‘Conan And The Living Plague’ – John C. Hocking (Titan Books)

 


Page Count: 250 Pages

After finishing ‘Conan And The Emerald Lotus’ a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t in a mad rush to jump straight into ‘Conan And The Living Plague’. Nothing against ‘The Emerald Lotus’ but… Oh, just click Here and read my post if you haven’t already ;o)

At the same time though, I can’t seem to leave a book unfinished at the moment and both of these books happen to be in the ‘City Of The Dead’ omnibus so… Here we are.

Yesterday was a long one, what with one thing and another (and then another…) so after I’d turned my laptop off, I sat down and started reading. And…

A Shemite wizard seeks to create a potion to use as a lethal weapon. Instead, he unwittingly unleashes a hideous monster on the city of Dulcine. Hired to loot the city of its treasures, Conan and his mercenary companions find themselves trapped in the depths of the city’s keep. To escape, they must defeat the creature and its plague wracked undead followers, then face otherworldly horrors beyond mortal comprehension…

One of the reasons that I wanted to leave ‘Conan And The Living Plague’ for a bit is that sometimes, it’s really hard to follow up a book with another book, by the same author and find something new to say. And I’ll be honest, John C. Hocking has not made it easy for me this time round :o)

And again, that’s the whole point of ‘Sword & Sorcery’, isn’t it? There’ll be a few cliffhangers, along the way, but ultimately, you know exactly what you’re getting and so long as it’s a fun ride in the meantime, everyone’s happy.

And up to a point, that’s exactly what I got with ‘The Living Plague’. Hocking knows the recipe off by heart, at this point, and uses it to deliver a tale that sparks in all the right places. From where I was sat, the pacing is still a little off though. My favourite ‘Sword & Sorcery’ reads crackle with energy all the way through and for every moment that this happens in ‘The Living Plague’, there are several moments where Conan and co. are on travelling from A to B or exploring empty rooms in the Keep at Dulcine. It’s all necessary stuff but if I’m reading a ‘Conan’ story, I want things to move a little quicker than they were here.

Again though, it’s not a deal-breaker as when things do kick off, they prove to be well worth the wait. Hocking delivers the Conan that you paid the admission price to see; setting him against some nasty liches that were close enough to zombies for me to keep reading and a demon that really evokes REH’s ability to a highlight an already bleak backdrop with the knowledge that there are other realms, just at the corner of your eye.

Could I ask for much more than that? Well, Hocking probably won’t trouble that half-formed list of favourite ‘Sword & Sorcery’ authors, that I keep meaning to make, but these days, any book that can draw a firm line between work and relaxation gets my vote. ‘The Living Plague’ sits comfortably in that category.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Dig Me No Grave’ – Robert E. Howard

Image
  Page Count: Fourteen Pages, eight lines and two words (sorry, it has been one of those weeks) I was looking for something short and sweet, to end the week on, and came across ‘Dig Me No Grave’ courtesy of Paperback Warrior’s write-up . Having read it, I can attest to it being short (all of fourteen and a bit pages in ‘The Dead Remember’ collection) but sweet? Not at all and that is meant in the best possible way :o) ‘Dig Me No Grave’ was originally published in the February 1937 of ‘Weird Tales’ and while it has appeared in other collections since then, I read it in ‘The Dead Remember (The Dark Man Omnibus: Volume 2) and also found it in my copy of ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. If you’re an e-reading type, you can grab yourself ‘Dig Me No Grave’ over at Project Gutenberg. John Kirowan is woken, in the middle of the night, by his friend John Conrad, bearer of bad news and come to beg a favour. The occultist John Grimlan has just died and Conrad asks that Kirowan att...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘War in the Museum’ – Robert Rath (Black Library)

Image
My Warhammer 40K reading invariably sees humanity being used as the lens through which everything plays out. That’s fair enough to a point (when you’re looking at decades of focus on the fight to save the human Imperium, you’re going to show these stories through human eyes. There are other species out there though and while I don’t think you’d get a particularly coherent story from an Ork’s viewpoint, the tales of other species could be interesting. That was my line of thinking when I was browsing Amazon, looking for a little treat, yesterday. I saw ‘War in the Museum’ thought to myself, ‘I’ve read about Necrons but never seen a story told from their viewpoint, should I…?’ And promptly did. It’s not a bad read either. It’s fairly clear that ‘War in the Museum’ is written for Necron gamers but there is still enough here for casual accquaintances of Black Library/Warhammer 40K to have fun with… On the shadowy world of Solemnace, Trazyn the Infinite tends to his ever-growing mu...
Read more