Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the novelette...

Black Colossus by Robert E. Howard

From the anthology The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard. See The Coming of Conan the Cimerian discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.

A story in which Conan doesn't appear until the 2nd half.
A thief cracks open an ancient pyramid and releases an ancient evil wizard. (Surprise! He had a giant snake!) Another example of an "intellectual" master-thief getting killed, by the way. Spontaneous Barbarians rule.)
The ancient wizard has a thing for a lovely Princess, and makes it known he's coming for her (with an army he assembled.) She seeks divine aid and Mitra sends her to Conan. Conan gets to lead the Princesses army against the Wizard's army. (view spoiler)[As the armies clash, the Wizard manages to snatch the Princess, so Conan has to go chase him down. It's one of the anti-climatic endings, where Conan and the Wizard face off mano-a-mano, but Conan tosses his sword through the Wiz while the Wiz is still monologing. At least this Wiz went with a Giant Scorpion instead of a snake; alas, the Scorpion doesn't get to do much, thanks to the aforementioned sword impalement. (hide spoiler)]

I'm not sure where the title comes from.

The story has some nice description of arid lands crossed by dry river washes, something Howard was likely familiar with in central Texas.

I enjoyed this story, in which we get to see Conan promoted to General at the suggestion of Mitra. Another evil wizard. Lol @ "monologing" in your spoiler G33z3r. I was also confused at the "Black Colossus" title, which I assume was a reference to the beast that was pulling Natohk's chariot.

Love your description G33z3r
The ending did make me giggle, I'm sure we've all wanted an evil character to just shut up before... perfect. The story up until then was average but not inspiring

The overall story was entertaining enough but that was definitely one anti-climatic ending. I mean you've got this whole build up about the super powered evil wizard, and then here he comes with his dark chariot, then (view spoiler)[his demon conveniently decided to betray him just at the moment Conan would have not been able to keep up anymore, and though this wizard was supposed to be oh so great and powerful, Conan deals with him in just a few seconds. And then Conan makes out with the girl with the dead wizard a couple feet away, ewww (hide spoiler)]

Andrea wrote: "The overall story was entertaining enough but that was definitely one anti-climatic ending. I mean you've got this whole build up about the super powered evil wizard, and then here he comes with hi..."

Right. Kind of a Steven Seagal moment at the end.