Dark Valley Destiny

1983 biography of Robert E. Howard

0-312-94074-2OCLC9945011

Dewey Decimal

813/.52 B 19LC ClassPS3515.O842 Z62 1983

Dark Valley Destiny: the Life of Robert E. Howard is a biography of the writer Robert E. Howard by science-fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp in collaboration with Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin, first published in hardcover by Bluejay Books in December 1983,^[1]^[2] and in trade paperback by the same publisher in May 1986.^[1] An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011, as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.^[1]^[3]^[4]

Summary

The work, an examination of the famous fantasy writer and creator of Conan the Barbarian, was the first major independent biography of Howard. It is an expansion of de Camp's earlier study The Miscast Barbarian: a Biography of Robert E. Howard (1975), itself an expansion of his article "The Miscast Barbarian", which appeared in the magazine Fantastic in June, 1971.

Controversy

De Camp's "warts and all" approach to his subject has been branded by some fans as unflattering and unbalanced. For instance, Mark Finn, author of Blood & Thunder: The Life & Art of Robert E. Howard, argues that De Camp deliberately framed his questions about Robert Howard in order to elicit answers which matched his Freudian theories about the "neurotic" and "Oedipal" Howard.^[5]

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Dark Valley Destiny title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
^ Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller. p. 47.
^ "Orion Publishing Group's L. Sprague de Camp webpage". Archived from the original on 2011-08-26. Retrieved 2011-10-03.
^ Amazon.com entry for e-book edition
^ Murphy, Brian. "Blood & Thunder: The Life & Art of Robert E. Howard: A review" Oct. 16, 2008

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Robert E. Howard

Bibliography

Topics

Books about Howard or
Conan the Barbarian

Films about Howard

The Whole Wide World

Related people

Interwiki links

Wikimedia Commons
Wikisource
Wikiquote

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L. Sprague de Camp

Viagens
Interplanetarias

Krishna	"Finished" (1949) The Queen of Zamba (1949) The Hand of Zei (1950) "Perpetual Motion" (1950) "Calories" (1951) The Virgin of Zesh (1953) The Tower of Zanid (1958) The Hostage of Zir (1977) The Prisoner of Zhamanak (1982) The Bones of Zora (1983) The Swords of Zinjaban (1991)
Kukulkan	The Stones of Nomuru (1988) The Venom Trees of Sunga (1992)
Other	"The Animal-Cracker Plot" (1949) "The Colorful Character" (1949) "Git Along!" (1950) "The Inspector's Teeth" (1950) "Summer Wear" (1950) The Continent Makers (1951) "The Galton Whistle" (1951) Rogue Queen (1951)

Neo-Napolitanian

The Incorporated Knight (1987)
The Pixilated Peeress (1991)

Conan

Novels

Conan and the Spider God (1980)
Conan of the Isles (1968)
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Conan the Buccaneer (1971)
Conan the Liberator (1979)
The Return of Conan (1957)

Short stories

"Black Sphinx of Nebthu" (1973)
"The Treasure of Tranicos" (1953)
"Black Tears" (1968)
"The Blood-Stained God" (1955)
"The Castle of Terror" (1969)
"The City of Skulls" (1967)
"The Curse of the Monolith" (1968)
"Drums of Tombalku" (1966)
The Flame Knife (1955/81)
"The Frost Giant's Daughter" Conan (1953)
"The Gem in the Tower" (1978)
"The God in the Bowl" (1952)
"The Hall of the Dead" (1967)
"Hawks Over Shem" (1955)
"The Ivory Goddess" (1978)
"The Lair of the Ice Worm" (1969)
"Legions of the Dead" (1978)
"Moon of Blood" (1978)
"The People of the Summit" (1970/78)
"Red Moon of Zembabwei" (1974)
"The Road of the Eagles" (1955)
"Shadows in the Dark" (1978)
"Shadows in the Skull" (1975)
"The Snout in the Dark" (1969)
"The Star of Khorala" (1978)
"The Thing in the Crypt" (1967)
"The Witch of the Mists" (1972)
"Wolves Beyond the Border" (1967)

Other
speculative
fiction

Novels

The Carnelian Cube (1948)
Genus Homo (1950)
The Glory That Was (1960)
The Great Fetish (1978)
Land of Unreason (1942)
Lest Darkness Fall (1941)
None but Lucifer (1939)
Solomon's Stone (1942)

Short stories

"Aristotle and the Gun" (1958)
"The Blue Giraffe" (1939)
"The Command" (1938)
"The Contraband Cow" (1942)
"Cornzan the Mighty" (1955)
"Divide and Rule" (1939)
"The Egg" (1956)
"Employment" (1939)
"The Gnarly Man" (1939)
"The Guided Man" (1952)
"A Gun for Dinosaur" (1956)
"The Hardwood Pile" (1940)
"The Hibited Man" (1949)
"Hyperpilosity" (1938)
"In-Group" (1952)
"Internal Combustion" (1956)
"The Isolinguals" (1937)
"Judgment Day" (1955)
"Let's Have Fun" (1957)
"Living Fossil" (1939)
"The Merman" (1938)
"Nothing in the Rules" (1939)
"The Reluctant Shaman" (1947)
"The Saxon Pretender" (1952)
"The Space Clause" (1952)
"The Stolen Dormouse" (1941)
"Throwback" (1949)
"The Wheels of If" (1940)

Historical fiction

Fiction edited

The Wolf Leader (1950)
Swords and Sorcery (1963)
The Spell of Seven (1965)
Conan the Warrior (1967)
The Fantastic Swordsmen (1967)
Conan the Conqueror (1967)
Warlocks and Warriors (1970)
3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1972)
Tales Beyond Time (1973)

Nonfiction

Science and
history

Inventions and Their Management (1937)
The Evolution of Naval Weapons (1947)
Antarctic Conquest (1949)
Engines (1959)
The Heroic Age of American Invention (1961)
Man and Power (1961)
Energy and Power (1962)
The Ancient Engineers (1963)
Ancient Ruins and Archaeology (1964)
Elephant (1964)
Spirits, Stars, and Spells (1966)
The Story of Science in America (1967)
The Day of the Dinosaur (1968)
The Great Monkey Trial (1968)
Darwin and His Great Discovery (1972)
Great Cities of the Ancient World (1972)
The Ragged Edge of Science (1980)
The Fringe of the Unknown (1983)
The Ape-Man Within (1995)
Rubber Dinosaurs and Wooden Elephants (1996)

Lit crit and
biography

Blond Barbarians and Noble Savages (1975)
The Conan Reader (1968)
Dark Valley Destiny (1983)
Lands Beyond (1952)
Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976)
Lost Continents (1954)
Lovecraft: A Biography (1975)
The Miscast Barbarian (1975)
Science-Fiction Handbook (1953/75)
Time and Chance (1996)

Nonfiction edited

Poetry

Collections

The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (1953)
The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid (1983)
The Incomplete Enchanter (1941)
Wall of Serpents (1960)
The Compleat Enchanter (1975)
The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989)
The Enchanter Reborn (1992)
The Exotic Enchanter (1995)
The Mathematics of Magic (2007)
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales (1953)
The Reluctant King (1985)
Conan (1967)
The Conan Chronicles (1989)
The Conan Chronicles 2 (1990)
Conan of Aquilonia (1977)
Conan of Cimmeria (1969)
Conan the Adventurer (1966)
Conan the Avenger (1968)
Conan the Freebooter (1968)
Conan the Swordsman (1978)
Conan the Usurper (1967)
Conan the Wanderer (1968)
Sagas of Conan (2004)
Tales of Conan (1955)
The Treasure of Tranicos (1980)
Aristotle and the Gun (2002)
The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978)
Divide and Rule (1948)
Footprints on Sand (1981)
A Gun for Dinosaur (1963)
The Purple Pterodactyls (1980)
The Reluctant Shaman (1970)
Rivers of Time (1993)
Scribblings (1972)
Sprague de Camp's New Anthology (1953)
Tales from Gavagan's Bar (1953/78)
The Undesired Princess (1951)
The Virgin & the Wheels (1976)
The Wheels of If (1948)
Years in the Making (2005)

About de Camp

GURPS Planet Krishna (1997)
The Enchanter Completed (2005)

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