Well,
I was going to try and break things up a little bit but if I'm being
absolutely honest, 'The Flame Knife' looked like another quick read that
would give me time to get in a couple of extra games of 'Frozen Free
Fall' before I got to work. I've been filling up my phone with 'Frozen'
stuff just recently, Hope is really into it (that's my excuse and I'm
sticking to it), and some of the apps I've found are a real testament to
just how far developers will go to jam an idea into a concept. I can
just about get my head around the whole 'look after baby Ana and Elsa'
app (cos' they were babies once upon a time) but the 'stitch up the
large gash on Ana's face' app…? Nope, me neither. Hope loves it though,
she's bloodthirsty like that…
But, 'The Flame Knife'…
A
little digging (thanks 'Conan Wiki'!) revealed that 'The Flame Knife'
was originally an El Borak tale that De Camp reworked (extensively too)
into a 'new' Howard story for publication in 1955. This feels more than a
little harsh to me; poor El Borak and poor everyone else who thought
that they were getting a brand new tale. It's not as if the tale was
worked from a fragment either, it's a re-jigging of something that was
already doing the rounds. Like I said, poor El Borak… I couldn't help
but have this at the back of my mind while I was reading 'The Flame
Knife' which is a bit of a shame because it's a very entertaining read.
Now
leader of a group of kozaki, Conan, on the run from the displeased king
of Iranistan, finds himself in the demon-infested mountain ranges of
Drujistan where he discovers a hidden city and the secrets of the
cultish Hidden Ones.
The
danger of following one 'Conan' review with another 'Conan' review is
that you don't really leave yourself with room to say anything new;
especially when the second tale is written by the same author who wrote
the first one. You don't have to feel sorry for me or anything but,
well… Maybe feel a little bit sorry for me. It's a tough line to walk
though. The length of 'The Flame Knife' gives De Camp more room to
explore the world of Conan and the reader gets to follow Conan through
some gloriously bleak desert landscapes as a result. Or is it El Borak?
I'll stop with that now…
Whoever
and whatever, 'The Flame Knife' has all the hallmarks of a classic
Conan tale; more than likely because Howard's hand is more evident in
the proceedings rather than 'just being the muse' as he was for 'Black
Tears'. All the usual ingredients are there (I loved the bit with the
obligatory huge monster that Conan has to defeat) but there just seems
to be more zest and energy to the proceedings. As it happened, I ended
up giving 'Frozen Free Fall' a miss so I could finish reading 'The Flame
Knife' and that says it all really (given that my attention span has
shrunk to the size of my phone screen). 'The Flame Knife' can be found
in 'Conan the Wanderer'.
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