Simon’s Reviews > The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian > Status Update

Interesting to read the rejected first draft of "The Phoenix on the Sword" and yeah it's nowhere as good as the version that was eventually published in "Weird Tales". Quite a few things in the plot aren't explained sufficiently, and Howard wasn't yet quite sure whether to make Aquilonia resemble Imperial Rome or mediaeval France more. (in the finished version Aquilonia is clearly a stand-in for ancient Rome)

Noticed a lot of internal continuity nods that I didn't on first reading, like how the demon Thog in "Xuthal of the Dusk" seems to belong to the same race of beings as a demon briefly glimpsed by a fleeing Conan in "The Scarlet Citadel". Or how the titular building in "The Tower of the Elephant" is briefly mentioned in "The Phoenix on the Sword" (which Howard wrote first), to pick another example.

It's really strange how REH's handling of ethnicity and gender constantly swerves between surprisingly progressive for the 1930's and then falling back into common prejudices of his era, at least he tried to transcend them unlike say H. P. Lovecraft.

I am also continually surprised by how many ideas he could pack into a single story, "Queen of the Black Coast" ends in some VERY strange places for a pirate adventure.