"'He will make sure of the whole country. Maybe afterward his own people will colonize the waste he leaves.'" (p. 189)
This is dialogue in a fantasy novel. We quote it here for any contemporary relevance that it might have.
Ordinary military strategy combines with fantasy as Conan leads the rebels while wielding a supernaturally powered Ax. A village has been obliterated. Its inhabitants had not been warned to flee because a massacre had not been expected. The King leads the massive invading army. So this is going to be a final showdown. Chapter XIX describes the battle and XX concludes the novel. Another narrative will shortly be complete. Readers can move in either of two directions: either stay with Conan, as rendered by other authors, or stay with Poul Anderson, writing about other characters.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I recently started rereading VAULT OF THE AGES, so I will stick with Anderson and Stirling for now. But I do have a collection of some of Howard's original Conan stories, so reading these is also possible.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that the Stygian strategy is actually quite rational -- ruling over an ethnically and culturally distinct country is always sort of problematic. It's much safer to assimilate and/or wipe them out. The Romans did both, and it's one of the reasons Rome lasted so long -- not to mention that so many people now speak languages derived from Latin.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And the invading Lann in VAULT originally had similar plans, kill or drive out the Dalesmen.
Ad astra! Sean
For that matter, settlers from what's now the Netherlands arrived in Britain in 2500 BCE -- and within a few centuries there was a 93%+ genetic turnover in populations.
They even looked different; the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain turn out to be of Anatolian descent, lightly seasoned through interbreeding with Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The newcomers were tall and fair, and established the base population of the British Isles.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Not in the least surprised there was such a drastic turnover in population. Kill or drive out the original tribes.
Ad astra! Sean
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