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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron_Chef" data-source="post: 1330336" data-attributes="member: 4530">I just finished reading Andrew Offut's first two Conan novels, CONAN AND THE SORCERER and THE SWORD OF SKELOS, and I thought they were absolutely thrilling, fantastic adventures worthy of Howard himself. I am now starting on his third (and last?), CONAN THE MERCENARY. I have no idea why anyone would *not* like Andrew Offut's Conan novels, nor consider them so "bad" as to put them off reading any non-Howard Conan books.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> What I liked most about Offut's Conan tales are his characters, especially Conan's deadly love/hate relationship with the Zamboulan thief, Isparana (think Marvel's Red Sonja or Jordan's Karela The Red Hawk), the Shanki tribesmen, and the treacherous but charismatic Iranistani agents Ahjindar and Khassek, who are as eager to befriend Conan as to put a knife in his ribs. His villains (Hissar Zul, Tosya Zul (the Sand Lich), Zafra, Akter Khan, Chia The Tigress) are all pretty good if slightly underdeveloped. Hissar Zul is the best of the bunch, as he steals Conan's soul, but uses a variety of more mundane methods of capturing and knocking out the wily barbarian (traps, black lotus powder) to get him the position where his specialized brand of necromancy can be most effective. Offut helps flesh out the geography between Zamora and the Turanian satrapy of Zamboula, complete with much detail on the Shanki desert tribesmen and their culture, though little is revealed of their enemy, the Yoggites. I think it is just fashionable to bash the non-Howard tales as some form of elitist nonsense... except in the case of L. Sprague deCamp, Lin Carter (and possibly Bjorn Nyberg, whose contributions I've read many years back but can't remember). The deCamp/Carter revisions and pastiches are, first and foremost, boring, crudely attempting to ape Howard to no good effect. However, I'm not sure that without deCamp and Carter's efforts and contributions, Conan would have become the brand name/household word he is today.Andrew Offut and Robert Jordan's Conan books are easily the BEST non-Howard ones ever written, at least that I've read so far. The 1980s and later Conan authors who really suck that I've read are Poul Anderson (CONAN THE REBEL) and Leonard Carpenter (from what I've read and heard, though he has many books out and some are supposed to be pretty good). I haven't read Steve Perry or Roland Green. John C. Hocking's CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS is supposed to be excellent; I just ordered it from Amazon. John Maddox Roberts is pretty good so far, but I've only read his CONAN THE CHAMPION (fantastic start and finish except for the 100 pages of "filler" in the middle where Conan is caught in the Spirit World and threatened by man-eating plants, hell-scorpions, demons, S&M "alien elves" and a clockwork centaur from hell). THE CHAMPION also fleshes out the geography and petty barbarian kingdoms of the unmapped Border Kingdoms north of the Vilayet, which I've always wondered about. His villain, King Totila, is easily one of Conan's most fearsome non-magical adversaries, and the final battle between these two barbarian giants is very well done. One problem I've noticed in several Conan books is Conan doesn't get laid---not even once briefly for coin with some saucy harlot, despite generous female nudity on hand. Howard would never have stood for that!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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