Conan the Marauder (Conan the Barbarian) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge

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Title: Conan the Marauder
Series: Conan the Barbarian
Authors: John Maddox Roberts
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 176
Words: 80K



Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org & Me

The warlord, Bartatua, is uniting all the Hyrkanian tribes east of the Vilayet Sea into an army for world conquest, beginning with the resistant city of Sogaria. Meanwhile, an exiled Turanian wizard, Khondemir, plans on taking control over Bartatua’s soldiers in pursuit of his own agenda. Caught in the middle are Princess Ishkala of Sogaria, a seductive spy named Lakhme, and the enslaved Conan, who must prove his loyalty towards Bartatua to escape his fate. Everything comes to a thrilling climax near an ancient Hyrkanian necropolis known as the City of Mounds.

Khondemir raises an elder god and gets eaten by it. The warlord is killed by his mistress who had her own plans with the wizard. She in turn is killed as well. The princess is rescued by her lover and Conan escapes to go have another adventure somewhere.

My Thoughts:

Now this was a rousing Conan adventure. I think the biggest part is the villainess in this case. Yes, there’s a bad wizard, but she’s the driving force behind everything happening in this story. It was a joy to read about her machinations because it provided good fodder for Conan to struggle against.

I don’t know why this worked so well for me but man, it was the best Conan story by Maddox yet. Conan was shown in a variety of roles and there was everything from a siege to a sorcerous showdown with an Old One.

I am feeling much better about this series now. Knowing that there is the chance of stories this interesting makes it worth hanging around the average ones 🙂

Rating: 4 out of 5.

17 thoughts on “Conan the Marauder (Conan the Barbarian) ★★★★☆”

    1. Cave drawings. Many, many, many Conan stories have been found drawn on cave walls. Some authorities even speculate that Noah’s kids vandalized the ark with such drawings.

      She’s the witchy girl who is trying to kill you…

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    1. These are novels. Fanfiction really. But they dress that up nicely and call it a “pastiche” so it makes people feel better? If you like the original Conan stories by Howard, the publishers are betting you’ll like these too 🙂

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        1. In their defense, they are decent stories by reputable authors. At least the ones I am reading. I’ve looked and there are scads more by nobody authors that I’ve never heard of.

          But I would definitely read the originals. Do you do ebooks? I’ve got a Complete Works of Howard if you’d like to borrow it.

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    1. So far it has been 50/50. He either sleeps with the gorgeously beautiful power woman and then just leaves because adventure calls OR the power woman is a super bitch, like in this story. Gotta admit, I like it when the women are evil…

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