I have come here to do two things:
1. Chronologize Titan's Heroic Legends series of e-books.
2. Announce that I recently learned that "chronologize" is actually word, and I'm stoked.

Since 2023, Titan Books has been putting out new Conan short stories (among other Howard characters) in the form of e-books, which seems to be the ideal distribution model for short stories in the 2020s, barring the resurrection of Weird Tales or waiting for a short story collection to be published. They're cheap too, which is really nice. You can't even get a Taco Bell burrito for what one of these costs. Since I've been reading them, I thought I'd try to place the Conan stories in chronology. I've read through the first four.

"Lord of the Mount"
by Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones is an exciting new genre author. He's primarily a horror author and since I read this short story, picked up his book The Only Good Indians (it's really good!). Since Jones is a professor at CU Boulder, where I live and did my masters degree, I reached out to him about the book. He sent me a very funny reply in which he told me that he purposefully tries not to worry much about timelines and maps when "playing in someone else's world," which makes a lot of sense to me, so he specifically did not have a time period in mind when writing this book.

This one sets Conan near the remote village of Trinnecerl (which seems like it's in Hyperborea), waking up in a barn after being the only survivor of a battle. It seems like Conan is currently employed as a mercenary, but he's also more importantly very familiar with the black lotus powder, a variation of which plays a large role in this story. That places it definitively after "Xuthal of the Dusk." This story is difficult to really pin down because Conan being in Hyperborea is really far north. It's a place he doesn't go very often, and pretty much never goes to willingly (the other times he's been, he was sold into slavery and rescuing his son). If I had to put it somewhere, I suppose I'd place it after "The Ivory Goddess" before he enters into Aquilonia as a scout.

I've noticed that the purple lotus powder of this story is also mentioned in Savage Sword #201, but I would wager that wasn't intentional on Jones's part.

"Black Starlight"
by John C. Hocking

Conan fans already know John C. Hocking, the author of Conan and the Emerald Lotus. That also makes placing this story in chronological order really easy. "Black Starlight" begins very shortly after the conclusion of Emerald Lotus, with Conan and crew revisiting one of the waypoints on their journey into Stygia from the middle of the novel. While there, they are accosted by all manner of creeps and Lady Zelandra is threatened by a sorcerer. Hocking's got a way with horror, including one scene in which he has a dark figure ominously walking toward the heroes, clashing two swords together over his head, which something inside me really bristled at. Like Emerald Lotus, I really enjoyed this one.

Like Professor Jones, I reached out to John Hocking to ask him a few questions about "Black Starlight" and he was very generous with his time! He let me know that he started writing "Black Starlight" when a reprint of Emerald Lotus was coming about and decided to just pen a true sequel to the book. It's lean and mean and really good.

Putting aside the mega-generic title for this one, we've got another winner. It's a solid entry in this series of e-books, buoyed strongly by one or two really good scenes. Conan is in Stygia, selling his sword to the highest bidder. He gets thrust into a lover's quarrel of sorts when he's tasked with bringing a man's wife back to her following her supposed kidnapping by a sorcerer.

I feel as though the Conan in this story is a little bit older: he comes across as rather bitter and a little cold. Seeing as Conan is in drastic need for money, I'm inclined to place this after "Drums of Tombalku." Conan's been through a lot in the previous adventures of "Xuthal of the Dusk" and "Tombalku." He says in the story that he's headed for Zamora, but doesn't actually get there in the text. He instead ends up heading toward the border of Shem, which is somewhat on the way to Zamora. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that after getting his shit completely rocked in "Xuthal" and "Tombalku" that he might want to bounce back a bit where he knows he can make some money before heading off to the Vilayet Sea in "The Devil in Iron."

Okay, there's no actual mystery as to when this story takes place: it outright says it on the first page that it happens about three months after "The Devil in Iron." Not only is it the most obvious story to place, but it's the best of the bunch so far. Oden makes great use of a cast of Red Brotherhood pirates and the returning Octavia as the supporting players to an imaginative, excellent Conan story. My only gripe is that Conan states toward the beginning of the story that he has plans to sack the city of Khawarizm with the Red Brotherhood's help, and I would totally love to see that happen. Hey Titan folks, I know you're pretty active online... any chance we could get a "Shadow of Vengeance" sequel where you could pay Scott Oden a big pile of money to tell stories of Conan infiltrating cities?

​I'll probably read the rest of the Conan-related books in this series and make another post placing those in chronology as well. It's great to have so many fun, new Conan stories to read in 2025!

Let's go back to 1995 for a moment.

The OJ trial is on TV. Kurt has already killed himself. Bill Clinton has begun to at least wink at Monica Lewinsky when he thinks no one is looking, but the scandal has not yet come to light. Not everything is sunshine and roses, despite how my generation tends to romanticize the 90s.

In the Conan world, things aren't looking much better. It doesn't look like Arnie's coming back; the original movie is 13 years old, the sequel is 11 years old with the consensus being that it was just okay, and the Red Sonja movie which pretty much everyone disliked is already turning 10. Marvel's Conan the Barbarian comic ended two years ago. Savage Sword is cancelled this year.

On the printed page, Tor Books has been churning out Conan books at a factory pace- two or three a year about- for the last decade and then some. With that kind of production level, some of them are good, some of them are schlock, and almost none of them have good titles. Can anyone give me a good reason why Conan the Magnificent is called that, specifically? All I'm trying to say is that we were at a bit of a low point for the Cimmerian. 

Then here comes John C. Hocking out of seeming nowhere- a dude who hadn't ever published anything that I can find, and crafts a pretty excellent Conan adventure. According to interviews with Hocking, he wasn't happy with the Conan stuff being released around that time (I suppose I can relate), so he wrote Conan and the Emerald Lotus over three years from 1993 to 1995. Happy with what he had written, he sent it off to L. Sprague de Camp, who also dug it and decided to publish it.

This is not the first time I've read a story about how someone just cold-called L. Sprague de Camp into publishing their Conan work, but it tickles me every time. 

Conan and the Emerald Lotus is a really fun pastiche. Hocking says that one of the things he felt was missing from late 80s / early 90s Conan was that "Weird Tales supernatural horror flavor," which he does a good job of recreating. His emerald lotus powder is clearly, horrifyingly addictive, yet also increases the power of sorcerers to an extent that you kind of hope that the story's magic users will continue to indulge. With it being written in the early 90s, I spent most of the novel thinking that this was Hocking's take on the crack epidemic in America, a Conan Says No to Drugs. But Hocking says it's really on the nature of power, which makes a lot more sense. We get to watch as a pair of sorcerers occasionally gulp down handfuls of emerald lotus powder between brutal periods of withdrawal.

I feel a sort of kinship with Hocking, because he has said that one of the impetuses for Emerald Lotus was asking himself the question, "If I were to write a Conan novel, when would I set it?" and it seems as though he has a similarly obsessive (is obsessive too strong a word?) fan relationship with the big guy. Because Hocking knows his chronology well, he knew there was a solid place to set the book, and that's in Conan's second mercenary period following his pirate days with Belit in "Queen of the Black Coast."

If we follow the chronologies that include L. Sprague de Camp's material, Conan spends some time in the southern kingdoms while working his way back north. And it's clear that Hocking was setting this story in a chronology that includes stuff beyond just Robert E. Howard's work. 

Hocking embeds some fun chronological stuff for demented completionists like myself to enjoy, like when Conan is first taken hostage by the lackey Gulbanda. The villain of the hour says that Conan was recognized as one who was once a great thief in the city of Shadizar (firmly placing this story after his earliest days). He says that Conan stole the Eye of Erlik (from Andrew Offutt's The Sword of Skelos), a Hesharkna Tiara, and even the Heart of the Elephant from Yara's tower in the city of thieves. Conan flatly replies, "That's a lie," which I love since it's true. He didn't steal it, technically, but he did help destroy it. Conan is also addressed as Amra, placing this story after his first pirate period.

Right after "Queen of the Black Coast" in most chronologies, Conan operates as a mercenary for various entities like in stories "The Snout in the Dark" and "Black Colossus." At the start of "Hawks Over Shem," one of the Howard stories that L. Sprague de Camp wedged Conan into, Conan is mercing in Akkharia in southern Shem, which is where this story begins. It probably places this story right before "Hawks."

 There's one last, unique aspect of this novel that I really enjoy and think sets it apart from most other Conan stories I've read. Very rare is the supporting cast the star of the story. There are a few where they're fun ("Shadows in the Dark"), and a few where they're truly excellent ("Beyond the Black River"), and quite a few where they're just kind of there (take your pick), but the supporting characters here like Neesa, Lady Zelandra, Heng Shih, and the evil Ethram-Fal are all way more compelling and memorable than many of their counterparts. I think this might be a drawback for some readers: Conan is along for the ride for the whole thing and is certainly at the center of action scenes, but doesn't necessarily drive most of the actual plot action in the story after he's linked up with Zelandra.

Conan and the Emerald Lotus is really fun pastiche that makes me hope we'll get more from Hocking, who seems like a cool guy from the interviews I've seen. I picked up the City of the Dead omnibus that also includes Conan and the Living Plague, so I'll probably read that soon. Additionally, he has a direct sequel called "Black Starlight" which only appears to be available in ebook format along with a few other short pastiches. I'm having trouble keeping up these days!

★★★★☆