The name John Maddox Roberts (1947 – ) first came to my attention as a writer of Conan sword & sorcery pastiches from Tor. He wrote eight, and when I talk to other REH fans Roberts’ name is almost always listed near the top of the Conan pastiche writers.

Of the pastiches that were published by Tor between 1982 and 2004, I’d have to agree, although I like the earlier pastiches by Andy Offutt and Karl Edward Wagner better.

Roberts’ pastiches were:

Conan the Valorous — 1985 (Boris or Les Edwards cover)
Conan the Champion — 1987 (Ken Kelly cover)
Conan the Marauder — 1988 (Ken Kelly cover)
Conan the Bold — 1989 (Ken Kelly cover)
Conan the Rogue — 1991 (Ken Kelly cover)
Conan and the Treasure of Python — 1993 (Julie Bell Cover)
Conan and the Manhunters — 1994 (Ken Kelly cover)
Conan and the Amazon — 1995 (Ken Kelly cover)

Some quick notes on the books. I’ve read all but The Champion, which I don’t own. There’s some confusion about the Conan the Valorous cover. My copy lists Boris as the artist inside but there’s no signature and it doesn’t look like Boris to me. Another source claims Les Edwards as the artist and I suspect that’s correct.

As for plots and details, Conan the Rogue is a retelling of A Fistful of Dollars, which was a retelling of Yojimbo, a Samuri movie by Akira Kurosawa. Overall, Roberts’ Conan is more controlled and less impetuous than REH’s Cimmerian at this early time in his career. However, Roberts catches the “barbaric” strain of the character better than any of the other TOR pastichers.

All the TOR Conans are a little too long, including these. That’s probably not the authors’ fault, since I imagine they had pretty specific word counts to hit. I think that sword and sorcery works best at novella length.

Years before I read my first John Maddox Roberts Conan pastiche, I read a violent series about a crusader named Draco Falcon, written by an author named Mark Ramsay. This was certainly not Sword & Planet, nor even Sword & Sorcery. It was/is historical fiction in the tradition of Harold Lamb and Talbot Mundy, though with a bit more adult content. It featured a young knight named Draco Falcon who returns from a crusade to the Holy Land to seek vengeance on those who betrayed him there.

Mark Ramsay turned out to be a pseudonym for John Maddox Roberts. The four books in the series, all from Signet, are:

The Falcon Strikes, 1982
The Black Pope, 1982
The Bloody Cross, 1982
The King’s Treasure, 1983

I was unable to find any information about the cover artists. They look as if they could have all been done by the same person.

Signet certainly intended to continue the series. In the back of Book #4 is a teaser chapter for a Book #5, which was to be entitled Greek Fire. It never happened and I don’t know why. I wish it had. The series has the feel of authentic history (exaggerated, of course), and is quite brutal and full of battles. Draco himself is a Conan type figure, although less of a loner.

I have several more of Roberts’ books in my collection and will probably get around to reading them one day. The only other one I’ve read is King of the Wood, which is an alternate history in which North America has been settled by Vikings, Mongols, and other old-world populations. I classify it as sword & sorcery and liked it pretty well.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a review of Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.