Monday, September 20, 2010

Conan The Album!


Here are some fun things I stumbled across from the mid 70's. I've seen the cover before, a beautiful image by Tim Conrad, intentionally evoking the spirit of Barry Windsor-Smith. But at long last I've listened to the recordings. And so can you.

Here's a link to Howard's classic "The Tower of the Elephant". This is a beautifully crafted story, and the presentation does a wonderful job of capturing the blood and thunder of REH's style. It's done with complete seriousness, befitting the material, but I can readily imagine it otherwise alas.

Roy Thomas is the guy who developed the script from Howard's short story. And by the way, here's a link to go read the original story.

Here's a link to the flipside recording of "The Frost Giant's Daughter". This is a Howard story with more atmosphere than narrative focus, but nonetheless it puts the Cimmerian into another impossible scenario, and we find him up to the task so to speak.

Here's a link to see the details on the recordings and see the credits.


Apparently there is a second of these albums by Moondance, this one featuring stories read by L. Sprague de Camp, the man who husbanded Conan through several decades, and a figure in the history of Howard's work who elicits strong opinions.

Here's a link for the details on that production.

I downloaded from these links without incident, so I hope they prove safe for one and all.

Rip Off

2 comments:

  1. "Editor, author, and collaborator of the Conan Mythos," it says? Posthumous collaborator, if anything.

    "Strong opinions" is right.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd say he's worthy of all those titles. What he did in those roles is the meat of the debate. As an editor he doubtless when too far changing things. As a collaborator, we have to say he did give us more stories, some of which did leak from the pen of Howard. The stuff he and Carter did together is the weakest stuff for sure, but it has some merits, even I'll admit.

    Rip Off

    ReplyDelete