Conan and the Spider God

Conan and the Spider God
Conan and the Spider God by L. Sprague de Camp, Bantam Books, 1980
Author(s)	L. Sprague de Camp
Illustrator	Tim Kirk
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Conan the Barbarian
Genre(s)	Sword and sorcery Fantasy novel
Publisher	Bantam Books
Publication date	1980
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	175 pp
ISBN	0553138375
OCLC Number	7052128

Conan and the Spider God is a fantasy novel written by L. Sprague de Camp featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Bantam Books in December 1980; later paperback editions were issued by Ace Books (April 1989, reprinted August 1991) and Tor Books (June 2003). The first hardcover edition was issued by Robert Hale in 1984, and the second by Tor Books in 2002. It was later gathered together with Conan the Swordsman and Conan the Liberator into the omnibus trade paperback collection Sagas of Conan (Tor Books, 2004).

Conan and the Spider God is unique among de Camp's contributions to the saga in that it is the only fictional Conan work he wrote without collaborators. Most of his Conan stories were written with Howard (posthumously), Lin Carter, and Björn Nyberg. De Camp also wrote numerous non-fiction pieces about Conan and Howard, both alone and with others.

Plot summary

Conan finds himself in the kingdom of Zamora, a fugitive under suspicion of kidnapping Jamilah, the wife of the king of Turan. Discovering she has actually been taken by devotees of the Zamoran spider god, he sets out for the city of Yezud to rescue the captive, and incidentally steal the opals set as eyes in the god's temple image.

Characteristically, de Camp's Conan is a more credible if less elemental figure than Howard's, carefully assessing the situation in Yezud and taking the time and effort to lay the groundwork for his foray rather than just barreling in swinging his sword.

Chronologically, Conan and the Spider God comes between the short stories "The Curse of the Monolith" and "The Blood-Stained God".

Comic adaptations

Marvel Comics published a comic adaptation of the book between issues #207^[1] and #210^[2] of the black and white comic magazine The Savage Sword of Conan in 1993. Marvel would then publish a follow up story in a three issue mini-series called Conan: The Lord of the Spiders in 1998^[3].

References

1. ^ http://www.comics.org/issue/174807/
2. ^ http://www.comics.org/issue/174810/
3. ^ http://www.comics.org/series/10249/

• Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller. p. 36. 
• Conan and the Spider God publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database