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gradenko_2000 posted:Where is the best place to get started on Conan the Barbarian? Start here. This series published the stories in publication order and, more importantly, they published the original text. A lot of the cheapo paperbacks you'll find in used bookstores will have stories that either Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp (or both) hosed with somehow. Usually it's painfully obvious where Howard's words end and the hacks' words begin, but other times you'll have situations where they'll take like an El Borak story (a lesser Howard character) and rewrite it as a Conan story. Basically, gently caress Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp.
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May 25, 2017 19:43
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Dog_Meat posted:I don't have it to hand, but I had a large paperback "complete Conan" compilation thing and it included some of Howard's "unfinished" stories. Someone in their wisdom had decided to tack endings onto them. I swear one of these stories was about 20 pages of slow burn setup and then one page of "...so Conan went up the river, killed everyone, escaped on a dragon and banged the princess - the end". It was seriously jarring to read. 75% chance that was de Camp. Carter was a competent writer to some extent, even if he didn't really get what made Howard's stories so good; de Camp was just a hack.
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May 26, 2017 17:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The important thing about Conan is to read it in a book with a Frank Frazetta cover. The old Ace paperbacks that include de Camp and Carter's...additions...have Frazetta covers, so while well-meaning, your post is somewhat inaccurate.
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May 30, 2017 13:28
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MrMojok posted:If I wanted to read some non-Howard Conan stories, where should I start? Are any of them any good at all? Read the Kane novels/short stories by Karl Edward Wagner.
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Jun 1, 2017 16:45
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MrMojok posted:Next up, Karl Edward Wagner Conan stories! Make sure to move on to his Kane stories.
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Jul 21, 2017 18:33
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Jackard posted:I picked up a bunch of the decamps when I was younger and never realized they were apparently a watered-down version? I wouldn't say watered-down, but de Camp was notorious for taking unfinished Howard manuscripts (or finished ones, or finished/unfinished non-Conan work) and "finishing" the stories, and it is always immediately and abundantly obvious what parts are original to Howard and what de Camp added. Lin Carter is also guilty of this.
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Jan 16, 2018 18:17
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There's a very loose internal chronology to the stories, largely based on Conan's apparent age during any given one. But to be honest, that's mostly irrelevant. The trap the producers of this series need to avoid is having some overarching plot. The episodes need to be a series of one-offs (or short multi-episode series) that just present an adaptation of one of the stories. Once that's finished, move on to the next.
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Feb 15, 2018 15:38
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Ackwastaken posted:Hey, I have the Del Rey collections of Howard's Conan stories. Any thoughts on the quality of these? They're the original text and the way to go.
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Aug 4, 2018 15:57
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