Book Review: Conan in the City of the Dead by John C. Hocking

Rating: 8.25/10

TL;DR Review: A classic Conan adventure: dark, bloody, fast-paced, and filled with monsters and magic.

Two epics in one hardcover as Conan the mercenary faces hideously transformed wizards and undead creatures in action-packed fantasy combining Robert E. Howard’s trademark sword and sorcery with concepts straight out of Lovecraftian horror.

Combines the classic Conan and the Emerald Lotus with the all-new, original Conan and the Living Plague.

The long-awaited follow-up to Conan and the Emerald Lotus brings John C. Hocking back to the sagas of the Cimmerian.

In Conan and the Emerald Lotus, the seeds of a deadly, addictive plant grant sorcerers immense power, but turn its users into inhuman killers.

In the exclusive, long-awaited sequel Conan and the Living Plague, a Shemite wizard seeks to create a serum to use as a lethal weapon. Instead he unleashes a hideous monster on the city of Dulcine. Hired to loot the city of its treasures, Conan and his fellows in the mercenary troop Shamtare find themselves trapped in the depths of the city’s keep. To escape, they must defeat the creature, its plague-wracked undead followers, then face Lovecraftian horrors beyond mortal comprehension.

I’m going to give this book the highest compliment I can: it felt like it was written by Robert E. Howard or L. Sprague de Camp.

Both of the stories in City of the Dead could have come from any of the original Conan collections, with the same “Conan the Thief” we know and love, the same dark tone of evil wizards abusing magic, and all the inevitable action and fighting that makes Conan one of my all-time favorite characters.

In the first story, Conan is coerced by one wizard to assassinate his rival—except he’s no assassin, so he tries to talk his way out of things rather than fighting (a first!). But when that rival wizard(ess) reveals him there is another grander evil at work, Conan agrees to join forces with her to hunt down the wickedness pulling the strings behind the scenes.

In the second story, Conan and a company of mercenaries accompany a pampered prince to steal a fortune from a city killed by a mysterious plague. There, he discovers mystical and cosmic threats far greater than expected—and which have more than power enough to kill him, should be falter or fail.

Both stories moved fast and did a great job of setting up a big, sprawling world that felt interconnected to every other corner we explored in the original Conan books. We got to see Conan in full action—as thief, tracker, hunter, fighter, leader of men, and above all, slayer of all things monstrous and evil.

The tone of the whole book was very much in line with the original Conan books, and I loved every minute I spent back in this familiar, comfortable, and twisted world.

If you’re a fellow Conan fan, you’re going to love this book as much as I did.