| "The Dream Snake" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Robert E. Howard | |
 | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror short story |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Weird Tales |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | February 1928 |
"The Dream Snake" is a short story by Robert E. Howard, first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in February 1928.
The story opens with the narrator sitting on a veranda at night-time watching the landscape. After a breeze causes the grass to sway "in long, sinuous waves", his companion Faming turns pale, gasps, and bites his lip bloody. Faming insists on telling his companions about a vivid dream that he has had since his childhood.
Faming's dream has him living in an isolated bungalow atop a hill in African grasslands with his "Hindoo" servant, with both men being fugitives for unremembered crimes. He returns from a hunting trip at sunset carrying a broken rifle to find a trail of broken grass leading to the bungalow. The bungalow is in disarray, with no sign of the servant besides his dagger lying on the floor. Remembering the trail, Faming surmises that the servant has been taken by a giant snake. He initially resolves to flee to the coast, but then changes his mind upon realising that the sun has set, deciding to wait until morning.
During the night, Faming bolts the bungalow's doors and windows and stands in the centre of the room, listening for the giant snake. Upon the morning, he finds himself unable to leave for fear of encountering the snake without a functioning weapon, and once again barricades himself in the bungalow overnight. During the second night, Faming hears the snake outside the bungalow, and sees the door bulge as the weight of the snake presses against it. He remains awake all night, constantly listening to the movements of the snake. Within the dream, Faming believes that, should he see the snake peer in the window, he will be driven insane.
Upon daybreak, the noise of the snake recedes, and Faming - now white haired - leaves the bungalow to see its trail leading in the opposite direction from the coast. Faming runs across the grasslands towards the coast "with superhuman effort, spurred on by the horror behind me", but realises he will not gain the hills he is making for before sundown. Upon sunset, Faming looks behind him to see the grass moving "in a narrow, sinuous line—far away, but nearing every instant".
Faming explains to his companions that he always awakens at this point of the dream, but that each time the snake has drawn closer. He begins to speculate as to what will happen when the snake finally reaches him, but then stops and enters the house. During the night, the narrator hears manic laughter, then a scream. He rushes to Faming's room, finding him dead on the floor; his body is unmarked, but his face is "terribly distorted; as the face of a man who had been crushed by some superhuman force—such as some gigantic snake".
"The Dream Snake" was reportedly inspired by a dream Howard had. [1] It was first published in volume 11, number two of Weird Tales in February 1928. [2] Howard was paid $20 (equivalent to $355in 2023) for the work. [3] The story has been collected and anthologised many times, including in The Dark Man and Others in 1963. [4] [5] Dennis Rickard speculates that Howard's story "The Cobra in the Dream" is a reworking of "The Dream Snake". [6]
In 1999, a comic adaptation of "The Dream Snake" by Tim Sale was published in Robert E. Howard's Myth Maker, a volume of comics based on Howard's works. The comic was later reprinted in the 2008 work The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics. [7]
L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp, and Jane Whittington Griffin describe "The Dream Snake" as "one of Howard's least distinguished works, a simple formula piece of average acceptability". [3]
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films, television programs, video games, and role-playing games. Robert E. Howard created the character in 1932 for a series of fantasy stories published in Weird Tales magazine.
Sword and sorcery (S&S), or heroic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. The genre originated from the early-1930s works of Robert E. Howard. While there is a chance example from 1953, Fritz Leiber re-coined the term "sword and sorcery" in the 6 April 1961 issue of the fantasy fanzine Ancalagon, to describe Howard and the stories that were influenced by his works. In parallel with "sword and sorcery", the term "heroic fantasy" is used, although it is a more loosely defined genre.
Frank Belknap Long Jr. was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos alongside his friend, H. P. Lovecraft. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
Karl Edward Wagner was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. He wrote numerous dark fantasy and horror stories. As an editor, he created a three-volume set of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian fiction restored to its original form as written, and edited the long-running and genre-defining The Year's Best Horror Stories series for DAW Books. His Carcosa publishing company issued four volumes of the best stories by some of the major authors of the so-called Golden Age pulp magazines. He is possibly best known for his creation of a series of stories featuring the character Kane, the Mystic Swordsman.
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The Miscast Barbarian: a Biography of Robert E. Howard is a biography by science-fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover and trade paperback in 1975 by Gerry de la Ree.
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Sagas of Conan is a 2004 omnibus collection of three previously issued fantasy books written by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter and Björn Nyberg featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books.
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A zuvembie is a creature used by Robert E. Howard in his short story "Pigeons from Hell," published in Weird Tales in 1938. In the 1970s Marvel Comics used the term in place of "zombie", which had been banned by the Comics Code Authority.
The Dark Man and Others is a posthumously-published anthology of fifteen short stories by American author Robert E. Howard, named after his short story "The Dark Man", and covering the genres of adventure fiction, horror, historical fiction, fantasy, sword and sorcery, weird fiction and the weird West. It was first published in 1963 by Arkham House, and was edited by August Derleth. Eleven of the stories had previously been published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and one each in Argosy, Oriental Stories and Strange Tales. It was reprinted in 1971 as a paperback by Lancer.
"The Shadow Kingdom" is a fantasy novelette by American writer Robert E. Howard, the first of his Kull stories, set in his fictional Thurian Age. It was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in August 1929.
Robert E. Howard's legacy extended after his death in 1936. Howard's most famous character, Conan the Barbarian, has a pop-culture imprint that has been compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond. Howard's critical reputation suffered at first but over the decades works of Howard scholarship have been published. The first professionally published example of this was L. Sprague de Camp's Dark Valley Destiny (1983) which was followed by other works, including Don Herron's The Dark Barbarian (1984) and Mark Finn's Blood & Thunder (2006). Also in 2006, a charity, Robert E. Howard Foundation, was created to promote further scholarship.
"Red Moon of Zembabwei" is a short story by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, featuring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian created by Robert E. Howard. It was first published in the July 1974 issue of the magazine Fantastic, and was first appeared in book form by Ace Books in the paperback collection Conan of Aquilonia in May 1977, which was reprinted several times through 1994. The first British edition was published by Sphere Books in October 1978.
Strange Tales was an American pulp magazine first published from 1931 to 1933 by Clayton Publications. It specialized in fantasy and weird fiction, and was a significant competitor to Weird Tales, the leading magazine in the field. Its published stories include "Wolves of Darkness" by Jack Williamson, as well as work by Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. The magazine ceased publication when Clayton entered bankruptcy. It was temporarily revived by Wildside Press, which published three issues edited by Robert M. Price from 2003 to 2007.
Akivasha is a female character appearing in the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian as an undead, a stygian vampire queen.
Bibliography of science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction writer Lin Carter:
