 "The People of the Black Circle" is a great choice to follow The Flame Knife. It does just about everything better in a way that really throws into sharp relief how good it is. I liked The Flame Knife, but "The People of the Black Circle" is superior in just about every way, and is definitely a top-five Conan story so far. The two stories feel a bit like a pair, not only because they follow one another in continuity, but they've got similarities throughout. They're both much longer than most Conan short stories, they're both about fighting wizards deep in the mountains, they both have a damsel for Conan to rescue, and they both take place in countries to which Conan is totally unfamiliar. But, "Black Circle" is about ten pages shorter, rendering it a lot tighter on action, the mountain setting and evil wizards are both stronger in this one, Conan's companion is far more interesting, and there's much more that's done with the cultural setting. Technically speaking, Conan's long kozaki period is over, as this story makes several references to him having been a kozak raider in the past. However, that's very much an in-universe nitpick, because Conan is essentially doing the same thing as he was during that section of his life: leading bands of raiders, winning their allegiances, and causing trouble for the lords and ladies of whatever land he happens to be in. Perhaps this period (so far comprising Flame Knife and "Black Circle") should be called "Commander Conan?" We don't get a ton from "A Probable Outline of Conan's Career" on this one, just: "The Vendhyan episode. Conan rises quickly to chieftainship of the Afghulis, who understand the language of the sword, and may be nearly 34 when he goes back to his kozaks." It does state that after this, he goes back to the kozaks to fight in some wars for Shem in the grasslands of Kush, which makes sense to put "The Slithering Shadow" and "Drums of Tombalku" after this story. I've still got my issue of why Conan references Xuthal in "The Devil in Iron," though... "The People of the Black Circle" starts promisingly enough. The king of Vendhya dies, effectively giving his sister Yasmina the throne. Furtively arriving at a nearby city, Yasmina is kidnapped by Conan in order to use her as a ransom to get back seven of his soldiers. We've got these three parties in conflict- the Vendhyan government, who want their new queen back. Conan, who wants his seven soldiers back, and the opportunistic pair of the wizard Khemsa and his girlfriend Gitara trying to usurp control. This web becomes further complicated when Conan's Afghuli tribesmen decide that he's betrayed them, becoming enemies. These competing allegiances make for a much more tightly-plotted Conan story than most, with really clear stakes from all sides and a constantly-shifting status quo, with friends becoming enemies and enemies becoming reluctant allies.  Oh look, it's the banner that's been at the top of this website the whole time. Conan fights the Master of Yimsha with the orb full of pomegranates in the background. This one was done by the immortal artist Ken Kelly. As the story progresses, it becomes necessary for Conan to head to the mountain fortress of Yimsha in order to deal with the titular wizards clad in black robes, and the story really shifts into high gear at this point. While most Conan stories are only about 30-some-odd pages long, the last 35 pages of this 90-ish page tale are one pedal-to-the-metal action setpiece after another, analogous in my mind to how Mad Max: Fury Road feels like one 90-minute car chase that seldom lets up. Through the mountain passes of the Himelian Mountains, to the pyramidic keep of Yimsha, past magical bombs and evil clouds and shape-shifting hawks into the lions den of the most powerful wizards Conan has ever fought... this thing fucking rules. I'd argue that Howard is truly at the top of his game here. In January 1934, when he was writing this story, he was also trying to get his work published in England for the first time, and having received a rejection letter for a short story collection, he felt it necessary to write a novel. He began and then abandoned several attempts at this novel, but in the meantime, banged out "The People of the Black Circle," perhaps as proof to himself that he could spin a long yarn, and for my money, he totally proved that he could. It seems like Farnsworth Wright agreed with me, because "Black Circle" was serialized in Weird Tales just a few months after it was accepted by the mag (for a whopping $250) and graced the cover. The story is epic in scope and far more thematically rich than many pulps.  The background radiation permeating every Conan story is a simmering conflict between the simple, barbaric lifestyle of Conan and the corrupt, complicated lifestyle of those in civilization, and it's clear that Howard prefers Conan's perspective. He doesn't usually actually do a ton with this, other than gesturing in his plots to Conan's lifestyle as if to say "Yeah, but isn't this more straightforward?" [Hey, this is Dan writing a few weeks from now. I'd like to say that after reading "Red Nails" and "Beyond the Black River," there absolutely are some stories who are going to do a ton with this.] However, "Black Circle" shows the corruption in society at the hands of the wizards in Yimsha, taking time to depict rulers and priests are mostly just pawns to power-hungry string-pullers. In this case, paranoia is the right emotion to feel, as the people in charge of Turan and Vendhya, at the very least, are at the mercy of magicians. Much to our delight, we get to see these magicians use magic more (and more creatively) than just about ever before in the Hyborian Age. It's not just the wizards that define the themes in this story, but also the Devi Yasmina. For once, Conan's female companion (though she is still absolutely a damsel in distress) is interesting and fun to spend time with. She's a fair ruler who genuinely cares for her people, but she's also a pampered aristocrat who is woefully ill-prepared for life with Conan, away from the comforts of high society. However, she grows into the role, signified by Conan's reaction to her change of clothes into those of a commoner at one point in the story. While Yasmina's not really suited to a life of adventure, she clearly grows to enjoy quite a bit of it. When, at the end of the story, she says that she must return to her kingdom and do her duty as queen, her and Conan have a dialogue that shows how restrictive and stuffy that life is. "'But I can not!' [Yasmina] objected. 'You must not hold me---' Yasmina is a lot of fun, though she never quite rises out of the damsel in distress role.
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AuthorHey, I'm Dan. This is my project reading through the career of everyone's favorite sword-and-sorcery character, Conan the Cimmerian, in chronological order. 
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