Brak the Barbarian Versus the Sorceress

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Brak the Barbarian, trying to reach the rich lands of the far south, becomes mired in a local dispute between the lord and a sorceress. But maybe she has a link to his past after all?

Review
Most people are familiar with John Jakes through his historical novels, which I haven't read. I came to him through his 1969 short novel, Secrets of Stardeep, which I read as a child, and loved. I'm afraid the rest of his SFF work just isn't as good.

This second Brak novel was published in 1969, the same year as Stardeep, but you'd be hard pressed to believe it's the same author. While Stardeep was sensitive and reasonably subtle, this is a straight, and not very successful homage to Robert Howard's Conan stories. While I think that Jakes tries here to make Brak more believable, the result is that he's constantly stumbling into trouble, being captured, and escaping more through luck than prowess or wit. Other tropes of the genre – mysterious, poorly clad women, sorcerors, creatures, etc – are standard and unsurprising.

Much as I've tried to believe in Jakes, I'm starting to think Stardeep was the fluke. This novel is readable, but repetitive and simply not very innovative or interesting.

Opprobrium to Open Road Media for publishing this second book in a joint volume with the fourth book and two random Brak stories. Why didn't they publish 1 and 2 together, 3 and 4 together, and 5 with the shorter stories?