Conan
1967
- english short stories
- shortstories, english
- fantasy fiction, american
- fiction
- conan (fictitious character)
- american fantasy fiction
- english shortstories
- conan (fictitious character), fiction
- fiction, fantasy, general
- cimmeria (imaginary place), fiction
The story
Conan is a 1967 collection of seven fantasy short stories and associated pieces written by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories were originally published in various pulp magazines.
What it’s like
Hard-edged pulp prose with a storyteller's bluntness: short declarative sentences, lurid similes, and a sword-and-sorcery sensibility that runs on campfire momentum rather than lyric description. The sensory world is one of sun-scorched steppe, stone cities with smoke-stained towers, torchlit taverns, and ancient ruins where the dark feels thick and old. Sound lives in clashing steel, war cries, and the hush before an ambush, and the mood tilts between rough swagger and unease about whatever lurks past the firelight. Violence is frequent and vivid, with blood, beheadings, and brutal close-quarter fights, while sexual content is present but mostly implied, with some sexual menace and cruelty among its villains. Its vibe is rugged, bold, and a little lurid, best suited to a long train ride, a stormy evening with a lamp lit, or a nostalgic reread of the old magazine era. The pace is brisk and episodic, the arc of its hero a restless wanderer who trusts his blade over his fellows, and it is for readers who want unvarnished adventure, muscular action, and the taste of the pulp tradition rather than gentle or quiet reading.
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