Conan the Swordsman (and more!)
Conan the Swordsman
Conan the Swordsman by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and Björn Nyberg
Bantam, 1st printing, 1978
274 pages
Genre: fantasy, adventure, sword & sorcery
Synopsis & Review: Before he wore the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow, Conan the Cimmerian (or more popularly, Conan the Barbarian) traveled the Hyborian world. From Asgard in the north to Vendhya in the east he wandered, from southern Stygia to the Barachan Isles of the west, and into the Pictish Wilderness. He was a thief, a pirate, a mercenary, and a general. He battled men, demons, and monsters. He was Conan the Swordsman.
Oh, hells yes. In theory. You see, though Robert E. Howard created Conan, after his too-shirt career and too-early death, the Conan stories became a lucrative franchise, with more stories, novels, and even comics, games, movies, and television series, both animated and live action. These later pastiches were written by the likes of L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Björn Nyberg, Robert Jordan, Poul Anderson, Leonard Carpenter, and Harry Turtledove, among others. Some of Howard’s original works were even expurgated of some content, and also revised and rewritten, notably by Cater and de Camp. And in the comics and movies, Conan and the Hyborian world differed noticeably from Howard’s depiction. Due to the vast body of work (over fifty novels and dozens of short stories) and the many and varied writers, there is not even one agreed upon chronology of Conan’s life, but five. Of course the quality varies drastically, some writers being accomplished in their own right, while other efforts are simply elevated fan fiction. click here to continue reading about my Conan adventures
