Pool of the Black One

The Dark Storm Conan Chronology #21

by Robert E. Howard, Hank Jankus

First edition bound in maroon cloth and gray boards. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Illustrated by Hank Jankus.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Adventure, Fiction, Sword and Sorcery, Pulp, Classics

134 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1933

About the author

Robert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. Howard wrote "over three-hundred stories and seven-hundred poems of raw power and unbridled emotion" and is especially noted for his memorable depictions of "a sombre universe of swashbuckling adventure and darkling horror."

He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.

—Wikipedia

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 5 out of 5]

My crappy non-review for The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is imploding! I exhausted all my character allowance! So now I have to resort to crappily non-reviewing all the stories in the collection separately! Go me and stuff!

In a super-human effort to NOT write a review that is longer than the story it is about (as is now customary with all of my Barbarian Paramour’s adventures), I have prepared out a detailed outline, and shall stick to it mercilessly. (A message from Sarah from the Future: why Sarah from the Past thought this would make the review shorter, I’ve no bloody shrimping idea.)

Here goes and stuff.

Believe it or not, the beginning of this luscious story finds my loincloth-wearing boyfriend impersonating a merman. Cross my heart, hope to die an excruciating death and stuff, I promise I’m not making this up for once.

“Water ran in rivulets from his great shoulders and down his heavy arms. His single garment—a pair of bright crimson silk breeks—was soaking wet, as was his broad gold-buckled girdle and the sheathed sword it supported. As he stood at the rail, the rising sun etched him like a great bronze statue. He ran his fingers through his streaming black mane, and his blue eyes lit as they rested on the girl.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Whence did you come?"
He made a gesture toward the sea that took in a whole quarter of the compass, while his eyes did not leave her supple figure.
"Are you a merman, that you rise up out of the sea?" she asked, confused by the candor of his gaze, though she was accustomed to admiration.”

Ha! Told ya and stuff. Anyway, there a few other things worth highlighting here besides the Cimmerian Babe frolicking in the water:

① Conan ditched his very basic loincloth for bright crimson silk breeks. My my, we are going up in the world, looks like.

② Conan is as Super Extra Hot (SEH™) as ever.

③ Wherever Conan goes, there’s always a Sexey Babe of the Supple Limbs and Voluptuous Contours (SBotSLaVC™)—aka the Squeeze of the Moment—in the near vicinity.



Why hello there, you Squeeze of the Moment!

So. After playing merman for a little bit, Conan makes new Friendly Freebooting Friends (F³). And then starts breaking jaws and slightly slaughtering not-so-innocent bystanders by way of introduction. Because he’s wonderfully chummy like that. And since the F³ are all such cool, welcoming dudes, Conan decides to stick with them and play pirate for a bit (it’s one of his favorite hobbies, in case you didn’t know).

He quickly becomes acclimated to this lovely new buccaneering environment (because he’s incredibly adaptable like that) and ends up very involuntary attracting the above-mentioned Squeeze of the Moment’s attention. Which is kinda sorta problematic since she’s supposed to be the F³’s head honcho’s Personal Hot Babe (PHB™). But given the choice between a grim, brooding, taciturn freebooter and an ale-drinking, Super Hot Pirate of the Primitive Ferocity, Bull-Like Vitality and Springy Step (SHPotPFBLVaSS™)—who comes fully equipped with eyes that blaze like blue bale-fire, a gusty laugh and a super extensive ribald song repertoire—the Squeeze of the Moment ultimately decides to pick my Barbarian Paramour. What can I say, the chick has weird taste like that.

Okay, so spoiler spoiler spoiler stuff happens, and our pirates/buccaneers/freebooters/whatever sail to a mysterious island. They go off and investigate because reasons, then more spoiler spoiler spoiler stuff happens. And that’s when “nameless panic and unbelieving horror” fall upon our merry bunch. (Oh, goody!) Something “alien and uncanny” is afoot, Conan comes across “vagrant image of fantasy and nightmare,” and gets lost in dizzy cogitations as a result (yes, it hurt).



Yeah, more or less. Except my Cimmerian Sweetie Pie is much yummier than The One With The Slightly Inflated Cerebellum here. Obviously.

All in all, you might perhaps say this island may not be the most welcoming ever, but hey, at least the locals know how to dance and stuff:

“It was a convulsion of obscenity, a spasm of lasciviousness – an exudation of secret hungers framed by compulsion: desire without pleasure, pain mated awfully to lust.”

I say YUM to that, but my Conan can be treacherously sensitive sometimes, so he kinda sorta “froze with repulsion and shook with nausea” at the sight of such cosmic vileness, poor thing.

Anyway, not only do the locals know how to shake that thang beautifully, they also are a Super Extra Attractive Bunch (SEAB™):

“The nails of the fingers provided further weapons, for they were grown like the talons of a wild beast. The face was a carven ebony mask. The eyes were tawny, a vibrant gold that glowed and glittered. But the face was inhuman; each line, each feature was stamped with evil—evil transcending the mere evil of humanity. The thing was not a human—it could not be; it was a growth of Life from the pits of blasphemous creation—a perversion of evolutionary development.”

Diabolical delectation FTW!

Strangely enough, it turns out that Conan and his F³ don’t get on too well with the SEAB™. So instead of boogying together till the break of dawn, as you would expect, they end up, well, um, you know, slightly beating the crap out of each other and stuff. Not much though, just a teensy little bit.

“The sound of the hacking swords was like that of butchers' cleavers, and the shrieks, yells and curses were appalling.”

My Barbarian Paramour and his buddies really know how to have a good time, think you not? I mean, there’s nothing quite like the rending of flesh, the crunching of bones and howls of pain and wrath, is there? Now if that isn’t Fun Times Central (FTC™), I don’t know what is.

So of course Conan & friends manage to prevail escape very moderately unscathed in the end. First because DUH, and second because my boyfriend shows spectacular troop leading skills:

“Conan hurried them up; his method was simple. He grasped loiterers by the scruff of the neck, impelled them violently through the gate, added impetus with a lusty kick in the rear, spicing his urgings for haste with pungent comments on the victim's ancestry.”

No wonder the pirates/buccaneers/freebooters/whatever go so eagerly into battle and show bloodthirsty zeal. Hot Stuff sure knows how to motivate his minions!

What happens next, you ask? They all sail away in the sunset and live plunder the seas happily ever after and stuff. The end and stuff.



Don’t ask.

· Introduction to the world: The Hyborian Age ★★★★
· Main review: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian ★★★★
· Book 2: The Bloody Crown of Conan ★★★★
· Book 3: The Conquering Sword of Conan ★★★★



[Pre-review nonsense]

My Barbarian Paramour on the swim run + pirates buccaneers + evil foes of the lovely pincers claws + yet another voluptuous Squeeze of the Moment + blood and gore yay! =

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Pool of the Black One is a Robert E. Howard story starring Conan the Barbarian as a pirate on the high seas. He becomes part of the crew by busting heads and because of his abilities becomes favored by the captain’s lady. When they spot an island, the crew use row boats to get to the island after dropping anchor. They eat some of the fruit which causes them to sleep, but the Captain and Conan fight to see who will continue as the Big Boss.

The reader knows who wins, but there are black giants on this island. They are killers who are zealous about intruders. Another action-packed story that is emblematic of the genre Howard created. The language Howard uses to describe the action is not just lyrical, but sophisticated and robust with simile and metaphor.

[Benji's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conan becomes a pirate on the high seas and discovers a mysterious island inhabited by black giants!

Recommended

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fantastical weird and rather dark short story featuring Conan and pirates, with a hint of Lovecraft. Though a bit of an uncomfortable read for modern readers with the way people of color are described here.

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"He had roamed the cities of Zamora and known the women of Shadizar the Wicked. But he sensed here a cosmic vileness transcending mere human degeneracy - a perverse branch on the tree of Life, developed along lines outside human comprehension."

A particularly vile story from Howard. I am not complaining. It was great entertainment.

Conan climbs onto a pirate ship with a brooding depressed master and moves in on the master's girl Sancha, before killing the master. But soon Conan is involved in a brutal race war with the violent black men who populate the island where the ship was resting, after they steal Sancha.

This is a brutal story filled with racial hatred and violence. Howard must have been in some mood when he wrote this. He does show some sympathy towards the only woman in the story, Sancha. Some of the race war is described from Sancha's point of view.

It does end on a positive note with Conan pacifying the war numbed Sancha "I think of Life. The dead are dead, and what has passed is done. I have a ship and a fighting crew and a girl with lips like wine. Lick your wounds, bullies and break out a cask of ale ....."

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

The start is fantastic with Conan coming out of the ocean and boarding a pirate vessel. This one also has a damsel in distress trope and Conan is presenting as this very handsome desirable barbarian. I like the foreshadowing where the narrator reveals the pirate captain is about to lose his leadership and woman to Conan.

On an island in search of treasure Conan deals with some Lovecraftian humanoids who shrink men down to small figures.

Comics:
Savage Sword 22-23 a classic Buscema effort.

[Graeme Rodaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He watched with the calm alertness of a wolf, and when he struck it was with the devastating suddeness of a thunderbolt"

With echoes of Sun Tzu, The Odyssey, and Sinbad the Sailor, this story hits a new high, evoking a genuine sense of mysterious horror that threatens not just the body but the soul itself.

5 'mysteriously evocative stars of dark horror'

[Jeff Tankersley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, dark, horror adventure, "The Pool of the Black One" (1933) is the twelfth tale in the "Conan: Reaver, Mercenary, Conqueror, King, Cimmerian: The Collected Adventures of the World's Greatest Barbarian" collection published by Castenea.

A pirate vessel is sailing in its usual hunting grounds when the Captain and his lovely wench see that a foreign warrior is somehow aboard, having casually leapt to the front rail with a humorous smirk on his face. This warrior is Conan the Cimmerian and he convinces this hard Captain to let him join his crew. As time passes, Conan's friendly banter with the other pirates, his tremendous strength and sailing skills, and his drinking ability, form a sharp contrast against the rude, harsh, and dour demeanor of the Captain so it is only a matter of time before Conan and this Captain will come to blows.

They find their way to an unknown island, and when the crew alights there for some food and water, the Captain goes off on his own secret mission inland and Conan stealthily pursues him with deadly motives. The Captain's woman views this all happening and, impressed herself with Conan's awesomeness, follows them to see how her future lies.

Then this tale turns into a full horror story - it would be spoilery to share here what the woman sees.

Verdict: A good, short horror-tinged Conan the Pirate adventure story.

Jeff's Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG-13

[Dedicated Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pirate Conan is the best Conan.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining reading 📘

I read this as part of the Conan: The Barbarian complete collection in 2017

Robert E. Howard is one of my favortite authors. I started reading the Conan paper back novels in the 1960s. I would highly recommended this novel and author to reads of action novels. 2017

[Mark Tallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this Robert E. Howard, Conan short story. 3.5 stars. Pirates, adventure, action, strange lands and seas, Conan! All served up by the greatest pulp fiction writer ever. It is Cimmerian September, so it has been great to catch up with Conan again. I have about 6 Robert E. Howard Conan stories left to read, including his only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon.

[Vincent Darlage · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pool of the Black One is one of the great Conan stories by REH. This edition is lavishly illustrated. I particularly liked the painting of Sancha between pages 32 and 33.

[Leonardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conan has entered his pirate era. Not as much swashbuckling as I would want, but the black creatures are suitably creepy and it showcases Conan’s chops of taking charge.

As an aside, I did not realize what was on the cover here on Goodreads. It doesn’t have anything to do with this story. I’m reading from an omnibus where the only illustration has been a mummy with a sword in his chest.

[Ahmat Stuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A swashbuckling adventure with Conan wacking some ancient monsters. What's not to like?

[Aditigro · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tad racist, but still enjoyable

[Antonis · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I've said in the past, ship stories are not really my thing. This was not a pure ship adventure as it had a lot of mystery and other - worldliness in it, so I liked it. It also had a definite Lovecraft vibe to it.
In short, it was very interesting but not the best Conan story I've read.

[Austin Outlaw · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Conan mentally termed the creatures black men, for lack of a better term; instinctively he knew that these tall ebony beings were not men, as he understood the term."

This is simply lazy while also using Black men as a image for a group of horror figures, but instead made them larger and said they were shiny. Racist and lazy as hell.

[Brent Ecenbarger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here Conan is picked up by a pirate ship and the story quickly tells us he'll take the Captain's life, ship, and woman and that certainly does happen. I enjoyed those parts but I was less interested in the story of the giant black creatures attacking the pirates on the island.

[Lucas Jarche · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one might be particularly tough for modern sensibilities, what with the kidnapped sex slave who just needs a “clean-limbed bronze giant” to sweep her off her feet, even if “she felt at least the sensation any girl might feel when looking on the body of the man who was first to possess her.” Or the evil misshapen “blacks” kidnapping the seemingly noble “white” invaders.

If you can get past that though, the “pool” in question is pretty neat, and I like how it’s never really explained. That’s refreshing because a lot of other stuff is over explained.

“They were eager for the time-honoured sport of baiting the stranger. Here he would be tested, and his future status in the crew decided … Sancha watched, tense with interest. She had become familiar with such scenes, and knew the baiting would be brutal and probably blood”

Wouldn’t it be better to just have the crew approach and fight Conan without all the preamble? Leave all that stuff unsaid and let the action happen. Crew approaches belligerently, Conan defends himself, Sancha watches with interest? Am I crazy? I feel like I see this all the time and it makes me feel a little crazy.

“Zaporavo made the mistake so many autocrats make, along in somber grandeur on the poop, he underestimated the man below him. He had his opportunity to kill and he let it pass, engrossed in his own gloomy ruminations. He did not find it easy to think any of the dogs beneath his feet constituted a menace to him. He had stood in the high places so long, and had ground so many foes underfoot, that he unconsciously assumed himself to be above the machinations of inferior rivals”

Again, does this really need to be said? Just have the guy preening himself and say something that makes it obvious he doesn’t consider Conan a threat. Why do you need to spell it out like that? It’s all great character stuff, but when you tell it instead of show it the magic is gone.

[Balazs Badics · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mysterious island becomes the setting for a tense and eerie adventure as a bold pirate crew encounters strange forces beyond their understanding. The story follows a rugged protagonist who quickly rises in rank through daring action and sharp instincts. The island itself holds dark secrets that challenge the crew’s survival and sanity. Themes of power, dominance, and the unknown are explored in a fast-paced narrative.

While The Pool of the Black One offers a brisk and adventurous escape, its brevity leaves little room for depth or character development. The plot feels rushed, with events unfolding rapidly and often without much build-up or emotional weight. The story leans heavily on action and atmosphere, but lacks the complexity or nuance that might make it more memorable. Dialogue and motivations are quite simple, which may disappoint readers looking for richer storytelling. Overall, it’s a light read that entertains but doesn’t linger.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice 3 chapter Conan story.

What I find really interesting about Conan is he is not at all a good dude. He is just as Machiavellian as his antagonist but for his seemingly religious conviction against anything of a mystical nature. Conan is taken aboard a pirate vessel and allowed to join just to win the crew over and then murder the captain at his earliest convenience. The captain himself wasn't the nicest of fellows but still did nothing to Conan, especially that would warrant his death.
Then, the murder is left by the wayside for the actual villains, the very un-noble mystical savages.

Even after all that, Conan is still very likable despite the obvious character flaws. His simple Barbarian mindset somehow disarms the reader to write off any if not all of those failings. Howard really stumbled on a truly excellent formula with Conan. That's also just a lot of fun.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty standard fare for the Conan stories I've read thus far. Conan is awesome in his awesomeness. No one is stronger, tougher, or smarter than he. The woman are all gorgeous. The villains are vile. Almost everyone is devoid of a personality. And the action is fun.

Points taken off here for a literary offense I haven't before encountered with Howard. In the space of about two paragraphs he uses "haste" or "hastily" maybe seven times. Not for poetic effect, and he mostly uses the adverb. I'm not opposed to the prevailing purple in his prose, but this belaboring what has already become obvious through redundancy is new for me with Howard's story. I hope not to encounter much of it in the future.

[Jack Creagh-Flynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is an adventure of Conan's pirate days. He shows his intuition and charisma when introducing himself to a crew. He demonstrates his crafty thinking to best serve himself. Yet this story also shows a horror of a human-like, but inhuman people with horrifying practices of unnatural quality. Read this if you want to appreciate Conan's wit as well as his knack for finding himself in odd adventures. The only real nit-pick I have is how the woman lead is more of a doll, than she is a character.
So far the only really developed woman character by Herbert I've read of o far features in Black Colossus.

[Nerd_Rage_Dad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story I’m slightly mixed about at its heart it’s a mixture of the odyssey and Lovecraft horror but it perhaps just falls a bit short with the creatures as i am unsure are they men or monsters just perhaps describing them as ‘blacks’ is just a way of the times it was written or simply a mistake in that he would never have known the way this description would be thought of in our time.
I also find it strange he’s used the description as he has a very multicultural world with all different skin stones in it so it’s slightly confusing as I pictured these creatures as monsters rather than large humans.

[Daniel Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty good story, but the constant use of "the blacks" with regards to the antagonists makes it a rather uncomfortable read, even if it's made clear they are non-human monsters (which actually, I'm not sure is a good thing or not, truth be told).
It's particularly frustrating as Howard could easily have made them more "alien" and avoided it (though, obviously he nor his editors saw it as a problem at the time) - he could have had them be green like the pool, and simply referred to them a "giants" and a lot of the problems of the story would be fixed.

[Wombat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conan the Pirate!

Here we get Conan "suddenly" appearing out of the sea and joining a pirate crew... Plus obligatory semi-naked woman and dastardly evil man to be killed off..

This almost reads like a H.P Lovecraft story - a city of alien symmetry full of inhuman creatures ... and Conan's plans for becoming a pirate captain and getting the girl and interrupted by these inhuman creatures...

Fun read.

[Tonari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rispetto ad altri racconti di Conan l'ho trovato alquanto mediocre. Ci sono delle "vibrazioni lovecraftiane" come spesso succede con Howard, ma la trama è un po' banale. Mentre il nostro caro cimmero è sempre il solito paracarro spaccatutto e ci piace così com'è, i personaggi di contorno sono decisamente poco riusciti, dal capo dei pirati a Sancha, quest'ultima davvero uno dei personaggi femminili più insulsi creati dall'autore, il che la dice lunga, visto il già basso standard di partenza.

[Aaron White · Rating 3 out of 5]

First story was quite good, the second had my scratching my head, wondering why the publishers decided to publish in this fine volume. Surely, one of his completed stories that figured Conan more may have been a better choice.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly not the best Conan but it has a fun air to it. The story was written in a different time and I can see why people might be offended. Still it is a good Howard story. Just there are better ones out there.

[Kumar K · Rating 3 out of 5]

An island of apelike humanoids and a pirate crew that thinks Conan is tougher than their captain, this is intriguing, especially when Conan has to go on his espionage mission, and has to motivate the damsel to help him, like a caveman-coach.