Product Description

“FOR HEADLONG, NONSTOP ADVENTURE AND FOR VIVID, EVEN FLORID, SCENERY, NO ONE EVEN COMES CLOSE TO HOWARD.”
–Harry Turtledove

In a meteoric career that covered only a dozen years, Robert E. Howard defined the sword-and-sorcery genre. In doing so, he brought to life the archetypal adventurer known to millions around the world as Conan the barbarian.

Witness, then, Howard at his finest, and Conan at his most savage, in the latest volume featuring the collected works of Robert E. Howard, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Greg Manchess. Prepared directly from the earliest known versions–often Howard’s own manuscripts–are such sword-and-sorcery classics as “The Servants of Bit-Yakin” (formerly published as “Jewels of Gwahlur”), “Beyond the Black River,” “The Black Stranger,” “Man-Eaters of Zamboula” (formerly published as “Shadows in Zamboula”), and, perhaps his most famous adventure of all, “Red Nails.”

The Conquering Sword of Conan includes never-before-published outlines, notes, and story drafts, plus a new introduction, personal correspondence, and the revealing essay “Hyborian Genesis”–which chronicles the history of the creation of the Conan series. Truly, this is heroic fantasy at its finest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40486 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-29
• Released on: 2005-11-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345461537
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
“Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”
–Stephen King

“Howard honestly believed the basic truth of the stories he was telling. It’s as if he’d said, ‘This is how life was really lived in those former savage times!’ ”
–David Drake

“For stark, living fear . . . what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?”
–H. P. Lovecraft


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review
“Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”
–Stephen King

“Howard honestly believed the basic truth of the stories he was telling. It’s as if he’d said, ‘This is how life was really lived in those former savage times!’ ”
–David Drake

“For stark, living fear . . . what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?”
–H. P. Lovecraft

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Servants of Bit-Yakin

I Paths of Intrigue

The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone that glinted jade blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved away and away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds and leaves. It looked insurmountable, that giant palisade with its sheer curtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in the sunlight. But the man who was working his tedious way upward was already half way to the top.

He came of a race of hillmen, accustomed to scaling forbidding crags, and he was a man of unusual strength and agility. His only garment was a pair of short red silk breeks, and his sandals were slung to his back, out of his way, as were his sword and dagger.

He was a powerfully built man, supple as a panther. His skin was brown, bronzed by the sun, his square-cut black mane confined by a silver band about his temples. His iron muscles, quick eye and sure foot served him well here, for it was a climb to test these qualities to the utmost. A hundred and fifty feet below him waved the jungle. An equal distance above him the rim of the cliffs was etched clear-cut against the morning sky.

He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste, yet he was forced to move at a snail’s pace, clinging like a fly on a wall. His groping hands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holds at best, and sometimes he virtually hung by his finger nails. Yet upward he went, clawing, squirming, fighting for every foot. At times he paused to rest his aching muscles, and, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, twisted his head to stare searchingly out over the jungle, combing the green expanse for any trace of human life or motion.

Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed, only a few feet above his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instant later he had reached it – a small cavern, just below the edge of the rim. As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung there, his elbows hooked over the lip. The cave was so tiny that it was little more than a niche cut in the stone, but it held an occupant. A shrivelled brown mummy, cross-legged, arms folded on the withered breast upon which the shrunken head was sunk, sat in the little cavern. The limbs were bound in place with rawhide thongs which had become mere rotted wisps. If the form had ever been clothed, the ravages of time had long reduced the garments to dust. But thrust between the crossed arms and the shrunken breast there was a roll of parchment, yellowed with age to the color of old ivory.

The climber stretched forth a long arm and wrenched away this cylinder. Without investigation he thrust it into his girdle and hauled himself up until he was standing in the opening of the niche. A spring upward and he caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself up and over almost with the same motion.

There he halted, panting, and stared downward.

It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by a circular stone wall. The floor of the bowl was covered with trees and denser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungle denseness of the outer forest. The cliffs marched around it without a break and of uniform height. It was a freak of nature, not to be paralleled, perhaps, in the whole world: a vast natural amphitheater, a circular bit of forested plain, three or four miles in diameter, cut off from the rest of the world, and confined within the ring of those palisaded cliffs.

But the man on the cliffs did not devote his thoughts to marvelling at the topographical phenomenon. With tense eagerness he searched the tree-tops below him, and exhaled a gusty sigh when he caught the glint of marble domes amidst the twinkling green. It was no myth, then; below him lay the fabulous and deserted palace of Alkmeenon.

Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Barachan Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings.

Keshan was a barbaric kingdom lying in the eastern hinterlands of Kush where the broad grass lands merge with the forests that roll up from the south. The people were a mixed race, a dusky nobility ruling a population that was largely pure negro. The rulers – princes and high priests – claimed descent from a white race which, in a mythical age, had ruled a kingdom whose capital city was Alkmeenon. Conflicting legends sought to explain the reason for that race’s eventual downfall, and the abandonment of the city by the survivors. Equally nebulous were the tales of the Teeth of Gwahlur, the treasure of Alkmeenon. But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, river-laced jungle, and mountains.

He had found Keshan, which in itself was considered mythical by many northern and western nations, and he had heard enough to confirm the rumors of the treasure that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But its hiding place he could not learn, and he was confronted with the necessity of explaining his presence in Keshan. Unattached strangers were not welcome there.

But he was not nonplused. With cool assurance he made his offer to the stately, plumed, suspicious grandees of the barbarically magnificent court. He was a professional fighting man. In search of employment (he said) he had come to Keshan. For a price he would train the armies of Keshan and lead them against Punt, their hereditary enemy, whose recent successes in the field had roused the fury of Keshan’s irascible king.

This proposition was not as audacious as it might seem. Conan’s fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms. He did not refuse tests devised by the dusky lords. Skirmishes along the borders were incessant, affording the Cimmerian plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his ability at hand-to-hand fighting. His reckless ferocity impressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his reputation as a leader of men, and the prospects seemed favourable. All Conan secretly desired was employment to give him legitimate excuse for remaining in Keshan long enough to locate the hiding place of the Teeth of Gwahlur. Then there came an interruption. Thutmekri came to Keshan at the head of an embassy from Zembabwei.

Thutmekri was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had recommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdom which lay many days’ march to the east. He and the Cimmerian knew one another of old, and without love. Thutmekri likewise had a proposition to make to the king of Keshan, and it also concerned the conquest of Punt – which kingdom, incidentally, lying east of Keshan, had recently expelled the Zembabwan traders and burned their fortresses.

His offer outweighed even the prestige of Conan. He pledged himself to invade Punt from the east with a host of black spearmen, Shemitish archers, and mercenary swordsmen, and to aid the king of Keshan to annex the hostile kingdom. The benevolent kings of Zembabwei desired only the monopoly of the trade of Keshan and her tributaries – and, as a pledge of good faith, some of the Teeth of Gwahlur. These would be put to no base usage, Thutmekri hastened to explain to the suspicious chieftains; they would be placed in the temple of Zembabwei beside the squat gold idols of Dagon and Derketo, sacred guests in the holy shrine of the kingdom, to seal the covenant between Keshan and Zembabwei. This statement brought a savage grin to Conan’s hard lips.

The Cimmerian made no attempt to match wits and intrigue with Thutmekri and his Shemitish partner, Zargheba. He knew that if Thutmekri won his point, he would insist on the instant banishment of his rival. There was but one thing for Conan to do: find the jewels before the king of Keshan made up his mind, and flee with them. But by this time he was certain that they were not hidden in Keshia, the royal city, which was a swarm of thatched huts crowding about a mud wall that enclosed a palace of stone and mud and bamboo.

While he fumed with nervous impatience, the high priest Gorulga announced that before any decision could be reached, the will of the gods must be ascertained concerning the proposed alliance with Zembabwei and the pledge of objects long held holy and inviolate. The oracle of Alkmeenon must be consulted.

This was an awesome thing, that caused tongues to wag excitedly in palace and bee-hive hut. Not for a century had the priests visited the silent city. The oracle, men said, was the Princess Yelaya, the last ruler of Alkmeenon, who had died in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, and whose body had miraculously remained unblemished throughout the ages. Of old priests had made their way into the haunted city, and she had taught them wisdom. The last priest to seek the oracle had been a wicked man, who had sought to steal for himself the curiously-cut jewels that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But some doom had come upon him in the deserted palace, from which his acolytes, fleeing, had told tales of horror that had for a hundred years frightened the priests from the city and the oracle.

But Gorulga, the present high priest, as one confident in his knowledge of his own integrity, announced that he would go with a handful of followers to revive the ancient custom. And in the excitement tongues buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for which he had sought for weeks – the overheard whisper of a lesser priest that sent the Cimmer...

Customer Reviews

Conan's Swan Song
The Conquering Sword of Conan is the third and final volume in the Wandering Star/Del Rey collection of Howard's complete "Conan of Cimmeria". For fans of Robert E. Howard, this is a major achievement, because its the first time all of the Howard Conan stories have been published in the order that they were written, completely uncensored and pastiche free. Now, we are able to get a much more accurate look at the both the evolution of the character, as well as Howard's skill as a writer. In the Lancer/Ace editions, the stories were placed in chronological order and peppered with dreadful pastiches. The problem with this is that it was never Howard's intention for his stories to be read that way. The Conan saga is not a unified Joseph Campbell style hero's journey such as "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings". Rather, it's more akin to James Bond. Each story can be read and enjoyed on its own, without any prior knowledge of the events or characters in previous stories. In fact, in no Conan story are the plot details of any other Conan story ever even mentioned, except in the most general of terms (Conan gives a brief overview of his career in "Red Nails"). This was by nature, a matter of necessity, as these "pulp fiction" stories were geared towards the casual magazine reader who might be picking up a copy of "Weird Tales" for the first time.

Of the five stories in this volume, three of them are considered by fans and literary scholars to be among the best work that Howard ever produced. They are "Beyond the Black River", "The Black Stranger, and "Red Nails".

Beyond the Black River: this is generally considered Howard's finest work, transcending the level of pulp fiction and worthy of serious critical analyses. Even if viewed as a simple adventure story, it's unbelievably exciting and entertaining. In order for this story to fit into the genre that he invented, which would later be known as "Sword and Sorcery", Howard populates it with the traditional elements, such as an evil sorceror and supernatural monsters. However, these elements are downplayed. This is the most realistic and true to life Conan story that Howard wrote. Its basically an American frontier saga transported to the Hyborian age. The Picts in "Beyond the Black River" bear little of no resemblance to the Picts of Bran Mak Morn or King Kull's time. Here, they serve as thinly vealed stand-ins for native Americans. The story also contains Howard's most famous quote: "Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph".

To those who have never read Howard, who think of Conan as a sort of monosyllabic Tarzan on steroids, I urge you to read the aforementioned story. You'll never see Conan the same way again.

The Black Stranger: what's really amazing about this story is that this is the first time most of us have ever read it in its original form. In the Lancer/Ace editions, this story was heavily edited and rewritten by the self serving L. Sprague de Camp so that it could be used to set the stage for his mind numbingly dreadful pastiche, "Conan the Liberator". He also changed the name to "The Treasure of Tranicos". His justification for doing this was equally ludicrous. He claimed he was concerned that the readers would become "confused" with so many Conan stories with "black" in the title (Black Colossus/Pool of the Black One), as if we're a bunch of four year olds.

It continues many of the themes started in "Beyond the Black River", and is once again a thinly vealed American frontier story transported to the Hyborian Age.

Red Nails: This is the most hardcore Conan story of all. Dr. Freud would have field day with this. Graphic violence, deviant sex, sadomasochism; all are here in full display. The editor of these editions, Patrice Louinet, suggests that this story is a subconsious projection of Howard's relationship with Novalyne Price and resulting conflict between this and his VERY unhealthy relationship with his own mother.

One thing that strikes me about this story is Howard's much more realistic portrayal of the female pirate Valeria, when you compare her to Howard's earlier character Belit, from "Queen of the Black Coast". In "Queen", Belit basically throws herself at Conan at their first meeting, and they immediately have sex right there on the deck of the Tigris with the entire crew looking on. While its a very memorable and well written scene, it does come off as an adolescent fantasy of someone who hasn't had much experience with women. In "Red Nails", Valeria is portrayed much more realistically, like a real woman would behave around a man she's attracted to. She sits on Conan's lap and lets him play with her hair. In one scene, she gives him a "you're not getting any tonight" look and slams the door in his face. She doesn't relent until the end of the story, after Conan proves his worthiness by rescuing her. I have no doubt that this new found maturity on the part of Howard's writing is due, at least in part, to his relationship with Ms. Price.

The two lesser stories are "The Servants of Bit-Yakin" and "Shadows of Zamboula". "Shadows", while more of a conventional Conan story, benifits from outstanding writing and some really good scenes. The strangulation scene, and the dance of the cobras are particalrly memorable. I won't go into any detail about "Servants", other than to say it is worth reading. While some are obviously better than others, there are no bad Howard Conan stories.

I really like the artwork by Gregory Manchess. Its an entirely new take on the character, especially the depiction of Conan in a Captain Hook outfit on page 141. While I didn't like the artwork at first, preferring Gary Gianni's interpretaions in the previous volume, it has really grown on me over the months. I can't wait for the Wandering Star edition to be released so that I can finally see these in full color. It's way overdue.

a brilliant finale for Howard's greatest character
After years of execrable garbage foisted on us by L Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and others (though some of the pastiches by other authors than these are decent), we finally get Conan as R. E. Howard envisioned him. Lacking the softer, milder imitation work of the aforementioned writers, this final volume in Wandering Star/Del Rey's reverent reissue of Howard's original work is a brilliant tour de force. All of the stories here range from passable (Servants of Bit-Yakin, Man-eaters of Zamboula) to great (Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger) to outstanding (Red Nails, of course). Red Nails--the last story Howard wrote about Conan--is my favorite of them all. In the story, Conan is lustful of the voluptuous Valeria but adherent enough to a code of honor not to force himself on her. (Yes, she does finally give in to his advances.) More than the brilliant interpersonal relationship between the two leads though is the theme of death and decay surrounding the city of Xuchotl (an obvious stand-in for Howard's own home in the year before his untimely death). Both Conan and Valeria come to vivid life on page and drag the reader into Howard's fictional universe by sheer force of will. Howard's writing is full-throttle all the way to the bloody (and surprising) climax. What a way for the Dark Barbarian to exit the stage! As for the other stories, they all have their merits as much as Red Nails, some more so than others. What shines through each though is Howard's clear writing and dark, visceral vision of his savage world. Coupled with all this are drafts of some of the stories, an outline of the history of the writing of the Hyborian Age tales, and the letter Howard wrote to fans Miller and Clark detailing some previously unknown things about Conan. While Howard probably would never have written about Conan again even had he lived, what we have from him is brilliant and worth reading over and over. Thanks to Howard and his publishers for bringing the iconic Barbarian to life for us.

Robert's Final Realization of Conan!
The Servants of Bit-Yakin- In exemplary Wierd Tales Robert E. style, this one starts with Conan almost inexplicably scaling the side wall of an ancient city in a place we've never heard of. The barbarian has come to this place through information gleaned on adventures that Robert never told us about, as though the author had some Hyborean Silmarillion stashed somewhere that the recyclers have never found.

It's an excellent story that may have equal claim to several genres; horror, fantasy, sword and sorcery, and maybe even prehistoric fiction. Howard had an uncanny knowledge of those days when ice age species still survived in remote places, and had incredible insight into theorizing what it must have been like in the days when civilization vied with barbarism. What's interesting to me is that we're finding out these days that civilization is alot older than we think, but in Howard's day anything older than 3000 BC was considered prehistoric. Conan's era was around 9000 BC, with embellishments from many other eras in different places where civilization was replacing barbarism. Certainly, we now know, there would have been ancient deserted structures at this time, maybe even with remnants of antedeluvian archaic homo sapien living therein. Certainly Jericho had walls before Conan's time, and both cro-magnon and the southeast asian hominid dubbed "the hobbit" lived at least up until 10,000 BC. But how did Howard know it? How did his imagination describe so vividly and personally how life must have been in those brutal and barbaric times?

Beyond The Black River- WOW! This is probably Howard's most memorable Conan tale, told from the perspective of a hardy and valiant but lesser man who's lot in life is to travel and fight with Conan for a spell. Through this frontiersman's eyes, we understand Conan as a character perhaps better than we ever have before. The illustration of the Balthas's last charge, dog at side, flashes in my mind when I think of this tale.
"He was a man," said Conan "I drink to his shade, and to the shade of the dog, who knew no fear."

The Black Stranger is a pirate tale and frontier yarn that is among Howard's most developed plot structures, characterization, and writing skill.

The Man-Eaters of Zamboula melds fantasy and horror like only Robert E. can, a wicked tale of treachery and ancient necromancy.


Red Nails is definitely one of the greatest of the Conan stories. Again Howard shows uncanny preternatural knowledge, with an ancient city very much like some of the stranger ones excavated in the middle east, and a realistic dragon more like Megalania Prisca than Saphira and her influences.



In the appendix, Wolves Beyond the Border is a special rare treat.

Enjoy and enjoy again the genious of Robert E!

J. Lyon Layden
The Other Side of Yore