Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian cover art

Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian

The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus

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About this listen

This collection contains all of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian stories published during his lifetime, contextualized with biographical details of their author.

A full e-book copy of this book in Interactive PDF format is included and can be downloaded by clicking the "PDF" link in your Audible library (it's in the "Title" column). This PDF includes the audiobook chapter numbers, to make navigation easier.

Excerpt from the introduction:

"When the first Conan of Cimmeria story appeared in the pages of Weird Tales magazine in December 1932, nothing quite like it had ever before appeared in print. Author Robert E. Howard had been writing stories broadly similar to it for half a decade; but it was with Conan, and the Hyborian Age storyworld in which he was placed, that Howard finally fully doped out the sub-genre that would become known as "sword and sorcery", of which Howard is today considered the founding father.

"Conan's origins date back to an experiment in 1926 titled "The Shadow Kingdom", featuring the character Kull, exile of Atlantis. The idea - Howard's great innovation - was, at its core, historical fiction set in a pre-historical period. That pre-historical period - being, of course, lost in the mists of time - could contain anything Howard might like to include: evil races of sentient snake-things, sorcerers, undead creatures, demons walking upon the earth, anything.

"In other words, Howard was creating a secular mythology."

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2017 Finn J.D. John (P)2017 Pulp-Lit Productions Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Horror Sword & Sorcery Scary Magic Sorcery
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Great writer, 20 odd years before Tolkien? Good performance too - wisely giving Conan a Arnie-esque voice.

Listened to again and again!

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An excellent narration of classic Conan tales...set into useful context by the introductions...tune in, turn on and lean back into those tales that've followed you all these years, like the Barbarian himself on your trail through the haunted swamps of Koth....

Naked but for a loincloth

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There has always been a sneering snobbery about Robert E. Howard’s writing, but for my money he is the GOAT of the genre. If you factor in world building, imagination, action, characters, humour, tension, fantasy girls, horror, he is brilliant. Is he the best technical writer? No. In fact he writes like what he is: a twenty something writing for a pulp magazine. See how writers like Tolkien and George R. R. Martin viewed their own writing in their twenties; certainly not as good as their work when they got into latter life I’d wager. That’s the real tragedy of Howard; he died so young, and thereby lost the opportunity to create the definitive Conan novels when he had really refined his craft.

But, this is what we are left with, the mere tip of an iceberg, but a diamond strong tip at that. I read these stories when I was a kid, and recently went all in on the Monolith Games Conan game (check that out if you like Conan and tabletop games BTW), so was keen to revisit Hyboria to refresh myself before taking Conan and his cohort of friends and mistresses into battle!

I’ve seen some criticism of the voice actor, which I feel is very harsh. I feel he does a fine job, if at some points a little rugged around the edges. His Conan is good, it’s like Arnie’s Conan dialled down to 3, just enough of an accent to distinguish, but not enough for it to sound like a parody.

One thing that did annoy me was the fact that the chapters were not named. In a normal novel this isn’t a problem, but given we are dealing with short stores here, I’ve done it myself below:

2 - The Shadow Kingdom

7 - Red Shadows

13 - Rattle of Bones

15 - The Hyborian Age

17 - The Phoenix and the Sword

23 - The Scarlet Citadel

29 - The Tower of the Elephant

33 - Black Colossus

38 - The Slithering Shadow

43 - The Pool of the Black One

47 - Rogues in the House

51 - Gods of the North

53 - Shadows in the Moonlight

58 - Queen of the Black Coast

64 - The Devil in Iron

71 - The People of the Black Circle

82 - A Witch Shall be Born

89 - Jewels of Gwahlur

94 - Beyond the Black River

103 - Shadows in Zambola

108 - The Hour of the Dragon

131 - Red Nails

Masterful Sword and Sorcery

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There is a version done by Todd Mclaren which is excellent. I had to have this as i am a very big Conan fan.

Not the best narrator

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Quite possibly the worst reading of a book I have ever listened to.

There is something classically comforting about the style of Sword & Sorcery found within the Conan Stories, but unfortunately the narrator renders them unlistenable.

It did however encourage me to dust off the actual book and now I’m very much enjoying my adventures through the Age undreamed of.

Narrator is terrible

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