Robert E. Howard 45 min read

'Peril hides in the house of Aram Baksh,' a wiry nomad croaks, clawing at Conan's mighty arm, in the exotic, clamorous, many-colored streets of Zamboula, where a drum begins to beat.

Robert E. Howard's 1935 story is a vivid, atmospheric Conan sword-and-sorcery adventure. Savage, colorful, superbly told. Read it for prime Conan, a night of danger in a sinister hybrid city, with cannibals, sorcery, and a fierce dancing girl, from the master of heroic fantasy.

In its time

Published in 1935, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

45 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).