The Savage Sword of Conan #3 - Frank Tieri, Patrick Zircher, John C. Hocking, et al.

THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN #3 opens with a long Conan story called “Wolves of the Tundra” written by Frank Tieri and drawn by Cary Nord. I’ve seen Nord’s work before and liked it, and his black-and-white art in this tale, while not as lush as his color work, is quite good and very effective. However, after reading a few pages of the story, Tieri’s script takes a turn that came really close to making me say, “Nope,” and not finishing it. In order for the plot to work, the reader has to accept something that I just couldn’t. To say more would be to venture too far into spoiler territory. Despite that, I actually did read the whole story, and while it never worked for me, I have to admit that the ending did give me a little chuckle. I didn’t care for this story, but as they say, your mileage may vary.

Next up is an excerpt from John C. Hocking’s CONAN: CITY OF THE DEAD, followed by an excellent autobiographical essay by Hocking detailing the background of the two novels in that collection. I’ll read anything Hocking wants to write featuring Conan, or anything else, for that matter. His work is always top-notch.

There’s a nice Howardian poem by Jim Zub with a good illustration, then the conclusion of Patrick Zircher’s three-part Solomon Kane story. The wrap-up of this yarn is just as good as the previous two installments. It’s a very satisfying conclusion to a fine tale.

A short, wordless Conan yarn with story and art by Alan Quah concludes this issue. The art is good, the story wry and entertaining. I don’t know anything about Quah, but he’s done a pretty good job with this one and I’d read more by him.

Despite my complaints about the main story, I enjoyed reading this issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN and I think most Howard fans would, too. I’m looking forward to the next issue.

Conan: City of the Dead - John C. Hocking

CONAN: CITY OF THE DEAD is a new collection available in both hardback and e-book editions that reprints John C. Hocking's original Conan novel, CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, and is the first publication of his sequel CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE. More than ten years ago, I read and reviewed the first of those novels, and then a while after that, I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy of the second. I thought I would revisit slightly updated versions of both of these reviews today.

From August 30, 2013: As a long-time reader and fan of Robert E. Howard's work, a former member of REHupa, and somebody who has written introductions for several volumes of Howard stories, you might expect me to be a strict purist, somebody who doesn't like pastiches featuring Howard's characters and doesn't think such things should be written. Ah, but that would be rather hypocritical of me, considering how the majority of my career has been spent writing about other people's characters, including my own Howard pastiche (the El Borak story "Wolves of the Mountain" in CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE).

So, as with most things, I come down pretty much in the middle on this issue. I have no philosophical objections to pastiches, it's just that most of the ones I've read based on Howard's work aren't very good.

For years, though, I've been meaning to read John C. Hocking's novel CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, which has a pretty favorable reputation even among Howard's most devoted fans. I believe it was Morgan Holmes who first told me that Hocking's book is the best of the Conan pastiches published by Tor. I should have gotten around to it long before now, especially since the author comments from time to time on this very blog. All I can say is that I'm sorry for my procrastination on several levels, the most important of which is that it kept me from reading an excellent novel until now.

CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is a rare thing, a fantasy novel with a strongly realistic tone to it. Sure, there's plenty of swordplay and sorcery, but the tale revolves around a powerful, highly addictive drug, the sort of plot element you might find in a hardboiled crime novel. It's been said that Howard merged a hardboiled voice with horror fiction to create sword-and-sorcery, and Hocking understands that even though he doesn't try to imitate Howard's style. He spins this yarn in brisk, action-packed prose with occasional touches of creepiness and dark humor. Conan, aligned with one of the sorcerers warring over the potent powder known as the Emerald Lotus, is the most admirable character in the novel, and we know what a bad-ass he is.

At the same time, Hocking gives us the sort of spectacle you expect to find in epic heroic fantasy, especially in scenes like the description of sorcerer Ethram-Fal's stronghold in the badlands of ancient Stygia. And speaking of badlands, there are hints of the Western here, too, in the battles between Conan and his enemies in rugged terrain that might well be Monument Valley, Utah. All of it leads up to an apocalyptic and very satisfying climax.

As it turns out, CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is one of the most purely entertaining books I've read all year. Hocking knows his stuff and knows how to tell a fine story.

From August 5, 2019: John C. Hocking is the author of CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, a novel which is widely regarded as the best of the Conan pastiches published by Tor in the Eighties and Nineties. I finally got around to reading it several years ago and agree that it’s easily the best of those pastiches. 

In CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE, Conan is recruited to be part of a small mercenary force headed to the isolated mountain city of Dulcine, which is rumored to have been wiped out by a mysterious plague. But rumors also say that there’s a fortune waiting to be had in Dulcine’s treasure vaults, and an ambitious prince has his eye on that loot. In order to get his hands on it, he hires not only Conan and several other hard-nosed soldiers but also a sorcerer who had something to do with the plague that wiped out the city. Conan hates and distrusts sorcery, of course, but the magic conjured up by this mage Adrastus is the only thing that can get the treasure seekers safely in and out of their destination.

Well, of course, lots of stuff goes wrong. The plague hasn’t wiped out everybody in Dulcine, but the people who are left have been transformed into crazed, bloodthirsty semblances of their former selves. Even worse, a creepy figure who’s actually the living personification of the plague is wandering around the castle where the treasure is supposed to be. Conan and his companions are in constant danger not only from this living plague but also from treachery within their own ranks. Not all of them will make it out alive . . .

Hocking doesn’t try to slavishly imitate Robert E. Howard’s style, although there are Howardian touches to the prose here and there. Instead, he tells the story in his own voice, with well-drawn characters, a head-long pace, and plenty of epic action scenes. I think this is the best approach to pastiche, producing a novel that’s recognizably a Conan tale, steeped in the background and setting Howard created, but in the author’s own distinctive style. Hocking has given us another fine novel, and I certainly hope it won’t be the last. I really enjoyed CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE and give it a very high recommendation.

Neither Beg Nor Yield: Stories With S&S Attitude - Jason M. Waltz, ed. (Part 1)

At almost 500 pages and more than 180,000 words, NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD: STORIES WITH S&S ATTITUDE, from Rogue Blades Entertainment, is the biggest Sword and Sorcery anthology ever published. I’ll be going through it for the next few weeks, a few stories at a time, because with my age-diminished attention span, that’s the best way for me to tackle a big book like this.

First of all, I like the cover by M.D. Jackson, and the interior illustrations he provides are really top-notch. I like them a lot. The same can be said for “It’s Not Gentle”, the introduction by editor and publisher Jason M. Waltz, which does as good a job of nailing down the appeal of Sword and Sorcery as I’ve ever come across.

The first story is “Hunters and Prey” by C.L. Werner, which is set in feudal Japan. Now, I don’t mind admitting that I’m not fond of stories set in Japan, so I might have been inclined not to care much for this one. But Werner is an excellent writer and I enjoyed this yarn quite a bit. I mean, you’ve got an outlaw samurai (Shintaro Oba, one of Werner’s series characters), a disgraced samurai turned bounty hunter, and a spider-demon that lives in the caves inside a mountain. Put those three elements together and of course it’s going to be a good story! I haven’t read much by Werner and I need to read more. His work is very good.

Several years ago I read a collection of Kormak novellas by William King and really enjoyed it. I planned to read more, but somehow (remember that attention span I mentioned above?), that good intention slipped away from me. So I was happy to see a Kormak story in this book, and it's a special one indeed, an origin story of sorts that looks back over Kormak’s life and career as a Guardian, charged with seeking out evil and destroying it. “Prince of Dragons” has a nice elegiac feel to it, along with some good action and a strong protagonist. Once again I say I have to read more of Kormak’s adventures. Maybe this time I’ll actually do it.

“Suspension in Silver” by Eric Turowski features another series character I hadn’t encountered before, the giant, monster-hunting biker known as Irons. “Wait a minute,” you say. “The hero of a sword and sorcery story is a biker? Is he transported to some other realm or what?” Well, you may not have said that, but I thought it when I started reading this one. I’m sort of a purist when it comes to sword and sorcery, and I just wasn’t sure about a story set in what’s basically our world, although it does have werewolves roaming around in Fargo, North Dakota. But again, the excellent, action-packed writing won me over. If sword and sorcery is largely a matter of attitude, the position this anthology takes, then “Suspension in Silver” does indeed qualify. I’m still on the fence about that, to be honest, but is this a good story? Absolutely. I enjoyed it and would gladly read more about Irons.

John C. Hocking is one of my all-time favorite sword and sorcery authors. In “Soldier, Seeker, Slayer”, he introduces a new character, a mutilated former soldier named Creon whose right hand has been replaced by a mystical weapon. Hocking drops us down in the middle of things with very little world-building or explanations of what’s going on, but that’s all right. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that Creon doesn’t really know what’s going on, either. His mind is a jumble of memories—perhaps false—and uncertainty, but he knows he has a job to do and he’s going to do it. Hocking gradually gives us, and Creon, enough information to figure things out on the way to a very satisfying ending. This is an excellent story all the way around, as you’d expect from Hocking.

With these four stories, NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD gets off to a very strong start. I’ll be back in due time with reviews of the next few entries. The e-book edition is available now on Amazon, with print editions in the works.

Conan: Black Starlight

Having read John C. Hocking’s two Conan novels, CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS and CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE (both of which are soon to be published in an omnibus volume, by the way), I expected to like his novella BLACK STARLIGHT, the second in Titan Books’ new series of short fiction based on Robert E. Howard’s characters. I was not disappointed in the least.

BLACK STARLIGHT is a sequel to CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS and finds Conan traveling with three companions: a powerful sorceress, her mute Khitan bodyguard/lover, and a beautiful, knife-throwing scribe. They arrived at a bordertown on the river Styx, intending to cross from Stygia to Shem, but the place turns out to be a ghost town full of dangers, and to survive they have to penetrate a powerful enemy’s stronghold on some cliffs overlooking the Styx.

Hocking’s Conan yarns always feature numerous supernatural menaces, and that’s certainly true in BLACK STARLIGHT. Several different kinds of evil, necromantic creatures threaten the Cimmerian and his friends, and the action scenes as Conan battles to survive are excellent. The sorcerous stuff is genuinely creepy, as well, providing a blend of adventure and horror that works really well. I raced through this novella and really enjoyed it.

BLACK STARLIGHT was serialized previously in one of the Conan comic book series, but since I wasn’t keeping up with the comics at that time, I vaguely knew of its existence but never read it. I’m glad Titan Books has brought it back and published it in stand-alone form. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the best Conan pastiches I’ve read. Available now and highly recommended.

Conan and the Living Plague - John C. Hocking

John C. Hocking is the author of CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, a novel which is widely regarded as the best of the Conan pastiches published by Tor in the Eighties and Nineties. I finally got around to reading it several years ago and agree that it’s easily the best of those pastiches. Hocking wrote a sequel to that book called CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE, but unfortunately, Tor cancelled the Conan pastiche program and Hocking’s second novel was left languishing in limbo.

Until now. A new imprint called Perilous Worlds has started a line of Conan pastiches, and Hocking’s CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE is the first book, rescued at long last. And that’s a very good thing for those of us who are fans of Robert E. Howard and Conan, because it’s an excellent novel.

Conan is recruited to be part of a small mercenary force headed to the isolated mountain city of Dulcine, which is rumored to have been wiped out by a mysterious plague. But rumors also say that there’s a fortune waiting to be had in Dulcine’s treasure vaults, and an ambitious prince has his eye on that loot. In order to get his hands on it, he hires not only Conan and several other hard-nosed soldiers but also a sorcerer who had something to do with the plague that wiped out the city. Conan hates and distrusts sorcery, of course, but the magic conjured up by this mage Adrastus is the only thing that can get the treasure seekers safely in and out of their destination.

Well, of course, lots of stuff goes wrong. The plague hasn’t wiped out everybody in Dulcine, but the people who are left have been transformed into crazed, bloodthirsty semblances of their former selves. Even worse, a creepy figure who’s actually the living personification of the plague is wandering around the castle where the treasure is supposed to be. Conan and his companions are in constant danger not only from this living plague but also from treachery within their own ranks. Not all of them will make it out alive . . .

Hocking doesn’t try to slavishly imitate Robert E. Howard’s style, although there are Howardian touches to the prose here and there. Instead he tells the story in his own voice, with well-drawn characters, a head-long pace, and plenty of epic action scenes. I think this is the best approach to pastiche, producing a novel that’s recognizably a Conan tale, steeped in the background and setting Howard created, but in the author’s own distinctive style. Hocking has given us another fine novel, and I certainly hope it won’t be the last. I really enjoyed CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE and give it a very high recommendation.

UPDATE: I've talked to one of the folks at Perilous Worlds and learned that not only will they be publishing this book, they'll also be reprinting John Hocking's excellent CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS (mentioned above) as well as a lot of other stuff that sounds good, some Robert E. Howard-related, some not. You can check out their website here. THE SONG OF BELIT by Michael Stackpole sounds especially intriguing to me, and I plan to read it when it becomes available.

Now Available: Weird Menace Volume 1

The Weird Menace pulps flourished for less than a decade, from the mid-1930s to the early '40s, but while they were popular, they delivered adventure, excitement, and spine-tingling thrills in quantities rarely seen before or since. Mad scientists, deranged henchmen, damsels in distress, and stalwart heroes raced through their pages in breathless, over-the-top, never-ending action. A good Weird Menace yarn really is just one damned thing after another. 

Rough Edges Press asked some of today's best authors of popular fiction to write Weird Menace stories, and they delivered. Settle back and let us spin a few yarns for you... 

But keep an eye out behind you. You never know when something might be sneaking up on you. 

Stories in this volume include: 
"Bodies for the Brain Butcher" by John C. Hocking 
"A Night on Madhouse Mountain" by Bill Crider 
"The Curse of the Monster Makers!" by Scott Dennis Parker 
"Farmhouse of the Dead" by Keith West 
"The Hideous Blood Ray" by Robert E. Vardeman 
"Blood Treasure for Satan's Buccaneers" by James Reasoner

 

Coming Soon: Weird Menace Volume 1

That cover sort of says it all, doesn't it? And this is only the first volume. Volume 2 will also be out later this month.

UPDATE: When I posted this earlier, there were a couple of things I wasn't sure of, but now I can add the table of contents:

"Bodies for the Brain Butcher", John C. Hocking
"A Night on Madhouse Mountain", Bill Crider
"The Curse of the Monster Makers!", Scott Dennis Parker
"Farmhouse of the Dead", Keith West
"The Hideous Blood Ray", Robert E. Vardeman
"Blood Treasure for Satan's Buccaneers", James Reasoner

Plus I'll write an intro for the book.

Vestments of Pestilence - John C. Hocking

"Vestments of Pestilence" is a new sword-and-sorcery story by John C. Hocking, author of CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, and what an absolute joy it is to read (which you can do right here, in fact). This story is part of a series about a character known to the reader only as The Archivist, who is sent by the archive for which he works to investigate and/or recover various artifacts found in the more uncivilized parts of the world where he lives. Accompanying him on these adventures is his bodyguard and companion, the female soldier Lucella.

In this particular yarn, The Archivist and Lucella have returned to civilization only to find themselves immediately drawn into a clash between two members of the royal family, a brother and sister who are bitter rivals and who have tried to kill each other in the recent past. The princess coerces The Archivist and Lucella into helping her get her hands on an artifact from the old Southron civilization that may contain sorcerous power.

Of course, with a street gang, an oily "astrographer", a sinister tower, and a plague demon in the mix, things don't really go all that smoothly, and The Archivist and Lucella will need all the brains, cold steel, and courage they can muster to survive.

The plot of this story is traditional sword-and-sorcery, but the prose is pure hardboiled action writing of the best sort, reminiscent of, yes, Robert E. Howard and the fantasy novels written by Ben Haas under the names Richard Meade and Quinn Reade. I'm sure most of you knew I was going there, but dang it, it's true. Hocking is that good. There are touches of humor as well, and The Archivist and Lucella are very appealing characters. I really hope that eventually Hocking will put together a collection of this and the other stories about this duo, because I'm eager to read them.

For now, if you haven't already you should head over to the Black Gate website and read "Vestments of Pestilence". If you're a fan of action-packed heroic fantasy, I guarantee you'll be entertained. 

Forgotten Books: Conan and the Emerald Lotus - John C. Hocking

As a long-time reader and fan of Robert E. Howard's work, a former member of REHupa, and somebody who has written introductions for several volumes of Howard stories, you might expect me to be a strict purist, somebody who doesn't like pastiches featuring Howard's characters and doesn't think such things should be written. Ah, but that would be rather hypocritical of me, considering how the majority of my career has been spent writing about other people's characters, including my own Howard pastiche (the El Borak story "Wolves of the Mountain" in CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE).

So, as with most things, I come down pretty much in the middle on this issue. I have no philosophical objections to pastiches, it's just that most of the ones I've read based on Howard's work aren't very good.

For years, though, I've been meaning to read John C. Hocking's novel CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, which has a pretty favorable reputation even among Howard's most devoted fans. I believe it was Morgan Holmes who first told me that Hocking's book is the best of the Conan pastiches published by Tor. I should have gotten around to it long before now, especially since the author comments from time to time on this very blog. All I can say is that I'm sorry for my procrastination on several levels, the most important of which is that it kept me from reading an excellent novel until now.

CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is a rare thing, a fantasy novel with a strongly realistic tone to it. Sure, there's plenty of swordplay and sorcery, but the tale revolves around a powerful, highly addictive drug, the sort of plot element you might find in a hardboiled crime novel. It's been said that Howard merged a hardboiled voice with horror fiction to create sword-and-sorcery, and Hocking understands that even though he doesn't try to imitate Howard's style. He spins this yarn in brisk, action-packed prose with occasional touches of creepiness and dark humor. Conan, aligned with one of the sorcerers warring over the potent powder known as the Emerald Lotus, is the most admirable character in the novel, and we know what a bad-ass he is.

At the same time, Hocking gives us the sort of spectacle you expect to find in epic heroic fantasy, especially in scenes like the description of sorcerer Ethram-Fal's stronghold in the badlands of ancient Stygia. And speaking of badlands, there are hints of the Western here, too, in the battles between Conan and his enemies in rugged terrain that might well be Monument Valley, Utah. All of it leads up to an apocalyptic and very satisfying climax.

As it turns out, CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is one of the most purely entertaining books I've read all year. Hocking knows his stuff and knows how to tell a fine story. I had such a good time with this I'm actually tempted to read some of the other Conan pastiches. But that might not be such a good idea, since I have a pretty strong hunch I've already read the best of them.