Conan the Rogue

This story proved to be a fulfilling, satisfying, richly textured adventure. It takes some time to build, and Conan--rather uncharacteristically--bides his time, judiciously crafting appearances and manipulating relationships. Roberts turns less attention toward mirroring Howard's style and turns of speech than do other Conan pastiche authors, most notably Perry. Ultimately, the story constitutes a good addition to the Conan canon.

This Conan adventure finds the Cimmerian looking for a mysterious artifact, a la The Maltese Falcon, and cleaning up a gang plagued town, as in Kurosawa's Yojimbo. This eccentric blending of several genres works quite well making it one of the best of the numerous pastiches. Roberts works in all of the threads and comes up a with a cohesive adventure. Highly recommended for fans of Conan, Hammett, Kurosawa or Leone.

The reader from Kansas City is correct in seeing "A Fistful of Dollars" behind "Conan the Rogue." The joke is that "Fistful," like "Rogue," is inspired by "Red Harvest" -- a novel by the author of "The Maltese Falcon," Dashiell Hammett!John Maddox Roberts does a very good job of smooshing at least two detective novels' plots into a new sword-and-sorcery story. He handles Conan himself well, too.Since Tor doesn't mention Conan's actual creator, let's remember that Robert E. Howard was writing for the pulps at the same time as Hammett, which adds to Roberts's in-joke.

One of the other reviewers compared this book to "The Maltese Falcon" -- I'm thinking it's much closer to "A Fistful of Dollars." Anyone who thinks of Conan as a musclebound oaf should read this novel and watch Conan play the different elements of the town against each other. Part of the fun of the book for me was watching Conan maneuver people around, always to his advantage, along with all the signature Conan action. Highly, highly recommended.

All right, I'm giving this one five stars because I thought it was a great book and one of my favorites in the series. I do, however, have a gripe. It is Conan's attitude toward women. At no point is Maxio a danger to Conan, yet Conan--though clearly desirous of the criminal's woman--refuses to fall for her charms. In no Conan work outside Roberts' have I found Conan to be fearful of bedding another man's woman especially when the man is clearly no threat to him. Overall, though, I thought it was a good book with strong character development and a worthy addition to Howard's Conan series.