Description: A new adventure of Conan--from one of today's most popular writers of fantasy and SF For decades, millions of readers have thrilled to the adventures of Conan, the barbarian adventurer invented by Robert E. Howard, and further chronicled by such other notable fantasy writers as L. Sprague de Camp, Poul Anderson, and Robert Jordan. Now Harry Turtledove, one of today's most popular writers of SF and fantasy, fulfills a lifelong ambition by contributing a novel to the Conan saga. Here is the tale of the young Conan, in the year or so before he becomes the wandering adventurer we know from Howard's tales. On the verge of adulthood, he lives in a Cimmerian hamlet, caring for his ailing mother and helping at his father's smithy. He's big, strong, shy, ferocious--and has a crush on the weaver's daughter who lives next door. Then war comes: an invasion by the Aquilonian Empire. Conan burns to join the fight, but he's too young to go. The Aquilonians have smashed the Cimmerian defending forces, and can rule as they please. Soon their heavily garrisoned forts dot the countryside. Their settlers follow after, carving homesteads out of other men's land. Every Cimmerian longs to drive the intruders out with fire and sword, but they must stay their hands, for the Aquilonians have promised savage reprisals. Then, intolerably, the Aquilonian commander takes a wholly dishonorable interest in the weaver's daughter--and he's not a man to wait, or even ask permission. It's not a recipe for a peaceful outcome.

Please Wait