Re: RARA-AVIS: QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST

From: Jesse Willis ( jessewillis@yahoo.com)
Date: 26 Jul 2003


Indeed I'd argue REH wrote in a very hardboiled style. If you think about his character of REH's Conan he's basically a version of Richard Stark's Parker, or vice versa. A powerful guy, with indefatigable determination. I'm going through the Parker novels again and finding that as Stark developed the character he dropped the 'sheer strength of muscle' in favour of strength of will and wilyness (if thats a word). Conan and Parker, like the unnamed protagonist of Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, are extremely competent, determined to get their way and in possession of a strong goal. A strong goal in almost every case is money. Money is of course only an means to an end, a way of keeping score, a way of determining the
"winner". Parker, Conan and "Yojimbo" are all hardboiled winners. Think Clint Eastwod in "Dirty Harry" minus the plot, think Clint in "A fist full of Dollars" definitely. Think Arnold Schwarzenegger holding the severed head of Thulsa Doom.

Jesse
--- Mark Hall < markhall@gol.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 7/26/2003, "Michael Robison" < zspider@gte.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Jesse Willis wrote:
> >> The quote from "Heart of Darkness" reads almost
> like
> >> Robert E. Howard's "Queen Of The Black Coast"!
> >
> >**************
> >Darn, Jesse! The book sounded like an interesting
> change of pace so
> >I looked it up on Abebooks and it must be one of
> those hot collector
> >items. I couldn't touch it for less that $18.
> >
> >miker
>
> You can get copies of REH's "Queen of the Black
> Coast" for much
> cheaper than that. I forget which of the Lancer/Ace
> Conan volumes it
> is in (edited by DeCamp); but they crop up on eBay
> and abebooks for just
> a few books each. It is also collected in one of
> the Gollancz/Millennium
> Fantasy Masterworks volumes by REH. I am at work
> now and will check when
>
> I get home.
>
> In Don Herron's DARK BARBARIAN, one of the essays
> there makes a very
> strong
> case for many of REH's stories being "hard-boiled"
> in tone, plot, theme,
> etc.
>
> Best, Mark Hall
>
>
> Mark Hall
> markhall@gol.com
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