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Book Details

Conan

85.7% complete
1967
2019
1 time
Short stories, English
See 10
Introduction
Letter from R E Howard to P S Miller
|The Hyborian Age, Part 1
1 - The Thing in the Crypt
2 - The Tower of the Elephant
3 - The Hall of the Dead
4 - The God in the Bowl
5 - Rogues in the House
6 - The Hand of Nergal
7 - Chains of Shamballah
Book Cover
Has a genre Has comments Has an extract Has a year read Has a rating In my library In a series 
2294
 Conan*
#1 of 12
Conan*     See series as if on a bookshelf
A series of books about Conan the Cimmerian written by Robert E Howard, L Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.  This is the core series of books which are all from or based on stories or notes by Robert E Howard.

1) Conan
2) Conan of Cimmeria
3) Conan the Freebooter
4) Conan the Wanderer
5) Conan the Adventurer
6) Conan the Buccaneer
7) Conan the Warrior
8) Conan the Usurper
9) Conan the Conqueror
10) Conan the Avenger
11) Conan of Aquilonia
12) Conan of the Isles
Copyright © 1967 by L. Sprague de Camp
No dedication.
Of that epoch known by the Nemedian chroniclers as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age, little is known except the latter part, and that is veiled in the mists of legendry.
May contain spoilers
"Well, I will never, never underestimate a Cimmerian again!"
Comments may contain spoilers
The letter from Howard to Miller was published in The Coming of Conan, copyright 1953 by Gnome Press.
The Hyborian Age, Part 1 was originally published in The Phantagraph in 1936. 
The Tower of the Elephant was orignally published in Weird Tales, copyright 1933 by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. 
The Hall of the Dead was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1967, copyright © 1966 by Mercury Press, Inc. 
The God in the Bowl was originally published in Space Science Fiction in 1952, copyright 1952 by Space Publications, Inc. 
Rogues in the House was originally published in Weird Tales in 1934 and is copyright 1934 by Popular Fiction Publishing Co.

The biographical paragraphs between stories are based on A Probable Outline of Conan's Career by P Schuyler Miller and Dr John D Clark.

I thought I'd give Conan a try once again.  When I was in high school I wanted to but I like to read things in "order" whatever that may be.  I couldn't figure out where to start with Conan (that was before the internet when you couldn't look up trivial things like that anywhere) so I never tried.  So now I've decided to read just the Lancer/Ace books by Howard, Carter and de Camp.  I may move on to more from here though.
Extract (may contain spoilers)
Fot two days the wolves had trailed him through the woods, and now they were closing in again.  Looking back over his shoulder, the boy caught glimpses of them: shaggy, hulking shapes of shadowy gray, loping amongst the black tree trunks, with eyes that burned like red coals in the gathering murk.  This time, he knew, he could not fight them off as he had done before.

He could not see very far, because all around him rose, like the silent soldiers of some bewitched army, the trunks of millions of black spruces.  Snow clung in dim, white patches to the northern slopes of the hills, but the gurgle of thousands of rills from melting snow and ice presaged the coming of spring.  This was a dark, silent, gloomy world even in high summer; and now, as the dim light from the overcast faded with the approach of dusk, it seemed more somber than ever.

The stripling ran on, up the heavily wooded slope, as he had run for the two days since he had fought his way out of the Hyperborean slave pen.  Although a purebred Cimmerian, he had been one of a band of raiding Æsir, harrying the borders of the Hyperboreans.  The gaunt, blond warriors of that grim land had trapped and smashed the raiding party; and the boy Conan, for the first time in his life, had tasted the bitterness of the chains and the lash that were the normal lot of the slave.

He had not, however, long remained in slavery.  Working at night while others slept, he had ground away at one link of his chain until it was weak enough for him to snap.  Then, during a heavy rainstorm, he had burst loose.  Whirling a four-foot length of heavy, broken chain, he had slain his overseer and a soldier who had sprung to block his way, and vanished into the downpour.  The rain that hid him from sight also baffled the hounds of the search party sent after him.

Although free for the moment, the youth had found himself with half the breadth of a hostile kingdom between him and his native Cimmeria.  So he had fled south into the wild, mountainous country that separated the southern marches of Hyperborea from the fertile plains of Brythunia and the Turanian steppes.  Somewhere to the south, he had heard, lay the fabulous kingdom of Zamora - Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery.  There stood famous cities: the capital, Shadizar, called the City of Wickedness; the thief-city of Arenjun; and Yezud, the city of the spider god.

The year before, Conan had had his first taste of the luxuries of civilization when, as one of the blood-mad horde of Cimmerian clansmen that had poured over the walls of Venarium, he had taken part in the sack of that Aquilonian outpost.  The taste had whetted his appetite for more.  He had no clear ambition or program of action; nothing but vague dreams of desperate adventures in the rich lands of the South.  Visions of glittering gold and jewels, unlimited food and drink, and the hot embraces of beautiful women of noble birth, as his prizes of valor, flitted through his naive young mind.  In the South, he thought, his hulking size and strength should somehow easily bring him fame and fortune among the city-bred weaklings.  So he headed south, to seek his fate with no more equipment than a tattered, threadbare tunic and a length of chain.

And then the wolves had caught his scent.  Ordinarily, an active man had little to fear from wolves.  But this was the end of winter; the wolves, starving after a bad season, were ready for any desperate chance.

 

Added: 30-Jul-2019
Last Updated: 26-Sep-2024

Publications

 01-Jan-1967
Lancer Books
Mass Market Paperback
In my libraryI read this editionOrder from amazon.comHas a cover imageBook Edition Cover
Date Issued:
Cir 01-Jan-1967
Format:
Mass Market Paperback
Cover Price:
$0.60
Pages*:
221
Read:
Once
Reading(s):
1)   28 Sep 2019 - 9 Oct 2019
Internal ID:
1740
Publisher:
ISBN:
0-441-11630-2
ISBN-13:
978-0-441-11630-0
Printing:
1
Country:
United States
Language:
English
Credits:
Frank Frazetta  - Cover Artist
CONAN AT HIS GREATEST...
EPIC FANTASY AT ITS BEST


"Conan is the superman - or super-barbarian, rather - into whom the prolific Robert Erwin Howard was best able to inject his furious dreams of danger and power and unending adventure, of combative and sexual prowess, of hot impulses instantly followed, yet a fighting man's code never broken.  Conan is a true hero of Valhalla, battling and suffering great wounds by day, carousing and wenching by night, and plunging into fresh adventures tomorrow.  While the Hyborian Age through which Conan cuts his bloody swath is the most fully realized of Howard's fantasy worlds; mapped, geographically and economically plausible, provided with a stirring history and prehistory covering many cultures, and peopled by kings and beggars, peasants and poets, hags and queens and lusty girls, as well as warriors and warlocks."  - FRITZ LEIBER

HERE ARE SEVEN OF THE MOST EXCITING
CONAN STORIES, INCLUDING THREE
NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED ANYWHERE


Meet Conan, the gigantic adventurer from Cimmeria - and discover one of the greatest thrills in modern fiction!  With important background material, and a new, more detailed introduction by :. Sprague de Camp.
Cover:
Book CoverBook Back CoverBook Spine
Notes and Comments:
First printing assumed

"The City of Skulls" is titled "Chains of Shamballah" in the contents
Spine has "5" for volume 5 of the set even though it is later numbered 1.

Other book covers for this series run

Image File
01-Jan-1967
Lancer Books
Mass Market Paperback

Related

Author(s)

 Lin Carter
Birth: 09 Jun 1930 St. Petersburg, Florida, US
Death: 07 Feb 1988 Montclair, New Jersey, US

Notes:
Lin Carter (June 9, 1930 - February 7, 1988) was born and raised in St Petersburg, Florida.  He later returned there after serving in the US Army  in the Korean Conflict where he received a Purple Heart.  He moved to New  York City and attended Columbia University in 1953 and 1954.  He worked as  a copywriter for law firms, ad agencies, and book publishers.  In 1969 he  became a full-time writer, editor and anthologist of fantasy & science  fiction until his death in February 7, 1988.

Fantasy was Carter's great favorite genre and the most of his writings were about "Swords and Sorcery".  He began writing stories while in high school with L Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs and J.R.R. Tolkien being his major influences.

Lin became an editor at Ballantine Books where he reprinted many of his earlier works.  Dell and DAW also published a lot of Lin Carter's stories.

 L Sprague de Camp
Birth: 27 Nov 1907 New York City, New York, USA
Death: 06 Nov 2000 Plano, Texas, USA


 Robert E Howard
Birth: 22 Jan 1906 Peaster, Texas, USA
Death: 11 Jun 1936

Awards

No awards found
*
  • I try to maintain page numbers for audiobooks even though obviously there aren't any. I do this to keep track of pages read and I try to use the Kindle version page numbers for this.
  • Synopses marked with an asterisk (*) were generated by an AI. There aren't a lot since this is an iffy way to do it - AI seems to make stuff up.
  • When specific publication dates are unknown (ie prefixed with a "Cir"), I try to get the publication date that is closest to the specific printing that I can.
  • When listing chapters, I only list chapters relevant to the story. I will usually leave off Author Notes, Indices, Acknowledgements, etc unless they are relevant to the story or the book is non-fiction.
  • Page numbers on this site are for the end of the main story. I normally do not include appendices, extra material, and other miscellaneous stuff at the end of the book in the page count.






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Presented: 02-Dec-2024 02:20:05

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