Reviews for Conan the Defender

The average rating for Conan the Defender based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-02-06 00:00:00 George Lawrence In his travels Conan came to Nemedia where he met his friends or enemies (you will be the judge) from the previous book. What is important right away he stumbled upon a guy who was a friendlier type of those. Seeking adventure in local slums (why else would anybody go there is beyond me) they saved a young noble woman who later brought them to an inn frequented by artistic young privileged people who wanted nothing more than to dispose of the king by the way of revolution. Incidentally they remind me of a lot of modern young privileged people. At least in case of the book characters they could justify themselves in not hearing Revolution by The Beatles and not reading Animal Farm. Back to the story, behind all the unrest in the city there was a powerful evil magician who did not think twice about disposing of his co-conspirators once their usefulness was at the end. Because of Conan's involvement with the young people in general and his wish to protect the woman who introduced him to the group in particular he ended up right in the middle of the power struggle. Usually people in such inconvenient places have a lifespan equal to that of mayflies (one day). On Conan's side was the fact that killing evil powerful magicians was in his job description. Still this time he almost bit off more than he could chew. To my surprise several people from the first book were present here. Usually Conan himself is the only recurrent character in his stories. Here Jordan's vision of Conan diverged farther from Howard's even more than before. Howard's Conan had his code of honor he never broke, but nobody would call him really honorable in the full definition of the word. Jordan's Conan was, especially here. Like he was going to change his class from barbarian to paladin - speaking in RPG terms. His honor brought no end of troubles upon him by the way. For no reward by the way. While the story was decent enough sometimes it kept losing steam - not for long (think Wheel of Time books 8-10). This and the fact that I cannot call this impostor Conan while being honest decided the rating. Still I have to repeat what I said before: even the minor efforts of Robert Jordan are worth reading.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-01-17 00:00:00 Julie Storey Step right up and see the adventures of Conan the Boring! MARVEL as Conan hangs out with beatniks and risks his life for them for no real reason! STAND IN AWE as Conan gets the crap kicked out of him on several occasions, and has to have the city guards save his life! BE AMAZED as you read chapter after chapter of people standing around and talking, with Conan almost relegated to a side character while other boring characters spend the book doing boring things that we are forced to watch! BE THRILLED as Jordan shoehorns his own much less interesting characters into volume after volume of his Conan novels! Hey, it's "The guy with the beard and eye-patch"!!! And look over there, it's "Angry Lady"!!! You haven't had this much fun since the last time you stood in line at the DMV! That's right, folks, it's Conan the Boring!