Thursday, January 04, 2018

Books read in 2017: No. 51, Books read in 2018: No. 1 -- Conan the Rebel

by Poul Anderson

Started: Dec. 30, 2017
Finished: Jan. 4, 2018

Notes: I've never been a big reader of the non-Howard Conan books, but I'm trying to give more of them a chance, so here goes.

Mini review: This one was a mess for at least the first half of the book. Conan rarely appeared, an important side character then vanished for most of the rest of the book, various enemies worked together behind the scenes in some kind of vague plot against Conan that seemed to have no real force behind it other than some even vaguer prophecy ... just a mess. About halfway through, the story became more clear, but I found the writing rather drab, and there was little sense of urgency as there was never any real threats to Conan, at least none that lasted longer than a few paragraphs, though I suppose some of that could be expected for a serial character. All in all, not a good read, and I can only suggest it for hardcore Conan fans who feel they have to read everything about the barbarian.

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

I liked it more than you did but I read it a long time ago and might well have been swayed by Poul Anderson's name on it. at that time I was reading everything I could get by him