Title: Conan: Lethal Consignment

Author: Shaun Hamill

Release date: April 30th, 2024

Earlier this week, I wrapped up reading ‘Prisoner of the Horned Helmet’ by James Silke, one of the first sword and sorcery novels I’ve read in probably a decade – excluding anything Gwynne/Rothfuss/Martin related. I did read one from S.H. Cooper that falls into the fantasy realm, but I wouldn’t classify it as S&S.

While reading it, David Sodergren had messaged me about a Conan novel he was reading and once I was done, I knew I needed to check out something Conan related, after David was raving about his read. Looking, I saw that I’d previously purchased a huge Conan compendium eBook, but then I also saw that Titan has been releasing a bunch of Conan related short stories, written by some wonderful current authors, so I decided to take a chance on one of those. The first one that caught my eye was this one from Shaun Hamill. I loved his novel ‘A Cosmology of Monsters,’ so I was really excited to dive into this one.

What I liked: The story follows a young Conan, having arrived at a port town in search of work or adventure, but finding neither. While drinking in a tavern, a man approaches him and suggests Conan’s just the guy he’s looking for – someone to sail on the ship he’s on, acting as security while they head up river.

With the promise of a good payday and the prospect of adventure, Conan agrees and soon they’ve left on the ship called Fortune’s Dawn.

Hamill sets the stage nicely, showing Conan to be gruff but also introspective. A layered barbarian if you will.

Not long onboard the ship, Conan realizes things are off. There’s not as many crew members as he’d think for a ship this size and the captain never makes an appearance – day or night. After one crew member is found dead, his throat ripped out, Conan knows there’s more going on than even he can imagine.

Then one night, another sellsword decides to come clean to Conan and answer the questions Conan’s been asking, which leads to the discover of what’s onboard and a fight to the death takes place.

It’s this final quarter that Hamill really shines, giving us a huge cinematic moment, with swords swinging, blood flying and Conan and the other sellsword battling this thing until the bitter end.

I was grinning like a maniac throughout this quick read, loving every minute of what Hamill created.

What I didn’t like: The most obvious thing here is the length – but come on, even I’ll give my head a shake, knowing full well there are parameters in place for this short stories. But what did become evident with the length aspect, was the lack of character depth of the secondary characters. I wished we learned a bit more about the ship, the part where they pick up what wrecks havoc was longer and more detailed and with that, this thing would’ve been even more terrifying than it already was.

Why you should buy this: At only roughly 40 pages, this was a really quick, snappy read that made me so, so happy. Conan is a fantastic character that encounters every level of danger and Hamill used that to his advantage, giving us a story with an isolated, confined setting and a thing that had an insatiable lust for blood.

Overall, a wonderful modern update to a character that’s been bringing readers (and movie goers) so much joy for almost one hundred years!