Conan the Outcast

Adventures of Conan

by Leonard Carpenter

The ancient hierarchs of the desert city of Qjara did not want the young man called Conan of Cimmeria inside their walls with his strange, northland ways.He did not even worship the One True Goddess. yet some would ensnare him in the city's intrigues: the beautiful Princess Afrianda, with powers she does not fully understand herself, and Zaius, foremost swordsman of the Temple warriors. Their paths are like nothing Conan has seen before, following labyrinthine trails he cannot imagine, thrusting him toward banishment or death. And in the dying city of Sark, the soulless High Priest Khumanos wields the legendary Sword of Onothimantos and schemes for the return of ancient gods. Qjara does not want Conan, but only one man can prevent the sacrifice of the city to the Tree of Mouths. Only one-- Conan the Outcast

Genres: Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Fiction, Novels, High Fantasy

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1991

About the author

Leonard Paul Carpenter (born 1948) is an American technical writer and author of fantasy, historical and futurist fiction. He began by selling horror/fantasy tales and Conan the Barbarian sequels, eleven novels totaling a million words. This is more of the Conan saga than any other author living or dead, including Conan's inspired creator Robert E. Howard in the 1930's. Now Carpenter breaks out of sci-fantasy with his mainstream historical opus Lusitania Lost, a wartime epic of the sinking of the luxury liner in 1915 by a German U-boat, which ultimately caused the US to enter WWI. This is the first novelization of an event more dramatic and significant than the Titanic tragedy 3 years earlier. Carpenter has also written the screenplay adaptation of this book. Another novel of his, the future-history thriller Biohacker, is available on Amazon Kindle. Carpenter is the widowed survivor of a 50-year courtship and marriage, proud father of 3, and owner of a superstar Frisbee dog, Lizzie. He spends his time traveling and writing about a Cuban fantasy quest and real-life engagement in his just-published novel, Tropic of Cuba, now serialized on Kindle Vella at Amazon (first chapters free!)

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the oddest Conan book of the many I've read, I think. Conan the Atomic. Conan the Nuclear Man. It's an ambitious, wild and wacky tale of a nuclear bomb in the Hyborian age. Robert E. Howard would have most likely been amused and bemused. Carpenter unfortunately gave in to his liking of odd and unpronounceable names a bit too much, and there's a little too much talk of politics and religion, but it was still quite fun. The Ken Kelly cover that shows Conan having a sword fight with a tree gives a good hint of things to come.

[Jason Ray Carney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tells the story of Conan's short stay in the desert city of Qjara. The people of Qjara worship the "One True Goddess," Saditha. The king and high priestess of Qjara have accepted a diplomatic overture by the city of Sark, who venerates another god, Votantha. Their goddess will marry Sark's god and this metaphysical union will signal an earthly diplomatic union. Of course, when priests and gods are involved, things are never as they seem. This was fun but the plot was kind of clunky and episodic. It didn't hang together or flow consistently. It's as if the writer brainstormed several scenes and only later sutured them together into an overarching plot (and the sutures are left showing). I enjoyed the characters. Carpenter writes Conan as a "no nonsense" person who is constantly flabbergasted by the civilized and their strange taboos and religious observances. As in a lot of these pastiches, there is a final battle and climax and I found this one distinctly enthralling. Overall, this is entertaining but sometimes tropey and meandering.

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different Conan book, with a different pace, dare I say quite complex, with the author, albeit in a simple way, using the story to talk about various things. Our hero travels through the desert to end up in an interesting city, which is characterized by a liberal atmosphere that is reflected in its prevailing religion. Conan takes an instant liking to it and therefore takes an interest in its defense and the protection of its beautiful princess, with whom a beautiful and tender relationship is created. Its greatest enemy, however, is more cunning, a city with a despotic regime and a strict patriarchal religion, which wants to impose itself on the surrounding area. So, as you can see, our hero has a difficult task. All this in a book that is not so action-based and shows us a different side of Conan's character, with his ideas about freedom leading him to choose a side. So for me the book offers something more substantial and I really like that.

Ένα διαφορετικό βιβλίο για τον Κόναν, με διαφορετικό ρυθμό, που τολμώ να το πω αρκετά περίπλοκο, με τον συγγραφέα, εστω και με έναν απλό τρόπο, να χρησιμοποιεί την ιστορία για να μιλήσει για διάφορα πράγματα. Ο ήρωας μας ταξιδεύει στην έρημο για να καταλήξει σε μία ενδιαφέρουσα πόλη, η οποία χαρακτηρίζεται από μία φιλελεύθερη ατμόσφαιρα που αντικατοπτρίζεται στην επικρατούσα θρησκεία της. Ο Κόναν την συμπαθεί αμέσως για αυτό ενδιαφέρεται για την άμυνά της και για την προστασία της πανέμορφης πριγκίπισσας της, με την οποία δημιουργείται μία όμορφη και τρυφερή σχέση. Ο μεγαλύτερος εχθρός της, όμως, είναι περισσότερο πονηρός, μία πόλη με δεσποτικό καθεστώς και μία αυστηρή πατριαρχική θρησκεία, η οποία θέλει να επιβληθεί στη γύρω περιοχή. Οπότε, όπως καταλαβαίνετε, ο ήρωας μας έχει μία δύσκολη αποστολή. Όλα αυτά σε ένα βιβλίο που δεν βασίζεται τόσο στη δράση και μας δείχνει μία διαφορετική πλευρά του χαρακτήρα του Κόναν, με τις ιδέες του για την ελευθερία να τον οδηγούν να διαλέξει πλευρά. Οπότε για εμένα βιβλίο προσφέρει κάτι περισσότερο ουσιαστικό και αυτό μου αρέσει ιδιαίτερα.

[Lewis Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another shoddy instalment by Carpenter, who has by now cemented himself as my least favourite Conan pastiche author. As with most of Carpenter's books, the majority of Conan the Outcast consists of time-wasting filler, with Carpenter often dragging out 30 pages at a time (or more) with overly-flowery drivel, taking thousands of words to say what many authors could do in one hundred. It's as though Carpenter knows absolutely nothing of note is happening in his story as he writes it, and so he thinks he can trick the reader into thinking what he's writing is halfway entertaining by forcefully making his prose as "colourful" as possible.

The funny part about this is that Robert E. Howard, though also fond of highly dramatic prose, excellently paired this with quick and concise stories that didn't waste time. His original Conan stories were magnificently colourful but also extremely direct at the same time. Carpenter misses the mark entirely, and doesn't at all seem to grasp what made the original works so captivating.

This is made even worse by the fact that, most of the time, the pay-off is usually weak as hell with Carpenter's books and not worth the filler you've trudged through to get to it. For example, Conan does nothing of note during the final conflict in this book, and he's essentially responsible for allowing it all to happen in the first place. Once again, it's like Carpenter is fed up of writing Conan, is only doing so for the paycheck, and so has decided he wants to bitterly sabotage the character by having him be useless at best and the instigator of all the bad things that happen at worst.

The only reason I'm not giving this one star is because it started semi-decently and I was somewhat invested during the first half of the book. Still, I'll be adding this to the pile of Conan pastiches I'm not at all interested in reading again - which, at this point, is very much dominated by Carpenter's name.

Ah well. At least I've got more of his books behind me than ahead of me after this one.

[Isen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Start a new year with a new Conan.

Anaximander is a comically evil king of a minor Shemitic state. His city has been suffering from drought recently, while neighbouring Qjara is prospering. Putting two and two together, Anaximander concludes that the only way to rectify the situation is to slay the entire population of Qjara as a sacrifice to the god Voltantha, who will make the rains come again.

But how is Anaximander to take Qjara, which is wealthy and well-fortified, when his own resources are at a nadir? Fortunately, no armed conflict is necessary. With the correct ritual, Voltantha himself will come down to Qjara and incinerate the entire city.

I don't know why, but I instantly god Oppenheimer vibes when I read this. Turns out, that is not coincidental. The book is about how Anaximander attempts to assemble a nuke.

High Priest Khumanos is dispatched with a levy of slaves to mine an oddly heavy metal, that glows green in the night and leaves sores and welts on anyone who handles it, smelts it into three equal parts, taking care not to let them come into contact until they reach Qjara, where the idol is to be assembled and blast the city into oblivion.

It's stupid and ridiculous, and exactly the sort of shit I read Conan for.

Unfortunately, being a Carpenter novel, Conan doesn't do much, and when he does it doesn't feel like Conan at all. But I don't think I can give a story that ends with a barbarian trying to hack nuclear fission apart less than three stars.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The desert kingdom of Sark is suffering from a 7 year drought when their harsh King receives a vision. Their evil tree-god requires a sacrifice, in the form of the prosperous kingdom of Qjara. He sends his head priest to prepare for the coming of their god and the destruction of Qjara. Conan is currently living on the outskirts of Qjara, unwilling to stay in the city itself due to their stern goddess worship. When he does enter the city he encounters a beautiful woman who has the gift of prophecy, only to find that she is actually the king's daughter. She is engaged to the head warrior-priest, and naturally Conan's attentions to the princess do not lead to pleasant results. Conan finds himself in the middle of the diplomatic marriage between the two kingdoms, Qjara being unaware of Sark's intentions, and really wants nothing more than the appearance of a northern traveling caravan to join so he can return to his favored city of Shadizar the Wicked.

This story is much more about the battle between two extremely religious kingdoms than about Conan. Conan spends much of his time fishing, playing with children, and trying to get to Shadizar. He doesn't do as much slaying as usual, though he does take part in the most unique duel ever. And he remains his usual man-whore self. It's a bit odd for a Conan tale, but interesting nonetheless.

[John Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

The newer the Conan book the worse it is (usually). In this case, that doesn't hold true. This book was pretty well written and had an interesting plot. The edition has a number of typos but that didn't bother me all that much.

I do wish Anaximander had gotten what was coming to him, his city too. Not sure why he didn't.

[Mark Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent story. Entertaining at points. Seemed like Carpenter could have put in more fights and less filler. It rekindled my interest in the Conan stories but not to read more by Carpenter. I feel like once you’ve read the Howard-DeCamp stories, everything else is a let down. So far at least. Lin Carter is good too.

[Alan Standsalone Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out slow, pace was unusual at times and lost interest at times. Some of the action scenes were ok.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jag börjar misstänka att Carpenter var mer förtjust i att skriva om gudar och myter än slughet. Denna är av samma karaktär som den förra jag läste av honom.

[East Bay J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Carpenter shows himself to be another author of Conan pastiches who fails to grasp the character he's writing about. In fact, this one comes off like he'd written a fantasy novel and ended up adapting it to Conan's Hyborian world, replacing his protagonist with Conan.

That story isn't the greatest, either. It kind of meanders around and sluggishly draws all the various elements together to what would be called the climax if it were at all interesting. The fact that the reader can see what's coming about midway through the book just makes it all seem sort of clumsy and scotch taped together.

I found it very odd that Carpenter had Conan calling Princess Afirdanra "child" then having sex with her. That's creepy and totally out of character for Conan. Which brings us back to the fact that some of these pastiche authors should study the writing of Howard and the character of Conan.

Ken Kelly's cover art is nice but inaccurate to the story. I'm noticing a trend.

Nowhere near as bad as Conan Of The Isles, Conan The Outcast is, nonetheless, not a very fulfilling read. It's more along the lines of a waste of time.

[Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main villain in this adventure of everyone's favorite barbarian was a cunningly surprising marriage of science and sorcery. A good sample of adventure in Hyboria. Short, simple, entertaining. That's what these books are supposed to be, and Conan the Outcast succeeds in that respect.

[GD · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the question posed by the blurb on the cover of this great book, and the answer no one need voice, tell you everything you need to know about this book: "Who can stand when the old gods return?" I think that's a rhetorical question.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST OF THE CONAN NOVELS I EVER READ. TERRIFIC!