Conan and the Grim Grey God

Adventures of Conan

by Sean A. Moore

After hearing tales of ancient Nithia, a city buried in the sand for countless generations, and a statue carved from an impossibly huge pearl, Conan must defeat those who seek the statue for power and destroy it before it falls into the hands of evil. Reprint.

Genres: Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 1997

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the third and last Conan novel that Sean A. Moore completed before his early tragic death. It's better-written than many of the other titles in the Tor series, and though it wouldn't be mistaken for the work of Howard it does have the very charming ambition and enthusiasm that was the hallmark of the best pulp stories. Having apparently exhausted all of the singular descriptive words in previous titles, Conan faces the grim grey god in an amusing chase to buried treasure in a lost city buried in the desert. There are thieves and sorcerers and beautiful women and monsters on the track, too, and it's an exciting puzzle of romance and derring-do all the way to the end.

[Jason Waltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read - Conan, entertaining, bloody, backstabbing, sorcery, death, battle, lusty life. Sometimes Conan did more explaining talking than one would expect, but all-in-all a good read.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little Conan adventure involving cursed lost cities in the desert, ancient Atlantean relics, and feuding priests of Ibis and Set. Unfortunately, it just felt a little rushed and cramped, like the author had too many ideas and tried to cram them all in at the same time. Still, not as bad as the Leonard Carpenter Conans.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conan finds a map to a huge treasure lost for thousands of years and decides to seek it out. Also seeking the treasure are the Queen of Thieves, her assassin servant, and a mad necromancer. Conan takes off into the desert to find this Lost City of Brass and meets up with a sexy woman who needs his help. She and Conan travel the wastelands pursued by angry tribesmen, unaware that they are shadowed by the assassin and the Queen, as well as the necromancer. Conan has a tough time with the sharp tongued wench, getting stabbed in the leg, beaten unconscious(more than once), imprisoned(more than once), and loses at arm wrestling. There is also poison and an undead warrior to contend with, as well as an assortment of sorcerers besides the necromancer. In the end Conan decides he would have been better off sticking to piracy, as these treasure maps just never seem to work out.

Good Conan story, with the basic saucy wench in tow while fighting insurmountable odds. Conan's inate chivalry concerning the safety of the wench and his basic greed for untold wealth drive him to overcome his fear of sorcerers, with the usual results. Entertaining, though Conan does get beat up a bit more than normal.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The character of Conan has a long and somewhat complicated history.
Original creator Robert E. Howard completed only a few short stories and one full novel in his all too brief lifetime, however a second wave of writers twenty or so years later completed many of his unfinished manuscripts, developing the style and expanding the world and lore of the character that has stuck to this day.
Then for some inexplicable reason, several authors started creating new tales for this character again in the 80's.
So while I've read a lot of Conan books, I've avoided the ones like this that were written much later, more than 50 years after Howard's death.
The reason I've avoided them is that it seemed likely that after such a long passage of time, anyone attempting to continue these stories would likely place too great an emphasis on the history of these tales and thus be constrained to pumping out pale facsimiles of the originals. Having now read one of these I can say that my fears weren't entirely unfounded, but perhaps a little harsh.
In short it's a decent sword and sorcery tale, in some ways too tightly constrained to the form of the originals, but in others also a little erratic.
Specifically there's a number of archaic words, most notable 'ere', that get a decent run here, as if the book had been written back in the 1920's rather than the 80's when the word had completely fallen out of common use.
And in terms of story it feels a little disjointed. Conan and his companion form a part of the story but whole chapters are devoted to two other characters that are so similar that at times you can't remember which one is which. Which frankly doesn't seem to matter as their motivation is murky anyway. In other words there's way too much detail invested in secondary characters while Conan himself struggles to appear anything more than one-dimensional.
Overall it's a decent stab at the character but unless you're a serious fan, the stories in the older tales tend to be more concise, entertaining and enjoyable.

[Lewis Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Sean A. Moore's third and final Conan pastiche written before his tragic early death, and it's the return to the form I was hoping for after his enjoyable but fairly average second pastiche, Conan and the Shaman's Curse. From the use of Thoth-Amon to many other classic Conan/sword and sorcery elements, such as a buried temple harbouring an imprisoned god in the desert, a necromancer raising legions of the skeletal dead to do his bidding, deadly assassins seeking out a hidden and all-powerful treasure, and much more... well, this one did pretty much everything you would want from a Conan escapade.

Now, there were a couple of flaws here and there, such as some excessive exposition and a few plot elements that felt a tad convoluted... but with some fun twists at the end, and an enjoyable climax that topped off this rip-roaring adventure nicely, this gets four stars from me. Overall, I think I enjoyed Moore's first pastiche, Conan the Hunter, the most of his three... but this was still a blast, and two very solid pastiches (plus another fairly serviceable one) is a solid run in this author's career - a career that was sadly cut short just as it seemed to be taking off.

With that, I say thank you Mr Moore, and may you rest in peace. I look forward to re-reading your Conan contributions in future and keeping your literary legacy alive, by Crom!

[Vämpiriüs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pro milovníky Conana ano, opět nechybí prsatá bojovnice po jejímž boku budeme zabraňovat znovuzrození mocného zlého boha, likvidovat nějakého nekromanta a porážet spoustu živých i nemrtvých válečníků. Kniha začíná pomalu a rozjíždí se do poměrně slušné jízdy. Čtení jsem si užil.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book an old colleague would have called a ‘time vacuum’. It entertained while time passed. Not as good as the Robert E Howard originals. Conan had lots of dialogue and there were a lot of coincidences, that all worked towards the convoluted ending.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. Very, very meh. Too many strands, not nearly enough of a payoff. Just meh.

[Pierre Armel · Rating 1 out of 5]

So un-Conan like that I could not read more than half of it.