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Title: Conan the Destroyer
Series: Conan the Barbarian
Author: Robert Jordan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 170
Words: 57K
This was the novelization of the 1984 movie Conan the Destroyer. I had no idea until I went to google the synopsis. It also went a long way towards explaining why this felt like a second part of a story. Conan is constantly thinking about some woman he made a promise too and blah blah blah history history history. It made me wonder if Jordan had written another Conan book that I wasn’t aware of and needed to get to. But this revelation about the movie suddenly makes it all make sense.
But if I had never googled, I could never have told you this was a novelization. It read exactly like a pulp and all the previous Conan books by Jordan. To be honest, that’s a big positive in my books. Most novelizations are dry and lacking in artistic literary flair. Not this one.
My only quibble is the artifact this time, the Heart of Ahriman. I swear that has been used in another Conan novel. And ha, it has been, twice. First time I read about the heart of Ahriman was in Hour of the Dragon, an original Conan novel by Howard himself. The second time was in Conan and the Manhunters by John Maddox Roberts. What a wealth of useless knowledge I am! So yeah, it’s a MacGuffin and it didn’t work so hot for me.
Other than that, this was a typical Sword and Sorcery Conan adventure. You know what you’re getting and if you don’t like it, it’s your fault for reading this genre and character in the first place.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia.org
Queen Taramis of Shadizar promises to bring Conan’s lost love Valeria back to life if the Cimmerian will procure two magical items that she hopes will gain her ultimate power, a wizard’s gem and a horn that can awaken the dreaming god Dagoth. He undertakes the quest together with his thief partner Malak and Taramis’ niece Jehnna and henchman Bombaata. On their journey they are joined by two additional allies whom Conan saves from dire fates; the magician Akiro and the female warrior Zula. At their goal, the castle of the wizard Amon-Rama, Jehnna is kidnapped. Thanks to Akiro’s magic she is located in Amon-Rama’s lair and a way in is discovered. Inside, Conan is separated from the others and forced to battle a Man-Ape in a hall of mirrors, which he is only able to defeat by destroying the mirrors. He also mortally wounds the wizard, who is hiding behind one of them. Jehnna, who is the only person who can safely handle the wizard’s gem, retrieves the first magical item.
Afterward, the group beats off an attack by Corinthian soldiers and continues on to the fortress that holds the horn. It is retrieved at the cost of a battle with its Dagoth-worshipping keepers, whose leader Akiro defeats in a sorcerous duel. Bombaata and Jehnna escape through a tunnel, which the former closes to the others by starting a landslide. Back at Taramis’ palace, the queen conducts a ritual to awaken Dagoth that entails the placing of the horn on the forehead of the sleeping deity, and ultimately the sacrifice of Jehnna. Conan, Akiro, and Zula, having survived the landslide, interrupt the proceedings.
Conan fights and defeats Bombaata while Zula rescues Jehnna. In the absence of the sacrifice, Dagoth is an uncontrollable monster on his revival, eating Taramis and threatening the destruction of everything else. On the advice of Akiro, Conan rips the horn from Dagoth’s forehead, and the creature finally falls. In the aftermath, Jehnna succeeds to the throne of Shadazar and takes Zula, Akiro, and Malak as advisors. She offers Conan her hand and a place at her side as king, but the Cimmerian prefers to win his own kingdom.
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