Two-Gun Bob: Mak Morn Meets Kull

The noted book and pulp collector Kevin Cook sends in a bit of commentary on one of Robert E. Howard’s most famous stories, with additional insight into Karl Edward Wagner (remember, I didn’t think much of Wagner’s attempt at a Bran Mak Morn novel — as detailed in The Dark Barbarian That Towers Over All.)

Point of information to bear in mind: Wagner’s second Mak Morn paperback got a cover, but never appeared.

Here’s Kevin:

I bought and read the First Passage collection with the earlier drafts of well-known Howard stories. It seemed to me that REH was at many times just trying to get the story down on the page, and then all the poetical turns of phrase and passages that we remember so well were added only to the final draft.

It was especially disappointing to read the first draft of “Kings of the Night,” my favorite Howard story.

The passage describing Kull’s appearance at the sunrise, “Against the golden birth of day he loomed colossal; a gigantic god from the dawn of creation” is missing, as was the brilliant ending where Kull sees his torn mail and notched sword from what he thought was a dream — which includes the line “For the wisdom of the Eternities is denied even unto princes and Kull could no more understand what Gonar told him than you can understand my words.” Plus the final line  “. . . the kingdom which has been born of swords and slaughter in this howling valley is a thing no more solid than the foam of the bright sea.”

The reference to Gonar brings to mind a conversation I had with Karl Wagner at the second World Fantasy Convention 1976.

This came after publication of his Bran Mak Morn pastiche Legion from the Shadows. I reminded him of the line from “Kings of the Night” where Bran states, “No man knows how old he is — sometimes I think he is the original Gonar himself!”

Wagner stated in a very authoritarian tone that “Bran’s Gonar is not the original Gonar.”

I realized that at that moment he was misappropriating Bran Mak Morn to be his character, much the same way that we all condemned de Camp for misappropriating Conan as his own.

Wagner’s next line is either very funny or very sad depending upon your point of view, but he stated that “I intend to write about Gonar in detail in my third Bran novel.”