Conan - Conan and the Spider God

L. Sprague de Camp collaborated with Lin Carter and Bjorn Nybert to author several Conan stories. However, he only attempted one solo Conan effort, the 1980 Bantam paperback Conan and the Spider God. The novel was also published in hardcover in 1984 by Robert Hale, and reprinted twice by Ace, once in 1989 and again in 1991. Tor also published the book as a hardcover and paperback, and collected it as part of Sagas of Conan in 2004. The novel was adapted into comic form in Savage Sword of Conan #207-210 in 1993.

In the book's first few chapters, Conan is on the fugitive trail after slaying a fellow officer in the Turanian military - over a girl, of course. His quest to flee his pursuers places him on wacky adventures that essentially just fill paperback pages until de Camp settles on an actual plot. In these pages, Conan fights a swamp cat, rescues an old lady from a burning stake, and meets a blind man who utters some prophetic nonsense. The most interesting of these side quests is Conan's night with mysterious Zamorian merchants. It is in their camp that Conan discovers the men have captured King Yildiz's favorite wife, although at the time, he thinks she is just a mysterious female traveler. 

Eventually, Conan arrives in Yezud and is still being pursued by Turanian guards. It is here that the book settles into a long, boring narrative as the titular hero becomes a blacksmith, romances a woman named Rubadeh, and learns that the town's priests are divided, one half serving the King and the others serving a spider god named Zath. Conan is intrigued by the division and learns that Zath is really a giant statue of a spider, complete with gemstones representing the deity's eyes. Conan also learns that King Yildiz's wife is being held captive in a tower there guarded by a tiger. His quest is to continue infiltrating the city's political and military circumference, steal the gemstones, rescue the wife, and ride into peace and tranquility with the love of his life Rubadeh.

Obviously, there are only two real reasons to read or own de Camp's critically-panned pile of trash – Bob Larkin's Bantam paperback cover and the idea that Conan fights a large spider. Beyond those two things, the book is completely worthless (as much as it pains me to call a book disposable). This isn't Robert E. Howard's Conan. It isn't even a worthy Marvel interpretation that dominates the Tor paperback line. Instead, de Camp is making up his own version of Conan, one that cries, pines for love, debates becoming married, and is submissive to authority. This is a mere shell of Howard's nihilistic pulp hero. 

If his sympathetic and deranged take on Conan's character isn't insulting enough, de Camp even borrows entire scenes from Howard's work. In the setup to the book's finale, Conan provides spoiled meat to the tiger prowling around the base of the tower. Once the tiger “dies”, Conan scales the tower, gets the wife, and comes down only to be surprised that the tiger isn't dead. He kills it with his sword and continues on. This is from The Tower of the Elephant, in which Conan's ally Taurus blows magic lotus dust on a lion prowling the base of a tower. Conan eventually comes down from the tower and is surprised to find there is another lion there that he must kill with his sword. Same thing. The book is riddled with this stuff.

Conan and the Spider God is a boring, uninspired novel that rests securely in the basement of Conan literature. It can't possibly get any worse than this, thus earning my not-so-coveted ranking as a Hall of Shame member.

To the Dark Tower

It has taken me about six years to revisit Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994). My last experience with him, 1970s Monster From Out of Time, was unpleasant despite Frank Frazetta's promising paperback cover. Long is probably best remembered as a Lovecraft Circle member, sitting alongside other contemporary Weird Tales contributors like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, and Robert E. Howard. As part of Nick Anderson's Book Graveyard YouTube show, The Guide to Gothics, I teamed up with the host and Liminal Spaces show host Chris to discuss Long's gothic paperback, To the Dark Tower (watch HERE). It was published in 1969 by both Lancer and Magnum using Long's pseudonym of Lyda Belknap Long. Humorously, the author adds at the beginning of the book, “To the untiring help and teachings of my husband, Frank Belknap Long.” I see what you did there.

The book stars a woman named Joan, an architect who recently encountered a dark supernatural force in the Pyrenees mountains. At least she thinks she did, and her life has been plagued with visions and nightmares since then. Her lover, Dr. Allen, has invited her to his rural Kentucky home so she can talk with mental health professionals about her experiences. Joan is appreciative of the gesture, but mainly just wants to get laid.

Before Joan's introduction, Long features a young disabled man named Willie witnessing some secret meeting of witches. He later finds a voodoo doll showing Joan's face before he is murdered. Two travelers in the area experience car trouble and make their way through the forest, and discover more crazy shenanigans. When they report their account to the local police, they are killed and buried in the woods. 

To the Dark Tower then shapes up to be a wild folk horror novel where the locals all worship the Devil and kill outsiders. Remember, this is just two years after Rosemary's Baby and the start of Satanic Panic. Books like Thomas Tryon's The Other and Harvest Home were around the corner, along with William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. At least that was the idea, I think, disguised as a much safer gothic-romance or suspense book by the publisher. Unfortunately, as good as the setup is, Long fails to deliver a quality novel.

After a great beginning, Long delivers 40-50 pages of dialogue (in one room!) as the sheriff, Dr. Allen, and Joan all discuss various topics surrounding her experience in the forest, Europe, and meeting Dr. Allen's sister Helen. This is a long-winded, painful literary exercise that made me consider finishing the book, abandoning it, or simply skipping this ridiculous page padding. I skipped whole pages of this nonsense, only to find the end was nothing short of abysmal. In the finale, the author has characters reiterate what I had already read. This is a rookie mistake, not something a veteran author should be making.

To the Dark Tower is an unpleasant mess that could had the makeup of being a folk horror cornerstone. Proceed with caution; don't get this book. If you have to own it, at least throw a few cents my way by getting it HERE.

The Mystery of Sebastian Island

Oklahoma native Margaret Goff Clark (1913-2003) authored over 200 short stories, 35 one-act plays, and 24 novels, including fiction and biographies. She received her education at State Teachers College in Buffalo, New York, and then became a school teacher for five years. Her first book, The Mystery of Seneca Hill, was published in 1961, kick-starting a productive writing career focused on juvenile and young adult fiction. I love a good story, no matter the age group, genre, or ingredients. I picked up her 168-page young adult novel, The Mystery of Sebastian Island, published by Dodd, Meade, & Company in 1976.

The book's protagonist is Dena, a teenager who lives on Sebastian Island, a rural island off the coast of Maine. Eight years earlier, Dena's father died in a boating accident while fishing for lobsters. Dena spends most of her life on the island, but lives on the coast at a boarding school during the winter. As the book begins, Dena is returning home after a school break. She's anxious to see her mother, but still hasn't adjusted to her mother's new husband, a man named Paul.

Dena's return to the island involves a mystery plaguing the residents. Boats are missing, lobster traps are vanishing, and strangers have been spotted (everyone knows everyone here). There's a mystery involving Paul's charting of ships, his whereabouts during the day, and his relationship with the strangers on the island. Dena experiences a home-invasion attempt, which propels her further into the mystery.

Surprisingly, The Mystery of Sebastian Island evolves into a crime fiction novel as Dena, with her best friend, discovers heroin traffickers using the island as a shipping and receiving center. There's very little in the way of violence or gunplay, but there is a sense of adventure and escapism when the story elevates into a nautical fiction finale. The story's most engaging aspect is the character of Paul and whether Dena's mother has married a criminal or an undercover agent. 

The Mystery of Sebastian Island was a fun hour of escapism, and Clark injects a lot of atmosphere and life into these islanders. I enjoyed the book, but keep your expectations in check. Get it HERE. 

The Crash

Freida McFadden (a pseudonym whose real name is undisclosed) is one of the most prolific thriller writers working today. A practicing physician by trade, she’s built a second career cranking out short, high-concept psychological suspense novels at a pace that would make most writers collapse from exhaustion. Her books live at the intersection of airport paperbacks and late-night Kindle binges with short chapters, unreliable narrators, and twists engineered to hit like a slap across the face. 2025’s The Crash is squarely in that wheelhouse.

The setup is deceptively simple. Pregnant 23 year-old Tegan’s life veers violently off course after a snowy car crash leaves her injured, vulnerable, and dependent on the kindness of an odd couple who brings her home to care for her shattered ankle until the blizzard blows over. Tegan quickly comes to the creeping realization that something isn’t right with the strange couple.

If the premise feels familiar, that’s because The Crash openly invites comparison to Stephen King’s Misery. Like King’s classic, this novel weaponizes confinement and dependency. The horror doesn’t come from monsters or gore but rather a power imbalance. McFadden mirrors King’s slow tightening of the screws, where every small kindness feels suspect and every gesture might carry a hidden cost. The Crash is more streamlined and modern as if it were filtered through TikTok-era pacing.

Where McFadden truly shines is momentum. The book is hard to put down. Its the kind of thriller that tricks you into saying “one more chapter” until you realize it’s 2 a.m. The psychological manipulation is effective, the clues are planted just subtly enough, and the central situation is genuinely unsettling. You feel Tegan’s helplessness, which is exactly the point.

The ending is likely to divide audiences. Without spoiling anything, the final act leans heavily into revealing mandatory plot twists that not every reader will find it fully satisfying creating a conclusion that felt more engineered than inevitable. The landing doesn’t quite match the elegance of the buildup.

Still, The Crash is a solid entry in McFadden’s catalog and a strong recommendation for fans of fast, claustrophobic psychological thrillers. If you like your suspense sharp, efficient, and designed to be devoured in a single sitting, this one absolutely delivers even if the final note doesn’t resonate as cleanly as the outstanding set-up.

Get the book HERE