Argon’s Other Eye 6 – Harold the Barbarian

For as long as the krutty end of fantasy has existed, there have been scantily clad slavegirls, co-existing with the squamous horrors from Beyond Sanity, cackling black-goateed wizards and muscular savages with cat-like reflexes and perfectly smooth chests (when have you ever, ever seen a picture of Conan with body hair? Is he merely testosterone deficient (surely not!), or does he somehow find the time in his busy schedule for regular waxing sessions?). However, only one man has had the balls to move the focus away from the sweaty man-beast with the helmet with little horns on it to the big-eyed beauty in the artfully ripped silk whotsit and that man is WONDER NORM, aka John Norman, author of the seemingly never-ending chronicles of Gor.

Starting off as more or less regular Sword and Planet, with all the elements you’d expect – random earthman is transported to far-off planet where he suddenly becomes the greatest swordsman in the universe, slays dozens of massive, vicious monsters with stupid names and saves a princess – the Gor books gradually move from S&P with kinky bits to full-on 550 Shades with occasional sword fights. The hero, Tarl Cabot, is an academic from Bristol, selected by the Priest-Kings to do all the normal things you’d expect and finish off feminism once and for all at the same time.  He does this by dressing up as a proud warrior of ancient Greece, flying on giant death chickens and tripping over slave girls every few minutes – not hard to do, as they are as plentiful on Gor as frothing at the mouth but deeply unhappy inside Dworkinites are in the world of Wonder Norm. This can get distracting, as in ‘Priest-Kings of Gor’, where what is a pretty solid work of Science Fantasy is derailed by the obligatory appearance of a young lady with no clothes on who wants to be tied up and flogged in order to feel like a woman-shaped woman fully fulfilled in her essential womanish womanliness every few pages.

You see, Wonder Norm believes that men and women are very different – men are hairy Dominators, designed to slay, capture and ravish, whereas women (the young and pretty ones, anyway) are soft, tearful, yielding Submitters, there to serve and pleasure and desperately unhappy if forced by closed-minded, fat ankled feministiks to go out and take control of their own lives. WN, as a top philustufer, has seen with his own eyes the results of this madness in the college in which he teaches (taught?) and has nobly harnessed Aristotle, Plato and Nietzsche to his leather philistuflickal chariot with scythes of Truth on the wheels in which he will charge through the ranks of the androphobes and rout them once and for all. I suppose if you do see masculinity and femininity as eternal, unchanging archetypes which are more real and essential than our warped, pathetic, PC attempts to evade the Truth then  Normo’s position makes sense; he certainly isn’t shy about letting you know what his opinion on the whole business is. In ‘Outlaws of Gor’, for example, Trowel Cardboard is catapulted into a truly nightmarish situation – he has to enter a city ruled by women! As you might expect, in this horribly unnatural state, love and happiness are banned by the silver-masked and fully clothed (in dungarees and unwashed jumpers, I bet!) ladies in charge, but luckily, Cabot comes along to save the day, spank the female antagonist’s bottom after saving her from the dreaded argle-bargle beasts and remind her of her true reason for being, namely pleasuring a middle-aged West Country English lecturer dressed up as a hoplite. The book might as well have a mile-high neon sign on it saying ‘GET YER DEVASTATING SATIRE ON RADICAL FEMINISM HERE! ROLL UP, ROLL UP FOR THE DEVASTATING SATIRE ON RADICAL FEMINISM – STEP RRRIGHT THIS WAY! FIRST 10 ENTRANTS GET A FREE CUBIC ZIRCONA ENCRUSTED HOME STONE WITH SUMPTUOUS LOG FIRE EFFECT AND GO-FASTER STRIPES!

Yes, readers, young women, especially stunningly attractive, college educated young women from earth, seem to arrive on Gor with monotonous regularity, generally losing their clothes in the process. Then they get trussed up, beaten, humiliated, raped, tied up in sacks full of shit and so on, and although they may cry a bit at the beginning, they end up absolutely loving it, because, as Wonder Norm never tires of pointing out, it’s how things are meant to be, as opposed to the mimsy politically correct version that is sending the deracinated members of Counter-Counter Earth to hell in a Tuchuk wagon. Gorean women who are old, fat, grumpy, on their periods, etc are dealt with in the Saudi Arabian manner, i.e. swathed in acres of cloth and left to stew in their own misery as opposed to making the place look unsightly as they do in contemporary America.

Why do these books sell (and boy, do they sell) ? Possibly because lots of people like a bit of kinky porn, myself included. Possibly because they take the clammy-palmed adolescent male sociopath fantasy developed in yer regular low rent S&S novel and pump it full of super-steroids and male hormones forever. Possibly because, putting everything else aside, Wonder Norm’s world building skills are very good indeed.

Maybe too good – how much detail do you really want about Gorean hoe design (the agricultural implement!), for example? Does that help immerse you in the beautiful world the Normanator has created or take up valuable space that could be taken up with more nudie slave girls? Do you really need to know about the number, colour and quality of the heroine’s teeth? Can’t we just assume that she has some and leave it at that?

Evidently not. You would have though his editors would have snipped that bit out, but Wonder Norm is as real a man as his heroes and knows how to deal with beasts like those, as this transcript proves

(The scene: Wonder Norm’s golden tower of phillustuphy. WN himself is seated in an ivory throne, surrounded by gorgeous young coeds who are fanning him, serving him cold drinks, begging to be slapped, lick gruel from the floor in front of him, battle each other to the death for the chance to be forced to fellate him, etc. There is a knock at the door, and at Normanus Caesar’s manly bellow of ‘ENTAAH!’, a crowd of cringing Editors enter on their knees, kow-towing vigorously as they inch forward)

Eds, in unison: “Wonder Norm, we exist only to serve You. We are but Instruments of your Will”

WN: “Ah, there you are! Wanda, clean these gentlemen’s feet with your tongue or I won’t have you whipped. Now, scum, I called you here today to discuss my latest Work of Genius, which much against my better instincts, I somehow feel is only 99.9999999% perfect. You see, there’s this bit about Judy Thornton’s dental setup, which is maybe...

Eds, horrified: “No no, Wonder Norm! Whatever you do, don’t cut out the bit about Judy’s teeth!”

And thank goodness they didn’t, as that makes the whole book.

Harold the Barbarian, by the way, turns up in ‘Nomads of Gor’, a novel about quasi-Mongols - called Harold – and is the best thing about the novel. I’ve only read four out of the thirty or so books in the series and I really hope Hazza appears in a subsequent volume, but I bet he doesn’t. Still, that’s what fan fiction’s for!

Speaking of which, I might delve into the foetid cave of slash fic next time, in search of gay barbarians. I know stories featuring heroes with hard-ons exist without searching for them, in the same way I know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning without my needing to conduct human sacrifices, or so my probation officer tells me, but it’s always good to get first-hand confirmation. This may well be an experience I shall never recover from, though, so wish me luck.

Argon’s Other Eye 5 - Take me south, pony!

No! No! This isn’t Amoratia Ruby’s ‘ Schtupped by the Centaur’ – it’s Brak the Barbarian: The Sorceress! Other barbarians have two syllable names, but that wasn’t barbaric enough for Brak, who trims things right down to the bare essentials. Until someone creates a savage warrior from the untamed north called Ak or W, Brak wins the mighty-thewed hero with the shortest name contest. Incidentally, Bra the Barbarian is a popular parlour game (on certain websites), similar to ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’, only with a sweaty berserker and a Gossard Everyday Lacey Plunge.

Anyway, Brak comes from a wild land of ceaseless, no-quarter struggle against both man and nature and has evil sexy sorceress problems – so far, so good. Unusually, Brak appears to be (or is on the way to becoming) a Christian, if the Nameless God whose symbol is a cross with arms of equal length and his Nestorians have anything to do with it, not that that has much influence on his behaviour. He is on his way to Khurdistan, to ask what the extra  ‘h’ stands for, fighting the Dark God Yob-Haggoth, an affectionate tribute to Yog Sothoth, on his way. He is light-haired and mahogany tanned, looking exactly like David Dickinson, except all he wears is a lion skin. Mmmm’h!

Warning: spoilers ahead, if you're bothered.

The sorceress in question has red hair, so you know she’s Evil from the get-go, rides around in a chariot pulled by a giant dog, an adorable fuzzy Bichon called Puffpuff with a cute polka-dot bow around its neck and is already in a relationship with a naughty wizard called Tamar Zed. Despite this, she spends most of the book flirting with Brak, the hussy, which makes Tamar jealous; Nordica Firehair chokes this off pretty quickly by threatening to withhold access to her charms, so he practices his enchantment spells on a shepherdess instead. She doesn’t want him either – poor Tamar! – so he throws both Brak and the Shepherdess into the very Freudian manworm pit. The man-worm dies, twitching and spurting, then there are actual bats out of hell, who are gone when the morning comes because Brak’s killed ‘em all! Nordica, having been turned down by Brak (who believes that True Love Waits), then has it off with a blacksmith – it is, apparently, the kind of experience a man dreams about but never - , so I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, but there you are. She’s having more fun than the barbarian is, that’s for sure, even if he does have an amusing joke to tell Tamar.

Knock knock!

Who’s there?

Yob-Haggoth!

Yob-Haggoth who?

Yob-Haggoth A Clue what I’m talking about!

Not that amusing, then.

Brak is, manly name notwithstanding, a bit of a crap barbarian. He manages to slay the man-worm, true, but that’s more or less it – he gets knocked unconscious three times, only once with spearbutts, and only wins through the intervention of one of those ducks with machineguns, after which he throws PuffPuff (sorry, ScarletJaws) off some battlements, then his pony takes him south, where the bending is. I think we’d better draw a veil over what comes next.

I think, next time, I'm going to investigate Richard Kirk's Raven.

Argon’s Other Eye 4 – Have I Got Thews For You!

You’ve seen, I’m sure, those adverts for the Valkarthian Thewmaster® on QVC, but what are thews? According to the Oxford Etymological dictionary:

Thew. †Custom, Habit (OE): †(good) quality, virtue xiii: (pl.) bodily powers, physical endowments xvi. OE. Usage, conduct.

So now you know. Whatever they are, Thongor’s got mighty ones and splendid ones, oh yes he do, as befits a hero of an epic fantasy saga set in a LAND BEFORE TIME. The land in question is Lemuria, one of those lost continents that led Theosophists to some very odd conclusions in the last century but one (and probably still does) and the saga is a mash-up of Conan and the adventures of John Carter, following as it does the progress of a fresh-faced young barbarian from being the sole survivor of his massacred tribe to the heights of imperial glory. The Conan elements (barbarian capable of superhuman feats of endurance and strength, struggles against mysterious and malign magicians, career path (savage wanderer, thief, pirate, mercenary, king) are obvious, as are the Barsoomian influences (flying ships, slightly ridiculous mega-beasts, the redeeming love of a beautiful princess) . REH and ERB (REHERB!) were Lin’s favourite authors – he really, really loved them and wanted to combine them into something that expressed that love. It does come over, too, as does the fact that LC wants you to enjoy reading this stuff as much as he enjoyed writing it – that’s really what makes them such fun. The same thing is apparent in Andrew J. Offutt’s books.

Unlike the God-Emperor’s heroes (or John Jakes’, Gardner F. Fox’s, insert name of other Conan-a-like author here), however, Thongor is a one-woman man, once Sumia gets hold of him. Quite refreshing, really – nice to meet a barbarian with enough manly self-discipline to enable him to resist the hordes of tempting sorceresses, tavern wenches, dancing girls, etc., who must dog his every move. John Carter making his presence felt again, and jolly good too. However, since it isn’t 1912 any more, there are boobs (added as a spice rather than leaping out at you every couple of pages or so) – small boobs, though.

Amazing.

Sumia, who does stay clothed and upright most of the time, is more than capable of looking after herself, unlike (most of) Conan’s female acquaintances (Belit and Valeria excepted). Probably doesn’t have anything to do with it, but Lin Carter was married, unlike REH. Maybe that’s what lends Thongor’s home life the cheery aura of domestic contentment that makes his story the equivalent of a lovely hot, soothing mug full of barbarian-flavoured cocoa.

There are, of course, the usual run of names produced (seemingly) by throwing random syllables at a damp pig and seeing what sticks (Riding just behind the Sark’s zamph, the Daotar Barand Thor... Rearrange these words to make a well-known phrase or saying. Later on, Barand has an encounter with a Ca-Ca bird, or seagull). Standard stuff. LC’s language is also pretty high-falutin’, but that’s fine – a few archaic words and a bit of Hollywoode Olde Ynglisshe help to create atmosphere. Mind you, there is a deodath in the room, and that’s Our Hero’s name. Does it make you think of underpants? It does me, which perhaps says more about my mind than it does Lin Carter’s naming techniques (interestingly, thong UPs were first referred to in 1939, in case you were wondering). Thongor himself probably wears bearskin briefs; on the other hand...

“Ay am Thon-gawra, Thon-gaw’s twin sister. Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me when I lifted up my magic BEEPBEEEPBEEPBEEPBEEEEEEEP”

I’ll leave you with that. As a bonus, an interesting attempt to make some sort of natural/historical sense out of Thongor’s Lemuria can be found here, with an RPG based loosely on the series available here. Enjoy!

Argon’s Other Eye 3 – Demon in the Mercenary Sorcerer’s Eye of Skelos!

“Her black hair was so high-piled that he realised its glossy sheaves must be wrapped around a cone of some sort, perched atop her skull... A carcanet of gold wire, cloth of gold and what seemed to be a million pearls surrounded her covered her upper chest. Its bi-lobate lower curves were carelessly trapped in a bandeau of white silk that revealed the flesh tints within. Her great heavy girdle was also jewelled, and supported a long and voluminous skirt of pale yellow, shockingly side-slit...”

Perhaps you’re thinking that the above is a quote from Ye Olde Aquilonian Vogue, or an excerpt from What The Well-Dressed Cimmerian Who Likes Putting On Ladies’ Clothes And Why Shouldn’t He Is Wearing, you’d be wrong. It is, in fact, a brief paragraph taken from ‘Conan The Mercenary’, a book by the subject of this episode of Argon’s Other Eye, Andrew J. Offutt. I read a piece by a (female) writer once who was of the opinion that the author of a particular bit of porn must have been a woman because of the immense amount of detail that had been put into describing the clothing of the lady participants. Going by that, Andrew J. must be, like, 7 convents’ worth of lesbian vampire nuns. He isn't, of course, or rather wasn’t, since he’s sadly no longer with us;  I’d like to think that that description would cause him to do whatever the opposite of spinning in your grave is, though.

So far as I can tell, AJO, God-Emperor of Humanity, only worked on a couple of Conan books; he also wrote a number of sexy Sci-Fi stories for Playboy books, created Shadowspawn for the Thieves’ World series, had a character called Cormac MacArt (described as being ‘In the tradition of Conan’, only super Celtic, one assumes; as a side note, anything In the tradition of, Inspired by, or even tagged as being by the same publisher as Conan, as one not-very-good book I read was, is fair game for this blog, so BEWARE, CORMAC) and produced a bunch of other novels and edited a good few anthologies, too, which I’ll pass over for the time being.

My favourite thing of his, however, is the War of the Wizards trilogy, even if I’ve only read the first two parts. These follow the adventures of a buxom redhead pirate called Tiana, trying to find her kidnapped twin brother, reassemble a wizard and prevent various calamities which threaten the WHOLE DAMN WORLD. The aforementioned lesbian vampire nuns appear in vol. 1 (strictly speaking, nothing’s mentioned about them being lesbians, but I bet that particular bit was cut out by the editors, blast their eyes), as do a blistering series of adventures which continue throughout the two novels - sword fights , foiling villainous plots, narrow escapes from being sacrificed, eaten alive, etc., all with a female protagonist who has no trouble thrashing the opposition and frustrating their knavish tricks, sometimes while wearing (not very many) clothes, sometimes not, according to the God-Emperor’s whims. While his language isn’t as OTT as, say, Lin Carter’s, Andrew certainly does pay a great deal of attention to his descriptions of the female form, and War of The Wizards gives him ample (tee hee!) opportunities to do so.

“Great standing breasts, large and firm as melons”

“Short britches molded and revealed her luscious formations”

“Flaunting her deep full chest with arms akimbo”

“Tiana felt warmth in her leather-clad bottom, and it was pleasant”

“...the rounded thighs crowding her snug short breeks, the full perfect breasts so displayed”

“...the jiggle and bounce of her half displayed bosom”

You get the idea. Evidently, AJOGHOH really liked writing about boobs; luckily, I really like reading about ‘em, so that’s fine. I wonder who first coined the phrase ‘bi-lobate chest’, Mr Offutt or Robert Jordan, too; on the face of it, bosoms that resemble a huge pair of ears don’t really sound that appealing, but apparently it just means ‘divided into two lobes’. Enrich your word power the Cimmerian way.

Andrew’s Conan books are pretty superior, to be honest, massive amounts of sex withstanding – he doesn’t treat the man himself as a braying lunk who just slaughters everything in his path, which is always a temptation for the pressed-for-time S&S author. I do have a load of the Thieves’ World books, too, which I did like a lot – I may deal with those at a later date, although they’re slightly outside my pulpy remit. What I will get ahold of, 2^nd hand price tag of nearly £13 notwithstanding, is Ardor on Aros, a Sword & Planet adventure which is (apparently) the first to feature overt sex. Gor was a bit of a letdown for me, but I trust the God-Emperor to succeed where Wonder Norm failed.

His son, Chris Offutt, revealed in a blog post (which, sadly, I can’t find) that Andrew used to recite his stories to the kids to keep them entertained during long car journeys, with Mrs. Offutt giving him a gentle slap when things got too lively for impressionable young minds. Certainly whacks the kak out of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, doesn’t it, especially if he started off with (say) Satana Enslaved...

Well, that’s your lot. Happy new year, and I’ll return in January with a juicy big dollop of Thongor for you.

Argon’s Other Eye Part 2 – Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman!

This week, we are intimately examining Kothar. Rubber gloves on! Kothar, in the grand tradition of mighty fantasy heroes with names beginning with a ‘K’ or ‘C’, is a savage wolf of a warrior from the frozen Northlands, Cumberia to be exact; Barrorowrow in Furnernernerness to be even more exact. He is a creation of the great Gardner F. Fox, and a totally original creation, too, or my name isn’t Howard E. Roberts.

Gardner started work in comics (actually, he seems to have started work as a lawyer – I am not honestly sure how he ended up moving from legal practice to writing Superman stories, but there you are) and seems also to have written a fair number of intriguing-sounding works, according to this biog, which my usual hours of painstaking research have somehow managed to tease out of the archive.  Five Kothar books, four Kyrik books (we’ll return to Kyrik later), numerous other sci-fi one/two shotters and number of slightly odd-sounding books in a series called ‘Lady from L.U.S.T’. L.U.S.T., apparently, stands for ‘League of Undercover Spies and Terrorists’ and the books themselves are full of late ‘60s wholesome spy-themed porny goodness, by the looks of things. I am determined to get hold of a copy of ‘The Hot Mahatma’, come what may, but getting back to the subject, this particular part of his oeuvre came about thus.

Gardner was sitting in his office, rubbing his hands up and down his flared nylon slacks and giving his secretary electric shocks, when the phone rang. It was his editor at Belmont books, who said ‘Hey, Fawx! Gimme five t’ousand woids on Koh-nyaaan!’ (that’s how people speak in New York), so Gardner, pausing only to smoke a pipe and have a belt from the bottle of Jameson’s in his desk draw (or possibly munch a handful of goji berries and fire up the mindfulness app on his iPhone for a couple of minutes), got down to it and gave him five thousand goddam words on goddam Conan.

While the result is... kinda derivative (actually, more than kinda – there are several bits that I’m pretty sure have been ‘adapted’ wholesale from Conan stories), Gardner certainly knows how to put together a story, and does it without any mucking about or thesaurus molestation, unlike some other authors I could name. His hero gropes tavern wenches, chops people’s limbs off and goes up against the obligatory sexy sorceress in a series of thrilling adventures, nicely paced and full of blood-soaked, furry-kilted action, and is also kind to his horse.

Kothar does appear on the famous Appendix N list in the original AD&D DMG – the lich in the first story must have been an influence, as others have pointed out, and there are also animated skeletons, healing powders/potions and so on. One main difference is that Kothar cannot keep any of the treasures he (inevitably) wins because of a curse that’s been placed on this sword. Try doing that in your game and expect to be defenestrated by your players at the end of the session. They might be mollified if you gave them the chance to pinch an imaginary waitress’ bottom instead of receiving a king’s ransom in equally imaginary gold coins; probably not, though, unless you’re running a particularly hairy-palmed campaign.

This book is therefore recommended to you – it’s cheesy, fun and doesn’t take long to read. Make sure you skip Donald McIver, Phd’s introduction

The next bumper holiday edition of Argon’s Other Eye will be an ANDREW J. OFFUT SPECIAL!

Argon’s Other Eye 1 – Prisoner of the Horned Helmet!

As the title of this blog suggests, this particular story is our lord and master and we must sacrifice opaque nosed harlots (with stringy orchid hair) to it as often as circumstances permit. Alternatively, sacrifice it to opaque nosed harlots; if the card  Madam Flaybuttock has in the telephone box reads ‘All CCs and Eye of Argon accepted’, then rejoice, rejoice, for a whole new world of excruciating delights is now YOURS.

Anyway, if you’re sitting comfortably (probably not, if Madam has been doing her job properly), I’ll begin.

Prisoner of The Horned Helmet (or to give it its full title, Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer Book 1: Prisoner of the Horned Helmet) is a novel by James Silke, with the picture of the same name (also a Molly Hatchett album cover and something to do with the US Army’s 4^th Infantry Division as well) on the back cover. Extensive and painstaking research on my part appears to suggest that James Silke is a comic/pinup artist (i.e. typing his name into Google brings up a slew of pictures of semi-clad women, which is better than bad. I would quite like to read ‘Bettie Page: Queen of the Nile’, as well). Like the fantastic Gardner F. Fox, who also worked in comics, I think this lends a certain flavour to his work.

Overall, Prisoner... has all the classic elements - a hulking great barbarian hero (Gath), evil cultists, sexy sorceresses and so on. The baddies are Kitzakks, unstoppable fantasy-Mongol slavers (boo!) and problem solvers in the service of the Butterfly Goddess (as in the old WW1 marching song, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kitzakk). Not the most intimidating of deities, on the face of it, but luckily, there’s a Lord of Death as well, who the sexy sorceress works for. There’s also a Wheel of Time style gleeman and a 17 year old trainee complementary medicine practioner (Robin), who acts as the female love interest, when the barbarian can tear himself away from the sorceress. And (not that I want to give up too much plot specific info, but...) yes, there is a horned helmet, and yes, someone does end up as its prisoner, as you might reasonably expect.

The names are odd. A warlord called Klang? A priest called Dang-Ling of Bahaara? Two champions called Trang and Chornbott? Klang, at least, passes the ‘Kneel Before’ test (You are dragged, your hands bound and your recently-inflicted wounds still dripping blood, into the fetish-festooned yurt of the Nomad King. Your guards shove you forward, laughing and cursing as you stumble across the floor, then swing their spear-shafts into the back of your knees, knocking you to the ground while yelling ‘KNEEL BEFORE...’). ‘Kneel Before Klang’ works; ‘Kneel Before Keith’ wouldn’t, unless you’re writing a different sort of story entirely. Overall, the effect is somewhat like being trapped on a world where everyone names themselves using filler words in doo-wop songs (Rama-lama Klang Dang Ling of Bahaara!). Plus the three gleemen – Brown John and his sons Bone and Dirken, who sound like actors in a hopefully illegal 70s gay porn film.

Speaking of which, this is one of those books where, if you’re female, you will end up with no clothes on at least twice per chapter. We learn, fairly early on, that the sorceress has breasts like soft prisoners, yearning to break free. Robin, on the other hand, has breasts as smooth and warm and plump as river washed pebbles. I have never seen a plump pebble; then again, I’ve never seen a soft prisoner either. I can’t imagine whispering ‘Oh darling, you have tits like pebbles’ in your beloved’s ear would be terribly popular, but I’m willing to put that to the test. Watch this space. There is also pubic hair based alchemy, which gives rise (snigger) to a fairly extraordinary passage where, having anointed their genitals with a magic paste to attract Gath to them (?!) Trang and Chornbott charge into battle radiating streaking spears of white light from an eerie glow at their groins. That rather puts me in mind of Old Gregg, which is probably not the effect that the author was after.

Also, this bit needs quoting in full (Tor books missed a trick by not adding italics and caps to the last sentence, so I’ve done it myself)

‘Gath stepped out of the enveloping darkness, like a sword drawn from a scabbard. He was darker than she remembered. More brutal. Hard dry scabs were turning into scar tissue. His fur loincloth bristled slightly in the breeze. A new suit of chain mail, his belt and a Kitzaak helmet were slung over his shoulder. A bright steel axe rode his right fist. His chiselled features were mottled with dark shadows, and wore an expression of dark invitation. To a bed of MURDER!!!!’

If you’re not paying attention, it’s all too easy to mistake Gath’s slightly bristly loincloth for your front doormat, say, but for goodness’ sake don’t go carelessly wiping your feet on a barbarian’s crotch, as it really isn’t safe.

Right. Public safety announcement out of the way. All in all, what with beds of murder, soft prisoners, glowing crotches and Brown Johns, I’m pleasantly exhausted, and there are four more books to go! Yippee!

Next time, either Kothar or an Andrew J. Offutt omnibus. We’ll see.