Rating: 
Summary: Thank you for ruining Conan.
Review: This has to be the worst Conan book ever written. After reading the book, I have to wonder if Mr. Turtledove ever actually read a Conan book. He totally messes up on the entire idea of Cimmerians, having them live in towns!!!! Any one with any idea of the Conan mythos knows that the Cimmerians were a semi nomadic people. He also goes against the set ideas of Conan's parents, making his father a (blacksmith the only right part) natural part of the tribe (more like city) and his mother a practical sick invalid. Also, to make matters even worse, in what I feel is the biggest insult to Robert Howard and the countless other writers who have painstakingly developed the Conan series to what it is today, he makes the Cimmerians live under occupation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No Cimmerian would ever live under any type of yoke. Conan also forsakes Crom in the story and uses poisoned weapons another huge mistake turtledove incorporates into HIS Conan, and I say HIS for any true Conan fan would know that this is not the real Conan being depicted. On top of all the insulting depictions of Conan, the book is poorly written, with battle scenes being quick, tepid, and not at all detailed. Do yourself a favor and pick up any of TOR's other Conan books and stay away from this piece of garbage unless you want to make yourself purposely mad.
Rating:
Summary: WORST CONAN EVER!!!
Review: This is by far the worst Conan book that I have read, no contest; it's so bad it's laughable.
The author must have been sitting at home, eating popcorn watching Mel Gibson in Bravehart, and thought, "This would make a great Conan Story, sure changes some stuff so as to not have to pay royalties to the producers, but why not!" Why is it so bad?
1. Conan and his people are barbarians (think early Viking, Visigoths, Huns, etc.), but the Author has them living in a village straight out of the late middle ages, they have streets, they have multi room houses (many frontier American log cabins as well as most European peasants had single room homes well into the 19th century), they have a black smith with a bellows forge (middle ages tech), and their homes are thatched roofed, (yes, thatched, not animal skin, sod, or timber, but thatch, wrong climate and tech for barbarians). "Say, Conan, could you shovel the two tons of snow out of the living room--- again".
2. The Barbarians, have a tight laced Victorian morals (no really, you didn't know that well---) It seems that a people who have a life expectancy of no more than 30 years, were most girls would be married and have kids by their mid teens, well these Barbarians get all up tight about a 14 year old girl and a Count, (The author brings this up again and again, it's a central plot element).
3. Conan, the hard fighting, hard drinking, hard whenching Barbarian hero, in this book is so shy he's afraid to talk to the village girl he's sweet on. (No stop laughing, it gets even weirder). Conan's character it seems is the creepy Bates guy straight out the movie Psycho, "Yes, Mother. Can I get you anything Mother? Let me do that for you MOTHER!" can we say obsequious!
4. It seems that people while engaged in melee combat have the time, (and breath) to engage in long polite discussions with their opponents and friends, the battle scenes are the worst and least credible I have read, period. (Perhaps, the author should have been watching Russell Crow, in Gladiator, would have helped him more than Mel did.)
5. Conan's mother is dieing from a lung illness, (sounds like tuberculosis), she's been dieing for years we are told, she's in the end stage of the disease, she goes though another sub artic winter, and another, and another and just lives on!!!! (A person with TB confined to an early 20th century sanitarium with the best treatment would probably have had a life expectancy of only a few weeks given her symptoms, what an amazing miracle!)
6. The dialog doesn't flow all that well, and there are just soooooo many other logic and technical problems in this book, that its really just that bad!
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre at best
Review: This is the book that has finally made me give up on trying to read Turtledove. I loved his World War books (although they lasted longer than I cared for) and I kept hoping that he would write some comparable fantasy. I tried some of his older fantasy works and found them a bit dry. I tried reading his latest fantasy novels but I can't stand the mixing of fantasy with science. Then I saw that he was going to do a Conan novel. I love Conan stories and was excited to see such a well-regarded writer trying his hand at one. I was disappointed to say the least. While the writing is decent from a technical standpoint, I found that it was totally lacking in the flavor that I had come to expect from a Conan novel. Some story elements were very cliched. Other things, such as Conan's encounter in a abandoned temple, seemed totally out of place in the story as a whole. I also thought that several things in the novel conflicted with what has already been written by Howard about Conan's teen years. If you love Robert E. Howard's writing, don't waste your time with this book. On the other hand, if you don't know who that is, you might find this a passable read.
Rating:
Summary: This is not Conan!!!!!
Review: This, in my opinion, is one of the best Conan novels. As far as Conan stories go, this one is the one with the greatest amount of dramatic and emotional elements. I'm not saying I don't like it when Conan stories aren't all that meaningful. I do like the ones that aren't meaningful and are just plain fun adventures in exotic locations. That type of meaningless fun is what I expect and want from a Conan story. I pre-ordered the book before it came out, not because it seemed like it would be a good Conan novel, but because a new Conan story has not been written in a while and it seemed that the Conan series couldn't afford to have it's newest novel not do well if it wanted to survive. I didn't read it until November, which was about 5 or 6 months after I got it in the mail. It took me that long to get around to reading it because the concept of a story about Conan's childhood didn't interest me at all. But after having given it a chance, it actually is a very good Conan story, although it doesn't have that characteristically Conan feel, being that it takes place in Conan's childhood, with a dramatic story and he doesn't have an adventure until the end of the book, and even then it's not that type of fun Conan sword and sorcery adventure.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best Conan novels
Review: This, in my opinion, is one of the best Conan novels. As far as Conan stories go, this one is the one with the greatest amount of dramatic and emotional elements. I'm not saying I don't like it when Conan stories aren't all that meaningful. I do like the ones that aren't meaningful and are just plain fun adventures in exotic locations. That type of meaningless fun is what I expect and want from a Conan story. I pre-ordered the book before it came out, not because it seemed like it would be a good Conan novel, but because a new Conan story has not been written in a while and it seemed that the Conan series couldn't afford to have it's newest novel not do well if it wanted to survive. I didn't read it until November, which was about 5 or 6 months after I got it in the mail. It took me that long to get around to reading it because the concept of a story about Conan's childhood didn't interest me at all. But after having given it a chance, it actually is a very good Conan story, although it doesn't have that characteristically Conan feel, being that it takes place in Conan's childhood, with a dramatic story and he doesn't have an adventure until the end of the book, and even then it's not that type of fun Conan sword and sorcery adventure.
Rating:
Summary: Very good stab
Review: Turtledove made a very good stab at the Conan legend with this work. Oft told of in passing (that young Conan was at the Sack of Venarium) turtledove uses his usual forumla....telling the tale from opposing sides of a conflict, here from Aquilonian invaders + settlers (akin to British Imperialism) and the Cimmerian barbarians....rude and clannish. His knowledge of Conan mythos is good (down the the Asura religion & boats references) and I enjoyed this tale a great deal.
It was at least a bit original.
Conan's mother slowly dying was almost too close to home, ala Howards aling mother....etc. Great touch
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