 When I was doing research on the novel Conan: The Road of Kings which I finished on New Year's Eve 2024, I went over to Gary Romeo's blog to see what he had to say about the book. I always like reading Gary's work- he's a clear writer with impeccably-done research who always sheds light on topics I'm interested in. While I was going through that blog post, a May 1977 letter from L. Sprague de Camp caught my eye. I'm not sure where Gary finds these letters all the time: I know that pretty much all of Robert E. Howard's personal correspondence is published, but Gary always seems to find little ephemera from de Camp and the likes that are so cool to see. In this letter, L. Sprague de Camp relates to literary agent Kirby McCauley the planned series of Conan stories that he and Lin Carter are either in the process of writing or are planning to write, and they contain some interesting Conan story ideas that the world never got to see. Many of these stories: Conan the Liberator, "The People of the Summit," "The Star of Khorala," etc. were finished and made it to the page (and have been read and reviewed and placed in chronological order on this blog), but a lot of them were names that never made it to the published page. Researching these stories caused me to go buy L. Sprague de Camp's The Spell of Conan too and to look through at some of his thoughts, which yielded some other interesting tidbits. It's all below in listicle format. 1. "Conan the Barbarian" Obviously, Conan the Barbarian is the title of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that more than likely introduced most people to Conan, and there is a novelization of that movie under the same title. There's even a novelization that was written by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and Catherine Crook de Camp that came out in 1982, but that novel is clearly not what's planned here. The movie goes far past Conan's adolescence and has him fight the Kull villain Thulsa Doom (though he's a lot more like Thoth-Amon than Thulsa Doom) and doesn't end with the fall of Venarium. The content described here actually sounds much closer to the novel Conan of Venarium, but that book wouldn't be published until 2003 and was written by Harry Turtledove, so it likely doesn't have anything to do with what Sprague planned here. Honestly, it's surprising to me that there isn't more stuff centering around the siege of Venarium since it's such a pivotal point in Conan's life. 2. "The King in the Dungeon" This story very clearly became "Shadows in the Dark" and was published in 1978, so it's really just a change of title. "The King in the Dungeon" might be a more generic fantasy title, but we have so many "shadows" in Conan titles that I think I might actually prefer it to the published name. 3. "The Eyes of Kali" This story sounds basically nothing like any published Conan story from de Camp or Carter. Conan did go to Vendhya in "The People of the Black Circle," but it takes place quite a bit after "A Witch Shall Be Born." Strangely, "Black Tears" is essentially an immediate sequel to "A Witch Shall Be Born," but that story had come out in 1968, so perhaps de Camp and Carter wanted to throw another story in between the two. This one sounds like it would be pretty fun and the name gives me Temple of Doom vibes, so I'm sad this one was left on the editing room floor, if it was ever written at all. Weirdly enough, in the pages of Savage Sword of Conan, at least three different sequels to "A Witch Shall Be Born" were written, all of which contradict each other. Who's to say which one is canon? 4. "The Oasis of Death" You know, I actually think this planned story would fill a hole in Conan's biography that needs filling as much as any other. At the end of "The Ivory Goddess," Conan is very far south on the Hyborian map and has been on the lamb, running from those he terrorized in "Jewels of Gwahlur." The next time we see him, he's halfway around the world and is well-established as a scout for Aquilonia. I'd love to see a narrative that fills in how he got there, and "The Oasis of Death" sounds pretty fun. There are a number of issues of Savage Sword with similar-sounding titles as this, so it's not an unfounded concept. 5. Two or more King Conan stories There are several stories of Conan as king of Aquilonia that take place before he's old and (relatively) gray, all of which had been published by Sprague's 1977 letter: "The Phoenix on the Sword," "The Scarlet Citadel," The Hour of the Dragon, and The Return of Conan. That chronological list also happens to double as a ranking of King Conan stories best-to-worst (I mean, they're all really good except the last one). And there are several late-life King Conan stories (that we'll actually hit more on in a minute) but L. Sprague de Camp is suggesting specifically Conan stories written in his very young kingship. "The Scarlet Citadel" happens about a year or two after Conan gains the crown and The Hour of the Dragon happens within five years of his kingship, so there are a few unexplored years that you could play with there. There's been some good, new King Conan stuff in the recent issues 5 and 6 of the 2024 Savage Sword, so you should check those out if you want more Conan of Aquilonia adventures. 6. "The Day of Wrath" This is the only story on the list that I'm really glad never got written. The tetralogy that make up most of Conan's late kingship: "The Witch of the Mists," "Black Sphinx of Nebthu," "Red Moon of Zembabwei," and "Shadows in the Skull" are mostly stinkers. But even so, they end on a fairly satisfying, triumphant note with Conan having defeated his greatest enemy on the very edge of the world. It's not a terrible way to go out with Conan, supported by his son Conn, heading back to the Aquilonian army to help them finish fighting the ancient serpent people (though victory is already assured). So to see Conan go back to Aquilonia and be the aggressor, "punishing" other nations for their treachery? It just sounds mean-spirited and unneeded. Yes, Conan is a badass and is even vengeful at times when he's been wronged, but to take his entire army to invade another kingdom sounds contrary to how Conan apparently governs, and it sounds really hard to root for. 7. "The Son of Conan" Another story that I'm not exactly sad we missed out on. Conan's son Conn is in his mid-teens when we see him last in "Shadows in the Skull" and then is an adult himself during the events of Conan of the Isles, but he's pretty much a non-character in that book. Conn isn't a super interesting character in the material that we have of him, and I don't usually love stories that focus on the offspring of characters we care about, but I could see this working. Jason Aaron's "The Ensorcelled" storyline in recent issues of Savage Sword was excellent, and it hints at some potentially cool Conn stuff. I think it would be fighting an uphill battle to write a series of Conn stories. Maybe it's just me, but a character who was born to a poor blacksmith and fought his way to greatness is inherently a more interesting character than a kid who was born as royalty. Now I'm trying to figure out what good "Son Of..." stories exist. John Carter's Children of Mars? Children of Dune? Son of Batman? Son of Frankenstein? The next three Avatar sequels? Son of Baconator? Other suggested stories In our May 1977 letter, L. Sprague de Camp is specifically responding to the literary agent of Karl Edward Wagner, who was hoping to write a novel about Conan becoming king of Aquilonia. He says that they're already working on that idea, but if Wagner would like, he can tackle a different area of Conan's life, one that sits in a narrative gap, and some of his suggestions are pretty cool. He suggests a story telling of Conan's adventures with the Aesir set between Conan's youngest days "Legions of the Dead," offering up the titles "Conan of the Northlands or "Red Swords of Asgard." I wonder if de Camp was aware that this area was explored to a small degree with some of Roy Thomas's earliest Conan the Barbarian comics in the earlier 70s. Sounds like a decent concept, but not one I'm jumping out of my seat for.  de Camp suggests "Conan of Hyrkania" or "Lord of the Black Throne," based on some ideas outlined in the Amra zine. I was totally unfamiliar with what he was talking about so I grabbed a used copy of The Spell of Conan, a book of essays and short stories edited by de Camp. In an essay by P. Schuyler Miller, they basically make the case that Erlik would have been a cool character to further develop in the Hyborian Age. Many people swear by the god of the underworld (who always struck me as a sort of evil St. Peter-type character who might collect you when you die) and there are some Conan pastiches like The Sword of Erlik. Miller outlines some real-world Turkic and Mongol mythology and how Erlik had a lot of very sword-and-sworcery-ready elements like his black throne. In some ways, they're right. There aren't that many stories that take place over in Turan that were written by Howard, though Roy Thomas has Conan spend lots of time around the Vilayet Sea in the Conan the Barbarian comic. Honestly, I'm with de Camp and Miller on this one- most of it sounds like these ideas would make for a righteous Conan story. Some similarly-titled Conan novels would eventually get published with the names "Lord of the Black River" and "Death Lord of Thanza," but they're not what de Camp or P. Schuyler Miller were writing. His final suggestion is for a Conan story set in the jungles of the south, during Conan's first pirate period alongside Belit. This makes a lot of sense to me, as the weakest part of "Queen of the Black Coast" to me is that it feels as though Conan and Belit don't quite have enough time together to warrant being so wildly in love (I think the anime crowd would call them each others' "OTPs"). Conan stories from The Spell of ConanThere are a few original fantasy stories of just a few pages each that were published alongside de Camp's essays in The Spell of Conan. I didn't expect any Hyborian Age-set fiction in it, let alone how cool these three short stories ended up being. They're not actually unpublished, but I've never seen them referenced since they were only put out in a fan magazine. 1. "The Testament of Snefru" by John Boardman This story is funny in a way I couldn't have predicted. Remember in The Hour of the Dragon when Conan infiltrates the Stygian port city of Khemi? There's a very minor character in this scene whom I had entirely forgotten. Conan steals the boat of a Stygian fisherman and uses it to get into Khemi. According to "The Testament of Snefru," that short episode completely fucks up the life of that fisherman, whose name is Snefru. This is hilariously humiliating for this poor fisherman. Conan and the Aquilonians arrive and steal the dude's boat (i.e. his livelihood) and even take his clothes. Snefru tells Conan what seems to be the Khemi gossip and is held hostage. When Conan comes back with the Heart of Ahriman, he instructs the crew to give the fisherman a helmet full of gold and to shove off back north. Even though Snefru is relieved to have escaped with his life, he's also made out pretty nicely since he gets all this money. As he tries to convert the money, he's arrested for having Aquilonian coins, convicted of treason for having "conspired" with Conan, and is sold into slavery. The story is being dictated while he lays on his deathbed in Zamboula, completely destitute and filled with rage at Conan. It's very entertaining. Author John Boardman, a physics professor, also at one point write a Conan parody called "Colon the Conqueror" so it makes sense that this story was pretty funny. 2. "The Lion's Bridge" by Ray Capella Ray Capella was more of a sword and sorcery illustrator than an author, but he did also contribute a story to a different anthology book edited by L. Sprague de Camp. In addition to Conan, it seems like Capella was mostly associated with pulp heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow. This story takes place during the events of "The Scarlet Citadel." According to the characters, the "barbarian king of Aquilonia" has been defeated (we know he's really just briefly captured) and Tarantia is under siege by the Kothians. On the outskirts of Aquilonia, "The Lion's Bridge" tells the story of a mercenary named Berig and a mysterious stranger named Arquel the Argossean. There's some great scenery, some really cool magical elements, and some moral complexity to this one that was a lot of fun, so I read it twice in a row. 3. "When Set Fled" by Fritz Leiber This is by far the shortest of the three narratives, and also probably my least favorite of the bunch. Author Fritz Leiber was a contemporary of Robert E. Howard, HP Lovecraft, and Michael Moorcock as one of the landmark sword and sorcery writers. Dude had a pretty impressive resume, not to mention interesting WWII activities.
Like "Snefru," this one is darkly comic. A craftsman in Stygia gets his head lopped off by a barbarian warrior (Conan?) while pouring metal into a mold for a statue. This story is only about three pages, so there's not a ton to go off of and it's much harder to place in continuity. It's yet another look at a normal person in the Hyborian Age and how quickly things might change for them through violence.
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AuthorHey, I'm Dan. This is my project reading through the career of everyone's favorite sword-and-sorcery character, Conan the Cimmerian, in chronological order. 
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