Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
THE PROBLEM!, Oct 5 2003
This review is from: Conan The Free Lance (Mass Market Paperback)
Well, the problem with any Conan story written by anyone other than Robert E. Howard, is that they all seem the same after a few books. The Cimmerian is always going merrily along his way when he's snatched up by a wizard or corrupt king or someone of the like, and he's forced into a war filled with double deals and double crosses, and only his unbelievable strength and skill with the sword can get him out. He also finds a wench somewhere along the way, and their never a pretty girl, but a radiantly beautiful woman to rival the gods. I wish for something a little unique. Try "Conan the Savage", it's much much better.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is NOT Conan, Aug 4 2007
By Chess Buddhist - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Conan The Free Lance (Mass Market Paperback)
This is not really a Conan tale. The character in no way resembles that of Robert E. Howard or some of the better authors in the series. Perry completely fails to capture the personality, mannerisms, speech and logic of Conan. The movie version of Conan was better than Perry's Conan, to put it bluntly. Perry's story is more like a cheesey 80s space story about a solitary human thrust into a conflict among two different species of aliens. The Pili and Selkie races are basically Saturday morning cartoon characters, only even less dimensional. There is no precedent for such characters in any previous Conan stories that I can find. They don't belong in the cast of characters that populate Hyborea. Perry's use of language lacks style and originality, not to mention this book could have used quite a bit more editing. I would characterize this book as juvenile literature if it weren't for the sexual aggressiveness of one of the characters. Perry also made an attempt at humor, but his jokes and puns are bland and obvious. This just isn't Conan as any real fan would know him.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Only Roland Green and L Sprague de Camp topped this for horrible effect, May 20 2009
By Jay "SarahsJay" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Conan The Free Lance (Mass Market Paperback)
All right, so let's get some lizard people, some shark people, a wizard who randomly becomes incorporeal, superpowerful electric eels, a city built on a sargasso reef (!), a nearly indescribable monster (apparently Perry found it so), a Conan who's apparently below the australopithecus on the intelligence level, and some hippy tree people. Mix all this with an incomprehensible plot and a lizard woman who screws anything male and two-legged, and you have this book. It's every bit as bad as it sounds.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very cheesy book, Aug 11 2004
By M. Fisher - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Conan The Free Lance (Mass Market Paperback)
I love my Conan books, but this one is horrible.
First, it's just plain cheesy. The writing - descriptions, point of view, etc. - is elementary. The descriptions are pathetic and vague: "The Kralix was one of a kind... It most resembled a thing that might have been born of wolf, bear, and toad, had the three somehow mated together..." (p. 124) The plot is predictable. There's no suspense, nor are the characters materially different. The point of view is ineffective, given that everyone thinks the exact same things. The repetition is almost unbearable.
Even a marginal editor could have reduced it by a third by tightening the grammar, eliminating repetition, and rewording the descriptions to be more descriptive and precise.
Oh, and despite having to read about it a few times, you never do get an image of a wolf/bear/toad.
|
|
|