{"id":38478,"date":"2020-05-21T05:31:23","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T02:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=38478"},"modified":"2020-05-21T05:31:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T02:31:23","slug":"encyclopedia-hyboria-a-conan-encyclopaedia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2020\/05\/21\/encyclopedia-hyboria-a-conan-encyclopaedia\/","title":{"rendered":"On Conan encyclopaedias and gazetteers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A free A-Z Encyclopedia Hyboria<\/a><\/em> (2019) by ‘bittertreememory’. His book is relatively mighty-thewed at 24,000 words, if you also paste the well-hidden Preface<\/a> into a Word .DOC file. The Preface reveals that Encyclopedia Hyboria<\/em> only covers the Howard works. Dipping in randomly, it seems to me like excellent and precise work.<\/p>\n

I’d assume ‘bittertreememory’ is American, given his American spelling of encyclopaedia<\/em>. Someone should try to contact him and get permission for an expanded book, adding… <\/p>\n

* an additional introduction by a big name such as Roy Thomas;
\n* an introduction that surveys similar reference works if they exist, and\/or any in-world reference files Howard developed for his own use;
\n* a short in-world story chronology of Howard’s Conan tales;
\n* story titles added to each entry, where relevant – see ‘at a glance’ where each item or character was used;
\n* abundant use of small illustrations in a suitably loose Kaluta\/Frazetta sort of pen-and-ink style;
\n* add maps and then add runes that colour-code the entries by region;
\n* add a short scholarly survey of the most notable and faithful new items added by later writers of Conan tales;
\n* then design and print it up as a book.<\/p>\n

Another option for such a book would be Dale E. Rippke’s online A Gazetteer Hyboria<\/a><\/em> which is a 1,000-item A-Z that includes the pastiche books and the better comics of the 1970s and 80s. Though, by including the larger post-Howard Conan works, this would cause all sorts of copyright tangles for a new expanded book version. <\/p>\n

The author states that about a third of A Gazetteer Hyboria<\/em>, presumably the purist Howard-only items, had long ago appeared in print in the Borgo Press guide titled A Gazeteer of the Hyborian World of Conan<\/a><\/em> (1977). Some sources have this as Starmont House, not Borgo. Possibly there was a hardback from Starmont, and a paperback from Borgo?<\/p>\n

A Gazetteer Hyboria<\/em> seems to have vanished from all but Archive.org, presumably for fear of copyright trolls, but Dale E. Rippke also has a live Solomon Kane Gazetteer v.2.0<\/a><\/em> (2015) online for free.<\/p>\n

For additional non-people\/places items, the 128-page gamer book GURPS Conan<\/a><\/em> has a section titled… “A gazetteer featuring the people, customs, laws, religion, and mysteries of 34 lands in the world of Conan.”<\/p>\n

\n

Also noted recently, and also useful for fan-writers as well as gamers, the new Conan the Adventurer<\/a><\/em> (Modiphius, 2020). This is a 120-page illustrated PDF sourcebook, described as…<\/p>\n

the definitive guide to the lands south of the Styx River, including serpent-haunted Stygia, Kush, Darfar, Keshan, Punt, Zembabwei, and that vast region known to the folk of the Dreaming West as ‘the Black Kingdoms’.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently the new book was… “developed with leading Conan scholars”, so is presumably largely ‘Howardian’ — rather than bolting on later developments in movies, videogames, cash-in novels, comics etc.<\/p>\n

Modiphius previously published Conan: Nameless Cults<\/a><\/em>, a sumptuous book and… <\/p>\n

guide to the cosmology, gods, cults, and otherworldly entities of Conan\u2019s world and time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A free A-Z Encyclopedia Hyboria (2019) by ‘bittertreememory’. His book is relatively mighty-thewed at 24,000 words, if you also paste …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-books","category-scholarly-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}