When the Idols Walked

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Brak the barbarian, captured and enslaved, finds himself in the midst of a war of muscle and sorcery.

Review
Though written a decade later, after Jakes was already well known for his other work, this fourth Brak volume unfortunately doesn't have much more to recommend it than the second (Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress) did. It's a similar familiar pastiche of Conan-lite tropes, except the Brak is far more likely to stumble in and out of trouble than Conan. I never found myself really warming to him. There's nothing terrible here, for the genre, but also nothing really eye opening. If you're a Jakes completist, pick it up. Otherwise, you're not missing much. It may tell you something that, just days after reading this, I had trouble remembering what it was about.

As with the prior review, 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?