Oh, well, that and the sorcery that Stirling hints at, but doesn't really dive into with both feet like Howard did. I sincerely doubt this book will be as successful as the Lancer/Ace series and probably not even the Tor series. The book is still heroic fantasy but it does take some time to do a bit more contemporary flavored world building and add some more “realistic” elements to the world through this. Howard’s greatest creation was, as I understand it, Harry Turtledove’s Conan of Venarium (Tor, 2003). However, the style of writing and even genre most of the time is not quite the same as Howard's legendary stories.

The dust jacket features the iconic sword from the 80’s Conan the Barbarian movie (and the more recent Stranger Things season finale) which I will always respectfully refer to as The Schwarzenegger Sword. Raw and powerful, it's also very much of its time--written almost a century ago, when our culture could be less socially aware and genre fiction in particular often exhibited rough edges some of today's readers may find jarring. Particularly I loved the line (paraphrasing) that went something like "if he was particularly inclined toward cannibalism, he still wouldn't go near that body". I literally get chills when I read the line “Know ye O’ Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis…. Set early in his life, Conan has left his northern homeland to cut a bloody swath across the legendary Hyborian Age.Titan Books, a UK-based publisher that mostly peddles TV, film, and videogame tie-in books, mentions on Conan. Howard in a 1932 issue of Weird Tales magazine, the Conan stories have had a tumultuous publication history.

com, Saffel discusses how Stirling was provided with “several outlines” reflecting what Titan wanted to do with the book. Perhaps signaling the start of a greater revival, Conan – Blood of the Serpent is the first original full-length novel to feature Conan in nearly twenty years.This brief burst of creativity was cut short with Howard's death, yet Conan would go on to achieve a remarkable cult-popularity, perhaps reaching its highest point in the 1980s - aided by the release of two feature films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. I do like how Sterling focused the story on Conan, rather that the ridiculous Tor book process that jumped from one chapter of Conan, and then one chapter of the nemesis (sorcerer/demon etc. has since passed away and Conan is no longer a part of Tor’s future but Titan Books has taken up the mantle.

He’s no murderer or slaver, and when his companions in arms are taken captive or placed in jeopardy, Conan comes to their rescue. Like Howard, Stirling has plundered actual history for inspiration, but again, with less, you know, racism. Instead there are anachronisms galore, with a particular modern American linguistic sensibility pushing and intruding through to break the suspension necessary for effective story telling. After Howard’s 1936 suicide, hardback releases by Gnome Press in the 1950s and enduring support in the pages of fanzines like Amra kept the barbarian from disappearing into obscurity. I had high hopes for this novel given some of Stirling's past novels, and the fact that he was taking over such a storied character in such an undeveloped time period.Conan isn’t the only one pursuing Valeria; while Conan is content to bide his time and prove his merits, an arrogant Stygian commander named Khafset proves himself less willing to take no for an answer. The eyes under his brows were volcanic blue and his features bluntly, ruggedly carved, with close-shaven jowls.

A veteran author of many novels, Stirling’s first attempt was a “truly terrible Howardian pastiche” at age 13. And the interior black-and-white art by Roberto De La Torre evokes the John Buscema illustrated Conan the Barbarian comics of the 1970s. His hair fell to his shoulders, square-cut and as black as any Stygian’s, tied back with a strip of black silk. With all that possibility at his fingertips, Stirling delivers a boring, uninspired plot and two dimensional characters.When she runs afoul of an exiled Stygian noble, however, things take a deadly turn, embroiling them both in the schemes of a priest of the serpent god Set.