Hey, it's been a while since I put together one of these! Like I mentioned, I'm slowing down a little on my reading of the Conan books, and I will say that the ones in this article really did feel like a slog. However, I think I've come through, looking forward to the rest of the books I plan to read. While the quality of stories may vary, the saga of the Cimmerian carries on!
It's becoming more difficult to say anything about these books other than, "It's more of the same." If there is a difference to be noticed, I do see more instances of Conan being a leader rather than lone adventurer. While the Jordan pastiches definitely saw Conan lead a group of mercenaries, this is the first of the Lancer/Ace books to have Conan take on the general role so often. There's also quite a bit more intrigue, as the hero gets involved with all kinds of royalty and nobles of the nations he roams through.
I'm also starting to see some of Howard's desires for a historical action hero with these tales, as he describes the battle tactics and strategies of the various sides. This doesn't feel so much like fantasy as it does historical war fiction, at times. Of course, there are plenty of sorcerers and witches to contend with, but they seem to largely take a backseat after their actions instigate the plot. The last story, "A Witch Is Born," seems to have all of this and more, including an iconic, grisly scene of Conan being left crucified on the side of the road, only to survive the punishment through luck and his barbarian endurance.
The one story that does seem quite different is "Shadows in the Moonlight" (also known as "Iron Shadows in the Moon"). Here we see Conan fleeing with some outcast princess to a strange island in the middle of the Villayet sea, only to discover the horrors there, including some cursed statues that can come to life, and a large, ape-like creature who throws large stones and stays in the shadows of the island's jungles. It almost feels like a Tarzan story, of all things.
For this part of the journey, Conan emerges from the south, spending most of his time in the middle-eastern tinged lands of Shem, Turan, and Khauran. Despite having been here earlier, it's interesting to see how much more there is this part of the world that hadn't been explored before this point. While I may not be getting much from the stories themselves, they're still weaving an interesting tapestry of lands, nations, and cultures in the background.
At this point, the continuity is starting to get a little messy. There are times where it seems like Conan has a set course or goal at the end of a story, only to end up elsewhere at the beginning of the next one. Here, we see our hero wandering around the lands of Shem and Turan, with more middle-eastern-inspired stories of war and adventure.
Unfortunately, I don't know if this set of stories is quite as strong as the ones that were in Freebooter. Some of them have this tendency to provide a lot of set up, often through other characters, and the Conan shows up for the finale to kick butt and do little else. While these extended up set ups do quite a bit to establish a lot of the lore of the world, it's hard to feel invested when Conan just happens to be around at the right place and time for the adventure to happen.
Still, there were parts I enjoyed. "Shadows of Zamboula" (also known as "The Man-eaters of Zamboula") is the stand-out tale here, featuring some pretty clever misdirection and a decent sense of horror, dealing with a cult of cannibals who like eating wanderers. "The Flame Knife" wasn't bad either, despite being a different Howard tale being rewritten by de Camp into a Conan one. It does a decent job of putting Conan into unique scenarios and testing his wits and courage to get out of them. The version of Wanderer I read also had "The Star of Khoraja," which turned out to be good as well, featuring an outcast princess and a heroic last stand in a fortress. Perhaps he will eventually return to his homeland of Cimmeria as he said he would, but all this sidetracking is getting a little tedious.
After slogging through another mixed bag of short stories, I was looking forward to reading another Roland Green novel, as I did like Guardian quite a bit. However, it turns out that the novels can be just as weak as some of the short stories, as this one really struggles to maintain my attention.
The first problem is the constant switching between scenes between Conan's tale, and the situation going on in this hidden valley that contains the titular Mists of Doom. You barely get through 1-3 pages of something going on before it arbitrarily jumps to the other side of the story, only to come back, picking up right where it left off. And this goes on for several chapters! This kind of writing makes sense if there's a sense of parallel symbols to follow between the two narratives, but there's nothing like that. There's no reason for these scenes to be portrayed side-by-side! The result is a very jarring read as you're scrambling to remember what was going on before you got cut off by the last switch.
Second, the descriptions are strange. While I did acknowledge that Roland's writing was a little dry in Guardian, here he often uses a lot of oblique or roundabout descriptions, making it difficult to understand who is where and doing what. As a consequence, the early action scenes barely hold together in my mind, as Conan and his buddies just seem to keep running into enemies for whatever reason. Geography and tactics are implied, but never really made clear.
The final problem is pacing. While it's clear that the ultimate goal is to get Conan to this hidden valley in the Kezankian Mountains, it takes too long to get to that point. The novel starts off with Conan running away from some Turanian soldiers, but it turns out the Turanian captain was looking to recruit Conan to help him with some political intrigue that happens to include the Mists of Doom. However, this takes several chapters to reveal and resolve, resulting in a bunch of action scenes that don't really matter in the end. There are a few twists later on that expand on the intrigue, but it really does feel like the first half of the novel is outright filler, as it could have easily been dropped. It's not until nearly the end where Conan finally gets to the Mists of Doom, only for the story to resolve itself nearly without him. It was almost as if the Lady of the Mists and her captain-turned-lover Muhbaras were the real main characters all along as it is their actions that seem to bring things to a haphazard ending. Overall, the result is a book that never seems to be where it needs to, resulting in a lot of build-up without very much pay off. It's a shame, too, as there are some decent ideas in here, but they seem so poorly cobbled together I can't help but wonder if they wouldn't have been better as separate novellas or short stories or something.
So after the abysmal Mists of Doom, I was eager to get back into the shorter stories again. This one gets back to more of the adventuring side of Conan's career (as the title indicates), as he finds himself more on his own or in a small group than leading a group of mercenaries or soldiers. "The People of the Black Circle" in particular has a section at the end where he and a few others storm a sorcerer's castle. The other stories feature him facing more bizarre horrors, sometimes with others, sometimes on his own. (The version I read also had "The Gem in the Tower," which was another decent, if familiar, tale of taking on the supernatural in a tower near a jungle.)
"Drums of Tombalku" is one that stands out, as it has a different main character. It focuses on an Aquilonian named Amalric who first rescues a girl and has an adventure of his own before meeting Conan and getting caught up in the intrigues that the barbarian often finds himself in. It's interesting to see Conan from more of an outside perspective, especially in contrast to Amalric's own goals, as it really shows just how much of a whirlwind the barbarian is wherever he goes.
At this point, I think I'm finally getting into a bit of a groove with these short pieces. Conan isn't really a deep or interesting character (as by design), but he does end up being an interesting set of eyes to explore and examine this curious-yet-recognizable Hyborean Age, as he travels west to east and back again across all kinds of lands and meeting all kinds of people's and cultures. I don't know if there's really any meaning beyond having a familiar character go to interesting places, but I can't deny the simple appeal they have.
As I've been reading these books, I've slowly been putting together some ideas about the material, as I do think there are some threads that lightly bind all these stories together. While it may seem like a mistake to read too deeply into what is essentially fluff (regardless of what decade in which it was published), in an effort to maintain the continuity, I do think these various authors, whether by intention or not I don't know, have haphazardly assembled some interesting themes that generally run through the continuity. For what it's worth, I do plan on having an article that wraps up this binge-based endeavor by discussing what I thought stood out, at least from a big picture perspective. It probably won't be the most comprehensive analysis, as I'll only be reading about a third of the material that's out there, but I figured it would be worth taking the time to summarize my thoughts on what I've read. At the very least, it will be another article for me to write during the year, as I try to be more active on this blog site. Until then, I don't really know what I'll publish next, but I'm sure I'll get something else on this blog sooner or later.
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