I have never read any of the Conan books, but knew of it, mainly from the Arnold Schwarzenegger film. But also from the reference to the character in the Fallout series with their comic book, Grognak The Barbarian.
While there aren't many actually tales told in the Grognak reference, the idea and look of the character is there, and the name alone stands as a clear reference to the books written by Robert E. Howard.
How I Found It
I was scrolling through YouTube a few nights ago before going to sleep, and came upon a video of a man talking about the series, and how he read every single Conan book.
He gave a bit of a rundown of a few notable stories, and in general, he shared a few words about the character and stories.
Here's the video, it's fairly short, and I found it fairly entertaining.
I had never come read the Conan stories, and I actually wasn't aware of how many there were. The character, however, sounded intriguing to me.
I assumed he was some barbarian, and I didn't know much more. Sure enough, he isn't just a barbarian. He's a thief, who is also dangerous as hell, especially to the "civilized" folk he encounters.
More than anything, he seems to only care about what he can steal, and usually these items are rare trinkets, in unsalable towers, or other miscellaneous locations like that.
After Watching The Video
In the suggestions after watching that video one of the audiobook versions of a Conan story came up, and I put it on. It was only an hour long, or just slightly over an hour, and I was enthralled.
I used to listen to a good few audiobooks years ago, mainly when going to sleep, but it was something I fell out of eventually.
Within the first few minutes of The Tower of the Elephant, I was hooked. The character's voice actors were great, and the story was interesting from the get-go.
It opened to a lively inn, filled with people from all over the world that these stories take place in - which I'm not sure about yet - and within, a man was speaking, who interacts with Conan, and they end up getting into a fight that destroys the inn, but as the dust settles, Conan is gone, to start his journey toward a tower that holds some unknown riches.
I like the perspective shifts in the writing itself, and find it interesting. It's kind of omniscient first-person and jumps around the room from person to person. It reads closer to a TV show, considering how visual everything feels. The audience is kind of in on everything going on, while the characters are not.
A good example of how characters aren't really fully aware of everything is in another one I listened to called, The God in the Bowl, which sees Conan being caught by local guards accused of murder at the start of the story.
He states his case before coming to blows with the guards, and it turns out that he didn't kill the person, and instead... was scaling the building to steal something.
But, what I noticed was the captain of the guards told the others to stand down so they didn't fight and said something like, "Don't try to match him in combat, wait for reinforcements to arrive."
He says that while Conan is standing right there, and they manage to stop him long enough to revolve the conflict their way.
You know what, TV show isn't the right example to use, instead, these feel more like stage plays, in the sense that characters can speak with one another, as other characters stand in their vicinity unaware of what's being said.
I think it actually works well though, because like in a good play, you, the audience member, are aware of what's going on and being said, which helps to build up tension.
The Idea of Having One Character In Multiple Stories
I've been intrigued with the idea of following one character, or a group of characters in different stand-alone stories for a while now, but listening to these ones has given me a newfound interest in it, and it's something I think I might like to explore.
A few months ago I was writing a few short stories, following 2 characters who always seem to get in trouble, but I have yet to write anymore involving them or their shenanigans, so I think I might like to go back to that idea.
It’s funny my extent of Conan knowledge is the same - from the movie they did and have tried to do other times lol. It’s looking like a typical book versus movie or show, the books have a lot more substance to them!
Yeah too right, and that tends to always be the case. I loved the game of thrones, for example, but the books added a hell of a lot to it. The first, and some of the second books are almost identical to the show, but after that, they vary so much and add a fuck ton to the story, and world.
I used to have a lot of the Conan books years ago, sadly I think a lot of them disappeared during a house move.
If you ever break a leg or find yourself housebound for a month or two, it's well worth reading them chronologically.
Even though Lin Carter and L Sprague de Camp stepped in after Robert E Howard's death to finish his unfinished stories and write some new ones, they stuck closely to his awesome style. I'm split between whether I like the complete novels of the short story collections more, but I think my all-time favourite is the short story "Red Nails". I've based a few D&D adventures off the awesome basic idea it uses !
Oh I haven't heard of Red Nails before but I'll be sure to check it out, also I didn't realise that the characters and stories were continued by other writers, that's really interesting. It's great that they respected the source material and stuck closely with it.
I'll be sure to pick a few of them up if I come across them because I've been really enjoying them so far.
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