Conan: City of the Dead - by John C Hocking (Hardcover)

About the Book

TWO EPICS IN ONE HARDCOVER! The long-awaited follow-up to Conan and the Emerald Lotus brings John C. Hocking back to the sagas of the Cimmerian. In Conan and the Emerald Lotus, the seeds of a deadly, addictive plant grant sorcerers immense power, but turn its users into inhuman killers. In the exclusive, long-awaited sequel Conan and the Living Plague, a Shemite wizard seeks to create a serum to use as a lethal weapon. Instead he unleashes a hideous monster on the city of Dulcine. Hired to loot the city of its treasures, Conan and his fellows in the mercenary troop find themselves trapped in the depths of the city's keep. To escape, they must defeat the creature, its plague-wracked undead followers, then face Lovecraftian horrors beyond mortal comprehension.

Book Synopsis

Two epics in one hardcover as Conan the mercenary faces hideously transformed wizards and undead creatures in action-packed fantasy combining Robert E. Howard's trademark sword and sorcery with concepts straight out of Lovecraftian horror.

Combines the classic Conan and the Emerald Lotus with the all-new, original Conan and the Living Plague.

The long-awaited follow-up to Conan and the Emerald Lotus brings John C. Hocking back to the sagas of the Cimmerian.

In Conan and the Emerald Lotus, the seeds of a deadly, addictive plant grant sorcerers immense power, but turn its users into inhuman killers.

In the exclusive, long-awaited sequel Conan and the Living Plague, a Shemite wizard seeks to create a serum to use as a lethal weapon. Instead he unleashes a hideous monster on the city of Dulcine. Hired to loot the city of its treasures, Conan and his fellows in the mercenary troop find themselves trapped in the depths of the city's keep. To escape, they must defeat the creature, its plague-wracked undead followers, then face Lovecraftian horrors beyond mortal comprehension.

Review Quotes

"As pastiches go, it's a cut above the rest, while remaining true to its pulp-fiction source material."--Financial Times

"Sharp prose, tight plotting, smart dialogue, and driving action scenes, leveraged with fantastic world building and a twisted gift for the macabre and horror"--Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls and Lord of a Shattered Land

"Chris Hocking captures the spirit of the original Robert E. Howard Conan tales in this moody, briskly paced, and thoroughly fun novel"--S. Craig Zahler, director of Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete, author of A Congregation of Jackals

"Well-drawn characters, a head-long pace, and plenty of epic action scenes, while staying true to Howard's original vision of the character and vividly capturing the Hyborian Age"--James Reasoner, New York Times bestselling author of the Outlaw Ranger series

"His Conan shows why we fell in love with the character in the first place. John does REH and the entire genre proud"--Douglas Draa, Editor of Weirdbook and Startling Stories

"These unparalleled Conan yarns are Hocking's well-crafted paeans to Robert E. Howard and the gripping tradition of sword and sorcery he created. In short: Hocking gets it"--Dr. Jason Ray Carney, co-editor of The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies, author of Weird Tales of Modernity

"Conan and the Emerald Lotus is the finest Conan novel of the last 50 years. Its epic sequel Conan and the Living Plague, unpublished for over a decade, has become almost legendary... For Titan to publish both books under one cover is a gift to modern readers of all kinds--and it's astonishing to discover that the sequel is even better"--John O'Neill, World Fantasy Award winning editor of Black Gate

Praise for Conan and the Emerald Lotus:

"Straight-ahead non-stop action and exotic pulp-flavored fun... Hocking infuses the supporting characters with humanity and believability, and even imparts a degree of pathos to the villains"--Adventures of Sword & Sorcery

"Conan and the Emerald Lotus... is not only a wonderfully weird and savage story, but its writing is alive with Howard's crackling vitality"--Brian Murphy, author of Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery

"If you were to ask Conan fans who wrote the best Conan story after Robert E. Howard, a lot of people would point to John Hocking. ... it is Hocking, above all, who consistently makes people's favorites list. ... Hocking may well be one of the best hopes readers of sword and sorcery have today."--Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls and Lord of a Shattered Land

Praise for Conan and Robert E. Howard:
"Howard's writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks."--Stephen King

"In Howard's grim and all too realistic view, the barbarians are always at the gate, and once a culture allows itself to grow soft, decadent or simply neglectful, it will be swept away by the primitive and ruthless."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"I read books, and I dreamed of Mars, and the planets in those books, and of the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard's Conan books..."--George R. R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones

"Those of us who believed in Conan at the right moment in our lives never stop believing. We might not grow up to become him, but we never grow out of him, either."--Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians

Praise for Conan: Blood of the Serpent:

"Blood proves that there is plenty of life left in the handsome thighs of Conan the Cimmerian. This version of the character is... certainly a hero who has a place in modern fiction."--SFBook Reviews

About the Author

Winner of the Harper's Pen Award for sword and sorcery fiction, John C. Hocking is the author of two novels starring Conan the Cimmerian. His short fiction has appeared in the Flashing Swords ezine, Black Gate, Skelos, Weirdbook and Tales from the Magician's Skull. Recently retired, he is currently working on a new novel. He lives in Michigan with his wife, son, and an alarming quantity of books.