I bought this book way back in 2018 at ABC Books on a trip that only patriated 7 books. This is the fourth of them I have read. Perhaps I should not buy any books until I read at least the other three from six years ago, but I’m not sure I could find them quickly. Also, there’s another Friends of the Christian County Library book sale in about three weeks, and I cannot miss that. So, anyway….
This is a little pulp paperback sword-and-sorcery book a la Conan the Barbarian–apparently, I am just surrendering 2024 to low fantasy fiction. It opens with a defeated band of nomads retreating to their secret valley. They’ve been bested by a new claimant to an ancient throne, and the chieftain tasks his son, Kadji, also called the Red Hawk, with getting their revenge. So he, Kadji, is given the sacred axe of the tribe to slay the king–who might not actually be the rightful heir to the throne. So he goes on the vengeance quest, and he ends up in the capital city, getting closer to the king, when a rebellion sends the king to flight. He, the king, flies to an eastern land where he presents himself as an ancient prophet to a pampered emperor who wants to restore his empire’s glory. Until Kadji catches up, ruins that plan, and follows the false king and prophet to the end of the world. Literally.
It’s set on a different planet with a named sun and seven moons, so it’s not like Howard’s stuff from ancient (undocumented) history. Its writing is a bit thinner than the Howard, but that kind of tracks with my new, soon-to-be-abandoned thesis that pulp and genre fiction became thinner between the 1930s/1940s and the 1960s/1970s (only to become bloated in the 1980s and beyond). It also features a red-haired fighting lass whom Kadji has to rescue a time or two and whom he cannot completely trust…. But they fall in love, but cannot be together because of their independent vows….
You know, it’s not bad. Friar has thrown out the word pastiche (when I bought the book), but Carter himself uses the word (which we’ll get to at a later date). Originally, it meant a respectful copying of, but I’m sure it has later taken on a more deriding sense. But it’s not a bad read, but probably targeted to younger men than I. I really need to study the Howard and the Carter (and the like) to figure out how I can write more like the former (should I pick up my pixels seriously again).
But: I will note that this is the second book this year featuring “The Red Hawk” and a flame-haired fighting woman. The other was Conan the Invincible by Robert Jordan. Which was richer than this, but not terribly bloated even though it came out nine years later (before the Clancification/Kingification of genre fiction).
