Talk:The Hour of the Dragon

Revisions by de Camp, etc.

I am surprised to read here--but this is not questioning the accuracy of--statements that this novel was published under its alternate title, Conan the Conqueror, as early as 1950. In more recent years, that title has been associated with the Lancer/Ace Books series (all reports and the few Lancer copies I've seen indicate that the Aces were just reprints of the Lancers, down to Frank Frazetta's cover paintings), where a number of Howard's stories were altered somewhat by L. Sprague de Camp and/or Lin Carter for consistency with their own original additions to the series (completions of Howard fragments and totally new stories; for the first several years of Marvel's comic book license, Roy Thomas was obligated to fabricate completions of the fragments that totally avoided the contents of de Camp and Carter's versions, and the same held true for filling in gaps between stories). This situation is implied in the 1977 Berkley edition's description of that as restoring "the original magazine text and title" (which also implies that these alterations were present in the 1950 one, which doesn't seem likely to me; perhaps other textual changes were made then). Whatever the truth, it really should be made more clear here, and by somebody with a better grip on the specifics than myself (obviously). I hope this catches such a person's attention. Ted Watson 20:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The 1950 Gnome Press hardbound edition was the first publication of the novel in book form. The title change was made by the publisher to capitalize on the name of the protagonist, since the book was expected to appeal mainly to Howard fans from the Weird Tales days, and the name of Conan would of course be immediately recognizable by them. It was the Gnome press edition that L. Sprague de Camp first read, and which first got him interested in Conan. His involvement in editing and writing Conan began with later volumes of the Gnome Press series.

The Lancer/Ace paperback series was merely the continuation of the trend begun with the Gnome Press series. More Howard Conan fragments had been discovered by this time, and de Camp took on the task of reorganizing the whole corpus into what was then considered to be the correct chronological order (the last few volumes of the Gnome Press series, which themselves consisted of newly discovered material and additions to the saga, were not in chronological order as represented by the earlier volumes). He and Carter also wrote new Conan material to intersperse among the pre-existing stories at this time, and he served as editor for the series. All of his edits to Conan the Conqueror were made for the Lancer/Ace edition, the Gnome edition having pre-dated his involvement. He was thus not responsible for retitling The Hour of the Dragon as Conan the Conqueror, though he did perpetuate the new title.

Popular opinion notwithstanding, de Camp's edits were almost all minor except when he was rewriting a non-Conan Howard story as a Conan one, or completing a Conan fragment. There are a few notorious exceptions to this rule, most notably his editing of Howard's The Black Stranger (which de Camp retitled The Treasure of Tranicos). When this story was discovered it was found to indicate a course of events prior to Conan becoming king of Aquilonia wildly out of sync with the then-accepted chronology, and rather than modifying the chronology in accord with the story, de Camp modified the story in accord with the chronology, even though the story, having been written by Howard, was more authoritative than the chronology, which had been constructed by fans. BPK 04:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I assume that I over-estimated Lin Carter's participation in the editing. On the other hand, your description of events seems to contradict the article's indication that the text was altered, however little, even for the Gnome edition, which as I said above didn't seem likely. Should the article be so amended? Ted Watson 21:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No contradiction at all. The Gnome Press editor edited the magazine text for book publication; de Camp reedited it later. Wagner went back to the magazine text and title. BPK 23:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Two editions one article

This is the article linked to from both the Gnome Press edition and the Lancer/Ace edition. if these are in fact identical then there is no problem, except for the fact that this brakes the attempt of following the Lancer/Ace editions since the infobox only relates to the Gnome Press edition. Would anyone mind a second/third infobox? /83.254.145.214 (talk) 10:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

As the first publication was in the pulp magazine Weird Tales it might be appropriate to make that the main subject of the infobox (or omit publication information entirely). Perhaps, if possible, smaller infoboxes (or another template) underneath that would resolve your problem. I don't think having two or three full infoboxes, which would repeat a lot of information, would work very well. It might even end up taking up more space than the article itself in its present form. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Kull the Conqueror

According to the film article Kull the Conqueror, that film is an adaptation of this book. Shouldn't that be in the adaptation section here? The plot summary sure reads like a summary of the film... 76.66.203.138 (talk) 13:46, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

This story has nothing to do with the Kull film. The link appears to be that the novel The Hour of the Dragon was later retitled Conan the Conqueror; and the name planned for Conan 3 was also Conan the Conqueror (following the film series' naming convention of "Conan the..."). They both also have the resurrection of an ancient evil and a character called Akivasha but they are otherwise completely different in how they handle those elements and in terms of the plot. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The film "I, Robot" has nothing to do with the book, but the book article mentions it in the adaptations section. As the Kull film draws elements from the old Conan script ideas, and terms and settings from this book, it seems like some sort of adaptation. (or what a scriptwriter might call adaptation, as in what is show in the film "Adaptation") 76.66.203.138 (talk) 10:29, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Cover image

I have to agree with User:Jappalang that the Gnome Press cover is not appropriate. A PD cover is available, and the Gnome edition, although the first book publication, is a deprecated text. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:16, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you both. The article is about the novel as a whole. The Gnome Press edition represents the first publication of the work as a whole. Its text is "depcrecated" only in the sense that all editing post-manuscript (or post-first publication, in instances where the manuscripts no longer exist) has come to be seen as illegitimate by "purist" Howard fans. While they have some justification for this attitude, it is meaningless in a discussion of the appropriate cover image for an article on the book. Standard wikipedia practice prefers use of an image of the first edition of a book for an article on that book. The Gnome Press edition was the first edition. The Weird Tales cover, while a valuable addition to the illustrative material in the article (and you will note that I did not remove it from the article when I restored the first edition image), does not represent the first publication of the work as a whole, but merely one portion of the prior serial publication. It is in no way "equivalent" to the first edition cover, and thus can not be considered a "free replacement" for the first edition image that was already legitimately employed for for the article infobox under fair use. The first edition image should go back in. I am making the change. BPK (talk) 18:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

But isn't the current cover image misleading? Same as the title of the Infobox too, right? Tng88 (talk) 03:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

No more than for any other novel first published in book form under one title and later retitled. Feel free to blame Gnome or Berkley for the confusion; as for wikipedia, its standard continues to prefer first edition images for its infoboxes. But I have retitled the infobox and rewritten the opening of the article so as to minimize any confusion. BPK (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, I can add another cover image: one of the 1977 Berkley Medallion paperback edition which has a tipped-in poster of the cover art. There does not seem to be a credit for the artist in the book. Wastrel Way (talk) Eric

I have added it. I think it's a great improvement. I'm not sure how to make the thumbnail bigger. It should be. Wastrel Way (talk) Eric

Annnd... I see that it's been removed, although it was properly sourced and verified, and allowed by the owner of the artwork. So be it. Perhaps it was too violent-looking for these times when violence is a bad thing. Let's stick to poor depictions of half-naked girls and so forth. It's my desktop. Thank you, Kirk Dilbeck, for giving me permission to use it. Wastrel Way (talk)Eric