Conan Lord of the Black River

Adventures of Conan

by Leonard Carpenter

Conan the Cimmerian must venture into the nightmare world of the dead to retrieve the Silver Lotus, a powerful weapon that can undo the dreaded incantation that holds the city of Queen Rufia under the spell of the undead witch Zeriti

Genres: Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 15, 1996

About the author

Leonard Paul Carpenter (born 1948) is an American technical writer and author of fantasy, historical and futurist fiction. He began by selling horror/fantasy tales and Conan the Barbarian sequels, eleven novels totaling a million words. This is more of the Conan saga than any other author living or dead, including Conan's inspired creator Robert E. Howard in the 1930's. Now Carpenter breaks out of sci-fantasy with his mainstream historical opus Lusitania Lost, a wartime epic of the sinking of the luxury liner in 1915 by a German U-boat, which ultimately caused the US to enter WWI. This is the first novelization of an event more dramatic and significant than the Titanic tragedy 3 years earlier. Carpenter has also written the screenplay adaptation of this book. Another novel of his, the future-history thriller Biohacker, is available on Amazon Kindle. Carpenter is the widowed survivor of a 50-year courtship and marriage, proud father of 3, and owner of a superstar Frisbee dog, Lizzie. He spends his time traveling and writing about a Cuban fantasy quest and real-life engagement in his just-published novel, Tropic of Cuba, now serialized on Kindle Vella at Amazon (first chapters free!)

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but not the best Conan book. An undead sorceress from Conan’s past is affecting the kingdom of one of his friends with a dream plague. Conan is dispatched to lead an expedition to the source of the Styx through Stygia (analogous to early Victorian quests for the source of the Nile) in search of the rare silver lotus to effect a cure. However, the black river doesn’t give up its secrets willingly.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conan meets The African Queen. When a plague of nightmares hits Baluur the Queen calls on Conan for help. It seems the only way to stop the plague is the silver lotus, a semi-mythical herb found only at the unknown source of the River Styx. So Conan leads a thousand man expedition to find the headwaters of the world's longest river, an accomplishment no one has ever attempted before. He must overcome pirates, treachery, bandits, crocodiles, snakes, electric eels, cannibals, nomads, priests, and even harlots. Worst of all is the river itself, which is sometimes a raging rapid and sometimes a stagnant mire, but always deadly. And let's not forget the frog demon.

It's another travel story, this time on a river. Each chapter brings new scenery and new perils, and Conan tests his skills at each step. It moves along nicely with a good amount of action, though the ending seems a bit rushed. Good entertainment.

[Graeme · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Conan. I have been reading Conan stories since I was about 10 or 11 years old. And while the original canon is far superior to any of these new stories, this one is particularly bad. There are some Leonard Carpenter Conan stories that I have enjoyed in the past, but in this one, it's almost as if Conan was somehow transformed into a medieval warrior. Using words like "yon" and speaking in ways that he never would. It was frustrating to read and I struggled to finish this book. If you are a Conan fan, I urge you to stay away.

[Isen · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Conan's (presumably, many) illegitimate offspring is the heir to a Shemitic city state, raised by a king who's convinced that she's his own daughter. All fine and dandy, until the lass and the entire city gets smitten by a plague of bad dreams. The only cure is the silver lotus, which grows at the source of the Styx. Alas, the entire quest is merely a ruse by the crocodile god Jukala to capture the barbarian, which ends about as well for our toothy friend as you'd expect.

I rather liked this one. Carpenter plays to his strengths. The focus is on the geography and ethnography of Hyboria, and the setting really comes alive. The main character may not be quite Conan, but at least he's no longer Amra. A strong finish for the Carpenter Conans.

My overall impression of Carpenter's work is that he is a talented writer who got bored of Conan really quickly. His prose is smooth and palatable, but beyond the first one or two books he stopped trying to write Conan novels, and just wanted to see how far he could stretch the setting before it would break. Hence we got the Vietnam war, a naval race against a steppe people, a bloody nuke, and all sorts of other nonsense. Most of it was readable because, as I've said, the prose makes it easy to swallow. At times it was stupid enough to be brilliant. Others, just stupid.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boken har karaktär av brittisk expeditionslitteratur från andra halvan av 1800-talet. Conan görs till en Gary Stu, som i många av Charpenters böcker. Det enda underhållande är att författaren har en känsla för bronsåldersdiplomati med heliga ligor (självförsvars eller samhjälpsförbund), dålig kommunikation mellan staters huvudstäder och deras frontavsnitt och hur mäktiga condottiärer kunde bli. Detta visar sig också i handelsavsnittet på floden styx.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great escapist fare.

[Vämpiriüs · Rating 1 out of 5]

Slabší kniha připomínající spíše cestopis než román o drsném seveřanovi. Konec je velmi odfláknutý a celý příběh z hyborského světa dost průměrný.

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this was the weakest of Carpenter's Conan pastiches.