Conan Pastiche Help!

The Warlord

Mongoose
I've read quite a bit of Howard, and am hoping to expand my reading of the Hyborian Age. Anyway, I know that not only are there A LOT of pastiches out there, but that most all are bad. I'm still interested in getting a few though, so am wondering which are considered 'the best'?

Wagner? Anderson? Jordan?

Thanks!
 
Jordan's work is decent, showing a good knowledge of the Hyborian Age. Hasty writing and a few too many female characters hurling themselves bodily at the Cimmerian weaken them a bit.

Anderson's CONAN THE REBEL is a brave attempt to tell of Conan's life with Belit- filling in the middle of the REH short story 'Queen of the Black Coast'. Some fans dislike it, but it's a solid fantasy from a highly esteemed s.f. writer and you should check it out.

Wagner's CONAN: THE ROAD OF KINGS is excellent, even if his Conan is markedly different from REH's. There's some genuinely weird Dark Sorcery and some richly colored prose, too.

The TOR pastiches are generally lukewarm.
Leonard Carpenter and John Madox Roberts both turned in good and less-than-good work.
Steer clear of Roland (Who Needs a Plot?) Green and Steve (Let's have Conan pal up with a giant talking maggot!) Perry.
 
Thanks for the quick response!
I almost picked up Road of Kings today. May I ask how Wagner's Conan differs from Howards?

Also, I didn't mean to list the best of the three I mentioned. I wanna know which are the best period, and jsut listed a few I've seen on the shelf.

Thanks again!
 
Another pastiches that was wel done is, Conan and the Emerald Lotus.
Cannot remember the author's name off the top of my head, sorry.
However, he did take the time to write a good Conan story with a well developed plot.
 
The best pastiches IMO are:

John C. Hocking's "Conan And The Emerald Lotus"
Karl Edward Wagner's "Conan: The Road of Kings"

Contrary to some Conan fans here, I like absolutely everything by John Maddox Roberts (his weakest are Conan The Valorous and Conan The Champion, but they are still fun) and... yes, Robert Jordan. :wink:

The early Leonard Carpenter pastiches were decent, IIRC, as was the first by Steve Perry.

Roland Green stinks beyond belief.

Good luck!
 
cornelius said:
It was John C. Hocking , but I don't think he wrote any others , can't find any reference to any.

Pretty sure he wrote one , I think he mentioned it on Conan.com , but it was not picked up by the new CPI and he didn't get any sort of feedback from them and was rather disillusioned by the whole matter . I think eventually he said he might re-write it as an original non-Conan story.

Terry

Join The Robert E Howard Comics Group
Check out : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheREHcomicsgroup/
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane OUT NOW !
 
Don't forget Sean A. Moore. He wrote 3 conan novels and 1 Kull Novel. Unfortunately he died in a car crash.
I would particularly recommand his "Conan and the Grim Grey God". It's quite D&D-like sometimes (skeletton warriors, etc.) but he is quite able to describe a setting. Moreover there is a magic struggle between 2 sorcerors (Thoth-Amon among them) that is truly impressive and very Howardian.

Andrew Offutt is another pastiche writer. He wrote an excellent trilogy centered on Shadizar (or is it Arenjun?):
- Conan and the sorcerer
- Conan the mercenary
- Conan and the sword of Skelos.
There is some silliness inherent to all pastiches but on a whole, it is definitely worth reading as the description of the places are excellent and very useful for an RPG.

IMO one of the best pastiches (I didn't read them all) is Conan the triumphant by Jordan. He describes an excellent setting in Ophir and the court intrigue (where all the rivals to the throne are involved) is so sophiticated that Howard would have appreciated. Add to this some fantastic elements and a mighty demon (which can't be killed, only banished) then you have a perfect entertaining novel.
 
Hey Bullbear.
Wagner's Conan is a little more like the author's Kane character than REH's Conan. He seems more self-absorbed and mercenary, then does a flip-flop at the novel's conclusion by refusing to take something of great value (no spoilers here!). None of this keeps the book from being among the best Conan pastiches ever written.

Sean Moore's books have an amateurish, fan-fiction feel to them that I can't get past. The flow of the story often feels awkward and Conan gets into some pretty silly situations. In one book he becomes a werewolf and chews up an army of people. In another some nameless soldier breaks the barbarian's arm while arm wrestling in a bar. A palace gardener beats Conan senseless with a hoe in another. There's some enthusiasm in the prose, but they have to be the least professional Conan stories to get into print.

I think Andrew Offutt's pastiche tales are great, but not everybody does. His Conan says things it's awful hard to imagine Conan saying, but the storyline roars along with plenty of weird sorcery, brutal combat and interesting Hyborian detail. You can really tell Offutt has genuine respect, even reverence, for Conan, which is something missing from much pastiche work.
 
Thanks for all the help, fellas!

Think I'll pick up Road of kings, Emerald Lotus, then possibly the Rebel.

What about non-Conan S&S? I've heard Saunders name thrown about (though can't find the books!), I'm not a big fan of Elric, haven't tried the Lankhmar crew. Any others? Which are 'tops'?

thanks again!
 
BullBear said:
Thanks for all the help, fellas!

Think I'll pick up Road of kings, Emerald Lotus, then possibly the Rebel.

What about non-Conan S&S? I've heard Saunders name thrown about (though can't find the books!), I'm not a big fan of Elric, haven't tried the Lankhmar crew. Any others? Which are 'tops'?

thanks again!
You can find the Imaro trilogy on www.abebook.com

As for S&S you can try Clark-Ashton Smith (Zothique, averoigne) and perhaps David Gemmel.
 
Gemmell seems to be a more modern writer (I wanna check out and support some current S&S writers). Where should I start with his stuff?

Thanks
 
LEGEND is Gemmell's first, and most highly regarded, book.
But some say he's been re-writing it ever since.
It's good, but maybe not as overwhelmingly awesome as some fans would have you believe.
 
BullBear said:
Gemmell seems to be a more modern writer (I wanna check out and support some current S&S writers). Where should I start with his stuff?

Thanks
You can find a lot of info on this site (Heroes of dark fantasy) http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/heroesof.htm

there is also Brak the barbarian but only know the name, not his deeds.
 
My favourites after Conan and Elric , were Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber.

Terry

Join The Robert E Howard Comics Group
Check out : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheREHcomicsgroup/
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane OUT NOW !
 
Karl Edward Wagner's trio of anothologies, ECHOES OF VALOR, is one of the best chances you'll get to corral a wide variety of superior Sword & Sorcery short stories in inexpensive paperback format. All kinds of great, hard-to-find, heroic fantasy in there: Howard, Leiber, Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett and others.

Wagner's five books about his demonic anti-hero, Kane, are all worth hunting down. Probably the best Sword & Sorcery of the 1970's, and still strong today. These are NIGHT WINDS, BLOODSTONE, DARK CRUSADE, DEATH ANGEL'S SHADOW, and DARKNESS WEAVES.

David C. Smith's ORON is an underrated Sword & Sorcery epic, but beware of the weak sequels he wrote later.

Andrew Offutt's uncompleted series of pastiche adventures featuring REH's hero, Cormac Mac Art, are worth owing. They are THE MISTS OF DOOM, THE TOWER OF DEATH, WHEN DEATH BIRDS FLY (excellent!), SWORD OF THE GAEL, THE UNDYING WIZARD, and SIGN OF THE MOONBOW.

Eric Van Lustbader's Sunset Warrior sequence is more Sword & Science than Sword & Sorcery, but it's so good that it's a crime so many fans are unfamiliar with it. It includes THE SUNSET WARRIOR, SHALLOWS OF NIGHT, and DAI-SAN.

John Jakes's Brak, Gardner Fox's Kothar and Lin Carter's Thongor are all rather goofy REH imitations that only a hardcore fan could love. The Thongor books in particular are so enthusiastically over-the-top that they have a weird kind of charm.

And you can't miss REH's King Kull tales, or the nifty new edition of his SAVAGE TALES OF SOLOMON KANE.
 
kathulos said:
Steer clear of Roland (Who Needs a Plot?) Green and Steve (Let's have Conan pal up with a giant talking maggot!) Perry.
I remember well Conan the Indomitable by Perry with the giant talking maggot and where Conan kills a giant fish in an underground lake just to use the dead carcass as a boat :!: Then some time later the fish has to be abandoned because he putrefies and starts to sink. :x
Such a pity to misuse the work of a poet.
 
kathulos said:
LEGEND is Gemmell's first, and most highly regarded, book.
But some say he's been re-writing it ever since.
.

I would actually disagree with this. I would say that Legend is his weakest book. Expanded from a short story it has all the mistakes he made as a new author.

I would say if you wanted to start on a strong book try Winter Warriors. Or read legend, and if you like it you know that everything else he has written is better.

The Rigante books are excelent too and good for a beginner as they are stand alone books.
 
The King said:
BullBear said:
Gemmell seems to be a more modern writer (I wanna check out and support some current S&S writers). Where should I start with his stuff?

Thanks
You can find a lot of info on this site (Heroes of dark fantasy) http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/heroesof.htm

there is also Brak the barbarian but only know the name, not his deeds.

That link is great! I bookmark the site to check it later, thanks for the link!
 
It's all a matter of taste I suppose... I thought Offut's pastiches were terrible. They aren't bad as stand alone stories, but they are so un-Conan, and the characterisation is terrible. I think I finally lost it when Conan breaks with one of his allies for killing the tyrant they have been fighting the entire book through without a fair trial. CONAN?

It would help, as well if he wasn't quite so proud of his vocabulary. He deliberatly uses the most obscure and impenetrable vocab, which is all very nice but breaks up the flow something chronic. Worse, he doesn't always get them right, leaving you taking a wild guess at whats going on.
 
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