Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Well, not by all of us.
Robert E. Howard? 
Most of the De Camp Conan stories seem to be completions of or based upon notes left by Howard. Nyberg and Carter were De Camp's usual collaborators.
De Camp's other main collaborator was Fletcher Pratt, but he had no hand in the Conan works.
(I knew De Camp back when, too, and was a neighbor of George Scithers, whose Hugo winning fanzine Amra was devoted to S&S.)
I don't consider hack a pejorative either, but it describes a particular kind of writer who essentially turns out yard goods to editorial demand. I saw a fascinating discussion in a fanzine years back, where on of the participants was Robert Moore Williams. Williams was widely considered the archtypical "hack" SF writer, and looked down upon by serious readers. Williams basically said "I write what the editors pay me to write, my books sell, ad I have the royalty statements to prove it. Who pays your grocery bills?" He said "Maybe I could write the stuff you like if an editor paid me to do it. But meanwhile, it takes talent to stink 'em up just right!"
He was quite right, though I can't read his work. But then, I'm not the audience he was writing for.
Did Lin deserve more success than he got? Hard to say. He wouldn't have gotten it writing the stuff that got published. The question is whether he could successfully sell anything else. I was sorry when he died of cancer. He was an engaging speaker and a nice guy.
______
Dennis |
I read a number of stories years ago by Robert Moore Williams, and found them to be OK, but that was back in the days when I was reading and discovering the older Fantasy writers.
About the time of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, I also discovered Fletcher Pratt, and especially enjoyed the "The Well of the Unicorn," although that was not - as you know - published in that series.
I alos read a number of deCamp/Pratt collaborations, but didn't particularly enjoy them.
You're right about the completion of the Conan stories from Howard's notes. I also had, back in those days, a huge collection of
Amra. That was a very schoarly and enjoyable fanzine.
Don