It's All About Story...

  This post isn't so much about one book, but a series. Several years ago I was looking for a good series to read, or listen to, again lots of time in a car, and stumbled across The Wolf of the North by Duncan M. Hamilton. If you read through reviews about his books you will get a mixed bag, but I would submit to you that the naysayers are... well... blind.  I think the important thing with Hamilton is to read all of his books in the framework of the world he is painting. That will really show how flexible this man is with his writing craft. In a simplified way, through the three series I have read so far, you have your barbarian story, your musketeer story, and your dragon slayer story. All very different, but they fit well together. Kind of reminds me of Joe Abercrombie, but the vulgarity isn't so present, which is nice.  One thing I will warn you is that Hamilton likes to dash your hopes on a regular basis. The Wolf of the North is particularly good at this. What is i...

50 years later and I am still reading sword and sorcery novels. Conan the Barbarian is still one of my go tos. The characters Howard, and subsequent authors, developed in that universe are rich and fun. One of my favorites in the Conan universe is the swashbuckling captain Valeria. She's sexy, strong, and still all woman.  Side note, while Sandahl Bergman, who played Valeria in John Milius' epic "Conan the Barbarian," was a crush of mine, she's not the same Valeria. Anyway, in the stories, she matches Conan's skill and bravado to a tee, a fun character to read. She goes toe to toe with the big barbarian in many ways... yes, many ways. Which leads to, S.M. Stirling's "Conan: The Blood of the Serpent," published in 2022. I picked it up on Audible recently as I spend a lot of time in the car. Stirling sets up the story as their first in person meeting and lays it out as a precursor to Robert E. Howard's Conan story, "The Red Nails," pu...

I don't get to posting that much. On top of that, this type of thing isn't in my wheelhouse, so nobody really reads this stuff anyway... but just in case you do... and like Conan stories, read, or listen, to the book above.  John C. Hocking includes two stories in this volume, Conan and the Emerald Lotus and Conan and the Living Plaque. Both are pretty good stories, and if you get the audio book, it is read by Bradford Hastings, who does a damned good job. Hasting's take on Conan's voice and personality is very fitting in my humble, or not so humble, opinion.  The first story, Conan and the Emerald Lotus, follows Conan as he gets himself caught in a battle between three sorcerers and the mysterious emerald lotus. This story really feels like an R. E. Howard Conan story. Conan functioning in the interests of Conan, gets himself embroiled in this mage competition, and it's not really a competition, but more of an intrique bound up in ambition, betrayal, and addiction....