BOOK REVIEW – ROBERT E. HOWARD – THE CONAN CHRONICLES VOLUME ONE – THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE 1988 Victor Gollancz Millennium.
Fantasy Masterworks #8. Many people will know of Conan The
Barbarian through the Arnold Schwarzenneger films and the Marvel Comic Strips, but Howard’s original stories, collected together in two volumes, is the best way to encounter him. Conan is a Hyborian Age (the time of Atlantis) Cimmerian Warrior who seeks adventure, war and plunders in all its forms. He is nevertheless a honourable man, who seduces the heroines rather than raping them. Many of the stories involve him saving the female leads from being molested or sacrificed by the villains. Conan first appears as a solo operator and a quite mercenary thief, in The Tower Of The Elephant (his debut story), in which he assists another thief in breaking into a tower fortress to steal a rare jewel. After single handedly killing a lion on route Conan survives the
attack of the tower’s main guard, a giant snake-demon that claims the life of the other thief. Conan seems to believe in some deity called Crom, who he swears by and at frequently, but he takes on powerful monsters, demons and powerful magic only with his sword and his wits. He has no superpowers of any kind, and for a barbarian he is quite articulate at times. As the adventures progress, through various intense get out of that escapist situations, and with one monster after another formulaic repetition, Conan does progress to leading an army of his own, and becoming a pirate, sea captain, and more besides though he is often reduced to starting again when stories begin with slate wiping beginnings of him as the sole survivor of a war or sorcerous attack. Read individually, the stories are thrilling escapist fun, but taken one after another without a break for other reading, they get more predictable. One of the best is the last in Volume One, - The Pool Of The Black One, in which a pirate ship crew are amazed when Conan climbs on board in the open, shark infested sea, having swum away from the attack on his vessel of another pirate crew he was serving many miles away. Conan quickly takes over the ship, killing its own captain to seize command. The crew have found an island where the natives feed their victims to a sentient black pool that turns people into hideous petrified statues. Conan rouses the slumbering crew, rescues the only woman, 9a slave to the previous captain), and fights off the natives, and they escape the pool itself, which comes to life to give chase. In The Slithering Shadow, Conan and the female lead (not the same woman as in the other story), are desperate for water in a desert, where they have survived a massacre by nomadic pursuing forces. The find an oasis village, and water, but the people sleep there despite attacks by a shadow demon that carts them to their doom in seemingly random attacks. The queen of the community wants to make Conan her husband, so she tries to kill his female companion, who kills her, while Conan destroys the demon itself. There are stories here that clearly influenced the films, including A Witch Shall Be Born, in which Conan, trying to save a queen from a lookalike who has taken her place, finds him crucified in the desert and survives by biting the heads off the vultures to drink their blood until he is rescued. Great stuff.Howard’s biography given in the book by editor, Stephen Jones, is also fascinating, and rather sad. He was strangely paranoid and frequently held a gun, telling friends that he had enemies everywhere. It was the death of his beloved Mother that proved to be too much for him however. Told by her doctors that her death was imminent, Howard shot himself in the head, but died in agony several hours later, just before his mother did.