After finishing up the first three of Robert Jordan’s Conan novels in June, I noticed that Poul Anderson had also written a pastiche titled Conan the Rebel that was published in 1980. Having this name behind it alone had my interest but my interest was drawn further upon learning it was set during Conan’s time with Bêlit in Queen of the Black Coast. I found an old paperback for a reasonable enough price and quickly read through it just recently.
Before the review, let me get a minor annoyance out of the way that has nothing to do with the contents of the novel. I get a bit frustrated at times with item descriptions for used books. This one was described as being in “very good” condition which it certainly wasn’t by the definitions booksellers use. I don’t expect a paperback that is over forty years old to be perfect but this was in fair to good condition at best. The spine is damaged, the pages are yellowed and there are creases everywhere but it was not so bad that it was worth going through the hassle of returning it. I just wish sellers would be more honest. As it happens, this didn’t turn out to be any sort of gem I’ll hold onto so ultimately, it doesn’t matter.
Now onto the review.
As mentioned, the book is set during Conan’s time sailing with Bêlit in one of Robert E. Howard’s most well-known short stories. Even for a short story, this one was short and can be comfortably read in under an hour. There is very little backstory to Bêlit but certainly enough for a clever writer to work more in. It is stated to be set between Chapters 1 and 2, the opening to Chapter 2 is really where room is allowed for further story:
The Tigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tomtoms beat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found a mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. And survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Bêlit with curses, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
The above simply indicates that Conan sailed with Bêlit for an indeterminate but lengthy enough time before the last tragic adventure that is Howard’s focus in Queen of the Black Coast. Nothing in Howard’s original indicates that she is interested in anything but plunder as pirates are want to be. Indeed, it is the pursuit of treasure that leads to her demise beyond the poisonous Zarkheba river. Knowing this makes the direction Anderson takes the character rather incongruous.
There is an increasing trend in modern media to take evil or unpleasant characters and fashion a story that shows them to be maligned in some way in their past. Some examples would be the film Maleficent which I’ve not seen but I understand gives a more sympathetic backstory to the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty. I also vaguely remember reading Wide Sargasso Sea in university which gives a sympathetic backstory to the mad Mrs Rochester from Jane Eyre. There are many others but I can’t say I approve of them simply because a woman that behaves like an evil witch, is an evil witch; no matter how she came to be that way. Bêlit is a ruthless pirate and behaves like a ruthless pirate and how she came to be one might explain — but never justify — what she is.
Nonetheless, for the limited time she actually appears in this novel (something I’ll come back to later), she gives a backstory of how she came to be the infamous pirate though this story contradicts the little learned about her in Howard’s tale. In Chapter III of Conan the Rebel, Bêlit directly narrates her backstory, telling Conan she was brought up among the Suba tribe on the Black Coast though her parents were Shemites. She had an older brother named Jehanan (who appears in this story), and we also learn that she was married and had a child. This happy life is brought to an end when the village is attacked by Stygians, her parents are killed and Bêlit and her brother are enslaved along with much of the tribe. She later escapes, returns to the remnants of the Suba and takes up the life of a pirate to seek vengeance against Stygians.
As best I can tell, this is all drawn from the next paragraph that follows the one quoted above:
The Tigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tomtoms beat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found a mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. And survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Bêlit with curses, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
The bolded sections are presumably what Anderson uses to connect his story with the original. The problem is that this would only indicate Bêlit’s Tigress attacked Stygian ships that sailed the Black Coast but there is no indication it was for anything but plunder. Bêlit says nothing about having any special hatred for Stygians in the story. Conan first hears of her from Master Tito of the Argosean ship she soon attacks where he introduces her as:
‘The wildest she-devil unhanged. Unless I read the signs a-wrong, it was her butchers who destroyed that village on the bay. May I some day see her dangling from the yard-arm! She is called the queen of the black coast. She is a Shemite woman, who leads black raiders. They harry the shipping and have sent many a good tradesman to the bottom.’
That those villages were similar to her Suba and that she soon attacks a ship from Argos further demonstrates her piracy was hardly exclusive to Stygia. So she is simply a ruthless pirate after plunder who is just as happy to attack innocent villages, Stygian shipping and the ship from Argos where Conan has his fateful encounter with the Queen of the Black Coast. And even Conan, had he not impressed her with the “fighting-madness of his race”, would have just been another victim of her piracy.
Conan the Rebel begins more typically by introducing an evil sorcerer and worshipper of Set named Tothapis who receives a prophetic warning about Conan and Bêlit and the danger they present to the Stygian serpent god and his followers. He, along with a sorceress named Nehekba are the main antagonists of the story. Bêlit learns soon after unburdening her contradictory backstory to Conan, that her brother Jehanan still lives through a prisoner named Otanis they capture after raiding a Stygian merchantman.
Conan is then tasked with seeking out Jehanan with Otanis as a guide. It is from here that Bêlit leaves the narrative for most of the remainder of the novel. It is also from here that the novel becomes very similar to those I recently read by Robert Jordan with him fighting against an evil sorcerer and making a few friends along the way. The novel ends with a raid on Stygian ships at a port that is supposed to explain the “survivors of butchered Stygian ships” line from Howard though I’m sure this line simply meant her piracy was notorious among the Stygians.
While it is well-written and entertaining, it really was a wasted opportunity not to expand on Conan’s adventures with Bêlit. The only redeeming aspect of her character is her genuine love for Conan and this was not explored at all. Bêlit’s presence even as a background character actually hinders the story as a potential love interest for Conan named Daris is necessarily kept at a distance; despite a mutual attraction so as not to contradict the already contradicted Queen of the Black Coast. As I have said, it is still an entertaining little novel but one that has enough for it to work much better as another standalone novel about Conan vanquishing yet another evil sorcerer. Most fans of sword and sorcery are just fine with this and so Anderson had no need to try and gild the lily.