QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST

I have a sort of treasured memory when it comes to "Queen of the Black Coast," if you'll indulge me. In the summer of 2015, my wife (still my girlfriend at the time) and I had just moved back home to Colorado after a few years of living in Florida. Since I'm a teacher, I was on summer break, but my wife was working at a veterinary office and since she didn't have a car at the moment, I was driving her to work in the mornings. 

I dropped her off at work, and, realizing I had absolutely nothing to do with the whole rest of the day, drove to the Barnes & Noble on Pearl Street in Boulder and decided to bum around among the shelves for a while. I saw a thick volume of The Complete Chronicles of Conan and picked it up since I had read a few issues of Savage Sword recently and had a very budding interest in the big guy. For some reason, I had it in my head that "Queen of the Black Coast" was the first Conan story (it's not, but I didn't yet have a smartphone to look that up on the fly) so I flipped to the middle of the book and started reading. 

The story absolutely flew by, and while I meant to just check out the first couple of pages, I accidentally read the whole thing. When I looked up, sitting in the back corner of the store with big, south-facing windows and the morning light streaming in probably just after 8, I was pretty enraptured. I was also feeling very, very at peace. I bought the book and skipped around in it a little bit more that day. I think I read "Black Colossus" next, and then "The Phoenix on the Sword."

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"Queen of the Black Coast" was published in the May 1934 issue of Weird Tales, and as the cover story it has a painting that doesn't look anything like Conan or Bêlit. This story kind of sneaks up on you, in a way. It's not the flashiest of all Conan tales, but, and I reserve the right to change my mind on this as I read further, it might be the best-written of all Conan stories.

The story begins in medias res with Conan fleeing the guards of Argos, where he clamors aboard a ship and demands safe passage. It's an exciting beginning that wastes no time, not that Howard usually does. The Argus (yes, the Argus is docked in Argos) is quickly beseeched by pirates and Conan meets the first real love of his life, Bêlit. Bêlit is certainly a fun character to spend some time with; she's like the pirate version of a pulp noir femme fatale, and she perfectly matches Conan's intensity. It's not like the two have long adventures in which we see them fall in love, but- to use the language of a current meme- they match each other's freak.

But, not to take anything away from her, I think the best thing about this story is what Bêlit brings out in Conan. 

"'Conan, let us go and sack that city!'
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Conan agreed. He generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind that directed their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas. It mattered little to him where they sailed or whom they fought, so long as they sailed and fought. He found the life good."

First of all, Conan seems happy. When I was writing about "The Hand of Nergal," I mentioned two parts about a wistful love of adventure that felt shoehorned in at the time. However, here, the feeling really seems earned. Everett F. Blieler, a midcentury fiction editor, said, "Queen of the Black Coast" was "probably the best of the Conan stories, perhaps because it is the only one based on another emotion than lust, greed, or hatred." I'm inclined to agree with him here (maybe not the best, but one of the best, for the same reason he said). The tone of the novel is somehow easier, without losing any of the excitement that you want in a sword-and-sorcery story. 

The other aspect that's really enjoyable is that Conan opens up to someone in ways we've never seen.

"'What of your own gods? I have never heard you call on them.'

'Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?'"

Particularly, I like the above line because it outlines something Conan is usually sketchy about. Sure, he swears by Crom in nearly every story, but does Conan believe in Crom? Does he worship Crom? The answers are apparently a yes and a no.

"Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

 This reads like manifesto for the Conan books themselves. To borrow from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, it's like asking Conan, "What is best in life?" To burn with life, love, slay, be content. 

I don't want to imply that all pulp writing is subpar, far from it, but most of these stories were written as escapist tales for boys to read during the depression, if we're being honest. "Queen of the Black Coast" is so well-put-together that I forget that while reading it. It is absolutely bogged down by some more of Howard's weird, racist attitudes toward Black characters (Must they always be referred to as "blacks?" Once again, how about "the pirates" or "the crew" or even just "the men?") and his anti-Semitism creeping in at the edges if you examine how he describes Shemites. I don't want to be hyperbolic and say that it's a perfect story.

When Bêlit saves Conan at the end of the story, it's an all-timer. I only wish that Howard hadn't killed Bêlit in the same story in which she was introduced. I would love for more buccaneer stories to be the continuing adventures of Conan of Cimmeria and Bêlit of the sea. 

In terms of our chronology, I understand that it's the first of what people refer to as the pirate stories, but I think most of those are from novels or elsewhere, so we won't see more of a sea-borne Conan coming up, at least not for a while. Conan is really far south right now, and he'll spend the next several stories working his way back north, so in my head, I'm kind of thinking of this next set as his "Goin' Down South" period.

Conan has moved a long way already from the end of "The Lair of the Ice Worm" to the opening of "Black Coast:" in the prologue that was probably added by L. Sprague de Camp to the collection Conan of Cimmeria, Conan has dipped down from the snows through Nemedia, Ophir, and Argos working as a mercenary, and his clothing at the beginning of the story reflects that. For all of Howard's regressive, backwards views on race, he sure makes Conan look rad as hell with his multicultural garb:

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"His horned helmet was such as was worn by the golden-haired Æsir of Nordheim; his hauberk and greaves were of the finest workmanship of Koth; the fine ring-mail which sheathed his arms and legs was of Nemedia; the blade at his girdle was a great Aquilonian broadsword; and his gorgeous scarlet cloak could have been spun nowhere but in Ophir."

Because the story only mentions the countries that he passed through, we don't have an exact path, but it's pretty much just a southeasterly trajectory. While aboard the ships the Argus and the Tigress, Conan hugs the borders of Shem, Stygia, and Kush. They travel up the Zarkheba River together.

Conan is about 24. Up next is "The Vale of Lost Women," which I've never read in any form.

★★★★★