by Robert E. Howard
The early Conan stories are some of the best material of the pulp era. This book also includes rough drafts, unfinished tales, extensive notes on the Conan publication history, and gorgeous artwork that perfectly encapsulates the setting and tone of Conan's adventures. With Howard's superb mixing of...
So often a reader’s patience flags when wandering back and forth between the seemingly warring ethea of pulp writers and literary authors. The callowness and triviality attributed to the former sends a reader to the canon of the latter, only to retreat from its frequent pretentiousness and self-righ...
adventures everywhere he goes. Haven't read the extra materials, might get back to it some time later.
These Conan stories are a very refreshing change from the usual fantasy faire. Somehow, even though they're classic sword and sorcery they manage to feel a lot like they could be real live historical fiction. Every one of the short stories here ha something very good going for it and they always see...
I've now discovered that the best way to read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories is in big, undiluted doses. Do yourself a favor and avoid any of the stories completed or edited by L. Sprague de Camp. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. And don't dip your toes into Conan's world, plunge into it headfirs...
The writing style is excellent - descriptive, precise, gets you from point A to point B. The stories with an all-male cast were my faves (not for lascivious reasons), but because they lacked the strong gender and racial biases. If all the stories had been like that, I would have given this book 5 st...
Average Rating Across All Stories: 3.5 starsThe two best stories are "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Queen of the Black Coast"; otherwise, the first half of this anthology holds the best of the bunch, gradually dwindling down to my least favorite two stories: "The Vale of Lost Women" and "Rogues...
Pick this book up without shame. It is much more than a guilty pleasure. This is Conan before the pulp arena transformed the image into a parody of itself.This 1st book is a collection of short stories presented in order of when Howard wrote them. Because of this, the stories are not in chronolog...
You know, I used to think I hated Conan stories. That was before I realized that what I had read were in fact imperfect pastiches written by other writers in the 60's and 70's who hoped to cash in on the iconic popularity of the character.This volume presents the stories of Conan the Cimmerian as th...
Unabashed masculine, juvenile fantasy... but lots of fun and surprisingly well-written. There's a bit of very disturbing racism at points, but for the most part it's pure enjoyment, and less ridiculous than rewrites and Schwarzenegger movies would lead you to believe.
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