Conan the Warrior Review

Conan The Warrior Review

I’ve been going back to my old paperbacks and wanted to get back to the books that inspired me for my comic book creations. One of my pulp heroes is of course Conan. I’ve read some of Conan the Warrior before but not as thoroughly as now. These books need to be reread because Howard's pros are so dense. So much is packed into each short story, paragraph and page. Lots of details and atmosphere as well as how the action is described. The geography also comes into play greatly here:

Red Nails

Characters: Conan, Valeria (Woman Pirate) of the Red Brotherhood

Xotalanc - slain long ago

Olmac - a chieftain

Techotl?

Setting: A great ancient building in a desolate city surrounded by dense inhospitable forests.

It starts out with Conan meeting up with the female pirate Valeria from the Red Brotherhood. They’re a feisty adventure combat team. They witness a scorpion-type creature fighting a dragon. I think that Conan takes down the dragon with poisoned arrows from the scorpion creature because he mentions it in a later chapter (I guess I missed it).

They enter a huge jade tower-city. They encounter Olmec, a kind of head chieftain that develops a sort of fondness for Valeria. He turns out to be a bit crazy. Conan tells him they defeated the dragon outside with poison arrows and he’s astounded because they consider the dragon outside the city-fortress a god. They’ve been living inside the tower city for years and can grow food inside.

There’s also in-fighting between the two tribes over a married woman.

Valeria encounters Yasala, a mysterious woman who tries to drug her with a black lotus flower. She ties her up & whips her to find her motive. She escapes after Valeria releases her. 

Later there’s more feud fighting. Yaneth sees his beheaded family posted up and loses it (understandably) & attacks Conan & kills Topal who also tries to kill him under orders from Olmec.

Meanwhile, Valeria gets attacked by Olmec but gets stopped by Tascela. She hypnotises and drugs him with wine. He becomes paralyzed. Tascela pulls him and harnesses him on a bed of nails torture device & She grabs Valeria and ties her up.

Conan releases Olmec from the nail bed in exchange for the direction Valeria’s in. Olmec leads the way but soon they tussle as soon as Conan leaps ahead when he hears Valeria scream. Olmec punches Conan in the neck, they fall down the stairway and Olmec accidentally snaps his own neck while Conan chokes him.

Meanwhile, a zombie-like Tolkemec shows up & zaps all the worshipers with a magic wand. Conan puts a knife through him & Valeria kills Tascela with her dagger. They kind of chuckle about it afterwards and leave (amusing).

The part where Olmec screws up and punches Conan in the neck, then falls down to his death stood out and was kind of funny. It came off as realistic too, like something that could really happen. Good story but a lot of characters with similar sounding names so it gets confusing. Also, the guy seeing the heads of his family impaled on the wall was pretty dark. One of the darkest stories so far because it uses madness as a theme as well.

Jewels of Gwahlur

Characters: Conan, Thutmekri, Bit-Yaken, Muriela, Zargheba

Setting: Jungle, Cave, Cliffs and Outside Palace.

The next story’s a bit shorter but still packs a punch. Still, more going on in this one then I initially thought after just the first read. Conan meets up with a Stygian adventurer Thutmekri.

We discover a major character, Bit-Yaken. Conan discovers a parchment in his mummified hands. The parchment is a map. He comes upon an outside palace set in a jungle setting up on cliffs. Just think of Machu-Pichu. He hears a gong ring out there but after hearing it, he finds no one there, he falls through the ground afterwards.

Conan meets a woman posing as a goddess. He quickly finds out she’s just a poser. Her name’s Muriela. She was to get the Teeth of Gwahlur for Thutmekri but also for Zargheba who she was supposed to get it for him originally (I think). He’s a slave trader. Muriela poses as a goddess Yelaya again for Conan and Conan discovers a secret passage. It’s an empty chamber. Conan comes across the body of Gwarunga and frees Yelaya and she vanishes, possibly being the real goddess?

The ‘real’? Yelaya chews out Gwarunga & says to give the teeth to Thutmekri the Stygian. The real Yelay tells the worshipers to take the teeth back to Keshia. She says to kill Conan because he’s made the whole place unholy. Conan finds Muriela and helps up this actress girl after the jewels(teeth) fall into the river. The servants of Bit-Yaken are de-evolved beasts who don’t pursue them outside of their palace.

Bit-Yaken found the place and a sort of oracle was made from the body of Yelaya. He used his voice as her to have people bring him the ingredients needed to keep him alive for many years, eventually his servants outlived him after tearing him apart then mummified him.

So that concludes The Jewels of Gwahlur, there’s a bit more (no pun-intended) going on in this story after the second read. I’m not a hundred percent sure if the real goddess steps in or not but due to the sword and sorcery nature of these stories where they flirt with the supernatural, I think it is.

Still, an entertaining story even if it gets a little confusing. All the stories in this book have a lot of characters in them with tough to pronounce names along with some plot twists. Again, I think if there weren't as many characters with weird hard-to-pronounce names it would be easier to follow. The ending stood out though because it felt that it wasn’t really about the jewels after all but about saving ones fellow man or woman from dire consequences.

Beyond the Black River

Characters: Zogar-Sag, Balthus,

Setting: A Defensive Military Fort, Thunder River, the surrounding jungle, the wild frontier

Like Red Nails, this one gets pretty involved…Conan signs up as a scout for the Kingdom of Aquilonia at a post by the Black River in the middle of a war with the Picts.

It turns out that some of the men’s water supply is being poisoned by a pictish wizard named Zogar-Sag as well as a forest-devil beast that is killing them. Their fort is the last line of defense against the wild frontier. Conan asks for men ‘a handful’ to hunt the beast not soldiers, he’ll pick them. 

Great quote at page. 175 “If I can get within ax throwing distance of him, I’ll settle that question,” and “There’s nothing in the universe cold steel won’t cut” and when talking about confronting a demon Conan has this to say, “I’m not going out of my way looking for devils, but I won’t step out of my path to let one go by”.

Conan and crew get attacked while on the river by the once-civilized wild barbarian men. One young crewman gets his throat cut but they fight back. Conan & Balthus encounter a man-eating a Sabretooth tiger & a huge snake? There’s also a great quote on barbarism on pg. 222 “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind.” States the borderer. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance and barbarism must always triumph.”

Conan and Balthus encounter a big leopard which Conan quickly kills with an axe to the head. They’re being tracked by Zogar-Sag.

 A memorable and foreshadowing quote from this story is on page 198 when Balthus asks Conan of his previous travels he states, “I’ve been a mercenary captain, a corsair, a kozak, a penniless vagabond, a general-hell, I’ve been everything except a king of a civilized country, and I may be that before I die“. They strategize with the woodsman, then page 200 there’s a great narration that tells of Conan’s character; A wolf was no less than a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs. Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of life Conan knew; he could not and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women.

 Near the climax, hundreds of Picts attack the fort. An innocent couple is struck down by them. Balthus & his dog to fight off a Pict. Zogar’s brother threatens Conan. He conjures a demon bird who Conan nearly beheads! Conan comes back to the fort and Balthus tells him Zorag was beheaded too. They Lost the fort but Thunder River is the new border.

So wrapping it all up, Conan the Warrior is the biggest and most ambitious Conan book that I’ve read so far. It rewards you on multiple reads. This review, probably, is by no means one-hundred percent accurate but I'm using my best summation from only 2-3 reads however my criticism is that there’s a lot of characters in all three stories. It’s the most detailed and complex of all the books so far. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying that I think I prefer the less complex stories from the first Conan book. The names that are used can be too similar to each other and challenging to pronounce. I’ll see how things go with the other books as I read them. So far I’ve read about 3 of the books, I think. I’ve got some catching up to do.

I'll be doing a video review on my YouTube channel @griffintutoring7 soon so check it out when you get a chance.

The Princess Bride - A One Page Book Review

This review accompanies my YouTube video reviewing the book orally and generally as well. This serves as a tutorial about how to review a book in a simple one-page review as seen in my Writer's Express book. 

You can check it out at the link: Click Here

 Princess Bride One - Page Book Review

What is the book about?

The Princess Bride is a classic fantasy tale about a kidnapped princess forced to marry a cruel prince and her true love Wesley posing as a pirate hunting for her. Along the way Wesley encounters three men that have kidnapped the princess to be married by Prince Humperdink, 

a genius mastermind, an expert fenceman and a giant. 

Wesley finds a way to outwit them one by one and rescues the princess from them. They each have their own motivations why they followed the mastermind. Eventually, Westley and Princess Buttercup get caught by the evil prince and his forces and get separated. Westley is taken into the dungeon and tortured to death. The three men that originally fought Westley change their minds and go to help him. The four of them united try to rescue Buttercup from Prince Humperdink and The Six-Fingered Man.

What is the book’s theme or message?

Can the humble beginnings of true love endure and overcome the realities of money and power? Can former enemies redeem themselves for the better? Will justice prevail? Will true love prevail? 

What do I like about this book?

The dialogue, the dialogue is hilarious and makes the story incredibly easy to follow. This book is not bogged down by unnecessary descriptive detail. It has just enough, just the bare minimum and this lets your imagination fill in the blanks. This makes the story flow much easier and faster.

William Goldman is incredibly easy to read and I like his first-person perspective changes of the grandfather telling the story to his grandkid. The fictional writer S. Morgenstern is a neat way to go into some backstory of some of the world without writing a lot of it out.

Having a good fantasy map is always a plus, the book gives a nice color map of the sea, the cliffs of insanity, the fire swamp, etc..

The fact that there’s NOT heavy world building in it is kind of refreshing. Florin could be set in our world but probably not.

The Paranormal Ranger - Book Review

 Book Review - The Paranormal Ranger

Alright, it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a book on the blog so here I am. This latest book grabbed my attention when I came into the library lobby. I usually don’t go to the books they display but I’ve been into this subject a lot more recently due to things I’ve encountered recently in my own life that I’m curious about. I’m also a fan of odd and paranormal things in general, including the CanAm Missing Project and the 411 Missing series on YouTube. 

In this book, by Stanley Milford Jr. he talks about growing up in two worlds, one of America and the other The Navajo Nation. The unique combination of cultures this brought into his life as well as his early struggles. Also his paranormal experiences came on at an early age. Mysterious things turning themselves on such as a stovetop which would take a good amount of energy to turn on.

Also, odd apports such as material things showing up out of thin air such as a satanic book on a shelf.

When he gets into his late teens or early twenties he gives an old man a ride home from the drive-in movies. Maximum Overdrive out of all of them. He drops the guy off seemingly in the middle of nowhere and moments later, when he’s driving down the desert highway, he spots an animalistic creature running up to his car doing about 60 miles per hour. It’s a wolf-like creature with fangs and the whole nine-yards. It’s like something from an 80’s werewolf film. Eventually, it leaves him alone but the whole book has bits and parts of that kind of stuff in it.

Throughout the book there are neat little Navajo stories about creation and how humans came to be. Of course much of the history is very cryptic. I guess you could try to break down the symbolism of it but a lot of it was too huge to take literally and I couldn’t put it together with the context of the time. I’m sure some Navajo scribes could break down what was meant. It’s easy to get lost in it. Again, these chapters were nice little breaks in the reading. It helped absorb the information between chapters.

I really liked the pictures included in the middle of the book. They’re a series of pictures of Stanley on patrol, Bigfoot tracks & plasters, Bigfoot hair, UFO lights in the sky, his sketches of the wolf creature that chased him (he’s a good artist), Bigfoot, a Grey alien, American coins that fell out of the air and a knife that came out of its butcher block and shot into a grapefruit across the kitchen.

He discusses the interviews he had with an old man and his dog who witnessed a hovering spacecraft in his backyard as well as aliens. The man’s dog unfortunately passes afterwards. I’ve heard this story before so this must’ve been the origin of it. He goes into the Satan Butte Phenomena in Navajo County in Arizona. It’s the place where there’s that flat seemingly cut-off mountaintop as seen in the movie Close Encounters of The Third Kind. He talks about skinwalker activity there and a man who’s been cursed by one which was fascinating.

In conclusion, it’s an amazing book from someone that’s lived the disciplined life of a Navajo Ranger. He could be trying to sell books but I really doubt it. He’s a very credible source and has lived a very transparent and earnest life. The book goes a little off topic of the paranormal when he talks about some of the drug raids and a murdering militia but it gets back on board with the spooky stuff again.

I recommend it, it’s full of authentic stories and a point-of-view telling of his life growing up as a Navajo and as an American Ranger. My hats off to his service. Being a Ranger covers a lot of disciplines and can be very dangerous. What an interesting life he has led so far and what an eye-opener his paranormal interactions have been.

Check out my video version of the review here:

https://youtu.be/LU82GI3YitU?si=8O0C9t3DdU9lvwYu

Progress, Finally

So, lot’s of progress has been made on Rage 4.5. I’ve been trying to get it down to one page a week. Sometimes I can pull it off, other times not so much. When you work a steady job with set hours you can have little left in the tank for the creative arts.

The main thing is focus. Focus is what you need to keep you on task and away from distraction. I know I’ve mentioned it here before so I won’t over expand on it again…

Update: The penciling on Rage #4.5 has finished and I’ve finally moved onto Rage #5. Now the thumbnails aren’t done yet, but I can’t wait for them all to be done first because I have an tentative deadline of mid April (15th) of 2025 to get it done. I’ve mostly been doing a page a week but I need to do at least 2 pages a week at the very least to hit the deadline.

Also, I have a new website focused on Rage and my 10-Second Drawing book.

It’s ragingcomics.com. It’s a pretty basic Wordpress website. Normally, I would never do Wordpress but in this case I had to because it was the cheapest. I did this from a recommendation of a colleague of mine. He said it’s a good name for a website so I went with it. Let me know what you think. I plan to update it more with tidbits about Rage and his world. So far I have a short bio that includes his physical appearance and powers. I might draw up some other characters and list their powers and abilities too.

I wish it was easier to update the website but it's still pretty frustrating. It’s not as intuitive as it should be. Wix is much easier with its drag n’ drop but it costs a lot more per month/year. 

You can buy Rage #4 here for print or digital download.

https://www.indyplanet.com/rage-4

In the meantime, great ideas for Rage #6 & 7 are slowly taking shape. So like David Lynch would recommend, I’ll get the net out, catch those fishes and write them down for later. So grateful that the ideas are coming. Rage really has a story that he wants to convey and I got more direction about how to get there. Of course, I still gotta figure out as a storyteller how the characters get from A to B to C. That will all come in time. I gotta whole lot of work cut out for me with inking, doing sound effects and word balloons PLUS I gotta put the first 5-6 issues in a graphic novel collection. That’s not as easy as one would think! File uploads to Lulu anyone?

Anyway, thanks for reading this. It’s been easily a year since I’ve written anything here which is terrible. Do you draw reader? Do you draw comics? What are some of your stumbling blocks to finishing them? Comment below if anybody’s reading this and remember movin’ slow is still movin’.

 

Still Writing...And One More Video

Well, still writing the short story but in the meantime here’s the latest video on using comma’s as addressed in a QuickStudy guide that you find in bookstores. It’s such a helpful tool and saves a lot of page turning. I have about 1 more video to shoot on comma’s to tie them all together, stay tuned for that.

It's always a challenge writing a one page story. Not easy, but that's why I do it, to challenge myself. I'll get the story done eventually. I might even make a video on writing it too.

Comma’s are something that have plagued me for quite some time.

YouTube Link: Latest Comma Video

The Comma Series: Part 5 Nonessential Appositive Example

New Griffin Video!

    Finally after about 4 years I've finally put together a new video for Griffin Tutoring on YouTube! Why so long you say? It's because I've been focusing on my other channels, especially 10-Second Cartooning where I teaching drawing and cartooning. This one is more about learning grammar, punctuation, reading and writing, so basically English Language Arts but done in a fun way (hopefully). This video continues the lessons on the comma which I started about 4 years ago.

    Also, if you go on the channel and notice some of my ukulele videos where I explain how to do a simple chord stroke. I'll keep doing those vids too.

    I'll try to do at least a few videos a month but my cartooning channel still has to come first.

    Here's the link if you like it subscribe, you know the deal:

https://youtu.be/nW1wdqhKcmI 

    Looking forward to making some more vids, these will be educational. When I do these vids it's good for me because I'm reminding myself the rules of grammar, punctuation, writing, comprehension and more! It's like a refresher. Hope you'll follow me on that journey.

New Short Story Coming

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, I’m currently writing a short, short story in the spirit of Halloween with the working title The Salesman. I’ll make an audio version of it eventually, it should be a fun story.

I used an interesting method for coming up with it. I don’t want to spoil the story but I liked how I came up with it and I used the ‘Hat Method’ that some indie filmmakers use. This simple but effective technique is great and keep one from overthinking a story plot and has a jumping point from which to start writing from.

Sometimes though you just gotta get in there and start writing too. It’s easy to get analysis paralysis. Also, I don’t want the story to be too long. Sometimes, even the shortest of stories can get out of hand.

Hopefully my next post will be a decent draft of it.