Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, King Kull, and others that defined heroic fantasy, lived and died in the small town of Cross Plains, Texas. While his books remain in print, Howard himself has fallen into obscurity, his life mired in speculation and half-truth. This engaging biography traces the roots of his writings, correcting long-standing misconceptions, and offers a tour of Howard's world as he saw it: through his own incomparable imagination.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Conan the Barbarian is an internationally known icon. His creator, Robert E. Howard, remains to most an Oedipal figure who created the Cimmerian swordsman as a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Finn quietly and expertly demolishes these and other misconceptions about Howard. Rather than use Conan as the yardstick to measure his creator's life, he discusses Howard in the context of a populist writer whose dyspeptic view of civilization was forged in the corrupt Texas oil boomtowns in which he grew up. Howard was a natural storyteller who used the techniques of folklore to create his own "tall tales" in an economical yet poetic style. Finn handles his charged subject in a straightforward, even-handed manner. This is a worthy addition to the 100th anniversary of Howard's birth that all readers of fantasy and regional fiction will enjoy.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
With enthusiasm, skill, and expertise Mark Finn has written the new and definitive biography of Robert E. Howard. Finn not only corrects a number of errors previous biographies and biographers made about Howard and his writings, Finn also describes, with sensitivity and nuance, Howard's environment and upbringing and the context in which Howard's work should be placed. Finn neither places Howard on a pedestal nor demeans him, but instead gives Howard the credit he deserves.
Howard could not hope for a better biographer than Mark Finn, nor a better biography than Blood and Thunder.
Howard could not hope for a better biographer than Mark Finn, nor a better biography than Blood and Thunder.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By Hulagu Khan
Format:Paperback
Mark Finn's biography of "Conan the Cimmerian" creator Robert E. Howard is superb - very fair and measured across the board, especially on such controversial subjects such as REH's suicide and chronically overlooked issues such as his non-Conan literary production. You really get a very full and illuminating examination of the author's upbringing, family and Texas background. One could had hope more about Howard's poetry or about his heritage and influence on the writing of heroic fantasy and on specific writers such as Karl Edward Wagner or David Gemmell but that would be nitpicking. The only criticism is that the book is too short!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By Rory Coker
Format:Paperback
It's always surprising to me how little reliable biographical information is avaiable about REH, and how difficult it is to find editions of his works that are as he wrote them, rather than prissily "edited". Here's a biography whose author has gone to some trouble to place REH into his environment, the fringes of the oil fields of rural Texas in the first three decades of the 20th Century. In those days before radio, with movies a rare treat, when people got together they often entertained one another by telling stories, and one can easily picture the young REH lapping it all up, and when he came of story-telling age, eagerly joining in.
Finn does a pretty good job with some tickish topics, such as Howard's near-obsession with suicide, the very complex relationship he had with his mother and father, and the almost altogether sinister role played by washed-up sci-fi author L. Sprague de Camp in co-opting and copyrighting Howard's work for his own exclusive financial benefit.
This small-press book is relatively free of misprints. However, the text could also have used a sympathetic editor to iron the kinks out of some of Finn's stranger sentences.
As other reviewers have noted, the chapter about Conan seems a bit short, but the coverage of Conan's more interesting forerunner Kull is even shorter. Brevity is no sin with Howard's impressive pulp output to be surveyed and commented upon.
Recommended.
Finn does a pretty good job with some tickish topics, such as Howard's near-obsession with suicide, the very complex relationship he had with his mother and father, and the almost altogether sinister role played by washed-up sci-fi author L. Sprague de Camp in co-opting and copyrighting Howard's work for his own exclusive financial benefit.
This small-press book is relatively free of misprints. However, the text could also have used a sympathetic editor to iron the kinks out of some of Finn's stranger sentences.
As other reviewers have noted, the chapter about Conan seems a bit short, but the coverage of Conan's more interesting forerunner Kull is even shorter. Brevity is no sin with Howard's impressive pulp output to be surveyed and commented upon.
Recommended.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Synopsis of Howard Life and Times
This book serves as a good, relatively short biography of Robert E. Howard, filling a gap in Howard criticism, caused by the reputedly sub-standard previous biography written by De... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Sertorius
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally Someone Up To The Task Of Examining Howard
I've read Howard for years and I have long believed him a major talent worthy of serious examination, I had hoped L. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Joe Keenan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and interesting picture of REH's life & work
Read this book in a single sitting, it does have a few noticable editing snafus but the overall quality of the editing and writing were excellent. Read more
Published on December 29, 2008 by ranjr
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just Getting Started.
I was thrilled to finally read this book. I live in Brownwood, Tx and Cross Plains is only 30 miles away. Before I read this book, I was given a tour of Robert E. Read more
Published on November 25, 2008 by Cryptor
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Story Teller's Story Teller
Mark Finn's biography of Robert E. Howard is an interesting read & well worth the time for any fan of REH's work. Mr. Read more
Published on May 25, 2008 by G. Alvin Simons
5.0 out of 5 stars
A worthy Biography, and innovative in form
Early into this superb biography on the Late, Great Robert E. Howard, Mark Finn discusses the difficulty of getting to the facts in Mr. Howards' life. Read more
Published on May 5, 2008 by Kevin N. Alexander
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
This book explores the life and times of one of the most famous writers ever to come out of the state of Texas. During his brief writing career in the 1920s and 1930s, Robert E. Read more
Published on January 27, 2008 by Paul Lappen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Robert E. Howard - Biography and More
This is a must have outstanding book! From Book "About the author: Mark Finn is the recipient of the 2005 Cimmerian Award for Outstanding Achievement in Robert E. Read more
Published on January 25, 2008 by The Barbarian
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book!
I read the old Conan 1-12 Ace published paperbacks religiously as a teenager, and have delved back into them (or the Del Ray Conan re-prints) for a re-read from time to time. Read more
Published on January 9, 2007 by Cwn_Annwn
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and Essential
This is an excellent biography of Robert E. Howard and is essential for any fan of his work. Blood and Thunder is both an honest biography of Howard's life and a good analysis of... Read more
Published on December 16, 2006 by Michael Kuzmanovski
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