Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian
The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus
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Narrateur(s):
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Finn J. D. John
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Auteur(s):
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Robert E. Howard
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Finn J. D. John
À propos de cet audio
This collection contains all of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian stories published during his lifetime, contextualized with biographical details of their author.
A full e-book copy of this book in Interactive PDF format is included and can be downloaded by clicking the "PDF" link in your Audible library (it's in the "Title" column). This PDF includes the audiobook chapter numbers, to make navigation easier.
Excerpt from the introduction:
"When the first Conan of Cimmeria story appeared in the pages of Weird Tales magazine in December 1932, nothing quite like it had ever before appeared in print. Author Robert E. Howard had been writing stories broadly similar to it for half a decade; but it was with Conan, and the Hyborian Age storyworld in which he was placed, that Howard finally fully doped out the sub-genre that would become known as "sword and sorcery", of which Howard is today considered the founding father.
"Conan's origins date back to an experiment in 1926 titled "The Shadow Kingdom", featuring the character Kull, exile of Atlantis. The idea - Howard's great innovation - was, at its core, historical fiction set in a pre-historical period. That pre-historical period - being, of course, lost in the mists of time - could contain anything Howard might like to include: evil races of sentient snake-things, sorcerers, undead creatures, demons walking upon the earth, anything.
"In other words, Howard was creating a secular mythology."
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Finn J.D. John (P)2017 Pulp-Lit ProductionsVous pourriez aussi aimer...
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Worth every penny
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Conan
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The reader differentiates voices well enough and I wouldn’t expect a great female voice so I can’t critique that. A man doing a female voice just made them sound old but by no means did it take way how the women’s actions or descriptions described.
I will be starting this over on my commute home today, and would recommend it.
I wish a good tv series could be made of these stories with a correct depiction of Conan.
This was everything I hoped them to be.
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Robert E Howard was the best
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Poetic and gripping
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My only complaint was the Heart of the Dragon. The same narrator but he used a different voice and tone for Conan. The performance was great throughout the entire book but this seems like it’s just a separate project that was edited into this audio book and it shows as the narrator’s performance differs so greatly.
Otherwise it’s a great set of stories and I’ll listen to it more than once that’s for sure. Narrator is still 8/10 overall as well.
Overall great
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Amazing stories
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Amazing!!!!
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The stories are excellent and varied. Early fantasy fiction at its finest. Today, we certainly would expect more complete character development and a little less Mary Sue from our protagonists, but largely Howard achieves a fun and immersive world, defining tropes along with compatriates such as Lovecraft and Tolkien.
The author/narrator misses something I feel is very important. He fails to note much of the language we simply wouldn't use today could potentially be jarring to someone with modern sensibilities. By not mentioning these things, I feel it does a disservice to the original works in potentially turning off new audiences to Howard's works.
For example, the earliest descriptions do cite that this is a version of our world before recorded history - a forgotten time. As such, when the Howard does highlight that there are very isolated tribes and therefore distinct in every way such as skin colour and manarism. A character would then likely describe others by their perceived "savagery" or the "blacks" or "browns" or "ivories" of skin tone. Even concepts such as "race" are more heavily leaned on, as was typical of Howard's time. Clearly, we wouldn't write this today. Again though, it's important to see that each character - especially Conan - are written of in much the same way. Each is "barbaric", or "savage" as described by and in relativity to each other character or group.
Even Howard's writing of women is potentially alarming. I do think the author of the collection and it's notes does a better job of describing how to get published Howard had to write damsels in distress amongst other tropes that could have him printed or even better paid by being featured on the cover of Weird Tales. Historically, the clout earned by Howard allowed him to give heroines their own prime time, which largely was unheard of in his era.
If anyone doubts Howard as a man who loved and respected women, there's a great letter he wrote to a friend when goaded by other friends to do so. He highlights his love and respect for women.
In terms of race, we see him using short hand of the day and often referencing specific groups/tribes/kingdoms as being "cannibals" or other terrifying sorts, though these are specific to these groups. We also see his writing grow by having slaves of other groups freed or by offering to support whole communities he's only just met. And it's also important to remember that Conan has traveled from the West of this pre-history world into the regions where most people would not be of his tribe, his skin colour or his likeness of any sort. So it would be jarring to see such descriptions that one would otherwise reasonably wonder about his social leanings without appropriate consideration and context.
Take this work of Howard with a grain of salt. Know that he wasn't a perfect person, but seems to have evolved his writing to showcase power, vitality and freedom as his main objective for all his protagonists.
Then just sit back and enjoy the stories.
A great collection of much of the Conan stories
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The introductory remarks and short recaps before each Howard story by author/annotator Finn J.D. John are scholarly and collated authoritatively from newspaper critics, English Lit professors, and books written on the author, but they're honestly pretty dry. Yes, John's insights (and organization) put the imaginations of Mr. Howard into context, but the fantasy itself is the true star of this audiobook.
Two observations:
1. As John points out, Conan plots are unapologetically superficial and quite trope-y - but I think that's more due to the short novella format that publication in 'Weird Tales' demanded than the simple need to write something commercial and pay bills. Regardless, the writing is fed by a broad vocabulary and is actually pretty sophisticated
2. The accompanying PDF is incredibly useful: those who like reading along with the audiobook will doubtless appreciate it (I used it more for the Index and map of Conan's world). Many thanks are owed to the producers for this brilliant addition.
Regarding the performance: Finn J.D. John clearly loves his subject matter and reads with remarkable emotiveness, but his amateur status as a narrator shows through: His diction, timbre, and cadence are creditable, but his tone is slightly too serious, he reads a little too slowly (I found listening at 1.10X was optimal), and his voice-acting is burdened with stereotypes & melodrama: Female characters have a chuckleworthy falsetto and his Conan sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the bad guy in a Bruce Lee movie, for example.
Pulp-Lit Productions probably should have insisted on a professional reader.
Fans of Fantasy/SciFi like me will absolutely enjoy this iteration of the complete Conan catalogue. It's a little too much to listen to all 139 Chapters of this audiobook consecutively (I recommend breaking the collection up and listening to something else intermittently), but it's an excellent diversion over a few days.
Altogether, this recording would be a 9 star production with better performance, but as it stands, I still judge the product worthy of 7.5 stars out of 10. Enjoy.
TO THE PRODUCERS: The Chapters in the Audiobook are off from the PDF guide by one. Simply renaming the Opening Credits "Chapter One" would fix this..and yield a 139 chapter recording as listed
Feel Free To Ignore The Commentary
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