"Conan the Invincible" by Robert Jordan

I wanted to read the original Conan books, the source of all the comics, graphic novels, games and movies I have thoroughly enjoyed as a teen and adult. Somehow I stumbled on the Conan books by Robert Jordan and decided to start my reading with them, wrongly assuming that he is the original Conan author. Only later I will learn that Robert E. Howard was the inventor of Conan, back in the 1930s, and he only wrote a set of short stories, never completing a real novel, before he killed himself. Then the Conan intellectual property was lent to many authors, who all tried to write Conan stories in Howard's style, never really succeeding completely. Jordan is probably the closest to Howard's style and vision of Conan the Cimmerian. Jordan wrote his Conan books in the early to mid '80s, before he started his magnum opus, The Wheel of Time series, which brought him worldwide fame.

Conan the Invincible is Jordan's first Conan book, also having as a side-main character the beautiful, violent, and scantily-clad (often naked) Karrella, the Red Hawk, brigand and leader of a gang of thieves, who appears in many other Jordan's stories. The book is very easy reading, entertaining, Conan-like, with the usual dose of evil wizards, demon-gods, snake-men, drinking, sex, debauchery, treasures and adventures. It is about the evil wizard Amanar, who learned a lot from the Wizard Circle, but chose to dabble in dark magic that even the other wizards (all wizards/sorcerers are evil in Conan Universe) were afraid to touch. Somehow his soul trapped in a jewel (for protection) was given to a king and he sends his snake-men, the Sitha, to retrieve it. Unbeknown to him, the Wizard Circle is angry that Amanar ran away with most of their knowledge, and have sent one of their own wizards to find Amanar's soul and destroy it, and to this effect this wizard hires Conan, the best known thief, far and wide, to do the actual work.

Things don't go as planned, and Conan goes on a trek around the desert, meeting Karella on the way and her gang, and ends up in Amanar's magical fortress in the middle of the desert where Amanar is toying with them for a while, but makes a big mistake underestimating Conan, which leads to his doom. Conan is not yet 19 in this book, so it takes place at a much younger age than Howard's stories, or the novels of other Conan authors where Conan is usually in his 30s, 40s, even 50s. An entertaining, though not overly engrossing reading (don't expect Harry Potter or DaVinci's Code experience), but great to see a good perspective on Conan lore from yet another talented author.