Conan and the Amazon
cover of Conan and the Amazon | |
Author | John Maddox Roberts |
---|---|
Cover artist | Ken Kelly |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Conan the Barbarian |
Genre | Sword and sorcery Fantasy |
Publisher | Tor Books |
Publication date | 1995 |
Media type | Print (Paperback) |
Pages | 276 pp |
ISBN | 0-8125-2493-4 |
Conan and the Amazon is a fantasy novel written by John Maddox Roberts featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in April 1995. It was reprinted by Tor in April 1999.[1]
Plot
Fresh from a failed rebellion in Brythunia, in which he served as a mercenary on the losing side, Conan joins forces with the band of Achilea, deposed queen of the Amazons. They wend their way through Zamora and Koth into the deserts to the southeast. They eventually reach the lost city of Jangar, cursed by the gods after an ancient battle. Jangar's people, loathing the sun, live in a subterranean city beneath the ruins of the old one. Conan and his allies are trapped in a gladitorial combat with a ferocious giant crocodile as city approaches its foreordained doom.
Reception
Don D'Ammassa, writing of Roberts' Conan novels, noted that "[a]lthough Roberts did not recreate Howard's character exactly, making him more intellectual and less inclined to solve every problem by hitting it with a sword, his evocation of the barbaric setting is superior to that of most of the other writers contributing to the series."[2]
Reviewer Ryan Harvey considered Roberts "the most consistently entertaining" of the Tor Conan authors, showing "deft ability with storytelling and action scenes, and a thankful tendency not to overplay his hand and try to ape Robert E. Howard’s style. ... However, Roberts had his down moments, and alas he stumbled at the finish line. Conan and the Amazon is the last of Roberts’s Conan novels. It’s also his poorest." He rates it "above average for the Tor novels, [but] a disappointment for its author. It moves too slowly, and the action is jumbled into a hasty mess at the conclusion."[3] In another place he notes that he "would hate to judge John Maddox Roberts based on Conan and the Amazon ... [a] poor work... from [an] otherwise skilled pastiche writer..."[4]
Notes
- ↑ Conan and the Amazon title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- ↑ D'Ammassa, Don (February 2006). Encyclopedia of fantasy and horror fiction. Infobase Publishing. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-8160-6192-1. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ↑ Harvey, Ryan. "Pastiches 'R' Us: Conan and the Amazon" (Review), Sep. 21, 2010.
- ↑ Harvey, Ryan. "Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza" (Review), Jan. 2, 2005.
References
Preceded by Conan the Gladiator |
Tor Conan series (publication order) |
Succeeded by Conan and the Mists of Doom |
Preceded by Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza |
Complete Conan Saga (William Galen Gray chronology) |
Succeeded by "The Devil in Iron" |