Decided to stop reading this early as it was really not for me any longer, enjoyed it in the past but it is so boring now.

Always a big Conan fan though even at an early age I could see the racist stereotypes that he used throughout his works, and though he always liked buxom women there were quite a few strong female characters that didn’t always need rescuing, but these stories are still incredibly dated.

and this is a bit of a worry, I’ve not read any Conan for about 25 years and could see myself possibly hating them now, but going to give them a try as I know I’m still capable of reading Lovecraft, but I never put down Lovecraft for a period of time so not sure what I’ll get out of Howard.

Conan the Cimmerian: the boy-thief who became a mercenary, who fought and loved his way across fabled lands to become King of Aquilonia. Neither supernatural fiends nore demonic sorcery could oppose the barbarian warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian age.

Collected together in one volume for the very first time, in chronological order, are Robert E. Howard’s tales of the legendary hero, as fresh and atmospheric today as when they were first published in the pulp magazines of more than seventy years ago.

Compiled by and with a foreward and afterword by award-winning writer and editor Stephen Jones.

The Hyborean Age

All my worries aside I’d completely forgotten how turgid and long-winded a lot of Robert E. Howard’s writing could be. This is a short fictional history that places the world and peoples of the Conan cycle within our world, all pre-cataclysmic and it is here we get a flavour of his racist views as the language he uses is very much weighted about savages and barbarians.
Taking all this into account though we get a glimpse of his imagination and world building and it feels very thorough.

Cimmeria (verse)

About as pompous as fantasy verse can get, not for me.

The Phoenix on the Sword

Was a bit thrown by this being near the end of the Conan storyline and that the stories aren’t necessarily going to be in chronological order, but this was still a solid story of Conan against enemies and beasts from the pits of darkness. The thing about being out of order is that there is no character growth/depth as we are meant to already have all that knowledge, but I suppose there has never been any real depth to the character anyway. We meet Thoth-Amon once more but massively changed, the whole story felt a bit thin and rushed though.

The Scarlet Citadel

The Tower of the Elephant

Black Colossus

The Slithering Shadow

The Pool of the Black One

Rogues in the House

Shadows in the Moonlight

Queen of the Black Coast

The Devil in Iron

The People in the Black Circle

A Witch Shall Be Born

Jewels of Gwahlur

Beyond the Black River

Shadows in Zamboula

Red Nails

The Hour of the Dragon (verse)

The Hour of the Dragon

The God in the Bowl

The Black Stranger

The Frost-Giant’s Daughter

Drums of Tombalku (draft)

The Vale of Lost Women

Wolves Beyond the Border (draft)

The Snout in the Dark (draft)

The Hall of the Dead (synopsis)

The Hand of Nergal (fragment)

Notes on Various People of the Hyborian Age