Conan Well Captured: Conan: City of the Dead by John C. Hocking

Conan: City of the Dead (Titan Books, June 18, 2024). Illustrations by Richard Pace

John C. Hocking’s (1960 -) Conan and the Emerald Lotus came along in 1995, near the end of the Tor Conan pastiche series of books. I’d read a lot of pastiches early but by ’95 was burned out on them and stopped picking up the new ones. So I never read Hocking’s entry. Until now.

In 2024, Titan Books published Conan City of the Dead, by Hocking. It contained Conan and the Emerald Lotus, and a second pastiche called Conan and the Living Plague. Hocking had written Living Plague under contract with Conan Properties, but when the ownership changed hands, the book fell into a limbo that lasted some 25 years.

The wait must have been agonizing for Hocking, but the result was a very nice hardcover printing of both his books together, with some neat interior illustrations by Richard Pace. The cover art is uncredited.

Conan and the Emerald Lotus (Tor reprint edition, September 1999). Cover by Ken Kelly

I enjoyed both these books. The writing is good and tight, and the character of Conan is well captured. I liked that we see Conan as a highly intelligent fellow as well as a physically intimidating one. I liked a few scenes where it showed Conan having the good sense to “run” from a danger that he had no way to fight at the moment.

Overall, I liked Emerald Lotus a little more than Living Plague, although the ending to Living Plague was very cool. The idea for the villain in Living Plague was also excellent — I won’t give it away — but I’d like to have gotten to know that villain a little more despite its alienness.

I believe these are the only two novels that Hocking has published, although he has a number of short story publications as well featuring his original characters. Based on the strength of these books, I’ll be looking for his stories.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was a look at the Kyrik and Kothar novels by Gardner F. Fox.