![]() ![]() It feels very un-Cimmerian and unfortunately comes up often enough within the novel to be disruptive.Īnother issue is the Shemites. I understand that it's a fairly universal garment for various cultures, however in our modern society it is often associated with warmer climates within North America. The fact that the Cimmerians wear ponchos feels very off within the storyline. Two complaints raised about the novel in another review I have to agree with. All in all, this makes for a realistic character who grows as the story progresses. The fact that he resembles the leaders of the raiders also causes him a number of issues. His flaws are well thought out, and his unusual appearance makes him an outcast in a village where he resides. Normally I am wary of characters with unusual appearances, that being one of the hallmarks of a Mary Sue-esk character. I read some of the reviews of this book before I picked it up, so I will be mentioning them while I do my own of this book as I feel that some of them were valid, and some not.Ĭoleman presents us with a interesting view of Cimmerian life during a long lasting winter where the people are plagued by raiders from the north, their leaders bearing a striking resemblance to Kern. Her decision to couple with Kern as a hedge against already being pregnant has ironclad reasoning and resilience that goes beyond combat skill or physical strength. The consequences and ramifications of Maev's rape is probably the most starkly mature handling of the topic that I've read in genre literature, and it is surprising to see a treatment of the subject in a video game tie-in novel. Coleman plays with this idea, that the adventures of any man might somehow become part of Conan's due to repeated and inaccurate telling. While a survivor against adversity and a leader of men, combat is never a sure thing.Īmusingly, in an "Age of Conan" setting sometime during his kingship of Aquilonia, the Cimmerians have a light attitude toward the legend of his life, knowing the tales to be exaggerations and partly amalgamated with the feats and battles of other men. It leaves him with a more steady attitude, more putting up with his life than particularly enjoying it, and gives him a curious weakness among the Cimmerians: he was relegated to manual labor within the clan, and is not war-trained. ![]() ![]() Whereas Conan was usually an outsider in the sense that he was both a foreigner and a person whose values or code does not match those around him, Kern is an outsider by being physically different or separate inside the culture of his birth. Cimmeria might be the most recognizable place name from the Conan stories, but as an (unvisited) location it was never particularly evocative. I'm more of a "choked jungle ruins" or "crumbling decadent city" sort of person, myself. A tratti la scrittura non è molto scorrevole, non so se dipenda dalla traduzione, ma nel complesso il libro si lascia leggere con piacere. La componente "Sorcery" è presente ma non enfatizzata, permettendo lo sviluppo coerente di un'ambientazione quasi-storica. Le battaglie sono epiche al punto giusto, come ci si aspetta in un racconto di heroic fantasy. Per gli amanti dello Sword and Sorcery il libro è sicuramente godibile, i personaggi ben delineati (in rapporto al genere ovviamente), con un pathos che cresce man mano nel corso della lettura. È sempre difficile fare confronti con uno scrittore dello spessore di Howard in questo caso si è evitato (fortunatamente) il confronto diretto dato che il protagonista non è Conan ma un personaggio nuovo che vive in un'epoca in cui Conan è già una leggenda vivente. Il protagonista è un altro cimmero, anche se profondamente diverso da Conan (qui non posso dire altro per evitare spoiler). L'ambientazione è la Cimmeria di Conan, il personaggio più famoso del grande Howard. ![]()
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