I don’t know much about Moore’s early life, but REH grew up living in about 10 different places in the huge state of Texas before he was 12. His mother was a fan of poetry and Shakespeare, as was he. Howard, according to all accounts, would often speak with old-timers, coaxing tales of the Old West out of them. Men who had lived through the Civil War and Comanche raids. Early on, REH was a fan of Sir Walter Scott, an author dead for almost 75yrs before Howard was even born.

In other words, REH had been around a little and had spoken to others who had seen it all. His tastes in literature were wide in a genre sense and deep in a temporal sense.

Out of the four authors in Hooc Ott’s list, there is one writer we know they all admired: H. Rider Haggard.

I kinda assumed that was how you meant it, Jon. I was just using the opportunity to point out some things about REH.

In general, your point holds true. Very few authors do much truly classic work until their late 20s. Considering the coddling and misinformation the current twenty-somethings have been subjected to, the odds drop even lower.

When you look at the bios of the 3 guys — Haggard, Burroughs and Merritt — who really laid the foundations for the “pulp” SFF template, several things jump out. All three started writing adventure tales in their late 20s or later. All three had traveled fairly extensively and had encountered non-English-speaking “primitice” tribes. They came away from those encounters with a certain amount of respect for those peoples while avoiding “going native” and hating Western civilization. All were married and all had a certain amount of religious conviction. All of them also were raised in traditional families with fathers active in their lives. Finally, all of them were exposed to classic works — ie, pre-“Literary Realism” — in the English language from a young age and were expected to have a strong grasp of those works as a matter of course.

When one looks at those “stats”, it’s pretty easy to see that expecting a modern, 21st century twenty-something to knock one outta the park is betting against the spread. That said, it doesn’t mean that writers shouldn’t get started early and work hard at their craft. Also, getting some real-life experience — ie, hanging out with people working real jobs and living real lives, not snowflakes — would be very helpful. Being so grounded/”based” is what enabled those men to give their imaginations free rein and to fly far.

Just some thoughts.