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"Howard was the Thomas Wolfe of fantasy, and most of his Conan tales seem to almost fall over themselves in their need to get out." —Stephen King
"A hero of mythic proportion, fashioned by a storyteller who helped define what a modern fantasy should be. Rogues in the House is one of the finest tales of sword and sorcery ever written." —Raymond E. Feist, author, The Riftwar Cycle
"Handsome." —Fantasy and Science Fiction
Product Description
Conan the Cimmerian—the boy-thief who became a mercenary, who fought and loved his way across fabled lands to become King of Aquilonia. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the barbarian warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian age. Collected here in the chronological order they were first published are Robert E. Howard's definitive stories of Conan, exactly as he wrote them. A foreword and afterword by Stephen Jones provide a biography of Howard along with a comprehensive overview of his writing and background on the world of pulp fiction. World Fantasy Award-nominee Les Edwards contributes a black and white frontispiece, along with a gold embossed work on the leather-style cover, while Hugo Award- and Bram Stoker Award-winning editor and author Stephen Jones provides an insightful afterword.
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Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pure Howard Conan - a MUST read for any action fan,
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This review is from: Complete Chronicles Of Conan (Hardcover)
What can I say about 800+ pages of pure Howard Conan goodness? Not much other than it's bloody fantastic. If you've never read the *original* Conan, you're in for an incomparable treat. Howard writes more vivid, passionate, thunderous action scenes than perhaps ANY other writer in history. "Howard's writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks!" writes Stephen King. King, no mean author himself, is absolutely true. Conan isn't the dumb, bull-headed barbarian portrayed in popular media. In fact, the very first story starts with him updating the royal library because he thinks some of it is out of date. Hardly the debut of the cartoon character most people think he is!Fortunately, as I've said, there's over 800 pages for newcomers to realize how far off that image really is. If you're familiar with Conan, this is an excellent book to revisit an old legend. This is pure, 100% Howard Conan. No edits, no pastiches, no add-ons. Pure Howard. If you haven't read Howard's Conan, and you have a pulse, you owe yourself to read it! If you have read it, and are looking to get it again, it's now just waiting for you. How does it compare to the Del Rey series of Conan books? First, the artwork in this book isn't quite as good, and there certainly isn't nearly as much of it. The general editing (like cathing speeling errrors) isn't as good as the Del Rey books, but it's not awful. The binding of the book (hardcover) is reasonable, but not Wandering Star, top-notch quality. But this book does offer the tremendous advantage of giving one ALL of the Conan stories in one handy volume, which makes it a great asset to any collection. Besides the Conan stories, it has a relatively complete Howard bibliography at the start, some quotes about Howard from a number of famous authors, numerous Conan fragments (unfinished stories) and an afterwords by Stephen Jones outlining Howard and Conan's lives. The afterword is decent summary of both, and it is quite fair and balanced. So the bottom line is that if you want the new releases of pure Howard, you now have two choices: the three excellent books from Del Rey, that offer more content and artwork or this great single book that offers a bit fewer bells and whistles but comes in one single volume (for a cheaper price). The real bottom line is that it's pure Howard Conan, which means this is pure dynamite just waiting to explode when you pick it up and read it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A haunting and memorable mythology,
This review is from: Complete Chronicles Of Conan (Hardcover)
It's hard to make adequate comment on a writer whose work created an entire genre and the larger creative industry that genre spawned. Conan the Barbarian means different things to different people, because the character exists in so many different versions ' the original Robert E. Howard stories; the de Camp and Carter pastiches that expanded on Howard's vision and popularity; the new generation of books that the original pastiches inspired; the Marvel comics that pushed sword-and-sorcery into the pop-culture mainstream; the Dark Horse comics that revitalized and revisualized the character; the 1982 film that first set Arnold Schwarzenegger on the path to pretending to be an actor. As a result, it's entirely possible to "know" Conan without really knowing the original stories in their original forms ' a problem that this weighty collection addresses nicely.The Complete Chronicles pulls together all of the original Howard stories in their original forms (including those edited as a part of the Howard/de Camp/Carter paperback collections that cemented the character's popularity). Unlike previous multi-part Conan collections, this book anthologizes the stories in the order Howard wrote them, rather than in chronological order according to the character's history. This means a lot of jumping around through the different ages of the character (the first two Conan stories Howard published are actually two of the last Conan stories, both taking place when Conan is king of Aquilonia; the familiar thief, barbarian, slayer, et al came later). However, i prefer this arrangement because it shows off how Howard's own understanding of the character changed and grew over time, the narrative and the character becoming more and more complex. Some of the Howard stories are better than others; some are more properly about the world than the character. (A surprise to a lot of people who read the Howard pieces for the first time is how often Conan appears only after other secondary characters have set the story up.) Many of the stories show their 30s pulp origins a little too strongly (most commonly with lines like " 'By the gods!" Conan ejaculated.'). But taken all in all, the Howard canon creates a haunting and memorable mythology that stands the test of time, and which can't help but make one wonder to what greater heights Robert E. Howard might have taken the character and the world of the Hyborian age if he'd had more time.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, poor binding.,
By
This review is from: Complete Chronicles Of Conan (Hardcover)
There is no question to the quality of the stories contained in this book. It contains the original printed versions of stories told and retold in countless comics, graphic novels and magazines. It's all here in one massive tome. I would have given this book a 5 star rating, but I found (and maybe I'm being picky) that the overall assembly and binding of the book looks and feels weak (I compared it to other hardcovers in my collection). It feels like its going to fall apart as I read it. Unfortunately in this case "Leather style cover" means cheap. I mean c'mon, for something this timeless, the publishers should have at least given us something that's going to last, not fall apart after the first read! I should've opted for the softcover, in fact maybe I'll return this one for that.
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