Talk: Conan of Venarium

I move we delete this article and replace it with Leno of Venarium. Turtle Fan 22:39, January 23, 2010 (UTC)

NOOOOOOO!

Actually, since the odds of this article ever being done are nil, I doubt anyone will notice. TR 01:47, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

It's the decision of us, the executives of this franchise, not to develop the Conan article. Thus, it is Conan's fault. He must be replaced. Turtle Fan 02:21, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm--Between this article (which I see is uncategorized) and The Simpsons, neither of which have stopped the world from spinning (though the Simpsons article was indignantly blanked by an anon), coupled with the fact that Silver, thankfully, has pulled an Emperor Norton on us . . . A much more chaste "Inside Jokes" category would not be DOA. It wouldn't have three articles at this point, and damned if I know what if any growth it will have, but if ever there were a category which would qualify as irregular enough not to be subject to standard polices, it would be one well outside the norms of the project, one not used in the ordinary cross-referencing of story elements. . . . Surely that would apply here. . . . Turtle Fan 22:50, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: Big ol' floppy straw hat (the last surviving member of the original Inside Jokes) would make three. Huzzah. Turtle Fan 04:36, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I don't see much harm. TR 22:54, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

ML4E? Turtle Fan 23:56, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

I have always been troubled by non-canonical articles fooling people. If it can be clearly labeled as a joke article then I can put my misgivings aside. ML4E 20:26, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

Hot damn. Turtle Fan 23:58, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

You know, this is going to be a pretty dated joke itself one of these days. In January the Tonigt Show war held everyone's rapt attention, but even now it's fading from public consciousness. Eventually it'll be as irrelevant as . . . well, as the Tonight Show will be once Leno settles back into his groove. Turtle Fan 02:27, March 19, 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of jokes that have lost their relevance, I'm not sure how much longer this will be worth keeping around. I'm as fickle as a late night audience. Turtle Fan 18:05, May 26, 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm on the book template jag, now may be the time to restore it. TR 01:42, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

You know how hard it is to get Leno to give something up once he's had a turn with it. Turtle Fan 19:31, September 11,

Restoration

I went ahead an restored based on this last conversation (2 years ago; we were really johnny on the spot there), but I've discovered two other things that made the article seem more viable: 1)An on-line copy; 2) A Conan wiki. The latter was actually pretty important. I don't know that I'll make use of the on-line copy, but the fact that we're not going to need to create tons of Howard-specific articles for this one bit of dabbling on Turtledove's part makes reading the book for our little project somewhat more attractive. TR (talk) 15:25, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

I had previously seen PB copies in a bookstore and took a look. The copyright is held by something called the "Conan Foundation" (I think, definitely Conan something). I imagine this is related to Howard's estate and that Turtledove may have been contracted to write this book to continue the franchise. Would you still classify the book a "Pastiche" under the circumstances if this is true? ML4E (talk) 19:36, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Or shared universe. The problem with books like this is that while they are often commissioned by an estate/trust whatever, their status in a canon is routinely subject to change. TR (talk) 20:06, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

The Conan Wiki

Someone over at the Conan wiki has filled out a solid synopsis of this book. Should we 1) redirect this article back to that page and call it good (I did something like this at the Eric Flint wiki with his contributions to the Honor Harrington series) or 2) Copy and paste that article here, and then create a bunch of red links for articles that will never ever be written and are still heavily steeped in REH's world.

I know which way I vote....TR (talk) 22:47, April 4, 2014 (UTC)

Probably best to leave the stub we have and add a link to the Conan wiki. However, I have no strong feelings either way. ML4E (talk) 23:03, April 4, 2014 (UTC)

I'd delete this article, but first, on any article that links here, change those links so that they lead directly to the synopsis on the Conan wiki. We did that in many of the "Trantor Falls" articles when linking to elements of Foundation that don't appear directly in that story. This has obvious advantages over TR's second option. The advantage over the first option is that this way readers will know ahead of time that they're leaving Turtledove's wiki and won't be confused or alarmed. The advantage over ML4E's suggestion is that it will give readers a direct one-click link to the information they're looking for. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:35, April 5, 2014 (UTC)

Reaction

I found this novel to be an underwhelming disappointment. It was a Battle of the Teutoburg Forest story disguised as a Conan story. The way the character Conan was written, I never felt I was reading about the "real" Conan. The Conan-universe characters and names could have been changed and the book marketed as a standalone novel with no connections to any previous universe. This puzzles me, as HT has shown himself to be a true Howard fan on other occasions, including when he aped REH's plot structures perfectly in "The Boring Beast." And to think that this came on the heels of the excellent Ruled Britannia and the start of the engaging if imperfect Crosstime Traffic Series.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 07:40, October 11, 2016 (UTC)

In some fairness to HT: Venarium is an event Howard referenced, but never depicted, but (and I had to double check this) it was described as sounding more than a little like Teutoburg Forest. It was described in "Beyond the Black River" rather quickly. I haven't read CoV, so I can't speak to anything else.

And now I have a yen to re-read the REH stories, and my copies are nearly 200 miles away. *Sigh* TR (talk) 21:13, October 11, 2016 (UTC)

Restoration

I went ahead and restored the summary and template. It is an HT novel, and so we should acknowledge its existence. But I also went ahead and linked to the Conan wiki. TR (talk) 13:58, October 11, 2016 (UTC)

My understanding is that most of the tribes and places are Howard's creations, as are Conan himself (obviously) and King Numedides, and maybe Conan's parents. Most of the other characters are HT creations. The sergeants and grunts act exactly like their counterparts in The War That Came Early and The Hot War. I guess this should someday be developed and treated like "The Fillmore Shoggoth" and "Trantor Falls", separating the Howard characters from the HT characters.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 20:56, October 11, 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose, but I mean, if you have other things to do, it's not a priority. Work, school, jumping jacks, whatever. No big hurry. TR (talk) 21:14, October 11, 2016 (UTC)

Anyone else?

Has anyone else read this?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 04:43, September 19, 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, bro. The burden of Conan is yours and yours alone.TR (talk) 22:46, September 19, 2018 (UTC)

There are some things I'm not sure how to handle. In chapter 3, Conan passes through some kind of time portal and finds an Atlantean temple guarded by a giant snake, then after this encounter, reports it to Mordec who says there is no temple in that neck of the woods, and when Conan goes back to look, lo and behold, there isn't. I'm wondering, is this disappearing temple a specific location from a Howard story, which someone with inside knowledge would immediately recognise?

"The Devil in Iron" involves both a giant snake and a vanishing temple, but it's not an Atlantean one. TR (talk) 00:05, September 20, 2018 (UTC)

The one is CoV isn't confirmed to be an Atlantean one, that's just Conan's first instinct on seeing it, but that bit about "The Devil in Iron" sounds like it's meant to be a cutesy in-joke on HT's part rather than a specific temple.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 00:13, September 20, 2018 (UTC)

Later, when Conan goes to work tending sheep for Nectan, he has to fight off a chupacabra-type creature with bat wings. I was thinking this might be a well-known Hyborian fauna species, but couldn't find it at the Conan wiki.

Sounds like a run of the mill REH style monster. TR (talk) 00:05, September 20, 2018 (UTC)

Finally, and this really sticks in my craw, I need someone who has read this specific novel to help determine the fates of the soldiers. We have the grunts Granth, Vulth, Benno, and Daverio, (the exact same stock grunts that HT writes into every war story he does), their Sergeant Nopel (ditto), and Treviranus their captain. I found specific references to the deaths of Granth and Daverio, but the others' fate is up in the air, unless I missed some subtle hint. The final scenes of the uprising are from Mordec's and Conan's POVs, and there is fleeting description of some of the enemies they hacked down, but none is specific enough to match to any of the named characters. I imagine it highly probable that Vulth and Benno were killed, and find it irritating that HT would leave these characters' fate undetermined after we had spent so much time with them.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 23:42, September 19, 2018 (UTC)

It's probably safe to assume they are dead. In "Beyond the Black River", a character named Balthus says that his uncle is one of the very few people to survive Venarium. Nearly every Aquilonian at Venarium was put to the sword. TR (talk) 00:05, September 20, 2018 (UTC)

Still, there were survivors, so unless someone comes forth and points out passages in CoV where these individuals are confirmed dead, we'll have to leave it as "we don't know".JonathanMarkoff (talk) 00:13, September 20, 2018 (UTC)