Conan - Blood of the Serpent: The All-New Chronicles of the Worlds Greatest Barbarian Hero

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Well, I've read every Howard Conan story, but not many pastiches, so I can't compare to other non-Howard tales. I recommend anyone who loves to read on the go check out the audiobook as it is brilliantly narrated by Bradford Hastings who brings a darkly masculine grit to the voice of our favorite hero. His Conan is appropriately deadly in combat and takes the direct approach when need be, but he’s also just as likely to use clever strategy or stealth to deal with obstacles. He managed to combine the action, adventure, monsters and magic of Conan with more realistic characters and combat (and much less purple prose, racism and sexism).

I read books, and I dreamed of Mars, and the planets in those books, and of the Hyborian Age of Robert E. But newcomers to Conan and existing fans who love the character and are open to other voices are encouraged to take a look.I can’t help but think that if gamers wanted to read 300-page novels they would probably be doing just that instead of playing videogames. After the initial euphoria wears off you realize that this isn't a complete new novel, but a prequel paired with the short story Red Nails. The result is ploddy: lots of explaining, several group hunts described, some medium sized battles, and some straight forward character conflict.

At this point the novel appears to be going in a new direction and will be about how to finagle a gold heist with Stygians everywhere. In fact it doesn't even have a proper conclusion except to set the characters in the right setting and situation for the beginning of Red Nails, which is included at the end of the volume. It reads like a Star Trek or Star Wars IP novel that machine guns off nod after nod, Easter Egg after Easter Egg. Oh, well, that and the sorcery that Stirling hints at, but doesn't really dive into with both feet like Howard did. This guy is a totally different character who seems more at home cracking one-liners in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than in a novel bearing his name.Characters appear with no real development or purpose, except to be quickly dispatched to move the meagre storyline forward to an ending that takes the reader directly into 'Red Nails'.

This is the backstory to what led to Conan ending up on a brief adventure with Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. When this force gets a new member namely Valeria of the Red brotherhood, a former pirate, shit hits the wall, no fans in those days. His pragmatism, battle wisdom, foresight, verbiage, intentions, mirth, natural sense of command, directness, desire but also respect for women, is all here, and we spend a lot of time in and out of his head as the story follows him intimately. As other reviewers stated it does drag sometimes as again we are used to Conan driving the action forward and getting to the heart of a problem and resolving it (although he needed a lot of external help during Hour of the Dragon, not gonna lie).Robert Jordan was the first Tor Conan author and he set the pattern: Novel length stories, Horny Conan, and references to past (y’know, the really great ones, by Robert E. That product (and the various Conan comic books) got me through the last 19 years and even though there were brief periods of withdrawal I never kicked the habit completely. I’m fine with the lack of epic events, and I don’t need or want Conan slaying dark lords and saving the world. Conan is described in typical Howardian fashion: “Conan was bare to the waist and wore only knee-length loose canvas breeks, seaman-style, and the naturally pale skin of his broadshouldered, taut, heavily muscled torso was tanned the same nut-brown as his arms and legs and face, except where thin or puckered scars showed white.