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Title: Conan the Formidable
Series:
Conan the Barbarian #16
Author: Steve
Perry
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Fantasy
Pages: 171
Words: 62K
First, the cover. There is a man with
four arms in this story, but he’s a scared little weakling who is
being used in a freak show. He’s definitely NOT a monstrous hulk
who takes on Conan. I don’t know who the woman is supposed to be,
because there’s not a normal woman amongst the group. Perry’s
predilection for monster women comes roaring to the forefront.
There’s a cat woman, a giantess and a young teen giantess and for
once, Perry doesn’t have Conan sleep with anyone. You could have
bowled me over with a feather, because Perry’s a perv and it has
shown through in all his previous Conan books. So the woman on the
cover is, ahem, artistic license.
There is an evil sorcerer, but he’s
not 500 years old and he’s pretty dumb. His biggest ambition is to
run a big freak show and pimp the freaks for even more money. When
your highest ambition is to get some rich nobleman to be your patron,
and you have magic and freaks, well, I say you are aiming pretty low.
Said magician was the villain but he wasn’t a competent one, more
of just one more annoyance Conan has to deal with on his travels.
The magician does kidnap both some giants and a swamp dwarf thingy,
so that brings their dada’s into the action.
Those guys hate each other and even
though they work together to get their kids back, they both want to
kill Conan and everyone else in the freak show because they know the
location of their homes. Evil incompetent magician, traitorous and
backstabbing giant and dwarf and then a bunch of regular soldiers
hired to guard a rich nobleman. Conan and Co have a lot of killing to
do and Perry didn’t let me down. There was a lot of action and that
is what I liked most about this story. It didn’t hurt that at the
end the two Dada’s ended up killing each other by accident while
trying to be treacherous to each other. It was the perfect ending for
two such scum bags.
I’ve got one final Conan book by Perry to
read. I wasn’t going to after the last book (Conan
the Defiant) but this one gave me the strength for that final
lap. Much like that scene in the movie “Chariots of Fire” where
the main character gets knocked down and then gets back up and wins
the race, I too shall recover and take this reading race by the
throat and make Perry wish he’d never written a Conan story. Oh
wait, no. What I MEANT to say was that I’m going to push through
all the pain and suffering Perry has put me through with these
mediocre Conan fanfics and teach him that not even he can stop me
from reading Conan stories. Hmmm, that doesn’t quite right either.
Well, whatever. I’m going to read the final Conan book by Perry and
that’s inspiring and you should be hearing that music from Chariots
of Fire while reading this. Plus, you should be inspired to be more
like me so you can crowdfund a biopic movie about my life and how
great I am. Now THAT’S inspiring!
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia
The novel opens with Conan walking into
Shadizar through the Karpash Mountains. He is ambushed by some
bandits in the mountains and rescued by a giantess named Teyle. She
leads Conan back to her village in the swamp they inhabit at the foot
of a mountain. The swamp is also inhabited by Vargs, who are
described as "Green dwarves" and act more
like goblins or orcs. Upon arriving, he is knocked out
by Teyle to be experimented upon by the request of Raseri, the
village chieftain and Teyle's father.
Conan awakens inside a cage made from
the bones of giants and finds he's being experimented upon by Raseri.
Raseri is performing research on the physical endurance of damage in
humans. Meanwhile, Dake the freakmaster is on his way to the giant's
village with his entourage of Penz the wolfman, Tro the catwoman, Sab
the four-armed man, and Kreg his assistant. Dake's mission is to
capture a giant and a "green dwarf" for his freak
show.
On the way, Dake's freak show is
attacked by Vargs, but the creatures are scared off by a massive red
demon which Dake summons (which is an illusion). Penz captures
one of the Vargs at the behest of Dake. Dake promptly hypnotizes his
Varg into servitude. The Varg that is captured turns out to be
Vilken, the son of Fosull, a Varg chieftain.
Conan eventually escapes the cage in
which he is being held and sets fire to Raseri's hut, sending all of
his research on humans into flames. Conan escapes into the swamp,
running across some Vargs and killing several of them. Meanwhile,
Dake arrives at night in the hopes of capturing a giant for his freak
show with the help of Tro the catwoman's night vision. The flaming
hut distracts many of the giants and Dake is able to capture Teyle,
as well as Morja and Oren, who are also Raseri's children.
As Conan escapes, the giants release
their "Hellhounds", a massive beast with the appearance of
a cross between a bear and a wolf. The hellhounds, Vargs, and giants
are tracking Conan in that order of following. Soon, Conan slays all
the hellhounds. When the Vargs and giants find these corpses, they
are amazed. Conan finally escapes the swamp only to be magically
captured by Dake.
Figuring that more of his own kind will
attract too much attention, Raseri decides to leave the swamp to look
for his children by asking the local humans if they have seen a man
resembling Conan. Fosull decides on a similar plan, but coats himself
in mud (so as not to display his green skin) and follows the cart's
tracks, knowing what they look like. Fosull manages to get a ride
with a drunken wine seller in his cart. Dake forces Conan to display
his strength so that it may be measured. Dake learns that Conan is
stronger than all the rest of his freak show combined and sets Conan
to use as his strongman for the traveling circus.
Raseri eventually finds Fosull's wagon
and learns that the cart in front of him contains a Varg who is
tracking their children. Fosull learns that he is being tracked by a
giant, but knows not who. Dake exhibits his circus to a village.
Eventually, Conan discovers that rage helps in weakening Dake's
spell. Soon, Penz reveals he knows a few of Dake's spells.
Fosull and Raseri form a temporary
alliance to rescue their children. Dake meets up with a caravan of
other merchants. They stop for the night and Dake sends Morja to the
leader of the caravan as a gift. Raseri and Fosull have managed to
sneak up secretly. This enrages Dake's slaves and they manage to
break the spell of entrapment set upon them. The former-slaves,
Raseri, and Fosull manage to rescue Morja before she arrives at the
merchant's wagon.
The group kills the merchant and
several guards in the ensuing battle. Oren throws a rock at Dake as
he's reciting his enslavement spell. The spell gets 2/3 done and
binds the ex-slaves, Raseri, and Fousull (except for Conan) before
the thrown rock smashes Dake's teeth preventing the final
articulation of the spell. Conan promptly slays Dake in the process.
Raseri is convinced that the group
should not be able to leave knowing how to get to his village of
giants. Raseri tells the group that he has a potion which will help
them forget how to get to his village. However, his potion is
actually a poison. Penz sprinkles a powder (stolen from Dake) that
turns all liquid to water into the cups of the slaves while Raseri is
not watching. Eveyone drinks the potion and Raseri reveals they are
about to die. Fosull, whose drink was not sprinkled with the magical
powder, kills Raseri with his poisoned spear and dies shortly
afterwards. Raseri's death also prevents the poison from taking
effect. Soon, Teyle decides to let the group leave and the book is
concluded.
