SEASON TWO: THE ROAD OF QUEENS

Hile, adventurers! Here we stand, with a new path before us!

Season Two of The Cromcast will cover many of the heroic women of Robert E. Howard. Will you join us on this adventure? If so, tighten your belt, adjust your cutlass, and be of stout heart! The stories we'll cover are as follows....

Helen Tavrel, Swashbuckling Pirate of the Caribbean!
The Isle of Pirate's Doom

Dark Agnes de Chastillon, the French Heroine that Meets Out Death with a Sword!
The Sword Woman
Blades for France

Red Sonya, the Sword and Pistol-Wielding Princess!
The Shadow of the Vulture

Beyond that, we'll return to some discussion of our favorite Heroines of the Conan Stories. We'll also cover the Red Sonja character that is so well-known from comics and film, and we'll of course have some talk regarding Novalyne Price Ellis! Will you join us?

Episode 25: Our Year With Conan




Art by Boris Valleho

This is it! This week we reflect on our year spent reading the original Conan the Barbarian stories, and what we've learned about Robert E. Howard. These stories are full of passion, action, and adventure! But there is much more to them! If you look closely, you can see fragments of a man's life, his philosophy and outlook, his sense of humor, and yes, perhaps even some of his faults. They are interesting, well written, pulse-pounding adventures that laid the groundwork for the heroic fantasy genre, shades of which can still be seen in the works of modern fantasy authors. It has been so much fun to discover and discuss these stories with you all over the past year, and we greatly look forward to more conversations about the pulp fantasy, horror, and fighting stories of Robert E. Howard as we roll on down the road.

Spend a bit of time reflecting, whenever you read this. Think about Robert E. Howard. When did you discover him? What do his works mean to you? Let us know what you think of Conan. What does this character mean to you? Did we overlook something? We know we left some of the original but unpublished stories behind, but someday we'll revisit those. After a year with Conan, we're ready for some other REH material! Are there stories you're excited for us cover? Let us know!

For now, we leave Conan to his reaving, and depart The Road of Kings to travel for a while along a different path. Season Two of The Cromcast will focus on the heroines of Robert E. Howard's stories. We will post the Road of Queens very soon, and let you know what stories we'll be covering. For next time, the assignment is an exciting pirate story "The Isle of Pirates' Doom", featuring Helen Tavrel, which you can read for free on WikiSource.

Helen Tavrel - Artist unknown

See you on down the road!

Questions? Comments? Curses? Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)
You know you want to follow us on Twitter! Or on Facebook!
Subscribe to our feed on FeedBurner! Or, check us out on iTunes!
Call us! (859) 429-CROM!

Beginning theme: "Sudden Defeat" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Ending Theme: Anvil of Crom arranged by Victor de Andres. Found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DYpJkV9Mls

Episode 24: Conan the Barbarian [1982] (Or, Thorgrim is Beside Himself With Grief)

Welcome back, Children of Doom! The purging is at last at hand! Day of Doom is here! It's time at last to talk about the film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger's film career, Conan the Barbarian! You can pick it up on Amazon, if you don't already have it!

It even has an iconic poster!

In addition to Schwarzenegger, this film stars James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom, Sandahl Bergman as Valeria, Gerry Lopez as Subotai, Mako as the nameless wizard, and features a brief appearance by Max Von Sydow as King Osric.

This film has a legendary score by Basil Poledouris! You know that Anvil of Crom is in your head right now! It's absolutely incredible, and we can't imagine this film without it. Here's a link to a playlist on YouTube, Conan the Symphony, featuring the Andalucian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mr. Poledouris himself! It's awesome background music, play it and see your productivity increase three-fold!

Check out our friend El Goro's podcast Talk Without Rhythm! He has an extensive archive of interesting film discussions with his co-host The Cancer Man. You might want to start with Episode 187, a look at Solomon Kane (2009) and Conan the Barbarian (2011). Tell him The Cromcast sent you!

This is it, folks. We stand before Crom and must answer The Riddle of Steel. But all is not lost! Next time, it's a Cromcast Retrospective - Our Year with Conan! After that, we will be gearing up for Season 2 of The Cromcast, which will spotlight The Heroic Women of Robert E. Howard. Helen Tavrel, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, and Red Sonya of Rogatino will take center stage as we explore the representation of women in sword and sorcery. It'll be interesting! We hope you continue adventuring with us on into 2014. It'll surely be an age undreamed of...

We'll see you next time, By Crom!

Questions? Comments? Curses? Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)You know you want to follow us on Twitter!
Subscribe to our feed on FeedBurner! Or, check us out on iTunes!
Call us! (859) 429-CROM!

Beginning theme: "Sudden Defeat" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0