Trail of the Blood Stained God/The Blood Stained God

[CoonDogBo]

This review is bout the DeCamp adaptation of the Kirby O'Donnell tale Trail of the Blood Stained God. DeCamp shortened the title
to The Blood Stained God.  Been awhile since I did one of these so bear with me ye faithful. A long time ago I read the O'Donnell
story and enjoyed it. I remembered it as being a bit longer but I could have been mistaken or maybe Sprague shortened it a bit.

Well, the bottom line, I enjoyed it.  It was full of action and the transition to Conan seemed pretty smooth. I think Sprague
added a bit of a supernatural ending to it but it worked well.  I think most fans of Howard's Conan would like this also. Yes, I know some feel everything DeCamp touched is poison but I disagree.  Overall I think he did a fairly good job with our Barbarian friend and occasionally really produced a gem. This one comes close.  Of course It is a Howard tale after all and one that isn't so far removed
from Conan in most respects. Kirby O'Donnell was a very cool character in his own right and I sure wish there had been a couple more. For those unfamiliar to the character I would describe him as a cross between El Borak and Conan.  A little bit of both characters in that he is a fortune hunter and thief like Conan and an American adventuring in the orient like El Borak.

The tale could be described as something of an "interlude" in Conan's adventures. He and several other totally rotten characters
search and backstab and fight their way to an incredibly ancient temple that the locals avoid like the plague. A golden, gem crusted
Idol is displayed within and our happy band of disreputes want it desperately. No one trusts any of the others in the search party
and there is a merry chase involving four different parties all seeking the treasure.  I count Conan and his "friend" as two parties
cause they are truly only allied due to circumstances. 

The story is very fast paced, filled with violence from the word go and chock fun gnarly dudes more than willing to carve out their
own mother's heart for a pack of cigarettes...ha.  Of course it all ends badly for all of them including Conan. At least he survives
the affair with life and limb reasonably intact.  Yes, there is a horrible manifestation at the end and DeCamp handles it fairly well
although he doesn't waste a lot of words on the closing act...to a fault IMO.  All in all its a good one, I had a rousing good time!

[samarobrin]

I made a legal redline of the Lancer and non-LSdC versions of the CONAN stories, to detect exactly what changes were made from the originals.  If you, or anyone else reading, would like a copy, PM me your e-mail and I'll bounce one over.

[johnnypt]

I just reread the original this morning. While I think Kirby O'Donnell leans more towards Indiana Jones than Conan (or El Borak for that matter), I did see some resemblances in this story to Servants of Bit-Yakin/Jewels of Gwahlur, especially with what happened to the treasure.

While rereading all the O'Donnell stories, I also noticed was certainly a lot of bleedover in this era between the desert adventures of O'Donnell & Gordon and the latter Conan stories (Devil in Iron forward), which makes it odd that DeCamp rewrote it to take place so early in Conan's career. Then again, he thought all of Howard's characters were interchangeable...(Note-the fact that Howard himself rewrote a number of stories converting one character into another did give DeCamp some basis for doing what he did, but his reasoning for doing so wasn't necessarily putting the best character into the proper story).

[themirrorthief]

Howards characters do seem interchangeable because they are all GREAT

[BlackHeart]

They were forge from the same iron - thats why its not that hard to revrite some non-Conan yarn into one. Same formula, to be exact, but every REH character has some unique diference wich made them so great 😎

Story it self is good - one of the better revrites by the hand of De Camp. But, somehow, end of it wasnt that much special, being that it was regular monster - just one more obstacle to overrun - developed. It needed something more primal, more cosmic and complicated. Remember Xutal of Dusk? That was poverfull higher dimensional stuff. Khosatral Kell, also, was powerfull foe.
Blood stained God needed something more grander, but story overall was good written and developed. Nice read wich I recomend to all Conan fans.

[themirrorthief]

de camp was a good writer...it a weird way he wrote like Howard and I cant explain that...I think they had a similar sense of humor or something. I am not an anti de camp guy at all. In some ways I think he got Conan but of course no one is as good as Howard was, especially when seen from the perspective of overall body of work