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Brak the Barbarian #4
When the Idols Walked
Book by John jakes
- GenresFantasySword and Sorcery
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
About the author
John Jakes
416 books972 followersJohn William Jakes, the author of more than a dozen novels, is regarded as one of today’s most distinguished writers of historical fiction. His work includes the highly acclaimed Kent Family Chronicles series and the North and South Trilogy. Jakes’s commitment to historical accuracy and evocative storytelling earned him the title of “the godfather of historical novelists” from the Los Angeles Times and led to a streak of sixteen consecutive New York Times bestsellers. Jakes has received several awards for his work and is a member of the Authors Guild and the PEN American Center. He and his wife, Rachel, live on the west coast of Florida.
Also writes under pseudonyms Jay Scotland, Alan Payne, Rachel Ann Payne, Robert Hart Davis, Darius John Granger, John Lee Gray. Has ghost written as William Ard.
Also writes under pseudonyms Jay Scotland, Alan Payne, Rachel Ann Payne, Robert Hart Davis, Darius John Granger, John Lee Gray. Has ghost written as William Ard.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 1, 2012
Do you like Conan but wish it were written in a more over-wrought style? Would you enjoy reading many varying descriptions of Brak's hair/loincloth/musculature? (A TASTE FOR THE CURIOUS: "Yellow/wrapped tightly/ropey.")
Much like a parent/teacher conference or employee evaluation, I will start with the positive. Gore. The gore is excellent and there are piles of it everywhere. The monsters are neat. The villians are all described to be oily and repulsive IN THE EXTREME. As a matter of fact, everything is described in the extreme. Nothing is boring or ordinary. Everything is horrible or opulent. I happen to like that. Subtlety is a meek man's game.
SPEAKING OF MEN, oh goodness, is this a book series with you guys in mind! Pretty much all the ladies are trecherous evil soceresses who want to destroy our yellow, ropey-arm-muscled hero. But only after they seduce him! That sounds bad, but, really, Jake's inner brain demons are more amusing than offensive.
Regardless of the book's sexism, purplest of purple prose, and sheer stupidity, it's fun entertainment. For crying out loud, the ghost of a lady-crazed murderer possesses a stone idol! What does the murderer/idol statue do with it's newly-minted life? It destroys a fountain. That's good fun!
Now for the whip: This book doesn't work as well for me as the first Brak book. The first Brak book really clips along in a series of mini-adventures and hilariously bad poetry that reads like the most earnest of black metal lyrics. This book is not quite so charmingly paced.
I'm not sure if I yet understand how yellow/tightly wrapped/ropey Brak's hair/loincloth/musculature is, so I will continue reading the series anyway.
Much like a parent/teacher conference or employee evaluation, I will start with the positive. Gore. The gore is excellent and there are piles of it everywhere. The monsters are neat. The villians are all described to be oily and repulsive IN THE EXTREME. As a matter of fact, everything is described in the extreme. Nothing is boring or ordinary. Everything is horrible or opulent. I happen to like that. Subtlety is a meek man's game.
SPEAKING OF MEN, oh goodness, is this a book series with you guys in mind! Pretty much all the ladies are trecherous evil soceresses who want to destroy our yellow, ropey-arm-muscled hero. But only after they seduce him! That sounds bad, but, really, Jake's inner brain demons are more amusing than offensive.
Regardless of the book's sexism, purplest of purple prose, and sheer stupidity, it's fun entertainment. For crying out loud, the ghost of a lady-crazed murderer possesses a stone idol! What does the murderer/idol statue do with it's newly-minted life? It destroys a fountain. That's good fun!
Now for the whip: This book doesn't work as well for me as the first Brak book. The first Brak book really clips along in a series of mini-adventures and hilariously bad poetry that reads like the most earnest of black metal lyrics. This book is not quite so charmingly paced.
I'm not sure if I yet understand how yellow/tightly wrapped/ropey Brak's hair/loincloth/musculature is, so I will continue reading the series anyway.
June 22, 2023
This is a pretty decent Conan knock off. It moves with an awesome sense of forward momentum. There’s a ton of great atmosphere. It is a pretty good popcorn read in all aspects. But I think the back half isn’t as enjoyable as the front half. The ending didn’t capture me as much as the setup.
Brak lost some of his uniqueness in this volume too. For one, he prays to his gods for which he was exiled from his tribe for mocking. Which felt out of place. The magic also feels out of place compared to the others. As if it’s operating on a totally different set of rules. Also, it’s subtle, but the Christian subtext in the other entires in the series set it apart from the more Nietzchean aspects of Conan. This subtext is absent in this volume. It feels more like a Conan clone than the others. And I think that’s to it’s detriment.
All in all though, if you want a quick fun ride this is more than satisfactory.
Brak lost some of his uniqueness in this volume too. For one, he prays to his gods for which he was exiled from his tribe for mocking. Which felt out of place. The magic also feels out of place compared to the others. As if it’s operating on a totally different set of rules. Also, it’s subtle, but the Christian subtext in the other entires in the series set it apart from the more Nietzchean aspects of Conan. This subtext is absent in this volume. It feels more like a Conan clone than the others. And I think that’s to it’s detriment.
All in all though, if you want a quick fun ride this is more than satisfactory.
June 13, 2018
Continuing on his journey south, Brak reaches the sea where he hopes to find a ship to take him, finally, to the glorious southern realm of Khurdisan the Golden. But his party is attacked by raiders who capture him and consign him to serve as a slave on their galley. After escaping from that situation, he finds himself caught up in the midst of war that not only involves traditional swords and chariot warfare, but also an evil sorcerous that can bring stone statues to life.
Frankly, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the other Brak adventures. There was certainly lots of action…too much action really. His broadsword certainly gets a workout this time around. The characters that Brak meets aren’t well fleshed out and Brak’s motivations for taking so many huge death-defying risks on their behalf seemed weak. However, Brak does display a keen intelligence once again and his solution during the final massive battle was interesting.
As far as I know, this is the last novel of Brak, the Barbarian by John Jakes. There are several short stories collected together and published after this book, but no further full-length novels. This novel was first published in the magazine “Fantastic Stories of Imagination” as a two-part serial in the August and September 1964 issues.
Frankly, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the other Brak adventures. There was certainly lots of action…too much action really. His broadsword certainly gets a workout this time around. The characters that Brak meets aren’t well fleshed out and Brak’s motivations for taking so many huge death-defying risks on their behalf seemed weak. However, Brak does display a keen intelligence once again and his solution during the final massive battle was interesting.
As far as I know, this is the last novel of Brak, the Barbarian by John Jakes. There are several short stories collected together and published after this book, but no further full-length novels. This novel was first published in the magazine “Fantastic Stories of Imagination” as a two-part serial in the August and September 1964 issues.
December 29, 2016
At one point Brak idly wonders how evil sorceress Ilona came to to the Kingdom of Two Bays and how she got the ear of Huz al Hussayn the dishonored merchant, and how she convinced him to take her into his service for purposes of his revenge. It's ironic, first because this thought happens as the city is being invaded and Brak is literally spending the battle handing catapult ammunition--rocks--up a defensive wall, and second because he has just voiced the reader's question. Ilona and Huz's story sounds much more interesting.
Instead, we're stuck with Brak. Aside from moments of necessary insert-barbarian-here heroism, he is more witness/observer of events than one directing or taking advantage of them. He falls into adventure by virtue of being press-ganged, enters service with an honorable merchant who rescues him, becomes involved with the wartime troubles of this city-state, and so forth. Most of the time he is watching and listening as Phonicos and others discuss what is happening.
Why aren't both perspectives explored? It's not like there are big surprises in store: Jakes nails Chekhov's Gun firmly to the mantel and ensures it is well lit. Any piece of information dropped in front of the reader--meaning, carefully exposited by Phonicos to Brak in passing--will indeed be followed up later in a completely expected manner.
The biggest peculiarity of the writing is that Jakes will take a perfectly serviceable scaffold and graft unnecessary things to it, always reaching for the fantastical when the mundane would serve just as well. Why was the Gord fleet defeated? Not by "the superior sea power of a strategically-positioned city-state who have successfully resisted their warlike neighbors", but by "illusion magic of a powerful wizard who will conveniently disappear for the rest of the story". Why was the Two Bays army defeated? Not by "the superior land power of a disciplined, larger army", but by "scythe-chariots" . What menace must Brak battle while careening in a sled down a subterranean waterway? Not "snake/lizard/slug/nothing-its-dangerous-anyways", but "three-headed regenerating gooney bird". How does Brak defeat the animate statue destroying whole swaths of the city? Okay, a reasonable one may not exist, but there has to be one better than
Instead, we're stuck with Brak. Aside from moments of necessary insert-barbarian-here heroism, he is more witness/observer of events than one directing or taking advantage of them. He falls into adventure by virtue of being press-ganged, enters service with an honorable merchant who rescues him, becomes involved with the wartime troubles of this city-state, and so forth. Most of the time he is watching and listening as Phonicos and others discuss what is happening.
Why aren't both perspectives explored? It's not like there are big surprises in store: Jakes nails Chekhov's Gun firmly to the mantel and ensures it is well lit. Any piece of information dropped in front of the reader--meaning, carefully exposited by Phonicos to Brak in passing--will indeed be followed up later in a completely expected manner.
The biggest peculiarity of the writing is that Jakes will take a perfectly serviceable scaffold and graft unnecessary things to it, always reaching for the fantastical when the mundane would serve just as well. Why was the Gord fleet defeated? Not by "the superior sea power of a strategically-positioned city-state who have successfully resisted their warlike neighbors", but by "illusion magic of a powerful wizard who will conveniently disappear for the rest of the story". Why was the Two Bays army defeated? Not by "the superior land power of a disciplined, larger army", but by "scythe-chariots" . What menace must Brak battle while careening in a sled down a subterranean waterway? Not "snake/lizard/slug/nothing-its-dangerous-anyways", but "three-headed regenerating gooney bird". How does Brak defeat the animate statue destroying whole swaths of the city? Okay, a reasonable one may not exist, but there has to be one better than
October 5, 2024
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
Brak the barbarian, captured and enslaved, finds himself in the midst of a war of muscle and sorcery.
Review
Though written a decade later, after Jakes was already well known for his other work, this fourth Brak volume unfortunately doesn’t have much more to recommend it than the second ( Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress ) did. It’s a similar familiar pastiche of Conan-lite tropes, except the Brak is far more likely to stumble in and out of trouble than Conan. I never found myself really warming to him. There’s nothing terrible here, for the genre, but also nothing really eye opening. If you’re a Jakes completist, pick it up. Otherwise, you’re not missing much. It may tell you something that, just days after reading this, I had trouble remembering what it was about.
As with the prior review, opprobrium to Open Road Media for publishing this second book in a joint volume with the fourth book and two random Brak stories. Why didn’t they publish 1 and 2 together, 3 and 4 together, and 5 with the shorter stories?
Summary
Brak the barbarian, captured and enslaved, finds himself in the midst of a war of muscle and sorcery.
Review
Though written a decade later, after Jakes was already well known for his other work, this fourth Brak volume unfortunately doesn’t have much more to recommend it than the second ( Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress ) did. It’s a similar familiar pastiche of Conan-lite tropes, except the Brak is far more likely to stumble in and out of trouble than Conan. I never found myself really warming to him. There’s nothing terrible here, for the genre, but also nothing really eye opening. If you’re a Jakes completist, pick it up. Otherwise, you’re not missing much. It may tell you something that, just days after reading this, I had trouble remembering what it was about.
As with the prior review, opprobrium to Open Road Media for publishing this second book in a joint volume with the fourth book and two random Brak stories. Why didn’t they publish 1 and 2 together, 3 and 4 together, and 5 with the shorter stories?
January 20, 2025
2,5 Sterne für ein klassisches Fantasy Abenteuer der 70ger. Brak wird immer wieder mit Conan verglichen aber das passt so nicht. Weder ist er so "übermenschlich" wie Conan, noch ist er so kampfwütig, wild, barbarisch.
Der Roman ist ein Kind seiner Zeit. Sexistisch, leicht rassistisch (verschiedene Völker werden sehr schlecht dargestellt).
Ein schnell gelesener, kurzer Roman wobei Jakes leider nicht annähernd an Howard, Spraque de Camp oder Burrows rankommt.
Der Roman ist ein Kind seiner Zeit. Sexistisch, leicht rassistisch (verschiedene Völker werden sehr schlecht dargestellt).
Ein schnell gelesener, kurzer Roman wobei Jakes leider nicht annähernd an Howard, Spraque de Camp oder Burrows rankommt.
July 25, 2008
A novel. Good but not great. Still it maintains the basic level of the previous works.
July 6, 2013
UK edition was titled 'Storm in a Bottle'
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews