Conan the Usurper

Conan the Usurper is a 1967 collection of four fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories originally appeared in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s. The book has been reprinted a number of times since by various publishers, and has also been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Dutch.

Contents

Plot summary

Conan, about forty in these stories, embarks on the most desperate gamble of his life — leading a revolution against King Numedides of Aquilonia, with the end of making himself king in his place. From his low point as a treasure-seeking fugitive in the Pictish Wilderness, he is retrieved by allies from his days in the Aquilonian army to lead the revolt. The borderlands suffer grievously during the war, but in the end Conan takes the throne, only to suffer the customary uneasiness of the head that wears the crown, from an attempted assassination involving Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon to magical treachery on the battlefield as he strives to defend his hard-won kingship against predatory foreign powers.