The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: The Original Adventures of the Greatest Sword and Sorcery Hero of All Time!

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Customer Reviews:

ROBERT E. HOWARD = THE BEST OF THE BEST! [Posted on 2008-04-20]
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is one of my favorites. This book is fully illustrated throughout by Mark Schultz who does an excellent job! The Phoenix on the Sword is REH's first story of Conan. Some of REH's best stories are here: The God in The Bowl, The Tower in the Elephant, The Frost Giants Daughter, Queen of the Black Coast, Rogues in the House, and more.

Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was an extra-ordindary creative writer who in my opinion was the best! His vision, talent, creative writing, and action packed stories can and will never be replicated! To learn more about this unique man read The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard by Mark Finn. Also, read the Best of REH 1 & 2, Beyond The Black River, The Black Stranger and Other American Tales has the scariest story EVER Pigeons From Hell! Be sure to read it at night with plenty of light.

Must Reads: REH The Last of the Trunk, Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, The Bloody Crown of Conan, All of the Weird Works REH, All of Weird Tales, and Selected Letters of REH, and my favorite about Cats the Abyss, Cormac Mac Art, Dark Horse comics Conan and Pigeons from Hell, One Who Walked Alone by REH's girlfriend Novalyn Ellis, Two-Gun Bob, A Centennial Study of REH-This anthology of essays by 16 professionals offers a centenary tribute to REH and his literary achievement; In Two-Gun Bob I found out that REH had only been to the seashore only once in his life!

A special thanks to Glenn Lord, Patrice Louinet, Rusty Burke, Stuart Williams, Mark Finn, Paul Herman, Dark Horse comics, Del Rey, and everyone else who has kept REH's legacy alive and well.

The Master At His Best [Posted on 2008-06-28]
The sheer number of reviews should offer solid evidence of just how popular Robert E. Howard's creation Conan the Barbarian is. Though other writers have offered their take on this great character, to fully appreciate Conan one must begin and end with Howard. Nobody but nobody wrote sword and sorcery to equal Howard. I find it interesting all of the in depth analysis of both Howard and his work both pro and con. It's gratifying for any author to see his or her words generate so much discussion. Ultimately, though, I'd urge anyone reading Howard's stories to take the time to enjoy the tale. The ultimate goal of any story teller is to entertain. I believe that Howard understood this better than anyone. You can't miss with the fine collection.

If it's your genre, you'll like this collection [Posted on 2008-07-07]
Howard's Conan is a warrior and not much more. The common thread of all the stories is that somewhere along the way way Conan kills someone or something. It's pretty much that simple. Some of the stories are no more than a few pages, while others cover what essentially are multiple chapters. Most of the stories have a smoking hot woman who usually starts scantily clad and ends up completely unclad at some point - though sex does not feature (keeping in mind they were written in the 1930s). Conan isn't even the main character in some cases.

Outside of the tales themselves, I found the introductory discussion of Howard and the development of the Conan character interesting. What was most intriguing to me, though, was the well developed history of Conan's world, written by Howard, which is included toward the end of the volume.

Overall, if you take the stories individually, try not to link them much (despite the ever-present Conan), and you like the genre, you'll probably quite enjoy this collection. It's well written and loaded with exciting action. If you want the type of character development you get from novels, and even from the Conan movies, you'll be disappointed.

Hacking and slashing, Conan lives for the next adventure [Posted on 2008-07-12]
It isn't to say he has no moral compass, Conan has his own code, it makes sense to him that he should kill a whole court room of people because they didn't understand that he could not help them find his friend who was charged with murder, since the friend was just defending himself. Was the guy guilty? Probably not, but Conan isn't interested in the deeper nuances of law and due process, just doing what feels right as he lives his life in a violent and dangerous society. Judged by the (fictional) time period he lives in, it all can make some sense. When he falls in love with a pirate woman, he becomes a pirate himself, morals be damned, we're talking love here...

Well he is called a barbarian for a reason.

Reading the stories for the first time, its clear why Conan has survived so long and has such a loyal following. I can only imagine the disappointment of the loyalists over the movies, they really don't do Conan or this world justice.

The writing is crisp, crisp, crisp. It had to be, each word was precious space in those old magazines and a whole story with background, plot, narration and description had to fit it unimaginably small spaces. Its almost worth reading just to remember how much can be said in such a short space, my review is longer than it would take him to sum up a life story and make it interesting.

If you're a Sci Fantasy fan, its worth reading one of the first masters of the genre, undiluted and uninterpreted.

Sword and sorcery rules and Howard is the King! [Posted on 2008-07-18]
First, I must say that I am a woman. Many have found it unusual that I would love Robert E. Howard's work, but I do. I have all of his stories, and am grateful there are new editions to replace my poor crumbling paperbacks.
As a writer of fantasy Robert E. Howard is a must read for any interested in the genre. We take for granted the acceptance of fantasy in literature today, but in the 1930's-it was not respected or looked on with any serious note. I am not saying Robert E. Howard was without flaws, but he could create such heat on paper in a few sentences that takes many a writer pages to achieve. His raw barbarian hero Conan goes from age 15 to aged king and his journey is never dull. It is the scope of imagination in Howard's writing that is wonderful. The freedom to be wild. We should never forget that as writers. As a reader, I relish Howard's tales of savage myth.

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