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.

Product Description

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.