schemes and sorceries employed to gain power shattered by the enduring and cunning brute

The second of the Conan anthologies presents Howard at the peak of his craft, featuring some of his long-form work in a novella, a single short story, and Howard's only completed novel. While Howard didn't write the Conan stories in anything like chronological order, the barbarian of these adventures is clearly older, cannier, and more wise to the world than the young, thieving slayer of his earlier tales. The opening and closing stories of this edition feature Conan as a war-chief of various mi...

We all know I love Robert E. Howard's writing by now. No change here.

YES!! The Conan stories restored to their original texts. Read Conan as Howard intended him to be. You will find that Conan is more than just a big semi-naked barbarian with a sword. He speaks and reads many languages and thinks his way through a lot of what he encounters. But then when that doesn't work he can swing a sword with the best of them. Highly recommended

I first read the great majority of the Conan stories a number of years ago. I enjoyed them so much and quickly sought out other Robert E. Howard writings. The man has his weird quirks and sure, his stuff can be a little repetitive at times, but I would argue that in terms of pulp writers he was probably one of the more diverse, being able to work in a variety of different genres, in contemporary, historical or constructed settings. of course, one of the tricks to his apparent diversity was that

This is the second of three books in Del Rey's collection of Howard's original Conan stories. The first book in this set, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, would be a better place to start for anyone new to reading Conan, I think the shorter stories are more accessible in terms of getting into the character.In The People of the Black Circle, Conan attempts to use a princess as a bargaining chip for the return of his captured lieutenants, but then he's drawn into her quest for revenge. I really

Overall rating: 3.717384861533333 stars. More or less. The Adventures of My Barbarian Paramour, Vol. II! Let's do this and stuff!Thrilled to see you’re as excited about this as I am, Cimmerian Cutie Pie Mine!So there are only three stories in this collection. Which is a complete joke compared to The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and its thirteen delicious Barbarian tales. More than a joke, it is quite the rip-off, if you ask me. Well, I guess it depends on one’s perspective and stuff. I mean, it...

The Hour of the Dragon - 5/5The Hour of the Dragon is worth five stars alone. It combines all of the greatest elements from every other story in the Conan saga while excluding their flaws. It's an adrenaline-filled slugfest with nearly 200 pages worth of war, epic bloody battles and savage warriors against supernatural abominations. The action was incredible and the characterization of Conan is more mature and complex than ever before. The ending is surprisingly heartwarming as we watch a slave

I like my Conan in shorter form than these three stories. I really liked the first story. The second story was looooooooong, seemed to never end, and seemed like multiple stories smushed together that didn't go together. Third one was good. I also enjoyed the essay about how REH created his world.

Back when I was a young fencing coach, I had an epiphany about how skill develops that has come to define the way I approach learning. I'd be working with students who might have been fencing for a few weeks or a few months when a new face would walk in. I'd put a sword in his hand and set him up against one of the others and, as often as not, the newcomer would get a few points, despite having no foreknowledge of fencing. His frustrated opponent would sigh, shake his head, and declare "it's not...

The Hyborian age, where men were men, women were women, and giant snakes were giant snakes. This collection contains a short story, a longer story, and the novel-length The Hour of the Dragon. I grew up on Conan pastiches, particularly the Tor editions. It wasn't until I was a bit older that I read the original Howard stories and, let me tell you, nothing compares to these original tales. They helped shape sword and sorcery fiction in the same way that The Lord of the Rings influenced epic fanta...

Another great collection. Conan is a great character and I envy Howard's ability to write great Heroic fantasy. Highly recommended.

Conan is continuing to make its rounds around my grey matter and settling in as one of the core, foundational fantasies of the last hundred years. The fact that the barbarian remains the most recognizable alpha male in fantastic fiction should say everything I need to say.But it also deserves mention that these stories are not lightweight fluff pieces of fantasy. Conan himself is the ultimate rugged self-made man, preferring to take what he wants by his own efforts despite multiple offers being

The Bloody Crown of Conan is the second of Del Rey’s three-volume collection of Robert E. Howard’s Conan yarns. Including Howard’s only Conan novel, it has the fewest stories of any volume in the collection. The Bloody Crown of Conan is also heavily illustrated, this time by Gary Gianni, who did excellent work for George R.R. Martin’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms collection. I don’t like his Conan artwork quite as much (the art in my paperback copy is black and white). There is a foreword by G...

A bit of a mixed bag. This edition contains Howard’s only full Conan novel as well as a good novella and a short story. The People Of The Black Circle 4 stars The Hour Of The Dragon 3 stars A Witch Shall Be Born 2 stars There is also a great introduction to the book and the Miscellanea and Appendices help the reader understand Howard’s motivations and writing process.

This second volume of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories contains three of the longest REH Conan stories published as well as some unpublished drafts and notes. There are also some illustrations by Gary Gianni. The Afterword "Hyborean Genesis" is an excellent biography of REH during the time these pieces were written, giving plenty of interesting background material about the writing and publishing of the stories. The People Of The Black Circle - 3/5 - much heralded Conan story, but it seemed mere...

Contains:The People of the Black Circle The Hour of the Dragon A Witch Shall Be Born This is the second volume of the original, unedited Howard versions of the Conan writings. Like many Conan is one of my first introductions into fantasy and Conan personifies the Sword and Sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. He was great to read when Howard came up with him and he's still a great read today.

The definitive collection of Howard's original Conan stories, in writing order, continues with this second volume. It contains only three stories, although the middle one is a full-length novel, the only such Conan novel by Howard. The stories are mixed in quality, in ascending order. The first, The People of the Black Circle, was the first Conan story that I specifically disliked. It gets bogged down with tribal politics, and the final assault against the wizard's fortress is underwhelming, as

Conan as Robert E. Howard intended for him to be. Contains "The People of the Black Circle," "The Hour of the Dragon," and "A Witch Shall Be Born." There are also lots of untitled synopsis material and some draft stuff, and a great article called "Hyborian Genesis Part II." Good stuff.

For the second volume of Conan stories, the editors took a different tactic and instead of printing everything in strict chronological order, they put together three of the longer stories into one volume. Which means that the hit-miss ratio has to be better than the first go-round. In the first volume there were like twelve stories and if a couple of them were duffers it didn't matter too much. If only one of these were just Howard going through the motions then it would be almost a third of the...