Books like Conan the Buccaneer

More bad writing from De Camp and Carter. Chronologically, Conan The Buccaneer takes place before Conan Of The Isles, but was written after. This one is marginally better than Conan Of The Isles but still pretty rough. At least there’s no scuba gear.That’s all I’m going to say about the story. This review will focus on the introduction by Lin Carter. It is ridiculous. It was very nice of De Camp to give Carter a crack at writing an intro but what a load of tripe. It starts with a pretty good first paragraph:“This novel is set in a world where there are no television talk shows, no income taxes, no commuter trains, no air pollution, no nuclear crises or campus riots or midi skirts.”Well, actually, there were income taxes in Conan’s world; failure to pay resulted in imprisonment or death. I have not heard of this midi skirt but, if it’s like a mini skirt, they had those in Conan’s world, too. Let’s move on to the second paragraph:“A world blissfully innocent of detergent commercials, thirty cent subway fares, Spiro T. Agnew speeches, freeze dried coffee, electric toothbrushes, pornographic movies from Denmark, draft dodgers, Women’s Lib and the Los Angeles Freeway.”Translation: I am an uptight, sexist, porn watching weirdo. I can’t vouch for Spiro but Carter seems to be saying all these things are negative and Conan’s world does not contain these things. Perhaps I’m wrong. I see nothing negative about the Women's Liberation movement. And what's wrong with draft dodgers? Not everyone wants to risk death for no good reason. Also, I thought all good old school porn came from Sweden. Shows you what I know.The writing continues in this sophomoric, adolescent fashion throughout this tired introduction. Examples:“A gorgeous, improbable, romantic world where all the men are handsome and heroic, all the girls impossibly beautiful and willing to dally back of the arena with a gladiator or two.”Well, actually, not all the men in Conan’s world were handsome and many fewer were heroic. As for the women, they didn’t seem to have a lot of choice who they dallied with as they were considered property except in the rare instances, such as Conan’s old girlfriend, Belit.“This is the world of a popular new kind of fiction we call Sword & Sorcery. Welcome to it!”Thanks, Lin, but this “popular new kind of fiction” was at least forty years old by the time you and De Camp wrote this ridiculous piece of crap.First paragraph, page 10, Carter says many people think reading for sheer entertainment is a crime and that a story “should really come to grips with something crucial and important.” Examples given:“… like the oil slick on Laguna beach, or the vanishing yellow crested sandpiper. At the very least, such persons advise, the hero should be a Negro striving to free his people, a homosexual gaily battling for social recognition, a concerned college youth protesting the iniquities of the Pentagon by blowing up his English Lit class, or an Amerindian getting back at the paleskins by seizing control of Alcatraz.”Now, I get his point, which is that escapist literature is enjoyable for what it is, not for what it means. The problem is the way he says it. It’s disrespectful and dismissive. This may not have been Carter’s intent, but that only highlights his ignorance.One of the things I find most offensive about these fine gentlemen is that they essentially used something someone else (in this case, Robert E. Howard) created to make a lot of money. That phenomenon is nothing new but it's always suspect. Carter gives a brief bio of Howard, ending with the statement, “He died [in Cross Plains] in 1936 when I was a little boy. I never knew him at all.” No, of course you didn't, but you went ahead and capitalized off him, didn’t you? Didn’t even blink, eh, Carter?There’s a hilarious statement on page 13 about how, though De Camp is older than Carter, it was Carter who first read the Conan stories. You know, “I found it first!” Yeah, found it first, did it worst. It’s no insult to De Camp, though, because Carter calls De Camp one of the “greatest living masters of the craft.” Oh, brother. He talks about how he, De Camp and Nyberg worked in collaboration with Howard on these stories. “Collaboration” doesn’t mean taking a dead man’s work and doing what you will with it. It must have been a thrill for these fanboy hacks to put their name next to Howard’s on a book cover. On page 15, Carter has the audacity to say that Howard “inadequately chronicled” Conan’s life. Yeah, because he'd moved on from Conan before he became troubled and depressed enough to take his own life, you money grubbing vulture!Carter says that he, De Camp and Nyberg “probably added more wordage to the Conan saga than Howard wrote originally.” Wordage. That’s a fantastically accurate way to put it. Wordage. Wordage sounds like mediocre filler. Even when reading for sheer entertainment, I expect more than mediocrity. I expect passion and talent, neither of which are present in the Conan stories of De Camp, Carter and Nyberg.I realize I’m being pretty caustic here, but I think it’s at least somewhat appropriate. De Camp must have pissed himself the day he found those “unfinished manuscripts” in Howard’s estate. Sure, partially because he’s a fan, but he had to know how much he had to gain by capitalizing on those Conan fans who Carter says were “clamoring for more.” Can you imagine if two half wit musicians decided they were going to continue The Beatles without John, Paul, George or Ringo? It would have been crap. At least in that instance, though, the two half wits would have gotten their asses sued off. Thanks to Robert E. Howard and Glen Lord, these jokers got a career out of it.At least Frazetta’s cover art kicks ass.