The Conan Chronicles: Volume 2: Hour of the Dragon (FANTASY MASTERWORKS 16)

Fantasy Masterworks Volume 16 Of the 21 Conan the Barbarian tales that Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) completed in his all-too-brief lifetime, Hour of the Dragon was the only novel-length story. It may also be the very best of the series, crafted when the legendary pulp writer was working at the height of his powers. Conan is a huge swordsman fighting both natural and supernatural foes in a time-lost world known as the Hyborian Age. At this point in his bloody career, Conan is the middle-aged king of the ancient kingdom of Aquilonia. He must fight one final battle to save the known world from a resurrected sorcerer named Xaltotun. Only the fabled Heart of Ahriman can destroy Xaltotun, and Conan must embark on an epic quest to retrieve the Heart. Howard hammered out every word as if he had actually lived through it himself, and in doing so forged a crimson masterpiece of heroic fantasy. (This novel has also been published as part of the formal Conan series as Conan the Conqueror.) --Stanley Wiater This is an omnibus collection of "Conan" tales. In addition to the novel, "The Red Dragon," this volume contains "Red Nails" (1936); "Jewels of Gwahlur" (1935); "Beyond the Black River" (1935); "The Black Stranger" (1987); "Wolves Beyond the Border" (draft, 2000); "The Phoenix on the Sword" (1932); "The Scarlet Citadel" (1933); "The Hour of the Dragon" (aka "Conan the Conqueror," 1935); "Cimmeria" (1965, poem). ALSO: Map of the Hyborian Age by Dave Senior; Notes on Various People of the Hyborian Age (1977, essay) by Lee N. Falconer; Afterword: Robert E. Howard and Conan: The Final Years (2001, essay) by Stephen Jones. Conan the Cimmerian: he rose from boy-thief and mercenary to become king of Aquilonia. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the barbarian warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian Age. Collected together for the first time anywhere in the world, in chronological order, are all Robert E. Howard's definitive stories of Conan, exactly as he wrote them, as fresh, atmospheric and vibrant today as when they were first published in the pulp magazines more than sixty years ago. The Conan Chronicles: Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle is a collection of fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard featuring his sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. The book was published in 2000 by Gollancz as eighth volume of their Fantasy Masterworks series. The book, edited by Stephen Jones, presents the stories in their internal chronological order. Most of the stories originally appeared in the magazines The Phantagraph, Weird Tales, Super-Science Fiction, Magazine of Horror and Fantasy Fiction. The Hyborian Age: a time of legends. Conan the Cimmerian rose from boy-thief and mercenary to become king of Aquilonia. Wielding his mighty sword, nothing could stand in the way of the barbarian warrior, neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery The second volume, completing the definitive collection of Conan stories, featuring the most distinctive and well known fantasy hero of all time.