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Penpal is a book by Dahan Auerbach – but it didn’t start as a book. It is a terrific story and it’s also a fascinating example of how new kinds of stories and budding authors can come out of nowhere in our new internet world.  (note: this is a no spoiler review)

Penpal started as a couple of ‘creepypasta‘ short stories posted in the user-contributed, scary story ‘No Sleep’ area of Reddit.  It’s since been turned into illustrations, audio recordings, and even short films made by fans.  There’s even a rumor of a movie deal.

The book is a collection of several interconnected/overlapping short stories about a young boy trying to put together some strange events from his childhood.  As he goes over his memories, a very strange and terrifying tale begins to emerge from the pieces.

The book itself isn’t terribly long, but really draws you in.  I found myself reading at bedtime and next thing I know it’s 1am.  By the time I’d finished I felt like I’d had gone on a hair-raising roller-coaster ride and twisted around like a towel getting wrung out – but in a good way.  It left me thinking back on my own childhood and wondering about the things that I experienced as a kid and just how right/wrong I had understood them.

Told from the narrator (who is now an adult), the book is an adventure in watching what he as a kid experienced.  He does a masterful job capturing what he was feeling and the confusion while describing an unfolding story that would even terrify most adults.  You patch together what is going on via his own half-understood descriptions – and your own imagination patches together the rest – often much more terrifyingly than if you actually knew what was going on.

What makes Auerbach’s writing really unique is his ability to capture and communicate the feelings and experiences we had as kids.  His simple descriptions bring back a flood of your own memories of hanging out with your childhood best friend(s).  I found myself realizing I had the same feelings/fears such as staying back in the woods behind our house a little too late, going into a dark basement, or the little games we play with ourselves like trying to get back into our house before the street lights come on or not breathing while driving through a tunnel.  Auerbach also really hits the head on how kids misunderstand adult interactions and the ways we seek out parental love. Indirectly, he also captures the gut-wrenching moral/ethical decisions that adults make to protect their children from the harsh realities of a sometimes frightening world. If you ever had to explain to a kid why grandpa at the nursing home doesn’t remember you between visits – you’ll get an idea of these types of decisions.  Auerbach does a masterful job capturing these interactions with simple, approachable style.

Is it scary?  I would say that it is.  Not a jump-out-of-the-closet kind of scary – but the kind of scary you get because he’s nailing the emotions of childhood but telling them with the full knowledge of an adult.  The fact his descriptions are so real makes it even doubly impactful.

Sure, there are a few small plot holes and problems.  The biggest is the fact the individual chapters were actually separate clips that were written separately is a little apparent.  The flow and overlap are a little messy.  Part of the final resolution left me feeling a bit perplexed as well. But it doesn’t matter.  All that is easily overlooked by the great experience it is of reading this story.

Overall, I give this a solid A-.  It’s a great read.  It’s also scary. It won’t win any literary awards or upset any kings of horror, but it describes the experience of kids growing up so well that it’s worth the read alone.  It’s also a fascinating snapshot of how publishing is working now – much like how game development is working.  People work on a snippet of something, publish it on a forum, and see if it sticks.  If it does, they keep at it.  If not, it dies.

Regardless of how it was written/found – it’s a great read.  At the end, I found myself sitting there and re-visiting my own childhood, friends, and memories and feeling very thankful.  That alone is worth the time spent for the read.

Often considered one of Agatha Christie’s best mystery/murder books – this is the story of 10 strangers lured to Indian Island by a mysterious host. Once his guests have arrived, an unknown host accuses each one of a murder from their past. Unable to leave the island, the guests begin to die one by one and they struggle to figure out who is killing them before it’s too late.

This is a great classic of murder-mystery storytelling.   So classic in fact that it has been converted to several movies and a wildly popular play.  Currently it’s the world’s best-selling mystery novel and one of the top 10 best-selling books of all time.  Its various plot devices have been copied so often that many say that it actually create a genre of its own.

The story (no big spoilers):
Ten people are invited via letter to a mysterious island.  Upon arriving, they find a beautiful mansion fully stocked with all modern conveniences and comforts – but no host.  As the settle in after dinner, a mysterious recorded voice accuses each one of a murder from their past.  As they argue over the accusations and struggle to figure out what is going on; the guests start dying.  Trapped on the island by a storm, they die one by one as they try frantically to figure out who is the murderer and why.  To add to the terror, they die in the order and method specified by a child’s nursery rhyme tacked in each of their rooms.  As the guest numbers dwindle, the levels of suspicion and hysteria rise dramatically until a crashing finale.

Review (no spoilers):
It’s a very different kind of murder mystery.  There is no master sleuth – no Hercule Poirot or Ms Marple.  There is simply you the reader and 10 ‘ordinary’ guests trapped on an island – as an unknown murderer slowly removes them one by one.  You feel as if you struggle right along with the characters trying to sort it all out.  Christie’s handling and revealing of their internal emotional states is dated but very well done.  With a few exceptions, the characters all tend to act in accordance to their very different natures – which really adds spice to the story considering you have such different folks as a war hero, a judge, a governess, two servants, a private gun, and a prim spinster.

I would suggest this is a must-read for anyone who loves the genre and for those that love house mysteries or isolated party type of spooky affairs.  As a lover of all these genres, this is the standard by which almost everything since is compared to as it rises above all the rest.  I give it a solid A for it’s enjoyable read (I listened to it via audiobook and found myself several times sitting in the driveway just to get to the next chapter), relatively quick story, and for the fact it is the canon for this type of genre.  Highly recommend

Read an interesting book How Would You Move Mount Fuji.  The author does a little critique of the modern approach of puzzle interviews.  His take-away – since an employer can legally no longer ask questions about age/gender/orientation/etc – we have moved to a new realm of interviewing.  This method of interviewing attempts to ascertain the raw ability and behavior of the candidate devoid of these contexts.  This is both for good and ill – as it can have a very dehumanizing effect.  Interestingly enough, while this method of interviewing is still popular (and was the RAGE in the late 90’s early 2000’s) there have been more recent articles written about the problems of this style and possibly better ways of hiring.

For instance, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell says this method would likely not find the next Steve Jobs – and that he would not likely be hired by anyone today using similar methods.  For creative jobs, he believes in finding the person’s passion is more important.  Others have suggested that we actually get more narrow and hire by their knowledge of an important algorithm a company needs vs more general principles.

Either way, the fun part for me were the questions themselves.  There was a list of Google interview puzzles that I liked too.  Here’s a collection of some of the more interesting ones in his book, and from other sources.  I find they break down into three categories – Fermi problems, hypothetical problem solving, and deducible problems:

Deducible problems:  These are designed to see how good your raw deductive skills are:

1. A country that only wants boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?
2. How many times in a day do a clock’s hands overlap?
3. Explain the meaning and relevance of the term ‘dead beef’ as it relates to programming/debugging.
4. You need to check that your friend, Bob, has your correct phone number but you cannot ask him directly. You must write the question on a card which and give it to Eve who will take the card to Bob and return the answer to you. What must you write on the card, besides the question, to ensure Bob can encode the message so that Eve cannot read your phone number?
5. How many places on the earth can you walk 1 mile north, 1 mile west, and 1 mile south and end up at the same place? (hint, its far more than just 1 place)

Problem solving:  These are designed to see how you would attack a problem and your thought process:

1. Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco
2. You’re the captain of a pirate ship and your crew gets to vote on how the gold is divided up. If fewer than half of the pirates agree with you, you die. How do you recommend apportioning the gold in such a way that you get a good share of the booty, but still survive?
3. You have eight balls all of the same size 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?
4. You are given 2 identical eggs. You have access to a 100-story building. The eggs can be very hard or very fragile means it may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from 100th floor. You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking. The question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process.

I’ve been on a big 80’s kick since reading Ready Player One.  I even went to the library and picked up a copy of The Running Man movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But I also knew that there was a book version – which I’d never read.  So, I pick up the audio-book version from the library too; and off we go.

The book itself is quite short – only 6 audio CD’s.  Apparently King wrote the story in 48 hours or so.  It’s definitely got the feel of a longer short story to it.

Story:
It’s the year 2025.   The dystopian society is split between haves and have-nots. Ben Richards’ is in the latter group. He’s been blacklisted from most jobs after protesting conditions at a plant with leaky radiation shields that makes everyone sterile.  His wife has had to resort to hooking to pay the bills and his baby daughter lies seriously ill.  Desperate and at the end of his rope, Richards goes to the all-powerful media station ICS and tries out for one of their sadistic reality shows in hopes of earning enough money to save his daughter and free his wife from her state.

Richards shows up in a mass of people also desperate for a chance at cash.  After passing through hoop after hoop of evaluations, he is selected for the biggest of all the games, “The Running Man.” He is given a few thousand dollars to start, is dumped on the street outside the building with a 24 hour grace period, and then becomes the quarry in a 30 day hunt.  For each day he evades his pursuers, his family earns a large sum of money.  If he doesn’t evade them – it won’t matter because he’ll be dead.

It seems like suicide, since nobody has ever survived more than 8 days.  The network requires Ben to mail in 2 videos a day – which allows them to track him.  His face is plastered on the TV every night with dastardly satire and stories conjured up about him to get the whole country screaming for his death.  Unlike the movie, the chase happens in the open – anywhere in the country and the public are offered rewards for reporting him and for confirmed sightings.

Without giving away too much, Ben manages to stay a little ahead of his captors with tons of action and plenty of violence.  The stalkers in the book aren’t the comic-book style stalkers found in the movie.  They’re regular police and anonymous hunters that are never really described.  He hides in regular hotels, runs through streets, hides in the woods.  Yet, he manages to find a few sympathetic people who help him in evading capture. There’s lots of good social commentary during these moments since those that help him are some of the very poor of the poor.  The most downtrodden.

Eventually, however, Richards is inevitably cornered and the final showdown takes place.  The playout of those confrontations (more than one!) are very good.  King gives you get a peek into the minds of these all-in poker players raising and re-raising each other again and again.  Each side makes shocking and unexpected moves.  When the cards are finally laid on the table, what is revealed is shocking and Richard’s response is no less so.  It’s an excellent bit of psychology and imaginative writing that keeps you quite at the edge of your seat.   While the final resolution feels just a little forced, it is still quite good.

Recommendation:
Overall, I really liked the book.  In some ways, I liked the movie better (a set playing field, comic-book style stalkers, etc).  But the dsytopia that is painted in this book is raw and very believable.  There’s a lot of excellent social commentary on where we’re going as a people when societies are split so badly between the haves and have-nots; and where we go when we stop valuing people as human beings of equal dignity and just see the downtrodden as annoying grime left in the cracks.  I give the book a solid A- and recommended read.

 

Another audio book down!  This time it’s Ready Player One by Earnest Cline.

Plot:
The year is 2044 and the world has not fared well. A global recession has struck and poverty is rampant with all resources scarce.  The protagonist of this story is an 18 year old named Wade Watts who has fared worse than most. Wade lives in abject poverty with his abusive aunt who simply keeps him around for extra food vouchers. Wade has one escape – the OASIS.  The OASIS started as a massively online multiplayer game, but has become all things in this dystopia. He goes to school there, works there, and plays there.
Yet the OASIS has no leader.  It’s creator, an unbelievably rich and reclusive programmer, James Halliday has died and left an easter egg in this world of the OASIS.  The person who finds it gets control of the OASIS, and all his worldly goods – a sum of billions of dollars.  Wade becomes a ‘gunter (egg hunter) in his spare time.  Hunting down the egg has gone on for years with little progress.  It requires the collecting of 3 keys – and each key is hidden and protected with challenges.  Halliday’s only hints lay in his obsession with all things 80’s: movies, D&D, music, styles and most importantly, their games.
While the independent Gunters are searching for the egg, so are the Sixers – a group of corporate lackeys – that are out to get the egg for themselves and change the utopian free OASIS into a commercial vehicle.  So the race is on.  Will Wade (Parzival as his avatar is known), along with fellow hunters Aech and Art3mis beat the Sixers and win the most amazing game prize ever?

Summary:
This was one of the most enjoyable reads I’d had in a long time.  I was apprehensive when I read that it was a book about 80’s culture and games.  Often times the well-meaning author butchers or panders the topic.  But not so with this book Every great 80’s reference to classic cult/nerd content is there: Dungeons and Dragons, movies such as Wargames and The Quest for the Holy Grail, classic video games such as pac-man, and joust, and music and pop-icons such as Max Headroom and the Cap’n Crunch hacker – as well as more modern advancements such as massively multiplayer online games.  All the greats are in there in all their shining glory.

Best of all, Earnest Cline was clearly a lover and know-er of all these as well – his descriptions and treatment of each piece of history is accurate and spoken of with the same reverence as I knew and loved them.  As a nerdy child of the 80’s, I loved this trip through memory lane – and it’s clear Cline was just as much a lover.  I found myself knowing and able to play along as Wade walked through the challenges and puzzles.  I too had run the D&D dungeon The Tomb of Horrors, had played through some of the PC-based games he mentions – although I was not a very good master of classic arcade games.  Still, watching the young Wade and others of his generation learn to fall in love with the awesomeness of the 80’s was like falling in love again myself.  It made me want to whip out my old D&D set, pull out my Tandy coco and play Dungeons of Daggorath (which I DO have a copy of and a working Tandy!), and all the other great games and adventures I had as a kid.  It re-vitalized and reminded me of why I got into computers all those years ago.

I give this book a solid A.  Sure, it’s not a heady examination of the deeper things of life nor Pulitzer-quality writing – but it’s an absolutely romp if you were a child (and especially a nerdy child) of the 80’s.  I found myself sitting in the car long after I’d got home and listening to ‘just one more chapter’.  I haven’t always had that recently – and it was a great pleasure to have that much fun with a book again.

Highly recommend for the child of the 80’s

More audiobook time.  Now that the first part of The Hobbit movie is out – I wanted to re-read the book before seeing it to see how true it is to the book.  As usual, I went the audiobook route.

I first read The Hobbit when I was in 5th grade.  I remembered it as a HUUUGGEEEE book.  When I picked it up – I remember running my hands over the book cover and being awestruck at it’s size.  All those pages with so few pictures!  As an adult, I picked up the book and marveled at how small it is compared to other things I read now.  I guess that as with most childhood memories, fears, school teachers, and bullies – things just seemed so much more big when you’re physically little.

Summary:
I won’t re-tell the story as it’s been done hundreds of times elsewhere, and much better than I could do.  So, how about a recap?

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who lives in a quiet, rural hobbit village that largely symbolizes the English idealism of calm, country living.  He’s comfortable, and likes it that way.  No adventures, no tom-foolery; 5 square meals a day and lots of relaxed pipe smoking while looking over the countryside.  Gandalf the wizard appears and invites himself, and a number of Dwarves to supper.  Bilbo’s calm, sedate home is quickly overrun with Dwarves on a mission to recover their cave home that was taken by Smaug the dragon years before.  They enlist, or rather, abscond with Bilbo as their ‘burglar’ at Gandalf’s suggestion.  They set off and have numerous adventures along the way.  They are captured by goblins and Bilbo encounters Gollum.  He finds the one ring, and escapes using it’s powers.  The party travels through a deep haunted forest and are imprisoned by the elves that live there.  They escape in barrels floating down the river and arrive at the human town of Laketown.  After getting the help of the citizens for provisions and ponies, they arrive at Smaug’s mountain to find a hidden magical dwarven door which allowed secret entrance to the mountain.  Bilbo enters and engages the dragon in verbal swordplay.  Smaug attacks the mountainside to kill the visiting party and then attacks the nearby Laketown for helping the Dwarves.  Smaug is ultimately killed by one of the city’s men after receiving a tip from a bird.  In the final scenes, the Dwarves barricade themselves into the mountain to defend their treasure while armies of men/elves and Dwarves from the north arrive outside to get their share.  Instead of fighting each other, Bilbo sneaks away a prized gem to break the stalemate and they all end up fighting the goblins that were stirred up after the Dwarves killed the goblin king during their escape.  Bilbo returns home to find he was declared dead and has to rescue his property from auction.

Review:
What can one say?  It is one of the original great fantasy novels of all time.  It introduced a number of the great themes that carry through the genre even today.  Yet, you can tell this is one of Tolkien’s early works of fantasy.  Tolkien uses a number of ‘cheats’/easy outs of coincidence to solve some of his plot problems; but all of these are forgivable.  Yet all the great writing, imagery, and important themes that will get fuller treatment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy are there.  It’s great to see his first foray.

As a side, it’s always good to note that Tolkien was a devote Catholic – and many themes of Christianity are present in his novels.  As a Catholic, one picks up on myriads of themes such as self-sacrifice, flawed heroes with realistic failings, confronting fears, the journey that takes you places you do not expect nor desire at times and changes you forever, bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, and his military roots show in his concepts of nobility, duty, and honor.  For example, in this reading, I particularly was struck by the line of Bilbo as he first crept down to Smaug’s layer (ch 12):

It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the
bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward
were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel
alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.

It’s ideas like this that speak so well to the life of faith; and why even those who are not believers find these same themes speak to experiences in their own lives.  Whole books have been written examining the themes of Tolkien – and I think any that miss this key to many of his themes have really missed a lot.

I give this book a B+ taken on it’s own outside the hype.  It’s certainly not the best writing in the world at times (certainly not as good as Lord of the Rings or things today) – but it’s always good.  As a keystone of the genre, however, it’s definite an essential read.

 

Lots of travel for work lately, which means one thing:  audio books.  One more Bond novel knocked out. This time it was The Man with the Golden Gun

This was Ian Fleming’s final Bond book.  Published a year after Fleming’s death, some have even posited that it wasn’t even finished by him, but other hands.  At very least it’s often criticized for not having the polish and depth of his other novels.  Still, it’s not a terrible little book.

The Story:
This book starts with a bang.  Bond arrives at headquarters brainwashed from his last mission.  He’s on a mission to kill M.  His attempt is thwarted and he is slowly deprogrammed and put back in service.  His first mission is designed to get him back in 00 shape, and M decides the best way is to give him a nearly impossible task: go to the Caribbean to find and take out the brutal killer Scaramanga.  Scaramanga uses a gold-plated colt .45 which shoots silver lined gold bullets.  He is thought to be the man behind several secret service agents deaths.

Bond locates Scaramanga in Jamaican and manages to con himself into being Scaramanga’s temporary assistant under the name “Mark Hazard”.  Scaramanga is involved in a hotel development deal on the island with a group of investors that consists of American gangsters and a KGB agent. The group is hatching a scheme to destabilize the sugar industry, running drugs into America, and other nefarious deeds.

Bond discovers that Felix Leiter is working undercover as an electrical engineer at Scaramanga’s hotel setting up bugs in the meeting rooms.  As the meetings progress, Bond’s true identity is discovered and confirmed by the KGB agent.  Scaramanga makes new plans to entertain the gangsters and the KGB agent by killing Bond while they are riding a sight-seeing train. Bond, with the help of Leiter, thwarts the ambush and kills most of the conspirators. Wounded, Scaramanga escapes into the swamps, where Bond pursues him where a final shoot-out takes place.

My take:
Not a bad little book, but felt drawn out at times.  In fact, in one scene, Bond has Scaramanga completely in his power and knows he should kill him.  Yet he does not because he’s curious what Scaramanga is up to.  If he’d carried out his orders as instructed, this book would have been about 25 pages.  So right off the bat you feel this is a bit of a cheat.
The next low point is that Scaramanga is a bit of a gangster caricature.  I found myself getting tired of every other line of his being “Get the picture?” or “See here…”  The movie version of him as a classy, million dollar killer of amazing skill is not to be found here.  This guy likes to wave his gun around and shoot at people’s heads (missing intentionally) to get their attention.  In many ways, he comes off more as a childish punk that never learned gun safety than a calculating killer.
Still, it’s not a bad little novel, and worth the read if you’re not going out of your way.  C+

Completed another of Fleming’s James Bond novels: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

The story:
This has to be one of the more interesting of Fleming’s Bond novels.  Bond is fed up.  He’s been chasing down the escaped SPECTRE leader Blofeld for over a year with nothing to show for it, nor any proof Blofeld is even still alive.  In the midst of a hiatus gambling at the same casino as found in Casino Royale, he encounters Tracy.  At the end of her rope, he rescues her from her own self-destructive behavior and finds he’s just rescued the daughter of a noted organized crime boss.  Her father makes him a proposition of marrying his daughter to end her downward spiral.  Bond is somewhat captivated by this girl and agrees to see her again after she gets psychological help.

Bond then gets a lead on Blofeld via an unlikely source – the bureau of heraldry and lineage.  Seems Blofeld is attempting to prove his lineage and unwittingly gives up his position.  He’s apparently running a private ski resort high in the Alps with a ‘treatment center’.  Bond pretends to be from the heraldry society and there he discovers the treatment center is really a brainwashing center for his nefarious plans. Bond attempts to shut down Blofeld’s operation in typical gunfire and explosion fashion; and is re-united with Tracy.  A final battle ensues and we get a wrenching ending.

My take:
One of Fleming’s more interesting novels.  Not particularly for the nefariousness of the villian (though they are pretty good and the ski chase scene over the top), but for Bond’s personal relationship with Tracy.  Rarely do we see this much of Bond’s inner workings.
<spoiler bits >
James Bond ‘in love’?  Going to get married?  The nonchalance that Bond considers the union is pretty interesting.  Is that how marriage was decided back in the day?  Despite some glaring differences, he chugs right on along.  It seems he only gives a solid page’s thought to the matter and decides, “Aw heck – why not?’.
</spoilers>

At any rate, if you’d like some decent (but not spectacular) adventure with one of the few times we see Bond in a relationship – then this is a great book.  Rating: B

Finished reading Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama.  What a surprising treat!

Rendezvous with Rama is considered one of Clarke’s best novels – winning a slew of sci-fi literary awards.  While I’m not a huge Clarke fan myself, this came highly recommended as a ‘must read’, so I dove into the audiobook on my drives to/from work.

The story (no spoilers):
A gigantic, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. A ship is quickly redirected to investigate before the enigmatic object, called Rama, sweeps through the solar system and disappears, or crashes into the sun, or parks and starts an invasion(!?).  The astronauts land and soon discover they can enter the kilometers long, hollow cylindrical object to decipher it’s puzzles. What becomes apparent is this object is clearly extra-terrestrial technology of high order; but apparently lying completely dormant without any signs of activity or life.  After entering the object itself, they begin and fantastic exploration that leads the reader on an amazing ride as Rama starts to wake…

My take:
If you want to read a gripping, fantastic story about what a first human encounter with an alien space probe/vehicle/whatever – and if you want to watch the exploration process unfold and experience awesome and wonderful sights – then this is a book for you. I found myself riveted by the descriptions and picturing the fantastic scenes in my own mind.  This alone is worth the price of entry!
While Clarke posits what he think alien technology might look like, I found some of the suggestions too implausible, or in some cases, overly simplistic or even a little silly.  Still, the parts he really nails are so good that these minor points do not overshadow the amazing sights and experiences he does create.

I highly recommend this book to someone who loves good old fashioned sci-fi exploration and adventure into strange new areas.  It’s quite a treat that is worth a read.  A-

 

Just finished Conan the Conqueror audio book from the Conan series.

History:
As with most of Robert Howard’s works, this one has been edited and came through many different sources before reaching the form it has today. Though titled Conan the Conqueror now, it was originally published as a 5-part serial in Weird Tales magazines in 1935-6 under the name The Hour of the Dragon.  A British publisher (Dennis Archer) originally turned down some of Howard’s collected short stories, but suggest the idea of a novel to him.  This is the result of that effort, but the publisher when bankrupt before the novel could be printed.  It wasn’t until it was bought by Gnome Press in 1950 that it earned the title Conan the Conqueror and was finally published in book format.

Story: (spoilers)
The story takes place later in Conan’s life, during his reign as King of Aquilonia.  As with many Howard tales, he doesn’t follow a chronology of Conan’s life, but tells tales about the whole spectrum of his life as tales might be told around a campfire of a great warrior.  This story follows a plot by a group of conspirators to depose Conan in favor of Valerius, heir to Conan’s predecessor Numedides, whom Conan had slain to gain the throne. To accomplish this they resort to necromancy, resurrecting Xaltotun, an ancient sorcerer from the pre-Hyborian empire of Acheron. With his aid the Aquilonian army is defeated by that of the rival kingdom of Nemedia and occupied. Conan, captured, is slated for execution until the sympathetic slave girl Zenobia risks her life to free him.

Meanwhile, the conspirators are also learning that the ancient Xaltotun wishes to throw off the shackles of his co-conspirators and physically reform the world into the one he knew centuries before and conquer them as he once did.  The conspirators steal a gem that constantly burns with flame, the Heart of Ahriman, which they mistakenly think to be the source of Xaltotun’s terrible and unmatched power.  In reality, the gem is the only thing that can defeat Xaltotun.  Conan learns of this from temple priests persecuted by the conspirators armies, and Conan quests to retrieve the Heart of Ahriman from the thief sent to throw it in the sea.  He retrieves the stone after an epic voyage that takes him to the very heart of the corrupted Stygian temples, and sets to raising an army with neighboring countries to defeat Xaltotun, the conspirators, and reclaim his kingdom.

As the armies meet, an epic battle then erupts. Not only the clashing of armies, but the clashing of sorcery between the Heart of Ahriman and Xaltotun.  It’s an epic battle with many twists and a satisfying ending.

Summary:
Some consider this one of Howards best works.   I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it certainly is epic and certainly good.  I have to say I actually like the swashbuckling style of the free-roaming Conan more than the one that rules a kingdom.  Conan even ponders the idea of leaving ruling (which doesn’t seem to agree with his carefree style) and go back to those earlier days of pirating the seas and high adventures.  One gets to see many of the great traits that makes Conan so awesome as a character.  His desire to join into combat during the first fights is notably different than the tone you would read in many novels today.  Conan is certainly a lover of battle and adventure, and it’s fun to read.
Overall, I give this story a solid A-, and recommendation for anyone that would like to further their reading of Conan.  I wouldn’t recommend it as a first introduction to Conan since this story takes place later in his life after much of his adventuring is done; but it’s a great story for those familiar with the series.