Conan the Bold

Conan the Bold
	Cover of first edition
Author	John Maddox Roberts
Cover artist	Ken Kelly
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Conan the Barbarian
Genre	Sword and sorcery
Publisher	Tor Books
Publication date	1989
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	282
ISBN	0-8125-5210-5

Last updated April 23, 2020

Conan the Bold is a fantasy novel by American writer John Maddox Roberts, featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in April 1989 and reprinted in June 1997.

Plot

A young Conan's prospects for a domestic existence are destroyed, along with his intended fiancé, by the renegade Taharka of Keshan. To achieve vengeance, the Cimmerian joins forces with a one-eyed warrior woman, Mad Kalya, also wronged by Taharka's outlaws. The couple pursue their enemies across several nations, from Croton's fighting pits to the Ophirian plains, overtaking them in time and again only to see Taharka slip through their fingers. The chase ultimately culminates in a battle to the death.

Reception

Don D'Ammassa, writing of Roberts' Conan novels, noted that "[a]lthough Roberts did not recreate Howard's character exactly, making him more intellectual and less inclined to solve every problem by hitting it with a sword, his evocation of the barbaric setting is superior to that of most of the other writers contributing to the series."^[1] He calls this novel "very enjoyable" and "one of the most interesting of the Conan pastiches because it avoids many of the usual clichés."^[2]

Writing of some other Tor Conan novels, reviewer Ryan Harvey called Roberts "the most consistently successful of its stable of authors,"^[3] and "the most consistently entertaining" of them, showing "deft ability with storytelling and action scenes, and a thankful tendency not to overplay his hand and try to ape Robert E. Howard's style."^[4]

Notes

↑ D'Ammassa, Don (February 2006). Encyclopedia of fantasy and horror fiction. Infobase Publishing. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-8160-6192-1 . Retrieved 23 August 2011.
↑ D'Ammassa, Don. "Conan the Bold" (review on Critical Mass). Nov. 18, 2017.
↑ Harvey, Ryan. "Pastiches 'R' Us: Conan and the Treasure of Python" (Review), Mar. 24, 2009.
↑ Harvey, Ryan. "Pastiches 'R' Us: Conan and the Amazon" (Review), Sep. 21, 2010.

Related Research Articles

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Conan the Invincible is a fantasy novel by American writer Robert Jordan, featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in June 1982 and reprinted in July 1990; a trade paperback edition followed from the same publisher in 1998. The first British edition was published in paperback by Sphere Books in September 1989; a later British edition was published in paperback by Legend Books in August 1996. It was later gathered together with Conan the Defender and Conan the Unconquered into the hardcover omnibus collection The Conan Chronicles.

References

Conan the Bold title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Fantastic Fiction entry for Conan the Bold

Preceded by Conan the Hero	Tor Conan series (publication order)	Succeeded by Conan the Great

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[D'Ammassa2006-1] D'Ammassa, Don (February 2006). Encyclopedia of fantasy and horror fiction. Infobase Publishing. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-8160-6192-1 . Retrieved 23 August 2011.

[2] D'Ammassa, Don. "Conan the Bold" (review on Critical Mass). Nov. 18, 2017.

[3] Harvey, Ryan. "Pastiches 'R' Us: Conan and the Treasure of Python" (Review), Mar. 24, 2009.

[4] Harvey, Ryan. "Pastiches 'R' Us: Conan and the Amazon" (Review), Sep. 21, 2010.