John C. Hocking

What a joy to see John C. Hocking back in the saddle with our Sullen Northerner. This book has been decades coming and finally it is here. City of the Dead contains two Conan Novels. Conan and the Emerald Lotus and Conan and the Living Plague. Emerald Lotus was one of the last of the TOR pastiches to be released out of the long running series and in my humble opinion…by far the best of the lot. Hocking only penned one of the dozens released. Some of these books were good, some were bad and show more some were TERRIBLE. Now Hocking returns to give us a new story with Conan. Full of adventure, swordplay, dark sorcery and of course that low fantasy Hyborian atmosphere….Hocking hits it out of the park.
Conan is the epitome of Low Fantasy. No Elves, Dwarfs, Faeries and other nonsense. Rooted in what could have easily at one time been our own world we have a great story. On his way to rob a city’s coffers Conan and his cohorts find themselves stuck in the middle of a city that has been the victim of a sorcerous mishap. And if you are a Conan fan….then you know how he feels about that. The action in this book is nonstop. There are some Howardesque moments of solemn brooding, which is something many Conan titles seem to forget. Though at times it seems like some of the action was written while Hocking was staring certain Ken Kelly paintings. This is ok though. He does not rely on it to get the story across. There are some weak plot points. Certain characters disappear and are never mentioned again. show less

This is hands down the best Non-Howard Conan story available. The Chemistry that Hocking weaves in this story is natural and bold as should be. He does the Sullen Northerner justice.
This story is now available in a nice Hardbound volume with its long overdue Sequel Conan and the Living Plague. Having reread this story only reinforces the fact that Hocking is a superior Conan writer. Conan loosing his cool while talking to the Wizard is classic. Hocking knows how to bring the Cimmerian's show more blood to a boil. show less

You have your purists out there who won’t accept anything other than the source material as seen in Weird Tales in the 30’s. You also have your children of the 70’s and 80’s who grew up on the Marvel Comics version of the character. Then you have idiots like me, who adore Howard’s work, but still want more of the awe-inspiring Cimmerian, not really giving a damn what medium he shows up in. Yes, there are a great many Conan novels out there that are nothing but cheap cash-ins, but show more there have been a number of quality releases by authors other than Howard over the years, despite what the surly purists might have you believe.

The elusive John C. Hocking wrote one hell of a Howard pastiche in Conan and the Emerald Lotus. It is with a heavy heart that I discovered a second Conan novel by the man, completed and ready to go to print, was axed because of some jive with the new owners of the license and their policy on the pastiche books. Regardless, we have this, his single Conan entry for the Tor line, to remember him by for the moment.

Conan finds himself tangled in a wicked web of feuding sorcerers, a plot in which the superstitious northerner had no desire to get involved with in the first place. Denying an offer of employment from the wicked Shakar, Conan finds himself magically ensnared by the angry mage, forced to do his bidding or have the life force sucked right out of him. Shakar’s task: assassinate his rival, the Lady Zelandra and steal her supply of Emerald Lotus, a potent leaf both casters have found themselves addicted to recently.

There is a reversal of fortunes though, as Conan is soon released from Shakar’s curse by Zelandra, who retains the Cimmerian’s services herself. She wishes to travel into the Stygian desert to defeat the evil Ethram-Fal, an insidious sorcerer who introduced both Zelandra and Shakar to his supply of Emerald Lotus, a drug with exceptionally dark origins which can greatly increase the power of any magic-user. Ethram-Fal’s reason for hooking two rival sorcerers on the drug seems to be nothing more than a horrible petri dish experiment to determine how long a person can live once their supply runs out, but the wretch also seems to have some pretty nefarious plans for the Lady Zelandra if he can indeed lure her to his impenetrable palace.

Joining Zelandra and Conan on their quest into the desert wasteland are Zelandra’s hulking mute bodyguard and lover Heng Shih and her sultry scribe Neesa. If one wanted to nitpick, it could be said that Neesa serves little purpose other than as a wench for Conan to bed throughout the adventure, but her skill with a throwing knife does in fact end up saving the party on a couple of occasions. Hot on the heels of Zelandra’s pack is Shakar’s undead bodyguard, Gulbanda, a frightening wraith-like creature who can never truly know death.

Hocking may not have completely emulated the more poetic side of Howard’s prose, but he certainly has the same gritty, in your face style as the king of sword-and-sorcery. There are also some Lovecraftian hints about the book, such as the grotesque Lotus plant, which grows as it consumes flesh, the supernatural nature of the sorcerers (I appreciated that a fire spell had Cthuga as one of the command words), and the bizarre, drug induced mind voyages said sorcerers embark on. Hocking is no slouch on the action either. Whether it’s the clashing steel of a sword fight or a down and dirty brawl, the author is relentless, keeping up a masterful edge of your seat pace during the action.

This novel is a potboiler, and I say that with no negative context whatsoever. What a fabulous page-turner this is. If you’re already open to the idea of the pastiche books, you should add Conan and the Emerald Lotus to your reading list. show less

Conan and the Emerald Lotus is very passable Conan pastiche, not as good as Carpenter's Conan the Raider, but as good as or better than the Robert Jordan run. The basic plot concerns a second-rate Stygian sorcerer who schemes to achieve supremacy through a highly addictive magic-enhancing drug that he has discovered.

The prose style is simple and effective, with no efforts to make things seem archaic, although the expression "what the hell" (spoken by Conan several times) seems a little show more misplaced in the Hyborian Age somehow. The magical incantations tend toward Yog-Sothothery, and the forbidden god of ancient Stygia turns out to be Nyarlathotep.

The whole story is told in an unremarkable third-person omniscient voice, although it was interesting that readers are repeatedly invited to identify with a supporting character who is an enormous mute Khitan (i.e. Hyborian-Age fantasy Chinese) bodyguard. Action proceeds at a steady pace throughout the story. Conan seems to drink with even more gusto than is customary in this one, and his sexual appetite is entirely confined to a single narratively-designated love interest.

The book is a fast, amusing read on the whole, and I find no satisfaction in the fact that author Hocking has had no other Conan stories arrive in print. show less