Conan and the Gods of the Mountain

Conan and the Gods of the Mountain is a 1993 novel about Robert E. Howard's famous hero that chiefly distinguishes itself by serving as a tight sequel to "Red Nails," the last story of Conan to have been written by the original author. Howard himself called "Red Nails" the "grimmest, bloodiest, and most merciless" of his Conan tales, and its Weird Tales appearance in 1936 featured a cover illustration by Margaret Brundage, depicting the naked Valeria held on an altar by two women and menaced by the dagger-brandishing witch Tascela.

Writing more than half a century later, Roland Green picks up the narrative on the following day. His novel sees Conan and Valeria put the cursed city of Xuchotl behind them, but they don't fully escape its show more shadow, spending the whole book among the Black tribes who are near to the city and know of it. Geographic features in this southern jungle region include the Lake of Death and Thunder Mountain. The social context of the story involves a conflict between the Kwanyi and Ichiribu tribes, where the former are allied with the God-Men (i.e. priest-sorcerers) of Thunder Mountain, and the latter have among them a powerful shaman Spirit-Speaker.

Conan has his usual antipathy for the supernatural powers which he finds among his eventual allies and enemies, and an ancient monster supplies a third force in the developing conflict. Green's narrative gaze is often preoccupied with female nudity--that of Valeria and several of the tribal women as well. The relationship between Conan and Valeria does progress in terms of both comradeship and intimacy, but at the end of the book Conan is reflecting on its limits.

I have previously read two of Green's earlier Conan novels, Conan the Valiant and Conan the Guardian. I found these more dependent on the Conan stories of Robert Jordan than on the original Robert E. Howard material. While this one shifts to engage the content of the original pulp-era tales far more directly, the tone and style remain consistent with the other Jordan and Green texts. show less