THE SNOUT IN THE DARK

After a couple of mediocre tales, "The Snout in the Dark" is somewhat of a return to form. It is, at the very least, much more entertaining than most of Conan's adventures in Kush. I get the sense that I like this one more than some other folks.

At the end of "The Castle of Terror," Conan stole a horse and some articles of armor from a Stygian, which he arrives to this story clad in. He's made it to the kingdom of Kush proper, which the story says he and other northerners sometimes refer to all of the "black kingdoms" as. He's been moving northward since leaving the evil castle in the veldt. 

This story fits very well exactly where it's traditionally been put by other chronologies: between "The Castle of Terror" and before "Hawks Over Shem." It has to take place after his time as a pirate, because the events of "Queen of the Black Coast" are explicitly mentioned.

There are a decent number of Conan stories that are built around political intrigue, and I think that depending on how they're handled, they can be some of the best or some of the worst. For example, Conan the Liberator is basically all politicking and spies and plans to usurp, but it keeps Conan stuck in military camps and in fields, so it kills any sense of adventure. This one is a little better. 

We are in the city of Meroë, which is divided into a rigid caste system based on race. As you might have guessed for REH, the dark-skinned Kushites are on the bottom, with the lighter-skinned ruling class (which he calls "dusky." Can you just be normal about skin color for once, Howard?) above them. Members of the ruling class are trying to worm their way to the top through assassinations and spies and framing one another for crimes, all the while worrying about angering the populace as a whole and risking an overthrow. Conan complicates all of this on arrival because he's loyal to the queen, Tananda (at least insofar as she's paying him well), but he's also very popular among the other mechanisms of power, so he kind of has to be stepped around. 

Though this story is once again weird and off-putting when it comes to race, I was really glad to see that the lower caste ends the story by essentially rising up in revolution. 

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"Slay alll the lords! Cast off your bonds! Kill the masters! Be free men again and not slaves! Kill, kill, kill!"

I think that's just about the best ending we could hope for in a story like this. I read both the original rough draft by Howard in my copy of The Complete Chronicles of Conan, as well as the de Camp & Carter rewrite in Conan of Cimmeria, and this time I vastly prefer the rewrite. It doesn't seem that there's any information about when in the 30s Howard began "Snout in the Dark," but it was never published originally until the rewrite made its debut in 1969.

Conan has continued to grow and is, for once, perhaps the most interesting character in the story. He has pretty much matured to the point of knowing when it's advantageous to hold his tongue. 

"'I am a wanderer,' [Conan] said simply, 'with a sword for hire. I came here to seek my fortune.' He did not think it wise to tell her of his previous career as a corsair on the Black Coast, or of his chieftainship of one of the jungle tribes to the south."

While it's always cool to see the full-color image after the inks, I always prefer Conan in black and white.

As a longtime D&D player, Conan comes off as very lawful neutral in this story. While he has his own code of honor, he's only working with the ruling class as it benefits him, and is completely ready to throw off those bonds when it's expedient for him.

The pig-ape-demon thing of the title is a fun monster (though not everyone seems to think so), but I like that it's a physical match for Conan, unlike most enemies that aren't literally giant monsters. They do battle inside his temporary home, with lightning flashing through the windows to illuminate his pig tusks. I thought it was pretty cool, anyway.

Conan ends this story by riding north once again. He says that he's done with the southern kingdoms and might even take another crack at civilization. I'm now 20 stories into this chronology! Thanks for following me on it if you've been reading! "Hawks Over Shem" is up next, so I assume we'll be going to the kingdom of Shem. 

★★★☆☆