“The Conquering Sword of Conan”, by Robert E. Howard, illustrated by Gregory Manchess

 

 

416 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345461537

 

In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of Robert E. Howard; The Conquering Sword of Conan, illustrated by Gregory Manchess, was the fifth volume to be published and, as the stories are published in the order Howard wrote them, it stands to reason that as his skill as a writer grew over time, as did the character of Conan. Volume three contains the short stories The Servants of Bit-Yakin (also published as Jewels of Gwahlur), Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger, Man-Eaters of Zamboula (also published as Shadows in Zamboula) and Red Nails; a bunch of notes and synopses on stores both published and not; a letter to P. Schuyler Miller (the American science fiction writer and critic) and another map of the Hyborian Age; along with appendices on the Hyborian Genesis Part III, notes on the Conan typescripts, the chronology of the tales and the original Howard texts, all by Patrice Louinet.

 

As mentioned in my review of Volume two (reviewed on _), by the time these stories were originally published, it would appear that Howard was growing tired of writing Conan stories, and while The Conquering Sword of Conan is perhaps the strongest of the three Conan-themed Del Rey volumes, one can see that Howard was yearning to expand into other genres: Beyond the Black River and Red Nails are consistently ranked amongst some of the best Conan stories that Howard ever wrote (a sentiment I agree with; I knew you’d care), but they could have just as easily been set on the dangerous frontier of the western United States in the former instance and in Aztec Mexico after the appearance of the conquistadors in latter (and, to carry this point just a little bit further, The Black Stranger could just as easily been set in the colonial America during the Golden Age of Piracy).

 

This last volume of Howard’s Conan books is an excellent send-off for this most famous of the man’s creations, and it has it all. The strength of the character is in his many contradictions: a man of brute strength and tender concerns, of savage passions and heartfelt compassion, of merciless drive and sentimental honor. The best characters have flaws and an arc in which we follow them as they grow and change. And Conan does that; he isn’t born perfect and does not become perfect, but he changes and becomes something greater at the end of his journey than he was at the beginning. THAT is proper storytelling; pity our modern-day mythmakers don’t do it better.