Need name / title of a Conan novel, NOT Robert E. Howard, HELP!


Books

Scarab Sages

This was a great book, btw...

Read a Conan book a few years back and i cant remember the book title and author. It was NOT Rober E. Howard. Basically, Conan ends up in a desert, an old forgotten god was involved, and the most memorable part was this necromancer with a necromantic ring that enhanced his powers to awake the dead. This necromancer also(it was strongly implied) preferred the company of dead women. I'll stop there due to the inappropriateness of the theme here.

SO...

Necromancer with a necromantic ring that enhanced his power over the dead. He also liked the company of dead women, not undead, but seriously folks-dead women.

Spoiler:
This necromancer was killed while controlling undead with his necromantic ring, yet because of the power of the ring, it cycled in on itself and he became a lich, of sorts, a fully conscious undead in control-through his ring, of himself. A very cool magic item idea.

I believe there was also a monk in the book. Really tough dude, book talked about where he learned his art and even explained a way to extend ones lifespan after a certain level. This monk didnt learn this advanced technique, but was dangerous, just the same.

Memory is vague here: I believe a cleric was also involved. He was trying to stop the baddy magician.

Memory is vague here, too: The final scenario was with brothers, one a champion figher and the other, a wizard, both Evil. This wizard wanted to re-awaken a long dead god. Took place in a desert.

Hope someone can give me the name of title and/or name of the author.

Again, great book.

Thoth-Amon

Liberty's Edge

Conan the Invincible, by Robert Jordan

Sovereign Court

ah yes, that Jordan kid, he should try writing his own stuff, I think he's got talent ;)


Guy Humual wrote:
ah yes, that Jordan kid, he should try writing his own stuff, I think he's got talent ;)

Sorry, but no, he doesn't.

He has a tendencey to be grossly verbose, and is a shameless self promoter who bought into his own hype a long time ago. I had high hopes for the wheel of time series but by book 6 with no end in sight I lost interest.
He is also unfortunately responsible for the hyper-thyroid take on Conan which resulted in the likes of a certain California governor playing the part in two films, severly damaging popular perceptions or REH's best known character.

Liberty's Edge

He's also dead...

Liberty's Edge

Agree 100% with Leo. Jordan (edit) was (/edit) a hack, his Conan novels are unreadable, considering how little he understands the character.

This may make me unpopular, but Wheel of Time was/is straight pretentious crappy pappy.

This opinion has been sanitized for your protection.

I wonder if I can sue his estate to get the time I spend reading his stuff back. Wait, I was in prison, it was dead time anyway. Never mind.

Liberty's Edge

I read the first three books, bought the next four, never read them, and currently have no interest in getting back into the series. I really can't even remember the events of the first three books. On the other hand, I enjoyed his Conan novels when I was 14 or 15.

Sovereign Court

To each there own I guess. I discovered Conan through his movies, if Jordan's novels inspired the Conan films all the more power to Jordan. I've since read Howard's work and discovered a much richer and interesting character, but if not for the movies and hype how would non-gamers ever discover these characters? Pulp heroes aren't exactly on snooty book club reading lists.

As to Jordan's talent, I personally loved his early books and at least some of his final books, but I know he's not for everyone. Some people love Virginia Woolf, you couldn't pay me to read another of her 'books', and yet I accept that she was brilliant. I just couldn't stand her writing. Jordan doesn't write great literature for sure but I liked his books and I was sorry to see him go without finishing his series.

Liberty's Edge

Andrew Turner wrote:
I read the first three books, bought the next four, never read them, and currently have no interest in getting back into the series. I really can't even remember the events of the first three books. On the other hand, I enjoyed his Conan novels when I was 14 or 15.

I think that was my problem, I was in my 30's when I read him. I had pretty much stopped reading any kind of fantasy after high school (still played D&D though), and somehow missed him when I was young. I grew up in a small town, not much of a scene, no gaming store, the kids I played with were the only regular players in town, others dabbled, but never really jumped in. I hear things are better there now, the town has grown considerably from the 12k when I was there, and they even have a gaming store now!

Anyhow, by the time I did get around to reading him, my "grognard" gene activated, and anything that wasn't "O.G." Old School (Original Generator) or completely respectful of the source material (Jordan's Conan was too vapid for my adult tastes compared to Howard's original), was right out. Didn't have time for shenanigans.

I saw three books in that Wheel of Time was setting up to be a bloated cash cow, dutifully trudged through a few more (wasn't like I had anything better to do, I probably burned through 1,500 books while I was locked up.), and just gave up after umpteenth sub-character for alternate plot double alpha z just got to be too much for me to care about.

So, yeah, I think when you're introduced to something has a lot to do with how you'll ultimately take to it.


I don't even like the Carter/de Camp/Nyborn pastiches. When it comes to Conan, give me Howard or nothing!

The Exchange

and the fans agree, if it is not Howard, its cr@p


What about a guy named Karl Wagner? I've never read any Conan or the Wheel of Time, for that matter, but I've read some hype about Karl Wagner. Anyone got an opinion? Super-opinionated, Hunter S. Thompson-style opinions are greatly appreciated by the way. Don't sanitize anything on account of me.


A 2E Floppy-Eared Golem wrote:
What about a guy named Karl Wagner? I've never read any Conan or the Wheel of Time, for that matter, but I've read some hype about Karl Wagner. Anyone got an opinion? Super-opinionated, Hunter S. Thompson-style opinions are greatly appreciated by the way. Don't sanitize anything on account of me.

Of the pastiche books/stories, I have heard that Wagner's are the best of the lot, but haven't read them, so I'm just passing on the opinions of others. However, even if true, climbing to the top of that heap isn't much of an accomplishment. I love the REH stories, but everyone else whom I've read that tried to add to that material mauled the main character so bad that he's damn near unrecognizable to me.

So many of them were involved with playing games with the original author's material, as well, that it's hard to be objective about their contributions. My only beef with Jordan's take on it was that he seemed heavily, heavily influenced by L. Sprague De Camp's rewrites and hack additions, which I don't think hold a candle to the originals.

Plus, De Camp was a complete mercenary bastard with not much talent of his own, a horrible biographer, and the guy who wouldn't let an all-REH collection of Conan stories be published without having his crap tossed in as well, and that admittedly colors my impression of anyone who enjoyed his Conan material enough to draw from it. So I'm not a Jordan-Conan fan partly because I think he got the character completely wrong, but I might be a bit harsh on it for different reasons. The Wagner stuff, hell, tell me if it's worth reading!


The universal truth about Robert Jordan is that he is not anywhere near as bad as his hardcore detractors make him out to be and he is not anywhere near as good as his hardcore supporters say he is. And all but the most ardent Jordan fans agree that at some point he did lose the plot a bit with his books and started churning out tedious filler, although he seemed to be getting back on track with the last book before he passed away.

However, when it comes to worldbuilding and the creation and use of magic systems, there are very few authors in his league. Scott Bakker is the only other epic fantasy author batting on the same level. On the story/writing front, authors like Erikson and Martin also severely outclass him.

None of that has anything to do with his CONAN books, which were quick-write-ups to make money and nothing more. It's also worth noting that the forthcoming release of the Schwarznegger film inspired Tor Books to commission some new CONAN material, not the other way round. Jordan's first CONAN book and the movie were released within a few months of one another in 1982.


As far as Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' goes, I enjoyed the first three or four books quite a bit, and don't have anything bad to say about them. By Book 5 or so, though, he started repeating himself a bit too often for me, and a lot of the bits that had been 'cute' or chuckle-producing early on began to be a bit nauseating. Still, I enjoyed those first few when they came out.

Werthead- you are dead on with R. Scott Bakker. That guy is doing some amazing stuff. Achamian's escape scene was the first magical anything that I'd read in a looooong time that actually produced a sense of awe.

That damned doll was creepy, too:)

Scarab Sages

My brother is a HUGE Conan afficiando. He has almost all the novels concerning Conan and the new stuff that is set in Hyboria. The stuff he's missing? Robert Jordan's "version"

My only experience with Jordan was the Wheel of Time. I gave it back to my friend after 3 pages. I read and felt like a really bad Tolkien rip-off. Even worse than Dennis McKiernan's Iron Tower Trilogy. (And of the three, I think Mckiernan's is the better written of the lot.)


Andrew Turner wrote:
He's also dead...

I looked up >his wiki page<


Sanakht Inaros wrote:
My only experience with Jordan was the Wheel of Time. I gave it back to my friend after 3 pages. I read and felt like a really bad Tolkien rip-off. Even worse than Dennis McKiernan's Iron Tower Trilogy. (And of the three, I think Mckiernan's is the better written of the lot.)

You cannot say that based on three pages. Yeah, there are severe similarities between Book 1 and Lord of the Rings (at the publisher's request), but not to the level of THE IRON TOWER which was, at the author's own admission, an almost one-for-one rewrite of LotR after he was refused permission to write an official new Middle-earth book.

WHEEL OF TIME starts off in that vein but goes in a radically different direction about halfway through the first book (although he does give us some rather tedious rewrites of the Prancing Pony and Moria sequences first), after which the comparisons between the two works cease to exist.

Scarab Sages

I quit reading after 3 pages because it took me two very long weeks to suffer through them. I got a really good sense of the how the story would go because of how verbose he got in those 3 pages. I even warned my friend that the series would be padded out to 10 books instead of the 6 Jordan claimed. And lo and behold, I was right. Everything everyone b*@~~es about in the latter part of the series is plainly evident within the first 3 pages.

Robert Jordan wanted to out do Tolkien when it came to writing a fantasy epic. He succeeded marvelously. Both show how NOT to write epic fantasy.


Werthead wrote:
Sanakht Inaros wrote:
My only experience with Jordan was the Wheel of Time. I gave it back to my friend after 3 pages. I read and felt like a really bad Tolkien rip-off. Even worse than Dennis McKiernan's Iron Tower Trilogy. (And of the three, I think Mckiernan's is the better written of the lot.)
You cannot say that based on three pages.

I agree. I didn't care for Wheel of Time either, but at least I can base that opinion on reading the first 1000 pages. So I can say, with some authority, that Wheel of Time is not BAD, but is too stretched out. I could never base such an opinion on 3 pages.

Scarab Sages

I've read a lot of bad fiction. And you can tell a lot about the writer and where the story is going within the first few pages. The fact that it tooke me TWO WEEKS to read THREE PAGES told me that the Wheel of Time was going to be a very bad series.

If it takes you TWO WEEKS to read THREE PAGES, that's a sign that the book is going to be bad. What more proof do you need?

Sovereign Court Contributor

Wagner is AWESOME. His Kane books, the novels especially, are marvelous. They helped define Sword and Sorcery post pulp. Don't miss them.

IMO Lin Carter is not a bad take on Conan, if you're passing REH.


Sanakht Inaros wrote:
I've read a lot of bad fiction. And you can tell a lot about the writer and where the story is going within the first few pages.

No, you can't. Try this with Christopher Priest or Gene Wolfe or any other author who goes in for misdirection (and Jordan does, in a slightly more ham-fisted way) and you can see how that opinion would fall apart.

Quote:
If it takes you TWO WEEKS to read THREE PAGES, that's a sign that the book is going to be bad. What more proof do you need?

I don't know, reading all of the book so you can give your opinion with authority rather than making hyperbolic statements?

Otherwise all you can say is, "Well the first three pages sucked, dunno about the rest of it."

Liberty's Edge

When I would tell people that I liked Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and those guys, often someone would say, "Oh, then you like the Conan stories."

So I bought some of the black cover anthologies, and was bored to tears.

After that, when I would tell people that I liked Lovecraft, et al, and they said I probably liked the Conan stories, I would say, "No, not really." They would look funny and let it drop.

I didn't realize on that first pass that those books had a) the stories waaaaay out of order in which REH wrote them, and 2) two thirds of the stories weren't by REH at all.

Finally, after I went through the above exchange for years, I decided to give it another try. I was able to get a good edition of the REH stories, and I fell in love within the first few pages. I now have all of his sword and sorcery stuff.

And I watched that movie, "One Who Walked Alone". I loved it. You *might* have to be a REH fan to love it. I'm guessing that because I found it in the bargain bin at the local big box.

Scarab Sages

Werthead wrote:
No, you can't. Try this with Christopher Priest or Gene Wolfe or any other author who goes in for misdirection (and Jordan does, in a slightly more ham-fisted way) and you can see how that opinion would fall apart.

I've read both Priest and Wolfe, and while not my cup of tea, they were far and away better writers. And though I've never finished a book by either gentlemen, I've managed to get at least half way. Both have at least engaged my attention, which is something Jordan nor Tolkien has ever done. And yes, I've tried to read the Wheel of Time and LOTR on several occassions and have yet to get past the first three pages (for Jordan) or get past the Prancing Pony (Tolkien).

Werthead wrote:


I don't know, reading all of the book so you can give your opinion with authority rather than making hyperbolic statements?

Otherwise all you can say is, "Well the first three pages sucked, dunno about the rest of it."

No. I knew he was going to drag out the series by just the way he wrote the first three pages. And from what everyone that I know has told me about the series-he wrote FOUR BOOKS that did NOTHING to advance the plot one iota. The fact that I told them he would do something like that based on just reading three pages kinda tells you something.

Besides, I'm not gonna waste my time trudging through 1000+ pages of a crap novel just to come to the same conclusion. There are better novels out there and I prefer to read those.

Dark Archive

Two weeks to read three pages? And repeated multiple times in all caps, just to make sure that I didn't miss it? Wow.

I'm no fan of the stuff that Jordan got wrong (although I did enjoy the Conan novel I read by him, which isn't the one mentioned upthread), but I wouldn't blame the man for such an incredible problem as you seem to have had. He's not a tenth as bad as authors like Michael Reeves, who make up their own words and sprinkle them liberally throughout the narrative. 'Purrecting?' 'Odylic?' Whatever, man.

And then there's the really oddballs, like Vernor Vinge. "Best book ever!" the fans raved. "Gobbledigook!" says I.

Then again, I read 100 pages / hour, despite mild dyslexia, and have had to read stuff in languages I don't actually know for college work (note to self; Ancient Languages in Translation? might require some actual translation). Jordan's no harder to read than the Harry Potter stuff, and significantly less painful than plodding through formulaic stuff like Eragon with the kids...


All I can say about Jordan's WoT books is

It's a pretty good trilogy!

And the dude who's claiming to know everything about Jordan after 3 pages? No one believes it so stop posting it.

Scarab Sages

PsychoticWarrior wrote:

All I can say about Jordan's WoT books is

It's a pretty good trilogy!

And the dude who's claiming to know everything about Jordan after 3 pages? No one believes it so stop posting it.

And we already can tell you don't know what you're talking about. The WoT was originally supposed to be 6 to 7 books long. Now, it's gonna be around 13-14 books. Biggest complaint I hear from my friends that have suffered through it, starting at book 5 and up until book 9 NOTHING EFFING HAPPENED!!! No plot development, no character development, nothing. Most of my friends have actually quit reading it because of that. They're all complaining about hwo much time they wasted on the series.

Why I'm harping on the 2 weeks 3 pages, is because I can finish a 1000 page novel in about three days, depending on what I have going on. Those first three pages were so god-awful that I kept falling asleep or I had to go back and re-read each paragraph because I still didn't know what was going on.

As for the Jordan Conan stuff, I got about a third the way through and didn't bother reading it.


I think PW meant it was a good trilogy (i.e. three of the books were good) but not so great as a 14-book series. To be honest, I don't think there's a story in existence that justifies 14 books, not WHEEL OF TIME and not MALAZAN either and certainly not RIFTWAR (which is a 30-book series). That's not to say that the entire series is a waste of time, however. It's the most popular epic fantasy series since Tolkien, so certainly it has elements that appeal to a lot of people.

This discussion is getting off-topic (Conan), so I'll start or see if there's another WHEEL OF TIME discussion going on where it would be more appropriate.

Scarab Sages

I'm fighting to get through MALAZAN. Right now I'm stuck on MEMORIES OF ICE. RIFTWAR has become a sorry parody of itself. The original trilogy was good, but then it got repetitive. It seems that in several of the later trilogies he just changes names and chapter order.

As for CONAN. If it's not REH, it's not Conan.


Werthead wrote:
To be honest, I don't think there's a story in existence that justifies 14 books

Gotta differ with you there. Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey/Maturin' series never missed a beat through 20 complete and one unfinished books. Fan-damn-tastic stuff, suprisingly hilarious, and you will learn a whole bunch of nautical stuff into the bargain.

Liberty's Edge

The Hardy Boys!!!


Sothmektri wrote:
Werthead wrote:
To be honest, I don't think there's a story in existence that justifies 14 books
Gotta differ with you there. Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey/Maturin' series never missed a beat through 20 complete and one unfinished books. Fan-damn-tastic stuff, suprisingly hilarious, and you will learn a whole bunch of nautical stuff into the bargain.

Well, that's true, and George MacDonald Fraser's FLASHMAN series (12 books) is almost as good, but in both cases those are series of self-contained (ish) stories with recurring characters. They're not telling one single story across all those volumes.


True enough!

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