CONAN: SPAWN OF THE SERPENT GOD

Critic Chuck Klosterman has this great bit in an exhaustive piece about KISS where he reviews every single album they ever put out, in a paragraph or so each. When he gets to their solo albums after Double Platinum and before Dynasty, he gives each one a lukewarmly-positive review.

Ace's is "about as vintage as any of these jokers are gonna get from here on out." Gene's has a lot of guest stars on it. Paul's probably should've charted better if not for weird, off-putting song titles. And then there's Peter's album. All Klosterman says is, "This record was released by Peter Criss in 1978."

That's kind of how it felt to find something to say about the new Conan novel, Spawn of the Serpent God.

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I don't want to be too much of a dick about it. The book is not bad by any means. It just kind of ran through me. I read it over the course of three nights, and to its credit, it is certainly a breezy, quick read. But it just didn't really sick to me at all.

​Spawn of the Serpent God is ostensibly a light sequel to "The Tower of the Elephant" and sort-of prequel to Conan and the Spider God, referencing events and characters from both, but not in a slavish way where you'll be lost if you haven't read one of them (but let's be real- you've read "Tower of the Elephant" a bunch of times, haven't you?). It also bills itself as a tie-in to the "Scourge of the Serpent" comic series coming out right now, but doesn't really do that in a meaningful way. Tim Waggoner said in a blog post that all Titan asked of him was to include Set and ancient serpent men in the story.

Conan, just shy of 19 and thieving in Zamora, is currently partnered with the Zamorian thief Valja, and they're painting the town red. The whiz-bang opening in which they try to steal an idol from a temple of Ishtar is a pretty great start to things! Eventually, the two of them team up with a pair of mystics to try to take down a Stygian sorcerer who's set up shop in the ruins of Yara's tower.

There's eventually a time skip of about 15 years, moving ahead to Conan's 33rd year and reuniting of most of the principle characters. Valja and the villain Shengis are fun. I would certainly hope they would be, since Conan disappears from the narrative entirely for nearly sixty pages right in the middle of the book. The magical mountain fortress Ravenhold is pretty cool, but certainly doesn't feel very "Conan-y" to me. Oh well, it's fun.

There are a couple of light themes through the book about gender, sexuality, and the duality of good vs. evil. Tim Waggoner's characters all feel very flawed and very human, which is welcomed.

​I really try not to review anything on this blog unless I feel like have something new to say about it, and for this novel, I just never really found the angle. I'm inclined to agree with Gary Romeo's review over at SpraguedeCampFan. He said, "Someone, someday, might recapture the original magic. But for now, I’m mostly entertained. A night reading instead of watching Netflix." Entertaining enough, and yeah, better than doomscrolling for a night.

Those Titan books sure do all look good together, though.

I haven't picked up the other Titan release, Blood of the Serpent yet, but for the four with the silhouette covers that I do own, here's my ranking. Far and away the best of them is City of the Dead, followed by Cult of the Obsidian Moon, Spawn of the Serpent God, and then in a distant fourth place is Songs of the Slain.