Monday, February 2, 2009

Conan the rebel: this is ASS!


I have tried to be open minded when it comes to non-REH Conans, hell I even planed on buying and reading whole 71 books. I have already read "Conan and the spider god" and "Conan and the shaman's curse" and still had faith in the whole "Conan pastiches". Mr. Howard have captured my imagination with Conan to the point that I couldn't force myself to stop reading and close the book (I even got late to work few times because of that). I did not ask for much from other authors, and damn, I did not recieve much. Conan: the Rebel is more ass than Conan and the spider god which was hard to top. Mr. Anderson - did you even read ONE Conan book by REH? Reading this book is a torment and the failure is spilled on every page. There is only one thing
Mr. Anderson did right: if Conan was gay and not Conan this would be great book about that character I have just described. I don't want to go deep in details, because this book doesn't deserves it so just to name a few:

1. Conan is a gentle, caring lover, that is one step from writing love poetry - like what? It is same guy who fucked two gals (one being queen) on his way to save his wife for crying out loud..Also he abandoned all of his women with single exception of Zenobia, just becouse she was hot and it was about time to start working on a legitimate son. Even if some sick mind for some sick reason would like to portrait Conan as such Belit was worst pick ever to be his love object- she was greedy, bloody bitch-queen of the black pirates, driven by gold and lust. Moreso it was WORST time of Conan's life to portrait him as gentle person - he was KNOWN and FEARED by whole black coast as AMRA which means "LION". Amra was most bloody, brutal, savage, merciless pirate of ALL TIME.

2. Belit - Mr. Anderson basicly WROTE Belit's backstory which sucked. The whole idea behind Belit was that she and her crew was crusin' around the sea to pillage and murder for profit (aka piracy). Belit was NOT lost soul that was searching for her brother nor person driven by want to revange on Stygians- all she did was screw with Conan and sink ships.

3. Conan said: "I beg you, tell me why I am here?" when being held prisoner - I have stop reading after that phrase. Why read a book that guts your favorite character, striping him from all that makes him Conan. I couldn't count how many times Conan was prisoner, but he always took his punishment with silient dignity because in the end he WTFPWNED everyone (check: king of Turan). The "beg" word is not in Cimmerian's dictionary Mr. Anderson.

4. Conan prayied to his god - CROM - Conan prayed only twice in his life: before he went on a journey to save his wife and after he saved her. REH was very specific on this: it was first time Conan have offered animal sacrafice to the Crom as part of a prayer. Perhaps if Mr. Anderson wasn't spewing shit-book for crap money he would take his time to research a little into Conan and learn that Cimmerians do not pray because CROM does not listen.

There is no point in reading books just to shit on the later so right now I will look on e-bay for some original Conan (I own REH books in my native language, but the translation was very solid) and probably re-read the series in a brand new couch I have just bought (not that you care about that ;p)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Conan prayied to his god - CROM - Conan prayed only twice in his life: before he went on a journey to save his wife and after he saved her. REH was very specific on this..."

Actually, REH never had Conan pray to Crom. Conan the Avenger was not penned by Robert E. Howard but written by L. Sprague de Camp and Björn Nyberg.

This is good stuff you are writing! Keep up the good work!

Amra

Slith said...

some very very veeeeeeery late reply: you are right ofcourse.

I was suprised to find out that Conan the avenger was not REH's work since it was good.

Still there was something fishy about this book that I couldn't put my finger on....

now I know, and knowing is half the battle :D