What can I say about a Conan book? I am not a huge Conan fan, but I did watch the movies when I was a kid, and I liked those. I ended up with three or four Conan books when I was a teenager, which I always liked due to the hot chicks on the covers. This one, done by legendary artist, Boris Vajello, is pretty sweet, too. As it is a Conan book, what you’re pretty much going for is a lot of gritty action, evil wizards, and the aforementioned hot chicks. This one has them all.Plot-wise, we have an evil wizard, Sovartus, in this case, who is attempting to create a super-elemental by tapping the strength of the four elemental powers embodied in four children. The mage has three of the four, but lacks the one with whom Conan is (of course) going to be associated. Conan meets up with her, ends up protecting her, and, with a rag-tag of heroes and quasi-heroes, Conan travels to the distant castle and defeats the evil sorcerer at the last minute after the latter has apparently accomplished his goal and successfully summoned the super-power. This story is fun. There is a lot of action. Conan fights the elemental, a demon, a weird man-eating plant, a senator who is actually a were-panther who stalks the city streets at night, a few sets of bandits, a powerful witch--who also happens to be the demon’s sister (well, probably half-sister since she seems to be human in form)--who wants to make him her sex slave by proxy via infusing his soul into a construct that might accurately be considered a sex golem, some strange ape-like creatures who come out of a frozen lake, some sort of lizard or reptile men, and the wizard Sovartus. I appreciate the fact that the snow creatures actually outmatch him, and he flees before he is overcome. This is good because he is still alive to beat up everything else later.There are hot chicks. The fire elementalist girl, Eldia, is hot in her way. The woman on the cover, though I am not sure who that is supposed to be—she seems allied to him the way she is depicted, so I think she is Kinna, the sister of the elementalist, Eldia—is definitely hot. Pretty much every fantasy woman I’ve ever seen in a metal bikini, high boots, and a cape was smokin’. Ditto for the witch, though in a spooky way. There may have been some other women in the story, but I don’t bother to try to remember them if they aren’t hot.This book is great for what it is—an adventure tale. It would probably appeal to Conan fans, but I think it would also appeal to general fantasy readers because it has a number of standard sword and sorcery elements such as thieves, bandits, wizards, elementals, monsters, demons, were-beasts, and lots of cool sword fights. Oh, and, lest we forget, the mighty-thewed barbarian, himself. If you’re looking for an evening of light but fun entertainment, this might be worth a try.I give it four stars; it isn’t the best I’ve read, but it is fun, and being fun is the point of the book.
