Customer Reviews

Conan and the Shaman's Curse

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What do you get when you combine a lycantherope barbarian with man-eating vultures and a race of 9-foot primatives? A really wierd Conan tale. The tale opens with a typical scene of complete carnage. Conan and a band of 200 mercenaries were hired to fight a battle, and after 24 hours of blood-spilling, head-bashing, limb-severing fun, there are only a handful of survivors. Those survivors were Conan and a dozen of the enemy troops. Conan makes short work of the enemy rabble (and in doing so becomes the sole survivor of the battle) but before the last victim dies, he puts a hex on Conan (you guessed it, the Shaman). The plot becomes even more unrealistic and disjointed as the book wears on. He burns his comrads in a pyre after the battle, then out runs a horde of vengefull horsemen, swims a mile out to sea and hops on board a pirateship, kills all the pirates....and so on, and so on.... For the most part the plot was just too unbelievable to take seriously. On top of all of this, Conan becomes a lycantherope of sorts (I think he actually turns into a killer ape when the moon is full...) as a result of the curse. For me this was very disappointing. For those of us who are Conan fans, we realize just how much the Cimmerian loathes sorcery, so to see him turned in to a were-ape, or whatever, is, in a way, tarnishing his image. I think this aspect of the curse could have been done just as well if it was one of Conan's lady friends who get's smitten. I just don't like to see Conan himself devouring human entrails and drinking blood. The story wasn't bad, just excessive. There is only so much a hero in a fantasy tale can pull off before the reader starts to think: "Oh come ON...You have GOT to be joking !" Moore just keeps piling it on until Conan is no longer a mighty Cimmerian, but a muscle bound god in a loincloth. The Verdict: If you are a die-hard Conan fan, pick it up. You may enjoy this type of Sword and Sorcery, myself, I could barely put up with it. It get's better as it wears on, but throughout the entire book I just couldn't forget the "Conan-the-Giant-Ape-Jumping-About-Eating-Pirates" style beginning. It spolied the rest of the tale

A more-unique Conan read for its strange creatures and atypical characters, such as a race of giants. This is one of the more violent Conan spinoffs, very bloody and unrelenting in its action. The battles against humans and creatures are vivid and gory. The cast of characters are likeable and compelling. Conan is lost on an island inhabited by a race of giants cut off from the rest of the world. Although these giants have a few feet on Conan (who is supposedly about 7 feet tall already) somehow Conan is as strong as they are. In any case, the adventure is compelling. The actual "shaman's curse" afflicting Conan is more like a side story than a central feature of the tale, so it loses points for that. There are far worse Conan tales out there. This is one of the better ones.