The Weird Tales of Conan the Barbarian

The Weird Tales of Conan The Barbarian by Robert E. Howard- These stories first appeared in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930's and haven't aged a bit in their colorful prose and their audacious invention. Yes, they are very grandiose and pulpy, but Howard had a knack for moving the story along with his verbose narration and electrifying his scenes with tense dialogue and intense action. Along with L. Sprague De Camp and Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard invented the Sword & Sorcery genre that has blossomed into a major branch of Fantasy today. These five tales are just a sampling of the Conan saga, but they are also some of the best. In this volume you will find: The Devil in Iron, The People of the Black Circle, Beyond the Black River, Red Nails, and the Hour of the Dragon. All full of dark sorcery and flashing blades. In The Hour of the Dragon, a full length novel, a group of lords and sorcerers conjure a long dead once powerful mage back to life so that he can help them with their plans to defeat Conan. In The People of the Black Circle, Conan is caught up in the machinations of a group of wizards who rule their land with fear. I remember reading this stuff when it first became popular in the sixties and for me it is an enjoyable revisit. If you're tired of the trilogy-bound plain brown wrapper fantasy offered today, this might be a welcome diversion

Classic Howard great collection

This collection of short stories originally published in Weird Tales from 1934 through 1936 serves as a great introduction to the Conan sword and sorcery epics.

Magic, bloody battles, dark arts, and a healthy dose violence and adventure populate each of the short stories and that of the novel, THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON which rounds out the collection. Whilst there is an element of repetition to each of the stories, they are all entertaining, with THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE and RED NAILS being standouts.

Conan, more a king than barbarian for the most part cuts his way through all manner of enemies in search of a damsel in distress, a Jewell that hold magical power, or a kingdom in need of taking. There's not a lot of depth and, novel and RED NAILS aside, little by way of supporting characters. This is ok though, Conan isn't meant to be a deep and meaningful read - it's meant to be greedily consumed whilst loosing yourself in the fantastical world he resides and conquers.

I've used the term 'popcorn pulp' many times in other reviews and THE WEIRD TALES OF CONAN THE BARBARIAN is just that, albeit a little more meaty given the number of short stories and bonus full length novel readers are treated to.

Classic Conan stories from the original author. Good selection.

Robert E. Howard wrote 21 Conan the Barbarian stories between 1932 and his suicide in 1936, 17 of them published in the pulp adventure magazine [[ASIN:0760704031 Weird Tales]]. This collection reprints five of those stories--two short stories and three novella-length tales that were serialized in the magazine. Most modern readers will know Conan through adaptations of the character by later writers, or by re-edited versions of the original. These are the raw stories as they originally appeared.

Howard was a barely adequate writer and the literary quality of his work is inferior to that of later Conan authors, but there is an undeniable energy and originality in these tales. Despite their flaws, they were hugely influential, giving birth to the [[ASIN:1616960698 Sword & Sorcery]] genre.

The early Conan stories are formative and uneven in quality. They are followed by a middle period of hastily written and forgettable works, one of which, The Devil in Iron, is included here. It is a mash-up of three unrelated plots, none very compelling on its own. It is full of inconsistencies. Worst of all for the genre it is badly paced, a lot of creeping around followed by sporadic and unsatisfying action, never leading anywhere. The only interest this story retains is to give a flavor of the run-of-the-mill pulp stories of the era, which is often overlooked by modern readers only familiar with the best authors and characters to emerge from its pages.

Fortunately, that is the low point of the collection. The remaining stories are all among the best Howard Conan stories, and all represent interesting experiments. The People of the Black Circle has a setting reminiscent of northeastern Afghanistan in the Harappan period around 4,000 years ago. Conan stories are set in imaginary universes loosely based on historical settings--the best stories are reasonably true to an identifiable real period, while the worst ones are bland amalgams of pulp clichés. The story manages to combine an epic sweep with credible intimacy and a solid supernatural base. It's full of rousing action and even has a hint of a point. The female character, Devi Yasmina, is as strong as any of Conan's companions, and develops more. Of course, she is still subject to the usual humiliations of the genre.

Beyond the Black River is set in the Jacksonian period in North America, although the natives are called "Picts" and the settlers use bows and arrows instead of guns. Conan plays the part of an Indian scout for an Army regiment manning an undersupported frontier fort under threat by an unforeseen alliance of local tribes. This classic Western plot is liberally spiced with magic and a pessimistic rebuttal of Jacksonian expansionism, the dark side of manifest destiny.

Red Nails was Howard's last Conan story, and the most pessimistic. It features more sex, sadism and graphic violence than most other Conan stories (the cover illustration had two topless dark-haired women holding down a naked blond woman, while a third dark-haired woman prepared to stab the blond, not a man, sword or sorcerer to be seen). Although entirely ahistorical it is one of the few Howard stories that might be called thought-provoking.

The longest story in the book, The Hour of the Dragon, is set in the period of the Hundred Years War, although without guns or religion. It has no particular historical or philosophic point, but it's the most complete Conan story. It begins with Conan as King of Aquilonia (in nearly all other Conan stories he is a wandering mercenary, or at most, the temporary chief of a band of marauders or pirates). Conan is defeated in battle by magic, then imprisoned in a frightful dungeon and menaced by a supernatural ape. The story concerns his escape with the help of a love-struck concubine, and subsequent long odyssey to regain his throne. The story has more interesting characters and a tighter weave of events than anything else Howard wrote.

There are strong whiffs of racism (the conventional racism of the times). The women are scantily clad and often find themselves helpless in the grip of male abductors, or stripped, tied and whipped, or threatened with unnamed perversions; but most of them will grab a sword and hack away to escape degradation and to seize treasure and power. There is a lot of archaic and poetic language, but unlike [[ASIN:0547928211 J. R. R. Tolkien]] there is no consistency or wit behind it--a medieval French term can be found in a tale set in Iron Age Anatolia, next to some late Roman slang, with place names cribbed from 19th century India; for undemanding readers it adds up to pleasing fantasy patois.

Overall, this is a good introduction to the original Conan, which makes it also a good introduction to Sword and Sorcery tales in general. It's not great writing, but it's seldom dull or imitative.