Okay,I was quite able to see "The Malteese Falcon."Where dose "A fistful of dollars "come in?
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here are a collection of sections of several REVIEWS of ROGUE which u should find interesting + usefull. [ i collected them from sites like amazon + barnes+noble over 2 years ago when i was researching all the tor books. i had forgotten about my old notes till now. please look up the full reviews when u get time? my sincere thanks to all the reviewers whose work is shown as samples below...]
>>[[ Rogue sample reviews..
Everyone in the corrupt city of Sicas wants the priceless treasure Conan of Cimmeria has come there to find. Beautiful women who offer smiles, kisses--and maybe a knife in the back. A priest who may be closer to his goddess than he thinks. Noble lords, and the bosses of criminal gangs, and a fop whose perfumed kerchief may hide poison. All are willing to kill for the artifact, but none realize the horror in can unleash, a hellish menace that only one man can face.
others compared this book to "The Maltese Falcon" -- I'm thinking it's much closer to "A Fistful of Dollars." Anyone who thinks of Conan as a musclebound oaf should read this novel and watch Conan play the different elements of the town against each other. Part of the fun of the book for me was watching Conan maneuver people around, always to his advantage, along with all the signature Conan action. Highly, highly recommended.
This was a great Conan book, my favorite of all the non-Howard stories. Not your typical hack and slash adventure, but a slightly humorous tale of several rival factions that hire Conan to clean up a town (i.e. eliminate their enemies). Conan follows their instructions to the letter with results considerably different from what they intended. Playing multiple sides against each other, Conan remains master of the situation. This really shows a different side to Conan rather than the simple muscled barbarian. Plenty of action, good vivid descriptions of a town and characters that seems realistic, culminating in a decent monster battle. and a good story.
The previous reviewers were correct in noting that the book is derived heavily from "A Fistful of Dollars". Although it must be pointed out that "A Fistful of Dollars" was based on a 1961 B&W Kurosawa movie "Yojimbo" (The Bodyguard).
it was good seeing Conan in a somewhat more "brainy" role .
The in-joke is that "Fistful," like "Rogue," is inspired by "Red Harvest" -- a novel by the author of "The Maltese Falcon," Dashiell Hammett!
John Maddox Roberts does a very good job of smooshing at least two detective novels' plots into a new sword-and-sorcery story. He handles Conan himself well, too.
and remember that Robert E. Howard was writing for the pulps at the same time as Hammett, which adds to Roberts's in-joke. ]]<<
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me - i recognised fistfull of dollars when i read rogue, but i was not familiar with maltese falcon then. i have seen falcon since + agree with these reviewers. + i suspect that the last comments are from someone who knows JMR + is probably a fellow writer?
