/lit/ - Literature

>>13384453

Book report time! So here we have Conan and the Emerald Lotus which I've seen touted as one of the best (if not THEE best) Conan pastiches. Since I've only read REH's Conan stories and one other Conan pastiche (KEW's Road of Kings) I can only compare it to those and I must say.... it was quite good. In fact I might even say it was better than Wagner's Conan pastiche even though I prefer the darker tone and Conan's characterization in RoK, but Emerald Lotus had a constant forward motion to it with not much padding and there was simply MORE going on in this story than in Road of Kings. Also if you prefer your Sword & Sorcery to have lots of sorcery in it then I highly recommend this book. At first I didn't care for the depiction of sorcery in this novel because it felt too much like your typical epic fantasy display of sorcery, but it makes sense given the major plot point of the story (sorcerers taking a drug that makes them more powerful). Even if you're not a big Conan fan I'd still recommend this book because it's a solid and enjoyable fantasy story anyways.

Almost a dozen chapters into this and it might be better than Karl Edward Wagner's Conan pastiche. Feels closer to a typical REH Conan story (with the same constant forward momentum). Even though I enjoyed KEW's Road of Kings it still reads like a Conan story written by KEW whereas Hocking's Emerald Lotus almost reads like a long lost REH story.