Conan The Swordsman
By L Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter & Bjorn Nyberg  

     Most fantasy readers have heard of Conan The Barbarian; the name is synonymous with sword and sorcery adventures. He was created by Robert E Howard in the 1920s and bridges the gap between Edgar Rice Burroughs and the other early fantasists, such as Tolkein and his ilk. This book contains stories from various times in Conan’s career and is a perfect introduction to the Conan stories and this type of fiction in general.

     Despite being an avid reader of fantasy, I myself hadn’t read any Conan tales; I had never come across the first book in the series and wondered whether this book might prove incomprehensible, but not only is there an introduction talking about Robert E Howard and the sources he drew on, but before each story there is a brief paragraph filling the reader in on what has gone before, as well as a list of all the Conan books.

      What of the stories themselves? Perhaps the fact that they are classics of the genre renders any review superfluous, but what I particularly enjoyed was reading real, raw fantasy, the roots of the genre stripped bare of their trappings, with marvellous adventures conveyed in a few pages. If you think that Tolkein has a lot to answer for by starting a fashion for wordy trilogies, then this book is surely for you.

There is also an immense glossary of names giving details of their sources and was as long as two stories, essential for fans but it could have been included in a companion volume to the series. This aside, I can highly recommend this to anybody who loves a real fantasy adventure.