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Loading... Conan: The Sword of Skelosby Andrew Offutt
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Belongs to SeriesBantam Conan (3) Conan Series (16) Conan's Journeys (9) Conan-Saga (04) Serie Conan (16) Belongs to Publisher SeriesHeyne Allgemeine Reihe (3941) Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy (06/3941)
With the beautiful and fierce Isparana at his side, Conan must cross a brutal and deadly desert in order to deliver their precious cargo-a magical amulet known as the Eye of Erlik. But rather than collecting untold riches for their rare treasure, they are betrayed by a ruthless tyrant and his evil mage. Conan has faced many mortal dangers, perils of magic and perils of steel. But when the treacherous prestidigitator unleashes the bloodthirsty Sword of Skelos, a weapon of both magic and steel-a sword that can fight on its own-Conan faces one of his most dire challenges. How will Conan survive this battle, when there is no foe to slay? No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The narrative voice varies throughout, although always in an omniscient third person. Some chapters begin with raw description and presume no prior exposition; they might stand on their own as short stories. Others are clearly oriented toward the larger structure of the novel and/or trilogy, and pick up with a presumed reader knowledge of prior developments. Characterizations are fairly vivid, and the pace of the action is fast. Conan does a lot of killing.
Not even in the somewhat skeevy Robert Jordan Conan novels does Conan feature as a rapist. Yet in this book, while Conan insists that he is not a rapist, his competitor thief and eventual ally Isparana contradicts him, but when he insists that his assault of her "was not rape," she then looks "away in silent admission of the truth" (137). Still, the incident in question is quite clearly rape as described: an act of sexual violence with its non-consensuality demonstrated by the fact that Isparana had just tried to murder Conan (84-5). The narration also refers to their assailants in the desert as "would-be rapists" (98), as contrasted with the accomplished rapist who is the story's hero, I suppose. And all of this business is sandwiched in with passages emphasizing Conan's personal honor.
Actually, I would not be surprised to find out that Jordan's Conan stories had been consciously modeled on those of Offutt. There are both cosmetic and structural similarities, and in narrative chronology Jordan picks up (with the youngest Conan of his novels, in Conan the Magnificent) immediately after the finale of The Sword of Skelos. So perhaps I should set Offutt at the headspring of the latter-day Conan style perpetrated by Robert Jordan and Roland Green. Offutt's book does not suffer from the abrupt endings common to Jordan's later efforts, though.
As with the other books in this Bantam series, there are interior line art and a wonderful map by Tim Kirk.