Customer Reviews

People of the Black Circle

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If you can find this book, and you're a fan of high fantasy I highly reccomend you check it out. Along with J.R.R. Tolkien and Jack Vance, Howard revolutionized the sword and sorcery genre. All though this collection of short stories is a little formulaic, it's brought to life with Howard's amazing descriptions of the horrors and wonders of a time past.

Wow. It didn't take much for me to slip back into the world of Robert E. Howard. I haven't read any Conan books since I was a kid (I got my first library card solely to check out Conan books!), and I picked this volume up to see if the stories held up to my memory.

They are so much better than I remember them. Robert E. Howard, who I have gained new respect for, is a good writer. This edition, for the first time, is pure Howard. The books I read were the de Camp/Carter edited versions/pastiches, and I don't think that their watered-down versions ever had this much life in them. They were certainly never this addictive.

The writing is these stories is vibrant and rough. Pulp writing dictated a certain style of cheap thrills and excitement, and Conan has all of this. However, the strength of craft, of use of language and story, makes these stories shine. Howard successfully created a bold fantasy world unlike any other, although it has often been copied. His liberal use of his friend H.P. Lovecraft's "outside horror" adds to the atmosphere of Hyborea. Conan is a fully-realised character, and not what you think. Like Edgar Rice Burrogh's Tarzan, he did not fare well upon transportation to other media. Intellegence and strength are his equal weapons. Conan is not the shirtless brute that many think of.

I will definitely use this book as an invitation to check out more by Robert E. Howard.

Other readers may not understand that this was written in a different era. A time when a high school diploma and meant something. Since it was written before the Great Depression for a pulp fan magazine. The language and style is from the past, but the story is powerful and fully fleshed out. I will never sell my copy of this book or of any other Robert E. Howard's works that I own. He is a classic swords and sorcery writer, with the biggest hero ever. Conan

Read it as he wrote it, not as some hacks have tried to write stories of Conan. All other "Edited" or "Enhanced" versions are junk compared to how Howard wrote these stories. Don't waste your time on the other "Conan" authors. Only Robert E. Howard wrote Conan, and only his words as originally written are worth your time.

The world of Conan is an amazing place. A world that takes survival of the fittest to new extremes. A world where all women are perfect bodied nudists that only the strongest man can have. And a place where the darkest of magicks and monsters of unspeakable evil dwell.

It is our planet and the time is the Hyborian Age. A time so thickly described and imagined by Robert E. Howard you almost believe it really did exist. The most appealing thing about the stories of Conan is that each one takes place in different, highly imaginative land with new wonders and secret for the great Cimmerian to uncover.

Conan is not the dunderhead seen in the Arnie movies but an extremely intelligent and cunning warrior who always rises to the top of any faction he has made himself a part of and is Captain of a million pirates, General of a thousand armies, King of Aquilonia and an fair fight for almost no one. Conan always wins because he's just simply the mightiest, strongest and most vicious fighter their is.

But he does have morals and is more human than most people he encounters no matter how many times the call him a barbarian dog. And it's easy to identify with a man who loves to travel and keep on going, never wanting to stay in the same place too long. I mean there is so much to this world (but even more to his) that staying in an office for 40 years is downright insane.

Robert E. Howard is an uncertified genius and his Conan Chronicles are an immortal testament to that fact.

A lot of the good stuff is here. Forget the later writers, get the original. Just ignore anything done by Carter, De Camp, Jordan or anyone else. Pretend that it does not exist and glory in the original barbarian and his slaying, reaving, wenching, pirating and thieving, often with a woman to match him at his side.

This includes:

The Hyborian Age

The Tower of the Elephant

The Hall of the Dead

The God in the Bowl

Rogues in the House

The Hand of Nergal

The Frost-Giant's Daughter

Queen of the Black Coast

The Vale of Lots Women

The Snout in the Dark

Black Colossus

Shadows in the Moonlight

A Witch Shall Be Born

Shadows in Zamboula

The Devil in Iron

The People of the Black Circle

The Slithering Shadow

The Drums of Tombalku

The Pool of the Black One

There is nice map of the world Conan wandered around in at the front, and an afterword by Stephen Jones.

This includes

The Hyborian Age

This is not a story as such, but an account of the fictional history of Howard's world through the ages, to the time of Kull and Atlantis down to the entitled time when Conan ran amok. Quite nicely done.

4 out of 5

The Tower of the Elephant

Conan is in thieving mode here. In a tavern, he is asking the assembled crowd of nogoodniks why no-one has stolen a famous jewel from this tower.

They tell him because it is guarded by some very nasty things.

He, of course, investigates, and meets a master thief attempting the same thing.

Humans, animals, a giant spider and a wizard are to be encountered, not to mention an alien.

3.5 out of 5

The Hall of the Dead (synposis)

De Camp completed this from an outline of Howard's that was found. Conan has left Shadrizar to look for the treasure of Larsha, and a squad of soldiers, out to arrest him for other larceny are on his trail.

He deals with most of them, but the leader, Nestor is not dead and follows him into the city, meeting him in the treasure room after he deals with a giant slug.

They leave, quickly, when mummified warriors come to life and the building starts collapsing. Their loot is not too stable, and not enjoyed for long.

3 out of 5

The God in the Bowl

Conan is indulging in a bit of thievery and is busted by the local constabulary, right near a dead body. Conan proclaims his innocence, which they find hard to believe, but are not going to fight him over it.

Some digging reveals a local wastrel nobel is involved, up to ears in debt, but he ends up with a few problems with the God In the Bowl, of the mortal kind. When he orders Conan restrained, the constabulary lose a few body parts, and others more than that.

3 out of 5

Rogues In the House

Conan is yet again in trouble because of drinking and wenching. A crime has gone wrong, and a woman he was with has betrayed him to the authorities.

He is offered a way out, if he will kill a man. This man is Nabonidus, The Red Priest.

The only problems involve breaking in, a huge hulking ape-man servant, and then The Red Priest himself and his powers.

3.5 out of 5

The Hand of Nergal (fragment)

Another story fleshed out from an outline.

Conan is fighting as Turanian irregular cavalry when large mystical bat creatures attack the force he is fighting with. Their morale breaks, leaving them easy prey, all except the Cimmerian who happens to have found The Heart of Tammuz amulet.

A local scholar sends his girl slave to find Conan and hire him to help him get rid of the evil sorceror using The Hand of Nergal to summon the bat creatures, and worse.

Conan is not able to do much, and is a lot of trouble until the girl arrives, and is able to employ the amulet. As a reward, he takes her with him, out of servitude.

3.5 out of 5

The Frost-Giant's Daughter

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

Queen of the Black Coast

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

The Vale of Lost Women

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

The Snout in the Dark (draft)

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

Black Colossus

Princess Yasmeela is visited by the sorceror Natokh, in an unearthly appartion. Terrified, she consults the oracle of Mitra, who tells her to make the first man she sees head of her armies.

It is her good fortune that this man is Conan. Her understands her political and military problems, and leads her army in war against the forces of Natokh, who has a resurrected monster up his sleeve.

Carnage ensues.

4 out of 5

Shadows in the Moonlight

Conan comes across an Hyrkanian battle leader who has slaughtered the mercenaries he was with. He slays him and allows a girl the dead man had captured to come with him.

Attempting escape they come across pirates, a man ape, and spooky statues at night.

4 out of 5

A Witch Shall Be Born

A bad problem to have - how do you tell which of two women is the very evil twin. Luckily, our favorite barbarian is a very pragmatic man. Excellent and evocative, this story.

4.5 out of 5

Shadows in Zamboula

Conan is in Zamboula, and amazingly enough, comes across a girl, and she needs, and is also not what she seems. Royalty, serpent priests, and huge god-servants need some Cimmerian whup-arse, here.

3.5 out of 5

The Devil in Iron

Conan, working as a hetman of the Free Peoples is on the trail of a girl he had met in camp. He comes across an odd, dreamlike area, but soon encounters yet another giant defender, but this one even he cannot kill.

The same cannot be said of his rival in the opposition forces, and he takes the girl with him afterwards.

4 out of 5

The People of the Black Circle

Conan is again in a leadership position, and seven of his lieutenants have been captured and are under sentence of death. He goes to see what he can do about it. In a flash, he makes off with their leader, the Devi. She is not all he has to worry about, as spies, plots and the wizardry of the Black Seers will all hinder him, not to mention the odd small army, along with the Devi herself.

4.5 out of 5

The Slithering Shadow

Conan and the woman with him find a strange city in the desert, after attacks and problems, they finally come across two weird inhabitants, a man and a woman :

"..I am Thalis the Stygian," she replied. "Are you mad, to come here?"

"I've been thinking I must be," he growled. "By Crom, if I am sane, I'm out of place here, because these people are all maniacs."

The strange, deadly black shadows don't care who they take, though, and Conan and Natala must face those, and weird dream warriors, before the end.

4 out of 5

The Drums of Tombalku (draft)

A story that was completed by de Camp.

Conan has been captured after the destruction of a mercenary band he was fighting in, but a friend escapes. The friend rescues a girl, and takes her back to her home city, but leaves when the horror in the Red Tower awakes, and he has to combat it.

Riding into the desert he meets Conan, who has apparently impressed his captors enough, the riders of Tombalku, that he now rides with them.

They all go to Tombalku, and Conan and Amalric briefly instruct the military there, before they fall foul of racism and a wizard, and decide to leave, post haste.

3 out of 5

The Pool of the Black One

Conan has escaped an island where he was in trouble, and swum out to a nearby ship, boosting himself over the side and inviting himself onto the crew.

He plots to take over leadership, but when he follows the pirate leader ashore later, he gets more than he bargained for with a lot of black followers and something nasty in the Pool.

He rallies and rescues what is left of the pirate crew, and has himself a ship, and a woman.

4 out of 5

These are not the mindless hack jobs you might have come to expect of those who have exploited Howard's legacy; these are not mere "adventure yarns with a touch of the weird", as H. P. Lovecraft described them, and they are not silly or posed, as one reviewer suggests. There is a fundamental theme running like a red thread throughout these stories, and it is this: man is an animal only weakened by civilization, and the closer one is to the natural state the more effective one is in the real world. Howard expresses this not only with his characters and situations, which are ten times more imaginative than anything you'll find in contemporary literature, but with his breathless, literate prose, which manages to be elegant and brutal at the same time. This man largely writes about the same kinds of things Hemingway wrote about, only with vastly more inspiration and originality, and it's a shame that the excuses for fantasy writers of the present and their Dungeons and Dragons-weaned fans let superior work like this languish while heaping dollars and praise on tenth-generation copies of Tolkien.

For those who don't know Robert E Howard, or his most famous character, Conan of Cimmeria, let's say that this is some of the finest Swords and Sorcery literature frome the golden age of the pulps in the thirties, an excellent blend of violent action and supernatural horror, possibly the equal of Lovecraft, though in a different vein, faster pace and a lighter touch. Conan is not necessarily REH's best creation (after all he began his existence as a rewriting of another story to make it more commercial) but most Howard fans will grant that several of these stories are true Masterworks. among those found in this volume are:
Frost Giant's Daughter, Black Colossus, A Witch Shall be Born, Shadows in Zamboula and People of the Black Circle, and there are several more in volume two. I don't have the proper words to recommend warmly enough this collection fine manifestations of the storytellers art.

For those who already know REH and Conan, here is the reason why this book, and his companion volume are definite must haves. This is a collection of Howard's Conan writings, with Howard and only Howard. no weak and overdone pastiche, no shoddily completed "collaborations", no tales diminished from their original value by being "conannified": That implies that some of the contents are mere fragments, but you get only the genuine article, and believe me, it's worth it.

now, i'm not much for fantasy normally. but i like....greatness. and this is great. the best combat descriptions you can find. masterly developed plots. varying themes. inventive. original. perhaps there is one thing that says it all: though many has tried to copy his style, not one attempt has really succeeded. there is a darkness in these stories. foes like demons and evil wizards, but also the dark primal instincts in man, that makes howard great also in the classical sense.

Buy this book instead of Harry Potter for your 12 year old nephew, you'll melt his brain.This is not happy-nicey -nice unicorn -and-wizards-apprentice-save a magical world from the evil whatever fantasy.(Tolkien rules though...)These stories are dark and a reflection of Howard's tortured mind.Howard suffered from severe depression.Harlan Ellison unflatteringly characterized REH as a "nut." Howard writes action sequences that are electric; he was a boxing enthusiast and his action scenes reflect the chaos and brutality of a physical fight. Its not just hack and slay ,though, Howard' characterization of conan and his other creations is fantastic .Period. Howard ,like Tolkien and Norman, has the ability to sweep you away into a world that seems authentic .Howard read ancient history and based the Hyborian World( Conan's world) on the nations and races of antiquity.These stories are great.Pure entertainment. If Sauron had Conan on his side, Conan would have brought Frodo's arm with the One Ring on it back to Sauron.

I had previously read Poul Anderson's take on Conan ('Conan the Rebel") and found it irritating - Conan is overdone and overblown in the extreme. To my disappointment, I found that the original Conan has every feature to his character that I disliked magnified by a factor of 10!

But, to be honest, what has turned me off with both books is both authors' use of language - it is as if they both sat with a thesaurus and looked for the macho words to substitute for the regular ones. That's okay for some scenes but for every single action Conan takes? The phrase that made me put the book down was when Conan "laughed gustily". I did too, and then I put this book down and picked up anything else.