Customer Reviews

Conan 02 Of Cimmeria (Conan Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The stories in Conan of Cimmeria surpass in content and in language the stories in the first Conan book.

The Curse of the Monolith, by de Camp & Carter, is an okay political story, but the action is kind of weak. A fun little read.

The Bloodstained God, by Howard & de Camp, is the most boring story in this volume. I found it overlong and almost unreadably bad. Not sure why, but I just couldn't stand it.

The Frost Giant's Daughter, I think, is generally considered to be one of the best Conan stories, and I agree. Short and to the point, this story isn't about Conan, the story is Conan.

The Lair of the Ice Worm, by de Camp and Carter, is another fairly good story that doesn't have any relevance in the grand scheme of things, but it's fun and entertaining.

Queen of the Black Coast, by Howard, is another excellent story, dripping with Howard's wonderfully readable style. The heroine here is in no small part the inspiration for Valeria in the first Conan movie.

The Vale of Lost Women, by Howard, is another really good story that really gets into who and what Conan is, not just about one of his feats.

The Castle of Terror, while more entertaining than Bloodstained God, is so stupidly pointless that I wonder why it was written, much less put in here. You're not missing anything if you skip this one.

The Snout in the Dark, while being an improvement of Castle of Terror and Bloodstained God, doesn't reveal anything new about Conan, isn't terribly exciting, but it's still an interesting read.

This book is, again, superior to the first in the series...highly recommended.

This is less of a review of this particular volume in the Conan opus as edited & added to by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter than it is a response to the thrashing that the abovementioned writers have been taking in this forum and in many others. It's true that no one can write Conan the way Robert E. Howard could. I'm not convinced anyone has ever really tried. Some of the work de Camp & Carter did with Howard's material is cheesy. Remember - most of their pastiches were written to fill gaps in the timeline. Many of them were written from Howard fragments. It's also true that Karl Edward Wagner did a much better job presenting Howard's writing when he was manning the Conan fort. Wagner's Conan books are now quite expensive and pretty hard to get a hold of. My own introduction to Conan came in the 1980's, through a combination of Marvel Comics and the Ace reprints of the de Camp & Carter editions of the old Lancer paperbacks. Had it not been for the work of de Camp and Carter I might NEVER have discovered any of the works of Robert E. Howard. For that, I am - and I suspect that a lot of readers my age should be - eternally grateful to them. As to CONAN OF CIMMERIA, this is one of the best of the de Camp & Carter editions. The pastiche pieces are readable and the pure Howard is mostly unadulterated. "Queen of the Black Coast" is one of Howard's finest stories. Highly recommended.

I started reading Conan novels at the age of fourteen. I was wakened to sword and sorcery for life. Even though a few - more than a few - have attempted to emulate Robert E Howard,s style, no one seems to have got it quite the way Howard did.

There is and only ever will be one Robert E howard. --And -I might add- only one artist true enough to fill the cover of howards books --Frank Frazetta. Their works are the embodiment of fantasy.

having read most of conan's stories,i can safely say that never has a book encaptured my imagination so deeply.with so many entertaining tales of exciting adventures,i only wish i could complete reading the remaining editions that i've been unable to locate.please e/mail if you can help.meanwhile i'll keep reading. james.moodie@uk.dreamcast.com

This contains

The Curse of the Monolith

The Bloodstained God

The Frost Giant's Daughter

The Lair of the Ice Worm

The Queen of the Black Coast

The Castle of Terror

The Snout in the Dark

Conan, by dint of prowess is now a Turanian captain. He is sent on a mission to Khitai. The foppy type he takes along lures him into a night quest by promise of treasure.

Conan is none to pleased to learn he is to be a human sacrifice, instead.

Now, said magic using fop guy. Out of all the band, and people, he picks Conan?

What is Khitan for fracking stupid?

3 out of 5

Conan has deserted Turan, and is on the trail of treasure in the Kezankian mountains. Can't trust anyone in this bunch of treasure hunters.

The statue he is after is something he decides he definitely doesn't want, after all.

2.5 out of 5

Conan meets a very pale woman after fighting a battle in the frozen north. She is haughty, and arrogant, and summons a couple of her brothers to fight Conan. Giant men they might be, but the Cimmerian grabs them, and then grabs the girl.

She calls to her father Ymir, and disappears. Conan wakes up - was it all a dream?

4 out of 5

Conan, uneasy after his encounter with the Frost Giant's Daughter, heads south.

He saves a girl from a pack of white hairy beast men only to lose her in the tunnel of the ice worm. He barely makes it out himself.

3 out of 5

One of the classic Conan stories. The barbarian goes a-reavin', and finds another of the rare women that can match him. Belit has fire, and presence, and command, but again, it does not end well. Highly recommended.

4.5 out of 5

Conan is war chief of the Bamulas, and the story is told from the point of view of an Ophirean woman that is a captive of the group he is leading.

She talks him into letting her go by offering herself to him, for variety. He doesn't hold her to it, however, knowing that would be wrong, and lets her go.

She manages to get herself into trouble in the vale, where the women she finds definitely are not human. The Cimmerian, luckily for her, had been following her trail, and arrives just in time, another day at the office for him :

"A devil from the Outer Dark," he grunted. "Oh, they're nothing uncommon."

3.5 out of 5

It all piles on the barbarian here. He has to leave his Bamulas warrior chief post due to racism.

Travelling through the Kushian grasslands a pride of lions decide he would be quite tasty, being so young and meaty. He fights off lions for a while, but runs out of arrows and has to run.

Amazingly, he comes to a black onyx tower, and the lions won't enter. Everything is dead around it.

He enters due to having no choice, but his superstitious barbarian self is worried, and he sleeps uneasily.

He is right, because a whole bunch of slavers turn up, and a hundred headed monster promptly appears and starts slaughtering them with its bare hands, head ripping off and all that good stuff.

He takes one of their horses and leaves, to take his chance with the lions.

3.5 out of 5

A short draft. A popular military officer is imprisoned by a dangerous queen type. When she returns from hunting, the population is beginning to turn ugly, and tries to tear her from her horse.

A large, scarred Cimmerian is nearby, and manages to rescue her, not without injury to either.

She promptly orders her Captain of the Guard slain, and gives Conan the job. He is not displeased to be the captain for a good looking naked and bleeding ruler, at least for now.

3 out of 5

To be honest, I didn't bother reading the de Camp and Lin Carter stories. Why? They're pastiche authors. And no one can write Conan like its creator, Robert E. Howard. Even Robert Jordan's Conan stories were dirt compared to Robert E. Howard's. To me, pastiche authors are the scum of the earth because they are so low that they have to continue someone elses creation just to make a living--can't they be original. Sure, de Camp has written other stuff, but most people would associate him with Conan. When the Conan movie came out in the 80's, I thought that de Camp was the creator of Conan. Boy was I wrong! As far as the book goes, the three Robert E. Howard stories inside are good, but not Howard's best. I thought that the Frost-Giant's Daughter was the best of the three. But I think that Howard's best short story was A Witch Shall Be Born. Looking at the book as a whole, it's only worth about 2 or 3 stars, but you can blame de Camp and Carter for dragging the rating down.