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.
