Conan and the Treasure of Python

Plot

In Asgalun, Conan is hired to lead a party to Kush, by a man whose brother has vanished seeking a legendary treasure. Conan takes the job, though the project is almost derailed at the outset by an attack by corsairs. In Kush the expedition is joined by Goma, a mysterious native who serves it as a guide. A long march to the reputed treasure region ensues, including a harrowing journey through a waterless desert. Finally the seekers reach a secret kingdom, in which they are imprisoned. Their guide is then revealed as the realm's rightful monarch, the rule of which has been usurped by a tyrant with the aid of a witch doctor. A battle must be fought and a horrible lake monster faced before all can be resolved.

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."

Reviewer Ryan Harvey considered the book "one of the most interesting of the Tor novels," and the writer "the most consistently successful of its stable of authors," while noting that "this novel is literally King Solomon's Mines ... Roberts copies the exact plot of the classic H. Rider Haggard 1885 adventure novel and recasts it as a Conan story, with the legendary barbarian starring in the Allan Quatermain role."