M. Stirling is a former lawyer, an amateur historian, and the New York Times bestselling author of numerous SF and fantasy novels including the popular “Nantucket” series that began with Island in the Sea of Time. A bit boring, and sometimes unnatural: a few times I got that creepy feeling that the world and interactions were too modern in style. This entails multiple encounters with wild beasts, including as you’d expect giant man-eating apes and serpents, but also large predatory cats, a rhino, crocodiles, baboons… on and on (the overly aggressive animals are due to a curse laid upon Conan by a Stygian wizard). I think Stirling channels Conan the character well enough: He prefers to work alone, has a barbarian’s distrust of civilization, fears sorcery, is lusty and wealth-seeking, but underneath is possessed of a rough code of honor.

The plot isn't anything groundbreaking but does an excellent job of capturing the feel of the original Conan stories.He’s no murderer or slaver, and when his companions in arms are taken captive or placed in jeopardy, Conan comes to their rescue.

I did not struggle to get engaged with the tale, and looked forward to each reading session (it’s a brisk 300 pages with illustrations). Not to be a jerk, but really the best thing about this book is that my edition had a reprint of "Red Nails" in the end, which was considerably more fun to reread. Serving in the company known as Zarallo's Free Companions, he fights alongside soldiers of fortune from Zingara, Koth, Shem, and other lands-a hard-handed band of killers loyal to anyone who pays them well. com how this new Conan series is meant to be “entirely accessible to readers who may come to the genre via A Game of Thrones [or] The Witcher” (and no folks, somehow I don’t think they mean the novels).Some of this was quite interesting but the amount of exposition was excessive and bogged down the story. The good thing is, in my humble opinion, that Stirling does not even try to copy or imitate Howard's style. Howard’s Conan” is guaranteed to bother those short-sighted fans who merely want to virtue signal that this is NOT Robert E.