Strange Studies of Strange Stories
Jul 2, 2026 · 0 min · 12 segments
We're joined by guest Kenneth Hite as we cover the very first Conan the Barbarian story by Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword!
Kenneth HiteGuest
Chad FiferHost
Chris LackeyHost
Last year, we covered the Scarlet Citadel around this time, which was the second Conan story that Robert E. Howard published.
This story, The Phoenix on the Sword, was first published in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
was rejected by Farnsworth Wright, that version of it, and then edited and resubmitted.
Robert E. Howard actually mentions the story in a letter to Lovecraft in April of 1932.
He wrote, I've been working on a new character, providing him with a new epic, The Hyborian Age, which men have forgotten, but which remains in classical names and distorted myths.
he would get very, very stroppy with Howard for doing all the semi-fake names, the Stygia and Aquilonia and all of that.
The names, you know, that are sort of half real geography and half Hyborian pretend geography.
Stop introducing things that make me, Howard B. Lovecraft, think about real history because you're not setting it in real history.
And then he would sort of rant for a couple of pages and Howard would say, eh, that's the point.
It's just the quality of the writing, I suppose, because typically if I just was faced with the list of fictional lands, I wouldn't care that much.
Last year, we covered the Scarlet Citadel around this time, which was the second Conan story that Robert E. Howard published.
This story, The Phoenix on the Sword, was first published in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
was rejected by Farnsworth Wright, that version of it, and then edited and resubmitted.
Robert E. Howard actually mentions the story in a letter to Lovecraft in April of 1932.
He wrote, I've been working on a new character, providing him with a new epic, The Hyborian Age, which men have forgotten, but which remains in classical names and distorted myths.
he would get very, very stroppy with Howard for doing all the semi-fake names, the Stygia and Aquilonia and all of that.
The names, you know, that are sort of half real geography and half Hyborian pretend geography.
Stop introducing things that make me, Howard B. Lovecraft, think about real history because you're not setting it in real history.
And then he would sort of rant for a couple of pages and Howard would say, eh, that's the point.
It's just the quality of the writing, I suppose, because typically if I just was faced with the list of fictional lands, I wouldn't care that much.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
