12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The best of both worlds, June 21, 2000
The movie Conan the Destoyer was a disaster. We all know that. Fortunately, Robert Jordan was hired to novelize it, and was given a lot of leeway. While he remains loyal to the plot and pacing of the movie, as well as to the events of the first Conan film, Jordan changes dialogue, character and location a little so that this book also fits in with the saga of Conan stories.
For example, while in the movie Taramis was queen, this contradicts Conan canon, so in the book she is princess, sister of King Tiridates. He also adds more action than is in the film, and explains certain events which just sort of arbitrarily happen in the movie. He fills in the plotholes from the film nicely, and adds typical Conan gore and sex, albeit not as much as in some of the other Conan stories. Another nice touch in this book is that he gives the characters roles. In the movie, Malak is just kind of there for no reason. Here he is fleshed out a litte. Also, in the movie the wizard Akiro, who is brought along for his magic, just sits around doing nothing; not so, here -- he's shooting fireballs, setting wards, making potions.
Although this is certainly not one of the better Conan novels, because of the limited script and story Jordan had to write with, it certainly is fun and far better than the movie of the same name. If you're a Conan fan, or if you liked the first movie, I definitely recommend this one.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much better than I expected., January 11, 2006
Coming off Robert E. Howard's original stories, I did not actually know what to expect from Robert Jordan. I have never read the Wheel of Time series, daunted by its phone-book-sized volumes and weird fantasy terminology. Howard's Hyborian Age works so well because it is both familiar and distant, indeed a history "that could have been ours." Even the films, so far from Howard's world, seemed to acknowledge this, or at least the first one did. Figuring that the film "Conan the Destroyer" was enough of a trainwreck for a blindfolded chimp to improve on, and seeing the very appealing price, I decided to give Robert Jordan's hand at Conan a try.
Was it a masterpiece? Well, given that this is a novelization of a delightfully horrible film, it's hard to see anything special at first glance. What I was most impressed with, though, was that Jordan had the smarts not to try to imitate Howard. Howard had a style of writing that seemed so easy to imitate but was actually very hard to pull off for anyone but him. Jordan already knows a lesson that many writers struggle with to this day- if you're going to pay homage to another writer's world, you do it through your own talent, not by constantly looking at an opened book in your lap to make sure you're doing everything exactly the way he/she would do it. Jordan is able to revisit the Hyborian Age with his own style and still keep it as the Hyborian Age. That is impressive. More than impressive, it's a breath of relief for Conan fans. Howard was NOT the only vehicle his creation could live through. Many, myself included, will argue that he was the best. But he wasn't the only one. Jordan's as good a Conan writer as you can find.
For that reason, the cliches and the predictability lose their damaging power. The plot is fairly generic and the archetypes, Conan aside, are not terribly interesting when you first open the book, but Jordan is very precise, streamlines fluidly, knows when to focus and when to nod to the canon. Admirably he tries to compromise the films' canon with the books', which is impossible to do totally but still makes for a happy middle path (a purposefully vague passage teases us that Conan is holding the fabled Atlantean sword from the films, but that he wasn't necessarily a slave orphaned by Thulsa Doom). Jordan is also very dedicated to the time and to these characters, touching lightly on each one. This is a story free from the pressure of having to take the time to humanize characters that don't need to be humanized. That may perhaps be its greatest strength, more than the riveting action scenes and the fun interaction between the "party."
Being weaned on fantastical video games and sword-and-sorcery tales, I found this book a jaunt down memory lane, but a relaxing one. I reiterate-- while the plot, being a novelization of the snigger-fit that was "Conan the Destroyer", is not that hard to predict, Jordan isn't truly concerned with that. The real pleasure here is in the various relationships between the characters and an exploration of what it means to go on an adventure. Jordan tells a lot with a little and is so aware of the journey that one might think he was there with this seemingly D&D-derived band of warriors. The sensation of a real adventure in a mystical land is the biggest reason to read this book. No getting bogged down in filler, no lame pseudo-philosophical meandering, no gratuitous sex (well, maybe a little, but Jordan cuts away before the heavy stuff rather than go on for pages). Just a story. And a surprisingly good one.
My biggest complaint is that the ending feels rather anti-climactic. Literally, within the space of two pages, Conan has resolved two rather significant threads of romance in his present youth. This is a case where I'd actually take a few pages of cliches, because I ended up wanting to see more of it explored. I'll grant that even Howard never really had Conan go on for pages about his romantic escapades and the Cimmerian himself is a man of VERY few words on that matter, often none. Jordan knows the character very well to keep his verbal conclusion brief. But there is a disappointing lack of internal thought there, and Conan proves to be so full of conflict and conviction throughout the story that it would seem natural to have him think a little more at the end of it. He really doesn't. It seems like he's done all his thinking "offscreen", but before the epilogue has rolled around. Not quite the ending I wanted...but others, Howard fans especially, may feel differently.
That all said, this was a fun, fluid read, and more than just "great, for what it is"- it's much better than the film. Fully recommended for anyone needing a good, not-quite-old-fashioned fantasy story.
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