A question, Gentle Readers: do you think it's possible to create a convincing tale of Orcs worked into the fabric of Nordic/Germanic/Anglo-Saxon myth, in essence back-engineering them from Tolkien to his northern sources? I've been polling my friends about this today and they're seemingly divided into two camps. Those who are against it think it would ultimately be cartoony and unbelievable -- "Orcs," they say, "need a world similar to ours but with the flexibility of secondary creation"; those who are for it say it hinges most of all on execution, tone, and how the writer can integrate Orcs into existing myth.

How about you . . . what do you say?

Writing with an eye toward publication is a strange alchemy of ego and self-loathing, mixed with healthy dollops of perseverance, synchronicity, luck, and talent. It is a journey, and like every journey its beginnings can be traced back to a single step . . . or, in this case, a single email sent to me in 2007. An email about the use of scimitars in Men of Bronze . . .

The email's author was one Morgan Holmes, noted REH scholar, and after much conversation I ended up sending him a batch of paperback MoB's to hand out to interested readers at the Windy City Pulp and Paperback Show in Chicago that May. Here's where synchronicity enters the fray: one of the people he gave a copy to was Howard Andrew Jones, editor of Black Gate magazine and of the Bison Books' edition of Harold Lamb's Cossack tales (and himself a writer). Howard sent me a note in October of '07, telling me he'd enjoyed Men of Bronze. I knew who he was, of course, and I gladly corresponded with him about all things adventure, fantasy, and Harold Lamb. Along the way, we became friends. He read Lion of Cairo in its early stages and made some fine suggestions that improved the book; I, in turn, read his Dabir and Asim novel (characters he introduced in a short story in Black Gate).

It was and is an excellent book. An Arabian Nights-inspired swashbuckler, tightly-written, poetic, full of the blood and thunder that echoes in the works of REH and Lamb. So impressed with it was I that, after making sure he didn't mind, I passed the manuscript along to my editor at Thomas Dunne. Like any writer worth his salt Howard fretted and steeled himself for "the inevitable rejection". That rejection never came, though. Quite the opposite. Proving he is ever a man of discerning taste, Pete Wolverton at TDB snapped up Howard's manuscript in what has become a nice, two-book hardcover deal!

So join with me, Gentle Readers, in offering a round of applause for Howard Andrew Jones . . . author of The Desert of Souls, coming soon from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press! Long live the Arabian swashbuckler!

The new Conan movie begins filming in Bulgaria, in mid-February of next year. As a die-hard fan of all things REH and Conan, you'd think this news would fill my fanboy heart with glee. Unfortunately, the casting descriptions that have been making the rounds to the different casting agencies have made their inevitable way onto the Internet. Gentle Readers, let me tell you: the producers, director, and writers of this farce would not know Conan if REH himself walked up to them and pointed him out. What's worse, I don't think they'd care . . .

Let's look at an example of what I'm talking about:

CONAN: He’s in his 20s to early 30s, Caucasian, powerfully built, broad-shouldered, sun browned skin lined with scars. Piercing blue eyes and square-cut black mane, tall. He is a savage killer that has matured into the refinement his father tried to teach him when he was young. Conan is very smart, almost inhumanly strong, and very cunning. His entire life, from the moment of his birth, has been shaped by violence. Being the last of his tribe and having to watch his father die a cruel death, he is determined avenge his peoples’ slaughter by killing all those who led the attack on the Cimmerians, including the all-powerful Khalar Singh. He is prepared to die in order to accomplish his goal. What Conan did not expect, was to find a reason to live… LEAD

Based on the physical aspects, someone on the "creative" team has at least paid attention to REH's description of Conan. From there, however, they spiral off into cliche (the only thing Howardian in this whole clusterfuck is the physical description). Indeed, replace "Khalar Singh" with "Thulsa Doom" and you have the plot of Milius' Conan the Barbarian. This from Paradox Entertainment, who swore on more than one occasion that the new movie would go back to REH's original concept of the character.

Ah, but it gets worse:

YOUNG CONAN: Caucasian, tough and wiry, scary violent. At ten, he insists on joining the teenage boys entering their rites into becoming warriors. When four Picts cross his path and kill one of the boys, Conan unleashes a savagery that goes too far for a warrior. His father takes him aside and personally trains him. His father teaches him what makes a good sword but he has still much to learn what makes a good swordsman. When the Cimmerians are attacked by Khalar Singh and his mercenaries, Conan is the only survivor, the last of the Cimmerians. SUPPORTING

Really, Paradox? Why don't you just drive down to Brownwood and piss on REH's grave? It was apparently too difficult for whomever wrote this swill to READ THE FREAKING LETTER wherein REH discusses Conan's origins! "Last of the Cimmerians"? Hardly! "Savagery that goes too far for a warrior"? Impossible! Howard's Conan was allowed to sit at the council fires when he was fifteen, broke the neck of a wild bull before he had reached full growth, and joined his Cimmerian brothers in the wild sack of Venarium before ever setting forth to see the world. He wasn't driven by revenge, but rather by a wanderlust that had its birth in the tales his grandfather used to tell him of the soft Southern Lands, their wine, gold, and women. The character they're trying to portray on-screen has nothing of the gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths of REH's Conan; rather, they dilute and rely on pastiche to construct this bastard creation that's bereft of everything Howard poured into Conan -- the freedom-loving barbarian who lived by his own rough chivalry . . .

This whole brewing fiasco is all the more confusing when you take into account that Paradox Entertainment, via Del Rey and the hard work of Rusty Burke, Patrice Louinet, and Krewe, is the reason we have three volumes of REH's original Conan stories, restored and presented as written. Did they not think to give copies to the screenwriters, or did the screenwriters* just not bother to read them?

Don't even get me started about the blind archers, the dumbass names, and the way the plot looks like the unholy love child of Red Sonja, Kevin Sorbo's Kull, and Conan the Destroyer . . . already I feel my blood pressure spiking . . .


THIS JUST IN . . .

Someone over at the Conan.com messageboards has posted a purported synopsis to the movie ganked from the NU IMAGE production company. I don't know how accurate it is, but elements of it correspond with the casting details. It also solidifies that no one attached to this production has even the slightest clue who Robert E. Howard or Conan of Cimmeria are, beyond names on a piece of paper . . .

Amidst a raging sword battle on the icy fields of Cimmeria, a child is born, cut out of his mother’s womb by his father. CORIN. With her last breath, she names him CONAN. The young boy quickly proves himself an innate if impulsive warrior. The young warrior is inquisitive about the outside world, and while his father tries to shield him, in time the world comes to their doorstep. KHALAR SINGH. a powerful warlord, arrives with his band of mercenaries, demanding not gold or steel, but one woman from each bloodline. The Cimmerians refuse and a massive battle ensues, Khalar Singh winning the day through the use of black magic. Corin, knowing the battle is lost, hides Conan, at the cost of his own life. Conan. wracked by the guilt of a survivor, vows his revenge on Khalar and his warriors. When we meet Conan again, many years later, he’s grown into a powerful and experienced warrior. His revenge is nearly complete as he traps one of the few of Khalar’s former warriors still left alive. LUCIUS. Before killing him, Conan discovers Khalar’s location in the distant Khauran. In a hidden oasis in the desert, Khalar finds TAMARA. the last of an ancient line, the one person he’s been searching for the past twenty years. Tamara, unknowing of her true identity, is told to flee by her mentor, FASSIR, even as Khalar’s forces enslave or massacre the oasis’ people. Tamara escapes, and a furious Khalar sends his men scouring the countryside for her. But her path crosses Conan’s first, and instead of setting her free he decides to use her as bait to draw Khalar out from behind his protective shield of warriors. But the plan fails and Conan and Tamara must work together to escape, an escape which first reveals a great power building inside the frightened girl.

Conan ends up on a pirate ship that Tamara’s people have commissioned to take her far from Khalar’s grasp. Conan learns Khalar’s plan; to revive the ancient and evil empire of Acheron by sacrificing the only living heir to its throne, Tamara. Simura explains that Khalar desires the power, which now grows inside Tamara, a power, if unleashed, would once again bring all mankind under Acheron’s bloody and brutal reign. The truth of her destiny has been hidden from Tamara, for her own good, but when the treacherous pirates try to turn her over to Khalar’s forces, even Conan’s brute force is little compared to the explosion of energy unwittingly released by Tamara. In the smoldering aftermath, only Conan and Tamara are left alive. Conan tries parting ways with Tamara, intent on his own revenge but she asks him for help getting into Khalar’s fortress to rescue her people. Like Conan, Tamara can bear no more blood on her hands. Conan finally relents and they make love, not knowing that Khalar is performing a ritual, sacrificing part of his soul to create a demon to help him kill Conan. Once inside the fortress, Conan kills the massive JAILER, and Tamara finds many of her people, including Fassir, still alive. Fassir reveals he’s a traitor, turning Tamara over to her enemy. Conan falls into Khalar’s trap, forced to battle the demon he summoned, THE SHADOW OF NERGAL. Conan survives, then forces Fassir’s acolyte, BAEL, to lead him to Acheron, where Tamara is to be sacrificed. The ghosts of the ancient ruins of Acheron come alive as the last of the royal line, Tamara, is led up to the sacrificial altar. Conan arrives and starts cutting a swath through the soldiers that block his path to her, including his main revenge target, UKAFA. Conan finds Khalar to be a tough opponent. As Tamara is about to be killed, her eyes turn black and she fully assumes the form of Queen of Acheron, and unleashes her power. After Conan kills Khalar, Tamara begs him to kill her too, so the power within her won’t rise to shed more blood. Conan reluctantly agrees and plunges a spear into her chest. They share one last kiss as she dies in his arms.

Being a hardcore geek, I have a Google alert set up to let me know of any new Orc-related news on the Internet. Imagine my surprise, then, when it alerted me to the presence of an Orc movie. At first, I thought it was some kind of joke in advance of Halloween. But it seems to be true. Someone is making an Orc movie in Utah . . . and they're playing it for laughs.

According to the premise, a horde of Orcs have survived in the more remote crags of the Rocky Mountains; for whatever reason, they come pouring out of the mountains to destroy mankind. Apparently, our survival rests in the hands of "a couple of bumbling but well-meaning park rangers and Katie, a hot and feisty, over-the-top environmentalist." Yeah, lucky us.

The movie has a sparse blog (seemingly designed solely to trigger alerts like mine, rather than to give any substantive information -- like why the hell they can't do a serious movie about Orcs) and a Facebook page. On a positive note, the producers do seem to be eschewing the WoW/Warhammer greenskins in favor of Tolkien-style Orcs. I guess we should be thankful that they're trying, right?

What's next, Gentle Readers? Conan: the Musical?