The Complete Chronicles of Conan
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:22 am
Published by Gollancz, the this volume did not come cheap, but is a complete and faithful reproduction of the original Conan stories by Robert E Howard as they appeared in the Weird magazine (and others) back in what, the 1930's.
And gosh what a breath of fresh air they are. I think it would be correct to say that Howard effectively invented the genre of Sword and Sorcery in these tales, which see the brooding and primal Conan carving his way through the murderous landscape he occupies with never a thought for political correctness or equality of any kind, gender or otherwise. I'm about four or five tales in - about half to an hours reading in each - and I'm loving it. The history of the lands we travel through is given in the first, prologue chapter if you like, in which the various races and nations we will encounter are given and a description of the complex movements of the peoples therein related.
And boy is it a bloody one! Having set the scene we plunge in and before you know it are swept away in Howard's rich descriptions and detailed accounting of the events therein. Never before or since have palaces been so gilded, jewels piled so high and golden caskets been so overflowing, never before have maidens been so comely, nor so willing to submit to the animal magmatism of strong hands gripping fragile waists. Never before have sorcerers been so perfidious, evil so manifest of sheer brute force so expressed. Conan is a force of nature, unflinching in his judgement, always accepting of the shadow of death that lurks constantly over his shoulder waiting it's chance to snatch him up, and as comfortable with its presence as you and I are with an old pair of slippers.
Not for everyone perhaps in these days of higher sensibilities, but for those for whom it is a mountain they can climb, the Chronicles of Conan represent the peak of the genre, a transportation however brief, into the feral being that deep within us, we would all secretly wished to have been.
And gosh what a breath of fresh air they are. I think it would be correct to say that Howard effectively invented the genre of Sword and Sorcery in these tales, which see the brooding and primal Conan carving his way through the murderous landscape he occupies with never a thought for political correctness or equality of any kind, gender or otherwise. I'm about four or five tales in - about half to an hours reading in each - and I'm loving it. The history of the lands we travel through is given in the first, prologue chapter if you like, in which the various races and nations we will encounter are given and a description of the complex movements of the peoples therein related.
And boy is it a bloody one! Having set the scene we plunge in and before you know it are swept away in Howard's rich descriptions and detailed accounting of the events therein. Never before or since have palaces been so gilded, jewels piled so high and golden caskets been so overflowing, never before have maidens been so comely, nor so willing to submit to the animal magmatism of strong hands gripping fragile waists. Never before have sorcerers been so perfidious, evil so manifest of sheer brute force so expressed. Conan is a force of nature, unflinching in his judgement, always accepting of the shadow of death that lurks constantly over his shoulder waiting it's chance to snatch him up, and as comfortable with its presence as you and I are with an old pair of slippers.
Not for everyone perhaps in these days of higher sensibilities, but for those for whom it is a mountain they can climb, the Chronicles of Conan represent the peak of the genre, a transportation however brief, into the feral being that deep within us, we would all secretly wished to have been.
