Conan the Invincible [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812542258
• ISBN-13: 978-0812542257
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,472,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina. He taught himself to read when he was four with the incidental aid of a twelve-years-older brother and was tackling Mark Twain and Jules Verne by five. He is a graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army; among his decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. A history buff, he has also written dance and theater criticism and enjoyed the outdoor sports of hunting, fishing, and sailing, and the indoor sports of poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting.

Robert Jordan began writing in 1977 and went on to write The Wheel of Time(R), one of the most important and best selling series in the history of fantasy publishing with over 14 million copies sold in North America, and countless more sold abroad.

Robert Jordan died on September 16, 2007, after a courageous battle with the rare blood disease amyloidosis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Conan, November 15, 2005

By 

Jonathan C. Pike (Canton, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conan the Invincible (Conan #1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Aside from the creator of Conan (Robert E. Howard), Jordan is the best Conan author I've read to date. He did his Conan work in the 80's before he began on his epic Wheel of Time, and they are pretty much the antithesis of each other. Jordan's Conan books are clear, concise, and to the point. Plot and background is provided (e.g. where the Necromancer in The Invincible comes from), but only enough to support the action of the novels. Fights are savage and bloody (as Conan novels should be), women are scantily clad and promiscuous, and wizards are almost always the bad guys, opposed to the muscular Cimmerian. Jordan's writing is the closest to the raw energy you can see in Howard's original stories.

Conan The Invincible is my favorite of Jordan's. It's a quick, easy read, but for all that it's really well written in a classic Conan style. Plus this is the novel where we first meet Karela, The Red Hawk, a woman bandit/warrior who appears in several other of Jordan's novels. She serves as a great counterpart for Conan. I've read this book numerous times by this point, and it always satisfies my sword and sorcery hunger.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Savage Adventure in the Robert E. Howard tradition!, July 8, 2008

By 

Daniel R. Robichaud II (Worcester, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conan the Invincible (Paperback)

I am an absolute sucker for pulpy adventure stories, and I dig Robert E. Howard's fiction. There is something absolutely delightful to it, with its colorful world, his obsession with the complexities between civilization/barbarism, and larger than life adventures (my personal favorite of his Conan stories has to be "Queen of the Black Coast", because in addition to a fine savage adventure, the romance with pirate queen Belit makes me all warm and fuzzy). It was only a matter of time before I ventured into the land of Howardian pastiches.

Before his Wheel of Time epic, Robert Jordan penned no less than seven Conan novels. Though the author is no Robert E. Howard, here he offers a fun adventure tale in the Howardian style.

Conan: The Invincible finds a young Conan (nineteen or so) living as a thief in the wicked city of Shadizar. When a stranger hires him to steal some gems (gifts to the local lord from a neighboring king) for a veritable mountain of gold, of course he agrees. Nothing is easy, and soon Conan is on a cross country adventure after the already stolen gems, encountering a mysterious race of serpent folk, no less than two sorcerers, a fell god (called the Eater of Souls), and a band of brigands under the command of the fierce bandit babe Karela (aka The Red Hawk).

The language is colorful, the plot is exciting, and there are plenty of well drawn characters on display. The key word for this one is fun, so let me repeat it a few times. Fun, fun, fun. I grinned like a fool all through the reading. The ending is a little, uhm, sudden but overall, a delightful, pulse pounding read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Conan The Invincible From The Conan Chronicles, April 12, 2011

By 

Anathaniel Wallace "Nosidino" (Wash, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conan the Invincible (Paperback)

I truly enjoyed this book. Aside from Robert Howard, the creator of Conan, Robert Jordan (And L. Sprague De Camp) is the man who brings us closest to the realm Howard created. This work should be considered one of the very best additions to the Conan universe.

The characters of the novel are resplendent and varied. Karela The Red Hawk is a woman whom I'd never want to come across in battle. A beautiful woman skilled with the sword and ruthless in battle. Yet impulsive, jealous and easily offended when a man comes to her rescue. It can lead a woman to her doom and The Hed Hawk was no exception to this rule.

Hordo was also a man I grew to respect, a faithful Hound who knew how to manage the ego of his superior whilst being her (The Red Hawk) loyal second-in-command.

The book details the landscape of the Zamora while showcasing those denizens who live within the Kezankian Mountains. This book could have gone on for another 100 pages and I would not have minded.

The villains in this novel were sundry. I had problems identifying who would get to Conan first--even his "friends" were enemies to him at one point in the novel.

I like strong women and by far Karela The Red Hawk is one of the strongest females Conan has ever met. On a level with the Amazon woman Carpenter Created in Conan And The Amazon.

Buy this book and I promise you will not be disappointed.

A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.