Guy
Yep X)
I have only read one of his sports stories (a boxing one - one of his favorite subjects, it seems), but those are supposed to be just as good as his other stuff - and his "Western" stories - more akin to "tall tales" like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill than, say, Zane Gray, are hilarious. His influence is far beyond fantasy and horror, even though those were his biggest area (and his sense of humor shows through in all but the darkest of tales)
Amazing comment, I’ve never read his non-Fantasy stuff. Any chance you might share with me one of his more humorous stories?
I’m not interested in Sports but might consider Westerns.
I only discovered them in the Kindle Omnibus edition of his work (IIRC it has about 2/3 of the Conan stories, a solid sampling of his horror stories, all but one Kull story half of the Solomon Kane ones most or all of the “Westerns” and most of all of his sports stories)
Interesting, I’ve several omnibuses of his on Kindle also.
The Kindle Omnibuses are great as samplers
Agreed, I use them for copy pasting text for my essays. I then like to read the physical versions.