BinaryTortuga wrote:

Nearing the end of my first foray into Howard's work with "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian."  Fantastic stories and terrific prose!  I've read a fair amount of sword and sorcery in my life and I don't know why it took me so long to get around to reading the founding father's work.  I have to thank Jeff for creating this astonishing setting.  Buying and reading the AS&SH handbook is rewarding in it's own regard.  But actually assembling players and running a game will be a challenge when faced with adult reality.  If my dreams of roleplaying bliss come to naught, being inspired toward new reading horizons will make the price of admission worth it.
 

It makes me very happy to read posts like this. Thank you, sir. You just made my day!
 

Brock Savage wrote:

It's such a damn shame how Howard's life ended. I can only imagine what he could have produced in his 50's or 60's.

At this point my knowledge of Howard's life is not much more than Wikipedia-deep.  But yea, it's tragic that he died so young.  And it does seem he had the kind of talent that would have become more refined in later decades.  It is a damn shame that those with that kind of raw and powerful vision often have such troubled souls.  

Idk, the trajectory of societal change has the potential to drive us all a little mad.  It seems Howard was more troubled by it than most, living in a time and place where "civilization" was rolling in with incredible rapidity.  I can "grok" how maybe it did make him feel at odds with his times, and perhaps like a stranger in a strange land.

Personally I think his writing was improving as he aged and had he lived into middle age we would have seen some amazing stuff. But I also doubt he would have lived that long even if the suicide hadn't taken place. With WW2 right around the corner he would have volunteered for the most dangerous assignment possible and probably would not have survived the war.