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Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures: Heretic of Stygia #3
Venom of Luxur (Anok, Heretic of Stygia Volume III)
Second of three epic trilogies set in the legendary world of Conan the Barbarian . Cursed with an unspeakable power, Anok Wati, the heretic of Set, has unknowingly unleashed a hideous evil. And unless he can find the hero within himself, and destroy a god given flesh, all of Hyboria will be enslaved.
- GenresFantasySword and Sorcery
264 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 29, 2005
63 people want to read
About the author
J. Steven York
56 books36 followersOriginally hailing from the piney woods along the Alabama/Florida border, J. Steven York has wandered between many genres (science fiction, fantasy, mystery) and points on the map.
Though he now lives on the Pacific shore in Oregon, his current mystery series "Panorama Beach," is set in the sunny Florida panhandle during the 1960s, and its fictional environs are inspired by his real-life ancestral roots there, and his happy visits to the gulf coast when he was a child.
Though he now lives on the Pacific shore in Oregon, his current mystery series "Panorama Beach," is set in the sunny Florida panhandle during the 1960s, and its fictional environs are inspired by his real-life ancestral roots there, and his happy visits to the gulf coast when he was a child.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 26, 2021
The book over-relies on recaps of prior events. Basically the structure is thus: Anok does something. Anok's friends worry about what Anok has done (recapping in the process). Anok's enemies ruminate about what Anok has done (giving yet another recap). Anok worries about what he has done in the past (any guesses what this provides? Yes, another recap), then Anok does something else, and the cycle goes on - recap after recap.
The structure of the trilogy, being so filled with constant recaps and reminders of what was read in the last chapter, gave the entire series the feeling of being "padded" in order to achieve a certain length.
This structure was evident in the prior books as well, but it seemed this one added another twist to the structure: In the midst of the recaps, the side characters all pondered their relative uselessness - as if the author suddenly realized his characters had no point and that he needed to get on the ball and give them something to do! Teferi actually is given magical powers from out of nowhere in order to make sure he could contribute in some way.
Magic does underlie and solve everything in this series. Magic weapons, magic spells, magic items, magic gods and so on, good and evil. There are anti-magic serums and locations, "simple" spells (why are deflection spells always referred to as a "simple" spell in fantasy novels?), magic swords and magic dream-sticks. Even Fallon asks for a magic weapon at one point, realizing she is useless to Anok (other than for sex) if she doesn't have magic.
The storylines are concluded by contrivance instead of by natural consequence of the characters' actions. Every plot line was tied up very neatly and without much effort on Anok's part. Instead of plots resolved by natural consequence of a character's actions, the plots are resolved by the author in strings of nifty coincidences and revelations.
The novel would have been MUCH better if Anok had truly fallen into corruption. Sure he killed some cannibals and was guilty of arrogance, but he still was pretty nice to his friends.
What if Ramsa had not been distracted by some silly plot about usurping a god's power, but had been focused on corrupting Anok? Let's say Ramsa puts Anok into a situation where he must either kill a friend as a sacrifice or die himself.
If he had really fallen and killed Fallon in a ritual sacrifice, would Teferi have saved him? Would the "power of friendship" been strong enough to redeem Anok? Would Teferi want to redeem his friend after that? Would Anok be redeemable after such an atrocity? What if Ramsa had forced Anok to kill Teferi? Would Fallon have tried to save Anok afterwards? Would her feelings for Anok really have been strong enough to redeem him?
Would Anok have been redeemed? Or would the trilogy have ended with Anok's death when Teferi or Fallon kills him for being irredeemably corrupt? Or would one of them have shattered his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down so that he would have the rest of his life to wail at what he did to deserve it?
Those would have been some hard questions that could not have been solved with magic. Those questions would have had me on the edge of my seat. Those questions would have given the trilogy a hard edge and some serious emotional impact.
As it was, Anok was still a pretty decent guy, obviously "savable" and the ending did not have one bit of emotional impact. Oh, they killed a god-snake. World saved from ridiculous Cobra Commander plot. Anok saved. Hurrah. Next book please, nothing more to think about here.
His descriptions of the setting, however, are excellent. He excels at description. It is easy to visualize what he writes, and that holds true for the third book as well as the other two. I do like the character of Ramsa, even though in this book he did a lot of stupid things - ultimately he was not brought low by Anok's greatness - he was brought down because he made a lot of blunders that allowed Anok to win.
One of the worst parts of the third Anok novel had to be when Teferi explains to the guards that Fallon is a barbarian whore with a sword and that they missed her on the first inspection because she had been enchanted to look like a brick. This is where the novel completely jumped the shark. After that, Teferi explains to the guard that he made the whole thing up about the brick/whore and that the guard should not report anything because it would make the guard look incompetent to be a guard. The guard buys it and lets them leave because guards are uniformly stupid in fantasy novels. I am not even sure why Fallon needed to be there, so this entire exchange could have been excised from the book. Why would the guard let Teferi go? It seems to me the guard would have run Teferi through and claimed the guy was trouble; the author missed a chance for a combat scene by making the guard act stupidly. Why would he let someone go who could actually get him in trouble at will? After killing Teferi, he could then search for Fallon and possibly get some sort of payoff for rooting out spies. Instead he lets Teferi go and ignores the fact that somewhere a barbarian woman with a sword is around. I hope the author makes his guards more realistic in future novels.
Chapter 16 has another shark-jumping moment (if that is possible): Anok runs across upraised shields like a frog on lily-pads (this novel has gone from bad to just down-right silly), then Ramsa casts a spell to end the fight - long after he should have cast it - yet the remaining men swear undying loyalty anyway.
One part, and correct me if I am wrong, seems to indicate a lack of research. The Zamboulan district of Kheshatta... Shouldn't that have been the Darfari district? The Zamboulans were not cannibals - the Darfari slaves of Zamboula were, yet the Zamboulans here file their teeth. It seems he combined Zamboulans, Hanuman worshippers and Darfari cannibals into one people.
I also noticed the author seems to confuse Kush and Kushite, using them both to refer to the people. He would say a Kushite warrior was a "Kush warrior," which sounds as strange to me as calling an Egyptian warrior an "Egypt warrior."
For example, on page 59, 60 & 61 of book 3, Ramsa calls Teferi a "Kush" or a "barbaric Kush" instead of a barbaric Kush-ite. Again, this is like calling someone a barbaric Egypt.
Also, on page 103, what is a Shemite Kush? Is he referring to the Aphaki?
The storylines are concluded by contrivance instead of by natural consequence of the characters' actions (For example, Teferi is handed his magic powers and Anok is practically handed his Mark of Set, which made him all-powerful - neither of them fought to attain either of those as a goal).
Even the plotline with the sister is handed to Anok. He doesn't have to piece together clues - he is taken straight to her and practically presented with her. That plotline then goes nowhere.
Anok did not even have to go looking for his father's killer - even that was handed to him!
Anok didn't even have to search for a way to kill the "god made flesh" - he was handed a magic sword out of nowhere (including a matching back harness like he used to wear)!
Every plot line was tied up very neatly and without much effort on Anok's part. Instead of plots resolved by natural consequence of a character's actions, the plots are resolved by the author in strings of nifty coincidences and revelations.
The structure of the trilogy, being so filled with constant recaps and reminders of what was read in the last chapter, gave the entire series the feeling of being "padded" in order to achieve a certain length.
This structure was evident in the prior books as well, but it seemed this one added another twist to the structure: In the midst of the recaps, the side characters all pondered their relative uselessness - as if the author suddenly realized his characters had no point and that he needed to get on the ball and give them something to do! Teferi actually is given magical powers from out of nowhere in order to make sure he could contribute in some way.
Magic does underlie and solve everything in this series. Magic weapons, magic spells, magic items, magic gods and so on, good and evil. There are anti-magic serums and locations, "simple" spells (why are deflection spells always referred to as a "simple" spell in fantasy novels?), magic swords and magic dream-sticks. Even Fallon asks for a magic weapon at one point, realizing she is useless to Anok (other than for sex) if she doesn't have magic.
The storylines are concluded by contrivance instead of by natural consequence of the characters' actions. Every plot line was tied up very neatly and without much effort on Anok's part. Instead of plots resolved by natural consequence of a character's actions, the plots are resolved by the author in strings of nifty coincidences and revelations.
The novel would have been MUCH better if Anok had truly fallen into corruption. Sure he killed some cannibals and was guilty of arrogance, but he still was pretty nice to his friends.
What if Ramsa had not been distracted by some silly plot about usurping a god's power, but had been focused on corrupting Anok? Let's say Ramsa puts Anok into a situation where he must either kill a friend as a sacrifice or die himself.
If he had really fallen and killed Fallon in a ritual sacrifice, would Teferi have saved him? Would the "power of friendship" been strong enough to redeem Anok? Would Teferi want to redeem his friend after that? Would Anok be redeemable after such an atrocity? What if Ramsa had forced Anok to kill Teferi? Would Fallon have tried to save Anok afterwards? Would her feelings for Anok really have been strong enough to redeem him?
Would Anok have been redeemed? Or would the trilogy have ended with Anok's death when Teferi or Fallon kills him for being irredeemably corrupt? Or would one of them have shattered his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down so that he would have the rest of his life to wail at what he did to deserve it?
Those would have been some hard questions that could not have been solved with magic. Those questions would have had me on the edge of my seat. Those questions would have given the trilogy a hard edge and some serious emotional impact.
As it was, Anok was still a pretty decent guy, obviously "savable" and the ending did not have one bit of emotional impact. Oh, they killed a god-snake. World saved from ridiculous Cobra Commander plot. Anok saved. Hurrah. Next book please, nothing more to think about here.
His descriptions of the setting, however, are excellent. He excels at description. It is easy to visualize what he writes, and that holds true for the third book as well as the other two. I do like the character of Ramsa, even though in this book he did a lot of stupid things - ultimately he was not brought low by Anok's greatness - he was brought down because he made a lot of blunders that allowed Anok to win.
One of the worst parts of the third Anok novel had to be when Teferi explains to the guards that Fallon is a barbarian whore with a sword and that they missed her on the first inspection because she had been enchanted to look like a brick. This is where the novel completely jumped the shark. After that, Teferi explains to the guard that he made the whole thing up about the brick/whore and that the guard should not report anything because it would make the guard look incompetent to be a guard. The guard buys it and lets them leave because guards are uniformly stupid in fantasy novels. I am not even sure why Fallon needed to be there, so this entire exchange could have been excised from the book. Why would the guard let Teferi go? It seems to me the guard would have run Teferi through and claimed the guy was trouble; the author missed a chance for a combat scene by making the guard act stupidly. Why would he let someone go who could actually get him in trouble at will? After killing Teferi, he could then search for Fallon and possibly get some sort of payoff for rooting out spies. Instead he lets Teferi go and ignores the fact that somewhere a barbarian woman with a sword is around. I hope the author makes his guards more realistic in future novels.
Chapter 16 has another shark-jumping moment (if that is possible): Anok runs across upraised shields like a frog on lily-pads (this novel has gone from bad to just down-right silly), then Ramsa casts a spell to end the fight - long after he should have cast it - yet the remaining men swear undying loyalty anyway.
One part, and correct me if I am wrong, seems to indicate a lack of research. The Zamboulan district of Kheshatta... Shouldn't that have been the Darfari district? The Zamboulans were not cannibals - the Darfari slaves of Zamboula were, yet the Zamboulans here file their teeth. It seems he combined Zamboulans, Hanuman worshippers and Darfari cannibals into one people.
I also noticed the author seems to confuse Kush and Kushite, using them both to refer to the people. He would say a Kushite warrior was a "Kush warrior," which sounds as strange to me as calling an Egyptian warrior an "Egypt warrior."
For example, on page 59, 60 & 61 of book 3, Ramsa calls Teferi a "Kush" or a "barbaric Kush" instead of a barbaric Kush-ite. Again, this is like calling someone a barbaric Egypt.
Also, on page 103, what is a Shemite Kush? Is he referring to the Aphaki?
The storylines are concluded by contrivance instead of by natural consequence of the characters' actions (For example, Teferi is handed his magic powers and Anok is practically handed his Mark of Set, which made him all-powerful - neither of them fought to attain either of those as a goal).
Even the plotline with the sister is handed to Anok. He doesn't have to piece together clues - he is taken straight to her and practically presented with her. That plotline then goes nowhere.
Anok did not even have to go looking for his father's killer - even that was handed to him!
Anok didn't even have to search for a way to kill the "god made flesh" - he was handed a magic sword out of nowhere (including a matching back harness like he used to wear)!
Every plot line was tied up very neatly and without much effort on Anok's part. Instead of plots resolved by natural consequence of a character's actions, the plots are resolved by the author in strings of nifty coincidences and revelations.
February 14, 2018
Too much recapping of what happened in Vol 1 & 2, with a rushed ending and several "reveals" that disappoint. Not a bad book, but a weak rnding to the story.
Want to read
December 14, 2010Subir edición en castellano hoy o mañana.
April 19, 2013
flojo como se podía esperar, aunque interesante retrato de la era hiboria
May 31, 2018
Edición española conseguida en pack. Volumen 3 de 3.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews