Conan: Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian

[Strom]

The Ulimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian]


This book just came out today and it is unbelievably beautiful! It's from DK Publishing and some of you may be familiar with their incredible Ultimate books and this one is no exception! Written by Roy Thomas - probably the greatest pastiche writer of Conan of all time - and loaded with art from the Marvel comics run, the Dark Horse Conan comic, Frank Frazetta, Gianni, Ken Kelly, Gregory Manchess, Alex Ross, Mark Schultz and art from the Mongoose Publishing Conan RPG!

The book follows the timeline from before the Great Cataclysm to the Hyborian Age after Conan with every Conan adventure covered in between in gorgeous color and art. To quote from the book:

For Conan fans, this book is a dream come true - and a dream seventy years in the making. For those new to the Hyborian Age and to Conan, its greatest champion, this is the ideal introduction to a world of fantastic adventure.

Just an incredible book visually! A great companion book to the Road of Kings, IMO. 8) [/url]

 

[Andronicus]

One problem. Why would I want to pay that much money to honor a long series of pastiches, many of whom aren't any good? I refuse to validate the second rate hacks who cashed in on the Conan.

I do realize that there are some good authors and genuine artist spirits in the mix (Roy Thomas among them), but I feel very little motivation for this stuff. I got the REH original stories, and that's all I really need.

Oh, and this will get me lynched in some circles but I am not impressed by Robert Jordan's Conan stuff. Heck, not impressed with him period.

Thanks for the post though Strom.

 

[High Lord Dee]

This looks great. I will have to check it out. Thanks for the preview.

HLD

 

[The Suburbian]

I got a chance to flip through a copy at the local Borders. The book has a lot of content about the old and current Conan comics. It has Conan artwork from many different decades. Paintings, comics, maps. The book is divided by regions of Hyboria. Each section tells you a little about Conan's adventures within each region of Hyboria. Info comes from the short stories, novels, and comics.

A GM could get a lot of ideas from this book. Each section describes the people and villans that Conan encounters. Which can lead to a lot of NPC ideas. Also like I said earlier the book has a lot of artwork which can be inspirational too.

I thought it was a pretty cool resource. If you don't like a certain story, just ignore that info. But I would say that if you don't like the Conan comics, watch out.

 

[greenjelly]

One problem. Why would I want to pay that much money to honor a long series of pastiches, many of whom aren't any good? I refuse to validate the second rate hacks who cashed in on the Conan.

I do realize that there are some good authors and genuine artist spirits in the mix (Roy Thomas among them), but I feel very little motivation for this stuff. I got the REH original stories, and that's all I really need.

Oh, and this will get me lynched in some circles but I am not impressed by Robert Jordan's Conan stuff. Heck, not impressed with him period.

Thanks for the post though Strom.

You would want to pay money for it because perhaps some people enjoy reading up about the various lands and characters in Conans history.

 

[Auggie]

I'll have to check this out when it comes my way

 

[swinebread]

I picked it up. I really like it. It's a cross between a coffee table book, an art book, and a Conan reference guide. The art comes from the comics (both old and new including Savage Sword), various Conan RPG supplements, and the three volumes of republished Conan stories by Del Rey. I think some of the more popular covers of old paperbacks too (not familiar with those but that looks like where some of the art is from). The map(s) used in the book is the one from the Road of Kings, which is a nice touch. This book really has a nice mix of art. Plus I love Buscema’s Conan. The text is very readable and presents a nice overview of the Conan epic. Roy does a good job here striking a balance between giving details and a broad overview. Also the cover made me realize maybe Alex Ross missed his calling with the superhero stuff. He should be doing Conan! (and other S&S stuff)

 

[Thoth Aw C'mon]

The Ulimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian]


This book just came out today and it is unbelievably beautiful! It's from DK Publishing and some of you may be familiar with their incredible Ultimate books and this one is no exception! Written by Roy Thomas - probably the greatest pastiche writer of Conan of all time - and loaded with art from the Marvel comics run, the Dark Horse Conan comic, Frank Frazetta, Gianni, Ken Kelly, Gregory Manchess, Alex Ross, Mark Schultz and art from the Mongoose Publishing Conan RPG!

The book follows the timeline from before the Great Cataclysm to the Hyborian Age after Conan with every Conan adventure covered in between in gorgeous color and art. To quote from the book:

For Conan fans, this book is a dream come true - and a dream seventy years in the making. For those new to the Hyborian Age and to Conan, its greatest champion, this is the ideal introduction to a world of fantastic adventure.

Just an incredible book visually! A great companion book to the Road of Kings, IMO. 8) [/url]

Man! That looks SAHHH-WEEET! I'm definitely picking up a copy of that puppy! :!: 8) Thanks Comrade Stromonovich!

 

[Ganconer]

I was just looking at this on Amazon tonight and saw they posted 4 of the pages from this book. I just had to order myself a copy. Can't wait to check it out.

 

[Bjorn the Barbarian]

I went out and bought a copy.

Can't say enough good things about it. It has a lot of references to places, people, and things that could definately be used as a platform for the RPG. The illustrations are on varied subjects and in most cases are excellent. The write ups are short, but informative (mostly one-pagers).

A good source book IMHO.

 

[rgrove0172]

I picked up a copy and am pretty impressed. It gives proper respect to Howard's originals, but includes ideas and tid-bits from just about everywhere else. the Artwork is great in some places, less so in others, but I guess thats a matter of taste. As is the content of some of the blurbs nestled here and there between the main text. Some of it is colorful and informative, some of it is just redundant. Overall Id give it a 7 or so for content, but being almost one of a kind - its something every Conan fan just has to have.

 

[Strom]

There's an interview with the Roy Thomas the writer of Conan: Ultimate Guide to the Worlds Most Savage Barbarian up at Conan.com:

http://www.conan.com/f_roythomas.shtml

 

[thulsa]

Also see my review of this book here:

http://hyboria.xoth.net/reviews/conan_ultimate_guide.htm

- thulsa

 

[mouthymerc]

Rise, rise from the dead. Ah, the incantation is working.

One problem. Why would I want to pay that much money to honor a long series of pastiches, many of whom aren't any good? I refuse to validate the second rate hacks who cashed in on the Conan.

I just picked up this book today and must say that I am impressed. I haven't read throught the entire book, yet. I will say, though, that this guide more specifically follows Conan's life as it is laid out in the books. There are a few sidebars which will bring up mentions of other media (comics), but for the most part it sticks to Conan's life as laid out by REH. It does make use of the many various artists' work to illustrate this life, which is one of the things that makes this book so good.

As an aside, I had picked up the first Conan novel to read it again before I start playing and realized that it is the same age as me this year, 40. Yikes!

 

[Lysander]

I am member of the Borders Bookstore club (or whatever they call it-but anyone can get the card) and i went in to buy the book today. At the checkout (to my surprise) they discounted my price by 50%..I paid about $13.00 after tax for a $25.00 book. I would recommend that anyone with the Borders card pick up the book...can't beat the price.

BTW, the book is beautiful and a great complement to all the Conan stuff I have.

 

[Lord Jolly the Scribe]

I agree. I use it as a visual aide in my games to give players an idea of the looks and things of certain places and outfits, as well as people's general appearance and such. The info is helpful too in many places as well as the different adventure ideas that can be used. And it does stick closely to REH with some side info about the pastiche stuff referenced as if from "other chroniclers". Nice touch! 8)

 

[skree]

ATTENTION!!!!
i recently purchsed this item and i notice that there is a a massive error!!!!,,from pages 49 to 61 there is 13 pages of text missing!!!!!! :shock: :x

 

[Strom]

You must have a bad copy skree. I just checked mine and all the pages are accounted for and include the appropriate text.

 

[Style]

I was given a copy for Father's Day today. Paging through it, it looks beautiful. I can't wait to read it!

 

[Hervé]

A beautiful book and a wonderful tool for players who are not Conan specialists. It's far better than any Players guide to set the mood of the hyborian world.