Jewels of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Seems to me this was one of Howard’s easier books to write. He just rolled a Maguffin out towards the horizon and came up with a story of Conan chasing it. Sure starts easy involving climbing and meandering about looking for something or other. Then the girl gets dropped in and Conan is distracted from his mission. There’s a bit of folderol of Conan acting like Perry Mason and it all ends as most Conan stories do.

I’m filing through these tales and still struck by Howard’s inventiveness of another world with beings, sounding much like humans, in other-wordly structures. Would love to have seen what Howard might’ve produced if he’d lived another 30 years.

Still puzzled by the faddish mis-understanding of Howard’s work as others write of “racism” and the like. Howard writes of somewhere, some-when else. Current faddish American name-calling being bandied about can not apply. Seems folks aren’t reading Conan as Howard intended.

As usual Howard just doesn’t know how to write of structures. At one point he writes of Conan being in a “bowl-like” area, but never explains that further or have Conan involved with scaling inclines, or the reverse, involving a bowl-like shape.

I rank this of one of the lesser tales I’ve read so-far.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 5 out of 5 points.

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