I just got finished reading Cult of the Obsidian Moon, the new Conan pastiche novel by James Lovegrove. It turned out to be not merely THE best Conan pastiches I've ever read, but one of the best novels I've ever read period. Okay, it's not in Howard's style. No other writer could match Howard's style, of course, and that's not to be expected. That said, Lovegrove's style, like few other writers, is very engrossing, and keeps one turning pages until the finale.
The story involves Conan teaming up with another Howard hero, a one-shot whom relatively few might have heard of, namely Hunwulf of the short story "Garden of Fear", one of the James Allsion stories, wherein the bedridden Allison relives past incarnations. One need not have read "Garden of Fear" to enjoy this novel; the entire story is reiterated by Hunwulf as he explains to Conan about his past. To brief it, Hunwulf and his mate Gudrun flee their Aesir tribe to escape retribution from his kinsmen, as he has slain a fellow Aesir to claim her. Gudrun, whom Howard describes as much more beautiful than any woman of the modern age, is abducted by a bizarre winged humanoid, and flown to a black tower, surrounded by a circular field of vampiric blossoms which drain to blood of anyone foolish enough to venture within. Hunwulf uses fire to stampede a herd of mammoths who crush the flowers, after which he is able to scale the tower and rescues Gudrun, slaying the winged creature in the process. The story was adapted by Roy Thomas and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith back in the early days of the Conan comic, with Conan himself in the Hunwulf role. It is not known exactly if Howard intended Hunwulf's saga to take place in the Hyborian age, but Lovegrove assumes that it does, and who's to say he's wrong.
Anyway, Conan befriends the couple following a bar fight in Eruk, a small Shemite town, and he learns that the two have spent most of their lives on the run from Ragnar Leifson, and his small band of Aesir warriors, bent on revenge for the slaying of Ragnar's brother. Ragnar was formerly a friend of Hunwulf's, but now he plans a most gruesome death for him and Gudrun for betraying their tribe. We also learn that Hunwulf and Gudrun now have a nine-year-old ashen-haired son named Bjorn, whom Conan befriends and teaches; Bjorn seems very like a young Conan himself. In another reference to Howard's James Allison stories, Hunwulf has knowledge and visions of past lives. This gives him the power to partially predict the future, and sues this psychic gift to win at gambling. Bjorn seems to have inherited a form of his father's powers, and can establish a psychic bond with animals, which he does with a street dog about to attack him, the first time he and Conan meet.
As the next paragraph might contain spoilers for the middle portion of the novel, skip it if you don't want to know.
At Conan's advice, the Aesir couple leave to set up a trap for the pursuing Ragnar. They leave Bjorn in Conan's charge, but a wily, treacherous thief, whom Conan had assumed killed in an opening scene, appears, claiming he wants to treat Conan to a drink at a local tavern. Conan does not fully trust the man, but takes him up on the offer anyway (one wonders why). The thief, of course, betrays Conan to corrupt city guard, and meanwhile, Bjorn leaves his hiding place and ends up captured by Ragnar. Conan manages to bribe the guard captain, kills the man who betrayed him, and he, Hunwulf and Gudrun set out in pursuit of Ragnar and the kidnapped boy. It's at this point that, while Ragnar and his cronies are sitting about their campfire discussing their plans, with Born trussed up as bait, that we learn that Ragnar may still some measure of honor about him, but has become blinded by his desire for vengeance. One of his friends says he wants to kill the boy right there for wounding him during his capture, but Ragnar insists the boy be used as bait. Right about then a mysterious winged monsters tears out of night sky, slaying all of the seasoned warriors, save Ragnar, who is still fatally wounded, then makes off with Bjorn. When Conan and his friends ride into their camp prepared for battle, they come upon the scene of slaughter, with Bjorn nowhere in sight. The dying Ragnar relates what happened to Hunwulf, and they at least establish somewhat of a truce at the end, Ragnar seeing now only the friend that Hunwulf once was.
Then the real quest begins.
I am not not going to relate anything further beyond this point for fear of spoilers, but I will say that I first expected that the winged monster was some kin of the creature that captured Gudrun in the original "Garden of Fear"; (references to both this, and the winged ape-like monster that slew Belit in "Queen of the Black Coast" are referenced throughout the novel), seeking some vengeance of his own. This proved not to be the case at all; the race of Bjorn's abductor (yes, there's more than one of them), are referred to as scaley and lizard-like, whereas the being in "Garden" was more manlike with ebony skin, more like Howard describes the yagas of the planet Amulric in the novel by the same name. Moreover, the creature in "Garden" and the winged ape of "Queen", themselves appear to be of disparate races, the latter being the last degenerate member of a highly advanced technological species.
If this is ever adapted into comics form for Savage Sword or Conan the Barbarian, it would span several issues, not a single one like the Chuck Dixon novel I covered in a previous post.
Anyway, this is very good novel, easily the best Conan pastiche I've read so far.
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