The original pulp sword and sorcery hero - four stories are collected here as published in Weird Tales in the mid 1930's. Some modern critics dismiss Howard for his vaguely racist and sexist bents, but he was a product of his time and place. Purple prose and cardboard characters? Maybe. But easy to read and the language is, well, wonderful. Hard to believe that readers of what were essentially comic books in that era had such a vocabulary.
The bottom line: great escapism, well written. ( )

I have vague memories of the Conan movie(s) from the 80s starring Arnold but beyond those spotty memories, I have had no interaction with the character or stories of Conan. And yet, I felt like I had a pretty decent sense on him just based on his permeation into popular culture. Still, I've always wanted to dive in and read some of the original books about the famed barbarian.

Rather than starting at the beginning, I started with The People of the Black Circle. I found many people claiming it to be one of the best stories written by original author Robert E. Howard so I felt like it was a good place to start. The term "sword and sorcery" as a subgenre was largely created for Howard's work such as the Conan stories. This story has a large focus on the sorcery part.

The first many pages don't feature Conan or any swordplay at all. Rather we are introduced to some evil wizards known as the Black Seers of Yimsha. Supposedly these wizards normally don't interfere with matters of non-wizards but through a series of intrigue and machinations (that we discover later) they assassinate the emperor of Vendhya. The emperor's sister, the Devi Yasmina, becomes the new queen and she vows revenge.

Since no one in her kingdom dare take on the Black Seers, the queen's revenge involves a plan to get the famed warrior Conan to infiltrate the mountains and kill the wizards. She has captured 7 of Conan's chiefs and is holding them hostage with the hopes of convincing Conan to do her dirty work.

After that build up, we finally get our first glimpse of Conan as he sneakily infiltrates the palace and kidnaps the queen, thus turning her ransom plan on its head. As he escapes the army that chases after them, he is driven through an adventurous path of interactions with would-be-allies and would-be-enemies before eventually being confronted by the wizards and deciding to go after them.

The plot is action packed and filled with as many twists and turns as the treacherous mountain passes that Conan journeys across during this adventure. From Conan's kidnapping of Yasmina until the final confrontation with the Black Seers, the stakes are constantly being raised and adrenaline is kept high. Just when our hero seems to be making strides forward, some new obstacle appears to bar his way. The plot largely centers on Conan but takes the occasional detour to give us glimpses of other characters and situations. These transitions felt fluid and natural.

Based on my limited view of Conan, I envisioned him as an uneducated brute just rushing in and swinging weapons with brute strength. Instead, Conan is a well spoken leader who choses his words and his actions wisely. In some cases those words and actions come instinctively but those instincts are based on the experience and wisdom of his character. From what I gathered, Conan is barbarous and uncivilized only in the sense that he lives a more rural existence amid other tribesman rather than in the confines of a palace. At one point in the story Conan remarks on how Yasmina has gained humanity by changing out of the costumes and trappings of her palace life. That sensibility seems to be a commentary on the way society limits our freedoms while claiming to raise us up.

The other characters feel less nuanced and developed. Devi Yasmina receives by far the most development of the other characters. As a female character in an early 20th century story, it's not surprising that she's a secondary character with limited influence or dialog. Perhaps more surprising are the moments where she tries to stand up to Conan. The author presents her as a strong leader of her kingdom though still wallowing in grief for her brother and consumed with the need for revenge. It's unclear what her strength and direction will be as a character once she accomplishes her desire. In spite of her fortitude of character, she takes on the foil of the blushing damsel in distress and Conan willingly steps in as the hero to save her.

This, among other cliches, felt very familiar but I reminded myself that many of these now common techniques were likely very new, fresh and potentially shocking to the original readers of the story. In spite of the feeling of banality of some elements of the story I had a lot of fun racing along on this adventure with Conan.

I found the writing to be fluid and elegant. Howard has a great command of language. The descriptions of the world, the characters and the actions were engrossing. Even though many of the characters felt a bit flat, I found their actions and motivations to be clear and believable. The dialog was solid and fun. I enjoyed the banter between Conan and Yasmina and was again surprised at the wit and intelligence of the barbarian.

My biggest gripe of the story was the ending which I think is largely due to the heightened pacing. Since the tension and stakes just continued to raise from scene to scene, that meant the by the time we reached the climax, we had reached a very high point such that the resolution felt slightly abrupt. Still, I did enjoy the staging and the artistry of the climax and the conclusion. I also enjoyed that even after the main confrontation was over that the author continued the journey and even introduced another mini conflict as a sort of afterthought. That allowed for a final bit of commentary from Conan on the state of the world and the nature of his character.

Overall I really enjoyed this read. I found the writing to be very solid and the storytelling thoroughly enjoyable. The world was engrossing and I was pleasantly surprised with Conan as a character. It's a great bit of escapism and while slightly dated in nature it's still an enjoyable way to spend some time. Based on this read, I can see myself seeking out opportunities to read more Conan adventures in the future.

***
3.5 out of 5 stars ( )

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Title: The People of the Black Circle
Series: The Essential Conan #2
Author: Robert Howard
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 220
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis:

4 stories involving Conan. While not exact, they do seem to move backwards in time, so while he's king of the Hetman in the first story, by the time we get to the final story he's a Sword for Hire.

Conan fights something, whether wizards, peoples or monsters, rescues nearly naked women and usually makes off with a boatload of treasure.

My Thoughts:

I wasn't sure how this Conan read would go so soon after the first instalment. Thankfully, moving away from a full novel to shorter, more serialized stories worked rather well.

The first thing I noticed is just how well Howard can write. While the Conan stories are not in any way deep character sketches, Howards writes him in such a way that while sparse doesn't feel flat. Conan was a real barbarian and Howard brings that to light with a deft touch. He also describes things in such a way as to evoke whatever emotion he is going for in the scene. He knows how to describe things precisely so as to guide you yet it never fell into purple prose territory either. It was a delicate tightrope and I thought he did a fantastic job.

However, the short story format fails us the readers. While all varying enough that they aren't identical, in either scene or foe, the overall plotlines run almost along identical tracks. That wouldn't be a problem if you read one story every other month or so. But reading 4 in a matter of weeks, well, it becames a little difficult to ignore.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with Conan and how this Essential Series is working out. I've got one more to go and then I think I'll be satisfied with having tried this particular Hero out.


★★★☆½ ( )

This particular The People of the Black Circle -- several different Conan books bear the name -- is a collection of four of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories from his heyday as a Weird Tales author (1934-35). It is part of the late-70s "Authorized" edition under the supervision of Karl Wagner, who conformed the texts to their pulp-era first issuance (with minimal typographical corrections), and sequenced them in publication order. The book jumped to the front of my reading queue as an antidote to the rather weak 2011 Conan movie, and so some of my remarks here will be inflected with mildly irrelevant cinematic concerns.

"The Devil in Iron" is the first of the stories here, and of its six sections, Conan is only present for the final three. (He is mentioned in the second, but does not actually appear in its action.) The character motivation is not too deep: Conan's enemies correctly surmise that he can be baited with a beautiful girl. The complication and climax are provided by the age-old evil that the reader encounters before any mention of the critical human players. The weird element is in respectable relief here, in the form of the spectrally-rebuilt city on the deserted island of Xapur, as well as the reanimated villain.

It would be simplicity itself to get a good screenplay out of "The People of the Black Circle," the tale which lends its name to the whole book. It's got just about the right character distribution and plot complication for a feature film, already being in that middle zone between the short story that needs to be padded out and the novel that needs to be cut down to movie size. It has a nice two-tiered villain system, plenty of sorcery, and a clever resolution of the tension between Conan and the Devi (princess). To be really faithful to Howard's vision on this one, though, it should be shot in Nepal!

"A Witch Shall Be Born" is one of the most memorable and remembered Conan stories -- even for people who haven't read it, since the crucifixion of Conan in the 1982 Milius movie was derived from this tale. As Wagner notes in his critical afterword, Howard really pulls out the stops here, using a variety of perspectives and literary forms to condense a long narrative into pivotal episodes and embedded synopses. There is a strangely biblical air to the story: not only does Conan get crucified, but the name of the titular witch is Salome, and Howard strongly implies that she is the remote ancestress of her namesake in the court of Herod.

Wagner judges "The Jewels of Gwahlur" to be the least of the four stories in this volume, and I concur. Still, it is a fun and exciting read, with some real mystery and a good deal of tension. And I had to laugh out loud when reading Howard's explanation: "Conan was basically a direct-actionist." (177)

Wagner's apparatus (a foreword and an afterword) is thoughtful and unintrusive. This volume was perfect for the task I had set for it: to tare my scale as a Conan fan after a few too many pastiches and clumsy adaptations.

A collection of the original Conan short stories. These are the stories that helped launch the pulp sci fi fantasy fiction way back in the day. they're decent stories for how old they are though. the stories don't have any sense of time like the author thought of a situation and thought how fun it would be to throw conan into the mix. some of them are better than others all the stories don't have a lot of background story things just are they way they are for no reason that's why I gave it three stars I need a little depth in order to effectively suspend my disbelief ( )