"The Vale of Lost Women" | |
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Short story by Robert E. Howard | |
Original title | The Vale of Lost Women |
Country | US |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Fantasy |
Publication | |
Published in | The Magazine of Horror |
Publication type | Pulp magazine |
Publication date | 1967 |
Series | Conan the Cimmerian |
"The Vale of Lost Women" is a fantasy short story by American author Robert E. Howard. It is one of his original short stories about Conan the Cimmerian that was not published during his lifetime. The Magazine of Horror first published the story in its Spring, 1967 issue. Set in the fictional Hyborian Age, "The Vale of Lost Women" details Conan's rescue of a female Ophirean captive from the Bakalah tribe, on the (apparent) condition that he will receive sexual favors in return for his generosity.
"The Vale of Lost Women" is another short story which, although included in the official lore of Conan the Cimmerian, was not published until long after the death of Robert E. Howard.
The story begins with Livia, a soft and civilized woman, being held captive by the Bakalah tribe. They capture Livia and her younger brother, Theteles, when the two were traveling across a remote jungle. Eventually, Theteles is killed by the natives following an act of excruciating torture. Conan appears as the leader of the Bamulas, a rival tribe. He negotiates a possible truce with the Bakalah and plans for a joint attack on Jihiji. After realizing Conan is white and may feel some kinship towards her, Livia asks him for his help. When Conan rejects her proposal, Livia offers herself to him as a reward for rescuing her.
Keeping his end of the bargain, Conan and his warriors attack the Bakalahs in the middle of their celebratory feast. He beheads their chief. The resulting carnage pushes the Livia to her breaking point. When she sees Conan drenched in blood walking toward her hut, carrying the chief's head, she believes he is coming to claim his reward. Frightened, she breaks their agreement by fleeing on horseback into the nearby jungle.
After escaping from the village, her horse stumbles, and Livia is thrown onto the ground. Unharmed, she descends into a valley filled with orchids. The valley is also inhabited by a tribe of brown-skinned lesbians. Believing she has found shelter from the blood-soaked "male brutality" of her Cimmerian savior, Livia feels safe amid the eerie beauty of her surroundings. Mesmerized by the hallucinogenic scent of a native flower, Livia barely notices she's being led to an altar-like section of the glade, where she is to be sacrificed to a bat-like entity, a "devil from the Outer Dark".
Conan, having pursued Livia and heard her cries for help, rushes to her aid. Conan drives away the bat-like creature. Conan tells Livia that he regrets the "foul bargain" he made with her and has no intention of forcing her to have sex, which in his view would have been as damnable an action as raping her. Since he believes Livia is not brave enough to survive within the Black Kingdoms, Conan tells her he will guide her to the Stygian borders where they will send her home to Ophir. Embarrassed by her grateful reaction, he tells Livia she is too soft to be "the proper woman for the war chief of the Bamulas".
Like "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," the plot is minimal and overshadowed by Howard's prose; nevertheless, the story is considered memorable. The entire story is told from Livia's point of view, and there is again a dream-like quality to much of it. Also, the creature from the stars which attacks Livia in the strange valley was intended to be from the Cthulhu Mythos by H. P. Lovecraft, an intellectual correspondent of Howard.
James Van Hise, reviewing "The Vale of Lost Women", stated ""The Vale of Lost Women" is a minor effort", and added "it has more the air of a Conan pastiche than it does of Howard's more polished and well thought out tales." [1]
The Magazine of Horror first published the story in its Spring, 1967 issue. It was republished in the collection Conan of Cimmeria (Lancer Books, 1967). It has also been republished in the collections Queen of the Black Coast (Grant, 1978), The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Gollancz, 2000) and Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933) (Del Rey, 2003).
Marvel Comics' 1970s Conan the Barbarian comic spent a long time detailing and adding to Conan's adventures on the Black Coast. Conan joins the Bamulas in #101, with the "Vale of Lost Women" finally adapted in #104.[ citation needed ]
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.
Kull of Atlantis or Kull the Conqueror is a fictional character created by writer Robert E. Howard. The character was more introspective than Howard's subsequent creation, Conan the Barbarian, whose first appearance was in a re-write of a rejected Kull story.
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"Black Colossus" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine, June 1933. Howard earned $130 for the sale of this story.
"The Slithering Shadow" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales magazine. "The Slithering Shadow" is the original title, but the story is also known as "Xuthal of the Dusk" in further publications. It is set in the fictional Hyborian Age, and concerns Conan discovering a lost city in a remote desert while encountering a Lovecraftian demon known as Thog.
"Shadows in the Moonlight" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in April 1934. Howard had originally named his story "Iron Shadows in the Moon". It's set in the fictional Hyborian Age and narrates Conan's escape to a remote island in the Vilayet Sea where he encounters the Red Brotherhood, a skulking creature, and mysterious iron statues.
"The Devil in Iron" is one of the original stories by American writer Robert E. Howard about sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in August 1934. Howard earned $115 for the publication of this story.
"The People of the Black Circle" is one of the original novellas about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in three parts over the September, October and November 1934 issues. Howard earned $250 for the publication of this story.
"The Pool of the Black One" is one of the original short stories starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It was first published in Weird Tales in October 1933. It's set in the fictional Hyborian Age, and concerns Conan becoming the captain of a pirate vessel while encountering a remote island with a mysterious pool which has the power of transmutation.
"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is one of the original fantasy short stories about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard.
"The Black Stranger" is a fantasy short story by American writer Robert E. Howard, one of his works featuring the sword & sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s, but not published in his lifetime. When the original Conan version of his story failed to find a publisher, Howard rewrote "The Black Stranger" into a piratical Terence Vulmea story entitled "Swords of the Red Brotherhood".
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is the first of a three-volume set collecting the Conan stories by author Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in 2002, first in the United Kingdom by Wandering Star Books under the title Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932–1933) and the following year in the United States by Ballantine/Del Rey under the present title. The Science Fiction Book Club reprinted the complete set in hardcover; the set presents the original, unedited versions of Howard's Conan tales. This volume includes thirteen short stories as well as miscellanea for Howard fans and enthusiasts and is illustrated by comic book artist Mark Schultz.
Conan of Cimmeria is a collection of eight fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, and Lin Carter and featuring Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines. Lancer Books first published the paperback collection in 1969, and reprinted the book in 1970, 1972, and 1973. After Lancer's bankruptcy, Ace Books took over publication. Ace published its first edition in May 1977 and reprinted it in August 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982 (twice), 1984, 1985, 1990, and 1993. Sphere Books published the first British edition in 1974 and reprinted that edition in 1976 and 1987. The book has also been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish and Italian. It was gathered together with Conan and Conan the Freebooter into the omnibus collection The Conan Chronicles.
"The Snout in the Dark" is one of the original short stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, an untitled fragment begun in the 1930s but not finished or published in Howard's lifetime. It was completed and titled by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter and in this form first published in the collection Conan of Cimmeria (1969). It has first been published in its original form in the collection Jewels of Gwahlur and later in The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle and Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933).
"Drums of Tombalku" is an American fantasy short story, one of the original ones written in the 1930s by Robert E. Howard featuring Conan the Cimmerian. Howard left it as an untitled synopsis which was not published in his lifetime. The tale was finalized by L. Sprague de Camp and in this form first published in the collection Conan the Adventurer (1966). It has first been published in its original form in the collection The Pool of the Black One and later in The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle and Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Two (1934).
The Conan books are sword and sorcery fantasies featuring the character of Conan the Cimmerian originally created by Robert E. Howard. Written by numerous authors and issued by numerous publishers, they include both novels and short stories, the latter assembled in various combinations over the years by the several publishers. The character has proven durably popular, resulting in Conan stories being produced after Howard's death by such later writers as Poul Anderson, Leonard Carpenter, Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, Roland J. Green, John C. Hocking, Robert Jordan, Sean A. Moore, Björn Nyberg, Andrew J. Offutt, Steve Perry, John Maddox Roberts, Harry Turtledove, and Karl Edward Wagner. Some of these writers finished incomplete Conan manuscripts by Howard, or rewrote Howard stories which originally featured different characters. Most post-Howard Conan stories, however, are completely original works. In total, more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories featuring the Conan character have been written by authors other than Howard. This article describes and discusses notable book editions of the Conan stories.