It's hard to not feel a little disappointed, which is a little unfair to the stories in volume two. The standard is still very high, but the final story is so oddly unrepresentative of the rest that it makes the whole experience just a little bit... unsettled.
This collection is dominated by the final story, which gives the collection its name, 'The Hour Of The Dragon'. This story dwarfs every over Conan story in length and scope, and could either be considered the worst or the best of the canon. It's really up to you. In many ways, it functions as a perfect sendoff to the now barbarian king, and in others it's a bizarrely long episodic novella. It's difficult to categorize.
It feels very strange to be favouring the shorter stories in a collection over the one longer example, but here the other stories are much much better. There aren't many, as a lot of space is taken up by the title story, and so volume one has far more diversity than this one. However, the short stories that are here are very nice. The two that stand out are 'Red Nails' and 'Jewels of Gwahlur', both of which are radically different. A lost city inhabited by warring imprisoned clans? A hunt for gems in a temple stuffed full of subhuman creatures and a stalking goddess? The scope and variety of settings found herein is fascinating, and the genius of inventing a lost age of civilization is brilliant, an age that is lost to all but hazy mythology thanks to a natural disaster. That is brilliance.
Most of the really good stuff is in volume one, but this is still worth the experience. Very, very good, apart from the final story?
O.
No comments:
Post a Comment