King Conan: the Phoenix on the Sword Free

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I'm so glad we're reading Conan! This was such a fun read. Made me feel barbaric! In fact, I tossed my salad I should rephrase that, but not gonna and chomped at a big turkey leg for dinner. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Robert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. He is well known for having created the character Conan the Cimmerian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond. Voracious reading, along with a na Robert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. Voracious reading, along with a natural talent for prose writing and the encouragement of teachers, conspired to create in Howard an interest in becoming a professional writer. One by one he discovered the authors that would influence his later work: Jack London and Rudyard Kipling. It's clear from Howard's earliest writings and the recollections of his friends that he suffered from severe depression from an early age. Friends recall him defending the act of suicide as a valid alternative as early as eighteen years old, while many of his stories and poems have a suicidal gloom and intensity that seem prescient in hindsight, describing such an end not as a tragedy but as a release from hell King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword earth. Get A Copy. Paperback48 pages. Published first published December More Details Original Title. The Dark Storm Conan Chronology Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Phoenix on the Swordplease sign up. Be the King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword to ask a question about The Phoenix on the Sword. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Phoenix on the Sword. Mar 28, Lyn rated it it was amazing. Why 5 stars for a pulp fantasy fiction short story? Why has Chuck Norris never portrayed Conan in film? Because the convergence of two such sources of cosmic awesomeness could result in the creation of a flash of brilliance so intense that its result can only be speculated upon. Robert E. Howard only walked around on this earth a little longer than did Jimi Hendrix or Hank Williams he Why 5 stars for a pulp fantasy fiction short story? Howard only walked around on this earth a little longer than did Jimi Hendrix or Hank Williams he died aged 30, the other two 27 and 29 respectively but like Jimi and Hank, his contribution and influence have lived well beyond his brief stay amongst us. Conan has King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword a cult persona of the magnitude of Tarzan, James Bond and Oz spawning decades of comics, a franchise of further adventures King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword by such writers as L. Sprague de Camp and Poul Anderson, films, and countless tributes and references in multiple media. Conan's influence has been a part of fantasy fiction ever since. As a pimply teenager in suburban America, I had a stack of Conan and King King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword comics and to this day though my collection has diminished in size and attention my prize is still a Conan 3. The mighty Conan swings swords and battle axes, busts more than a couple of skulls and generally has a high barbaric time of things. Observant fans will notice the mention of the arch Stygian villain Thoth King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword and the unmistakable influence of Howard's friend H. View all 10 comments. I bought on a whim, a collection of pulp fantasy short stories that really laid the ground King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword for the genre of fantasy that we know and love today. This story was included in the collection and was my first experience with Conan the Cimmerian, aka Conan the Barbarian, and I daresay it won't be my last given how much I enjoyed it. The worldbuilding is definitely heavier than I think any short story probably has the right to be, but what was there was pretty awesome. I already love the world, an I bought on a whim, a collection of pulp fantasy short stories that really laid the ground work for the genre of fantasy that we know and love today. I already love the world, and the way that Howard makes the reader work to piece together the lay of the land and the characters, kingdoms and ancient evils within it. The fantastic elements of the story were top notch. I was invested enough by the end that I already want to know what happens next, as well as what happened before. I understand that this story is actually set in the latter years of Conan's life and larger story, so clearly there's a lot to catch up on. Many years ago when I was a kid living in Saudi Arabia, which would have put me in either 4th or 5th grade, I had a friend who lived in one of the other foreigner camps. His brother, who King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword a few years older than us, had a collection of Conan and Doc Savage paperbacks. The brother was a jerk, or at least I perceived him as such. Probably he was just a typical teenager who didn't want to be bothered with his younger brother and dorky friend. For a very long time I associated both those character Many years ago when I was a kid living in Saudi Arabia, which would have put me in either 4th or 5th grade, I had a friend who lived in King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword of the other foreigner camps. For a very long time I associated King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword those characters with him, and so I never actually read any Conan for a very long time. Now I've finally rectified that omission, and well, I'm a bit surprised. This story read way better than I expected, given it is squarely in the pulp genre, and the background world building is both more fleshed out, and more subtle than I would have guessed. Of course Conan is a hero of epic proportions, surviving single-handedly an assault by 20 men, but he takes several King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword so he is not untouchable. And there is sorcery to accompany the swords, with the appearance of a scheming Stygian, Thoth-Amon. Fun stuff, appropriate for vacation reading. Mar 28, Wayne Barrett rated it it was amazing Shelves:classicsfantasyadventure. I, was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs--I was a man before I was a king. Bring it on, and good luck with that. I haven't seen such horrible odds since a corrupt posse had William Tell Sackett surrounded in the hills. So much for that posse and so much for the outlaws who dared "What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? So much for that posse and so much for the outlaws who dared to stand against the Cimmerian's sword. I cut my teeth on comic books as a child and Conan was always one of my favorites. He was the original sword and sorcery hero and there has never been another warrior who could match the raw barbaric ferocity of Conan. Crom, but how I miss my adventures with Conan the barbarian. Sep 15, Jamie rated it really liked it. I've put off reading Conan way too long, thinking it hadn't held up well after so many years, but it's time to remedy that! This was a boatload of fun. I'm surprised and enthralled by the quality of Howard's lyrical prose, the foreboding otherworldly presences and eldritch evils, and the rich lore and ancient mystery lurking in Conan's world. More please! Nov 05, Stephen rated it it was amazing Shelves: fantasy,novellassorcerous-swordskings- of-badassiapulpyshort-fiction This story contains the first appearance of Conan in print. King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword takes place at a time when Conan was King King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword Aquilonia having secured the throne by strangling the former king, Numedides, on his throne in true Conan fashion. This story introduces the reader to Conan's world full of barbarians, wizards and monsters including, the evil sorcerer Thoth-Anon. Come at me bro! View all 3 comments. Jan 16, Alex James rated it it was amazing Shelves: fiction-reviews. I remember having read Conan: The Conqueror, which was a very good read as well. It may appear odd to readers new to Conan stories that he is a King. His barbaric ways tend to run counter to the ways of a typical ruler in Aquilonia. The Phoenix on the Sword by Robert E. Howard

But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen- eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet. Conan is somewhat more deep and complex than the cartoon image of a brute in a bearskin loincloth found the popular imagination, with a dancing girl clutching his brawny thigh and a devil-beast dying under his bloody ax. The theme and philosophy he represents is not the product of adolescent neurosis as certain King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword critics would have us believe but of somber, even cynical, reflection on the age of the world, the costs of civilization, and the frailty of man. Trench warfare killed whole villages of their sons in a single hour. Notions of heroism and honor, the glamor and chivalry of war, were also killed. Science had been a benevolent genii, but now was famed for making weapons of indiscriminate and dispassionate mass-slaughter. The world was bellycrawling through a depression. Roosevelt had just been elected President. At this time, there was not even the foxfire of Keynesian economics to grant a glint of false hope to a bankrupt world. The General Theory of Employment, with its false promises, was not to be published for three years. The Shadow, with his eerie laugh and occult powers, was but three years old. The academic world was infatuated with faddish notions about eugenics. Civilization failed to cull the weak, and King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword carried the seeds of its own degeneration — or so the theory ran. The political world was deeply bitter about failed promises of peace which, in the Victorian Era, but twenty years before, had seemed easily King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword reach. Scientifically-managed economies were all the rage, and a contempt for the common man. In America, the Western Frontier was closing. Paul Bunyan and Johnny King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, and all the men of myth or history who brought civilization out of savage wilderness had apparently done their work too well. Civilization was triumphant, but was grown gross, corrupt, vulgar, and small. Something was missing. The spirit of the age languished. During such a time, the imagination of readers and writers in the more imaginative genres are likely to meditate on what had been lost, and at what cost. There is no shame in romanticism. In fiction, the mood and theme and atmosphere of a fable conveys more clearly the spirit of what the soul is pondering than any dry and academic discussion. That is the whole point of stories, sublime stories as well as simple ones. Some exaggerations or examples are more than this: they are archetypes. That Robert E Howard with the invention of Conan the Barbarian created an archetype is difficult to deny. Like Sherlock Holmes, like Ebenezer Scrooge, like Gandalf the Gray, certain characters, once finding a home in the imagination of a wide readership, become the by-word King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword their type, the standard against which other detectives or misers or wizards or barbarians are judged. If their stories never go out of print, King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword their yarns spread to all other mediums, if they are copied by countless epigones, that is a fair sign that the author touched some deep matter in the human spirit. The character is called archetypal when he is a lamp by which one sees in such depths what would otherwise be obscure. A mere flat and insubstantial copy of an archetype is called a stereotype. Gary Gygax devoted the barbarian character class as an homage to Conan, even as the Ranger class is an homage to Aragorn son of Arathorn. Sadly, sometimes such insubstantial cardboard copies of Conan have been perpetrated by authors purporting to write or finish a Conan story. An archetype differs from a mere stereotype by having more than one aspect to him, usually paradoxical. In this case, the brilliance of Robert E. Howard was to combine and cross-pollinate the ideas and tropes of four different ingredients of story telling. This idea, with its oriental hopelessness of endless cycles, radically challenged both the soberly tragic Christian view of the Fall of Man, and the fatuously optimistic Victorian view of an endless Ascent of Man. Second, Howard did not invent the weird tale, the historical novel, the picaresque novel or the action yarn. But he did combine them in a new form. Third, the idea that the world was ancient, and formed by successive catastrophes was common to the speculations of geology in that day, and taken up with enthusiasm by the Theosophists. Finally, the noble savage of Rousseau is a stock character in literature, and not original to Howard. When Howard did that was original, and brilliantly so, was place the stock character of Rousseau in the last place one would normally look for him: inside the weird tale with its uncanny moods and themes, and striding the lands of the cataclysmic, prehistoric world of the Theosophists, in the shadows of the fallen towers of Atlantis, amid the fall and rise King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword the empires and kingdoms ground by the merciless cycles of Spengler, treading jeweled thrones under his sandalled feet. The plot of Phoenix on the Sword is straightforward, and at the risk of uttering spoilers, let us summarize its five acts thus:. In the first act we see overhear an ambitious courtier named Ascalante scheming with his slave to overthrow the King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword of Aquilonia. The conspirators are stock characters from an historical novel: an ambitious count, a treasonous commander of the guard, a fat baron, an idealistic poet. What takes the tale out of King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword tropes of an historical novel and into the world of fantasy is that the dark slave, Thoth-amon, is a necromancer of the south, a practitioner of the dark arts, who lost his power over the forces of the night world due to the loss of his magic ring. For example, when two of the conspirators discuss the poet Rinaldo, whose songs have set the hearts of the common man against the king, this King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword observation is spoken:. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future. The second act introduces Conan the King, and grants a hint of the Hyborian Age that sets the backdrop. The King is introduced as a man fatigued of the burden of kingship. This is an odd introduction for our noble King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword. His first words are a lament for the raw freedom of his barbarian days:. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless. Conan and his chancellor discuss the unrest in the city. Conan makes an observation about the poet, Rinaldo, whom the chancellor wants hanged. He has the civilized man, the chancellor, quite pragmatically call for the death of a political agitator. The uncivilized man, ironically, has the greater respect for the mystical vocation of the poet, that most civilized of professions. The atmosphere created in these first two brief acts is redolent of Spengler, that is, a merciless cycle of history without beginning or end. The reader is not reading of ancient Rome, whose monuments stand to this day, but of kingdoms entirely destroyed by time. Nothing is described as stable. Aquilonia is named by the narrator as the greatest of these pre-Aryan post-Atlantis kingdoms, and it is in the hands of a barbarian reaver and rootless adventurer. The tension is between the primitive savage, who is hale if rough, and the overcivilized decadents, no less savage than he. The idea of glad progress leading to a utopian resting place, seen often in writings of the science fiction of the generation before Howard, is nowhere in evidence. I note with some interest in this tale and those that follow that the arms and armor of the various nations of the Hyborian Age occupy all stages of ancient and medieval military technology. We have knights in plate, complete with cuirass and sallet, products equal to the later Middle Ages; with them are horse-archers and spearmen in byrnie and bascinet or adorned in the silks of Saracens, equal to the Dark Ages; charioteers in the panoply of a Homeric warlord with King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword and greaves of gleaming bronze; soldiers in leather or linen armed with recurve bow or sling or truncheon; Neolithic fighters in grass skirts wielding tomahawks. The admixture of periods not only lends local color to the tale, and lends delight to the military history buff or recreationist that tales like these did so much to create, it subtly emphasizes the unoptimistic atmosphere: there is no progress that stays, no civilization high enough to be immune from oblivion. The nations mentioned on a map the King is drawing during this scene play no part in this story, but the mention is necessary to establish an essential element of the unforgettable atmosphere. Their gods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Cimmeria is a name taken from Greek mythology. It is a land where no sun shines, at the edge of the world, and nigh the gates to Hell. Crom is a reference to Crom Cruach, a devil or dragon of the prechristian Irish, adored with human sacrifice. The word itself means crooked or stooped. As does the reader. Asgard is the Norse home of their gods, and Vanaheim of their titans, called Vanir. Their god is Ymir, the frost-giant, and each tribe has its own king. Ymir is the foe of King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword and his brothers in Norse myth. Set is the treasonous and fratricidal brother of the Egyptian god Osiris. The selection of names is not random. Howard is here indulging in two theories. The first is called King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword, which holds that myths are based on forgotten historical persons and places. To create the atmosphere of a world lying in the twilight just beyond the reach of the lamp of history, Howard has any place names remembered in myths of the survivors we know from history be the last relic of lost prehistory. A similar theory holds that the devils of any mythology are the gods of the conquered natives. Examples abound. The Baal of the Canaanites becomes a devil to the conquering Israelites. The Asura worshipped by Iranians become devils for the Indians while the Deva worshipped by Indians become devils for Iranians. Hence for Howard, working backward, Crom becomes the god King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword some nation the forgotten ancestors of the Irish conquered, Ymir of those conquered and forgotten in the far north, Set of those in the far south. In the third act, via unexplained Dickensian coincidence, Thoth-amon recovers his magic ring, and our historical drama steps fully into the world of King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword Lovecraft. There was a movement in the air about him, such a swirl as is made in water King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword some creature rises to the surface. A nameless, freezing wind blew on him briefly, as if from an opened Door. Thoth felt a presence at his back, but he did not look about. He kept his eyes fixed on the moonlit space of marble, on which a tenuous shadow hovered. As he continued his whispered incantations, this shadow grew in size and clarity, until it stood out distinct and horrific. Its outline was not unlike that of a gigantic baboon, but no such baboon ever walked the earth, not even in Stygia. Still Thoth did not look, but drawing from his girdle a sandal of his master—always carried in the dim hope that he might be able to put it to such use—he cast it behind him. Look into his eyes and blast his soul, before you tear out his throat! Kill him! King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword by Timothy Truman

First hailing Conan as a liberator after he annihilated Aquilonia's foes on King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword battlefield, common folk and politicians alike now rally to unseat the Cimmerian from his stolen throne. Conspirators plot to kill King Conan and take the crown for themselves, but their schemes pale in comparison to a terror waiting quietly in the wings--Thoth-Amon, an enemy who has haunted Conan his whole adult life and whose wicked aspirations dwarf those of maneuvering politicians! This edit will also create new pages on Comic Vine for:. Until you earn points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Comic Vine users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword an email once approved. Tweet Clean. Cancel Update. What size image should we insert? This will not affect the original upload Small Medium How do you want the image positioned around text? Float Left Float Right. Cancel Insert. Go to Link Unlink Change. Cancel Create Link. Disable this feature for this session. Rows: Columns:. Enter the URL for the tweet you want to embed. Locations Aquilonia Hyboria. Concepts Hyborian Age. Story Arcs. This edit will also create new pages on Comic Vine for: Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live. Comment and Save Until you earn points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Comic Vine users. Use your keyboard!