Conan the Formidable

I don't know why so many people are saying negative things about this book. If you like small chapters and like an easy but an adult read then this is a okay book. One thing that bothers me about the two covers that come with this book, the first being a Wolf man attacking Conan, and the second, the currently used cover, is a large four armed guy fighting Conan. You can't judge a book by its cover of course and this is a fine example of that, because in this book Conan doesn't fight either a Wolf man or a four armed man, but instead they are allies, which is opposite of the cover.

This is a very offbeat story for Conan. Taking place over just a few days. And Conan's companions this time around are some of his weirdest, a giant woman and her brother and sister, little dwarfs, a wolf man, a cat woman, and a four armed man. The main villain, Dake, is a want to be wizard/illusionist who has a traveling freak show, that Conan ends up in with the before mentioned companions. As far as Conan villains go, Dake is next to nothing, but Conan falls under his spell by mishap, and even when he discovers he can escape, he will not leave until the others can. The story starts off good, and has several plots going at once, middle drags a little, but the ending brings the story back to a fast paced ending, and a good morale one too about enemies becoming friends over a common enemy (in the end the children pick up where the fathers failed), and how ones views changed over slavery and torture, when they became the slave. Not the the most brilliant Conan book written, and better than Perry's last two efforts (Conan the Indomitable, and the Freelance) and as good as his first Conan the Defiant. Over all a good entertaining read