Cormac Mac Art was
one of Howard’s less-known series characters. A figure of
historical fiction, Cormac dwelled in Dark Ages Europe, probably
sometime in the 5th - 6th Century, though the
exact time is kept vague. There are mentions of him being a
contemporary of King Arthur, but none of the “name” characters
from that mythos ever make an appearance. Cormac is an Irish Celt,
of a type that Howard himself identified with strongly, and he roved
the seas in company with his trusty Danish Viking sidekick Wulfhere
the Skull-Splitter.
No Cormac stories
were published during Howard’s lifetime. He completed “Swords of
the Northern Sea” and “The Night of the Wolf”, probably in an
attempt to break into the adventure pulps, which paid better than
Weird Tales did. These stories are notable for not having any
supernatural elements, and are works of historical adventure.
Several more stories, such as the oft-reprinted “Tigers of the Sea”
and “The Temple of Abomination” were completed from partial
drafts after Howard’s death by author Richard L. Tierney, and rank
as partial pastiches.
In the late 70s,
when the S&S boom was in full swing, Andrew J. Offutt was given
permission (or asked – I can’t find out) to take Cormac and run
with him, which resulted in a series of novels entirely about the
Irish brigand, meaning Offutt wrote more about him than Howard ever
did. There were six of these books, two of them with co-author
credit to Aussie writer Keith Taylor.
Despite his stature
among Howard pastiche writers, tightly-plotted adventure was never
Offutt’s forte, and he apparently knew this, as it was his habit to
solicit other writers to put together plot outlines for him to fill
out. Taylor – a great aficionado of the Dark Ages and the
Arthurian period, was an ideal resource for this. One of the plots
he commissioned from David Drake took so long and grew so big that he
ended up not using it, and Drake changed the names and wrote it as
The Dragon Lord.
The Tower of
Death is the 5th Cormac novel, and despite his
announced plans for many more, there was only one more after this,
and then the saga fell silent. I have to say, it might have been for
the best, as this is not a terribly good book. Even with help,
Offutt’s plotting is baggy and his action is weak. The most tense
sequence is toward the beginning, when Cormac and his crew are nearly
caught in a trap by warships and have to slip away by sailing out of
sight of land across the Bay of Biscay – something that was not
actually much done in those days when ships tended to follow the
coast.
They arrive in
Spain, or what would become Spain, and encounter a tower that seems
to breed a mysterious doom next door to a tiny kingdom which promises
intrigue but really has almost none to offer. The mystery of the
tower is found to be the result of a killer seaweed monster that
manages a bit of excitement, and the final showdown between
sea-raiders and Lovecraftian fish-people is pretty fucking badass.
But everything in
between just seems vague and unexciting. There are whispers of a
romance with the local princess which go nowhere, some plotting by
the queen who turns out to be evil, but it’s not very good
plotting. Things happen that you expect would come to some sort of
point, but they don’t, and when the climax arrives it doesn’t
feel like you’ve been building up to it and it’s paying off any
kind of tension, it’s just a thing that happens.
It’s frustrating,
because all the pieces are here, with some cool ideas and good setup,
and the action scenes are in place and could have been really good,
but a lot of Offutt’s action is just kind of inert, and you get
bored waiting for something to really happen – a dramatic moment, a
reveal, some emotion to elevate the simple “and then, and then, and
then” plot structure. With over 70,000 words there is room for a
lot more than this, and a lot of this book just seems to be wasting
time. I think of the kind of action that Howard crammed into The
Hour of the Dragon – which is about the same length – and I
feel sad for how much better this could have been.
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