Jack Cade

Absolute Rubbish, June 13, 2011

This is such rubbish. Incoherent, mostly insipid and scattered. Doesn't compare to its Superman analog, or anything even halfway decent in the Batman canon. Skip if you are not a completist.

ADD addled author's crackpot book, November 27, 2009

I think this book should be subtitled, "how many quotations from widely disparate souces can I put in my book - and where's my ritalin."

The author's style is a hyperactive, thrusting maniacal prose that made me jittery just from reading a few pages. She jams quote after quote after quote after quote in small easily digestible paragraphs of minor content. Hey, i'm quiting Seneca, then Madonna, then Oprah, then Abe Lincoln...isn't concentrating fun?? There is nothing really new here that you haven't heard better in a dozen other places. It's more of a consolidation of common wisdom, but dispensed by a crack-addict. I truly fear for this woman's sanity...

don't be fooled, August 22, 2009

Another ho-hum entry into the non-Howard Conan genre. Unlike John Maddox Roberts or Robert Jordan, two of the better Conan writers, Hocking writes a very middle of the road fantasy novel that just happens to have Conan in it. He makes the mistake of spending way too much time with villains and other characters and not enough time with Conan. And he doesn't really know the character that well, so Conan seems fairly indispensable here. As a rule, other than Karl Edward Wagner's "Road of Kings," stick with John Maddox Roberts or Robert Jordan when ranging in the non-Howard Conan field.