8.4 /10 1 Votes
5/5 eBay Language English Publication date 1988 Pages 280 Genre Sword and sorcery Cover artist Ken Kelly | 3.3/5 Goodreads Country United States Series Conan the Barbarian Media type Print (Paperback) Originally published 1988 Page count 280 Publisher Tor Books | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Conan Universe books, Sword and sorcery books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Conan the Valiant is a fantasy novel written by Roland Green featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in trade paperback by Tor Books in October 1988; a regular paperback edition followed from the same publisher in August 1989, and was reprinted in July 2000.
Contents
Plot
Conan the Valiant is set in Turan where a 22-year-old Conan is recovering from his victory over the Cult of Doom (found in Robert Jordan's Conan the Unconquered). Conan finds himself involved in court intrigue and joins forces with a sword maiden Raihna and her employer the sorcerer Illyana in an effort to both keep out of Mughra Khan's dungeon and stop the growing menace of the magic user Eremius. Using one of the Jewels of Kurag — the other is held by Illyana — Eremius has command over a growing army of the Transformed, one-time humans who are turned into reptilian demons, and is looking to conquer large parts of Turan. The combination of local villagers, Conan's sword, and Illyana's magic destroy Eremius and the twin Jewels.
Reception
Reviewer Lagomorph Rex, confessing to having heard "horrid things" about Green's writing, finds the novel "something of a surprise," calling it "easily better than all but one of Steve Perry's books" and "[a]t least as good as two of the three Leonard Carpenters I've read ... as well," if "not as good as anything that Sean A. Moore or Robert Jordan wrote." His main complaint is that "it was rather annoying to have yet another evil sorcerer and yet another magical gewgaw." He would "have preferred it [to] have been just a political thriller, rather than involving magic," as "[t]hat aspect of the story was much more interesting."