Conan of Venarium

Plot

The Aquilonian Empire, bent on expansion, invades southern Cimmeria, occupying a number of villages and building the armed encampment of Fort Venarium to keep them pacified. The Cimmerian villagers, including young Conan's family, bear the Aquilonian yoke resentfully but stoically. Conan himself, a boy of twelve, is kept down as much by his overbearing blacksmith father as the invaders. Conflict builds as Count Stercus, the occupiers' lecherous commander, seizes the weaver's daughter Tarla, whom Conan also admires. Both she and his parents perish during the tensions. Eventually he joins the force of northern Cimmerians gathering to drive out the Aquilonians, participating in the sack of Venarium and the warriors' subsequent vengeful drive south into Aquilonia. Unusually for a Conan story, the supernatural is relatively absent, confined largely to appearances of a demonic bird and an enormous serpent, and a seer's foretelling of Conan's destiny, which in the manner common to such prophecies, the youth misinterprets.

Reception

Roland Green of Booklist, himself an author of earlier Conan novels, wrote "Among Conan's many limners, Turtledove distinguishes himself with an unmatched portrait of Cimmerian society and a fine, intelligent characterization of the young barbarian."

Jackie Cassada of the Library Journal called the book "[a] good addition to libraries' Conan novels."

Publishers Weekly wrote "Turtledove ... attempts to inject some life into the well-trod Conan sequel subgenre, but this coming-of-age story of Robert E. Howard's barbarian hero is, alas, just as commonplace as all the other imitations by the late Lin Carter and company. ... The fantasy elements are disappointingly few ... Only Conan diehards and Turtledove completists will be likely to pick up this sword-with-little-sorcery novel."

Kirkus Reviews noted merely that "Turtledove opens on familiar gritty prehistoric territory" and that the book had a "[l]ocked-in audience."