Conan the Freelance (Conan the Barbarian) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Conan the Freelance
Series: Conan the Barbarian
Author: Steve Perry
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 167
Words: 61K

Each author who does these Conan pastiches (or in the case of Perry I’d call it fan fiction really) brings their own particular tastes to the stories. They also tend to have their own internal chronology. I bring this up because when I started reading this Perry has Conan waxing nostalgic for a bunch of buxom lasses whose names he rattles off. It sounded very much like a litany of “this girl was in this story and that girl was in that story” but this was the first Conan story I’d read by Perry. Turns out, I was reading these out of publication date. This is actually the 5^th Conan story Perry wrote. So I soldiered on but I re-ordered them in calibre so they’re properly sorted now.

Anyway, Perry seems to REALLY like non-human monsters. I’m not talking about a singular demon or leftover dinosaur thing, but in this story we have a whole population of selkies, of humanoid lizard people and a double handful of magical terror monsters. Plus, the queen of the humanoid lizards is a buxom blue lass who Conan “conquers”. I just rolled my eyes pretty hard.

The other issue was the wizard. He had all the ingredients he needed for his final spell but kept getting distracted and mispronouncing stuff, thus having to start over from the beginning. This is a guy who’s been around hundreds of years. You’d think he’d have learned to focus in that time. I don’t mind wizards being defeated, but this wasn’t Conan defeating the wizard, this was the wizard being a total incompetent and reaping the consequences of being a nincompoop. I rolled my eyes pretty hard.

At the same time, seeing Conan fight selkies, fight lizard men, fight magical terror monsters and stick a big fat steel sword through a wizard’s gullet made it all worthwhile. THAT is why I read Conan stories. So I’m giving this three eyerolls out of five.

★★★☆☆

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From the Publisher

Fate tosses the dice for Conan of Cimmeria, and they come up...death. Dimma, the Mist Mage, knows nothing of the muscular Cimmerian, but the vile necromancer's plans require his death. Thayla, beautiful Queen of the Pili, would rather take Conan to her bed, but her own plots mean he must die. The sorcerous changeling Kleg wasn't only to do his master's bidding, but Conan stands in his way. Even the lovely Cheen will let nothing stop her from recovering the sacred Talisman of her people.

The game is deadly, the stakes are life, but whatever the risks, Conan of Cimmeria will play until the final toss.

• The “Essential Conan” Trilogy

• All of My “Conan” Reviews

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Completed) ★★★★☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Completed)
Authors: Charles Dickens & David Madden
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 483
Words: 181.5K

Synopsis:

This book is divided into two parts, the first being Dicken's original and unfinished manuscript. The second part is where Madden takes over and finishes up the story.

In his version, the old man, Datchery, is an undercover detective hired by Mr Grewgious, the guardian of Rosa. He figures lots of things out and with the help of Reverend Crisparkle, pins the murder on Jasper, Edwins's uncle. Helene Landless is at this time secretly engaged to Crisparkle and her brother, Neville, overhears the evidence through that connection. He confronts Jasper, who is in an opium haze and Jasper ends up falling off the steeple in town and impaling himself on an iron fence.

My Thoughts:

I finished up the incomplete Drood back in March and the first thing I noticed upon starting this was just how much I enjoy Dickens' writing. It felt like putting on a pair of broken in slippers that were warm and fit me perfectly.

As I noted in my Currently Reading post a couple of weeks ago, Madden seemed to be trying to stay within the same literary framework. For the most part, I think he succeeded. I never felt jarred out of the story because of something Madden had written nor was the style radically different. Now, to be clear, he is NO Dickens. He had the mechanical aspect of writing like Dickens down, but that's what it was. His writing was not inspired like Dickens' could be. It really felt like Dickens writing on a bad day, perhaps with a head cold and cough that kept interrupting his thoughts. But I was satisfied with the job Madden did.

The completion of the story on the other hand, was even more pat than Dickens. It wasn't bad by any means or super sappy or anything negative, but it was, mmhhmm, bland. If Dickens had ended things that way, I'd probably be ok with it though. So maybe I'm just looking for things to pick on about Madden.

Whatever the case, whenever I do another Dickens re-read, I'll make sure to ends thing with this volume, not the incomplete one.

★★★★☆

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Unfinished by Dickens)