Review: The Song of Belit by Rodolfo Martinez

by Gary Romeo

The Song of Belit by Rodolfo Martinez has been around a while. I’m hardly the first to review it. But with the recent resurgence in Conan product, I’ve decided to finally read it and review it. I bought it a few years ago at a reasonable price. According to Amazon it is going for around $70 now.

I liked it well enough but $70 is way too much to pay. Anyway, onward. As you can gather from the title, this is a retelling of Robert E. Howard’s “Queen of the Black Coast.” The author incorporates REH’s original story into this product and gives REH a co-author credit. The author, Rodolfo Martinez, does detail his changes in a final afterword.

There is a prologue where we learn N’Yaga, Belit’s mentor and guardian, is a follower of the gods, Isis and Osiris, he is in the middle of a ceremony and “the parents” tell him that “Khemi Asud and Khemi Ahmar again will be one.” It’s a decent teaser.

The first chapter is from REH’s “Queen of the Black Coast.” Everyone here should know the setup. Conan kills a judge instead of betraying a friend, is chased by the city guard, and ends up becoming the pirate queen’s, Belit’s, lover in an immediate fit of passion.

Martinez’s voice starts in the second chapter. While I think most might hate the internal dialogue that Conan has after the above events, I enjoyed it. “He was not ashamed of anything that had happened, either on the deck or in [Belit’s] cabin, but he was still not entirely sure of the ground he was walking on. The Shemite seemed volatile in temperament and volcanic in character, and Conan sensed she could move from worship to hatred with the utmost ease.”

Belit has her concerns as well: “From the bridge, Belit examined the scene and did not look away from the gigantic white body of the Cimmerian mixed with the dark skins of the pirates. She drank without saying a word, wandering perhaps what kind of animal she had chosen as bedmate.”

I particularly liked this insight: “A civilized man would have asked himself certain questions, wondered about his true feelings for Belit. After all, the pirate had not given him much choice: to die like the rest of the Argus crew or to become her lover. Confronted with that situation, a Hyborian man would have been constantly assaulted by doubts, would have hesitated over and over again about the decision taken and would have wondered to what extent those were the life and mate he wanted. Conan, however, had not turned back once.”

The novel continues on. We get some clarifications not in the original story. Belit does not deal in slavery. She does make the villages of the Black Coast pay her for protection and will kill and burn villages if payment is not made. Conan’s kills a sorcerer and earns the “Amra” nickname. Belit’s parents were killed by Stygians and she was rescued by N’Yaga and grew up in the land of Nukanda. Nukanda is an Hyborian world version of Wakanda (this is not as bad as it sounds, it works to further the plot). Demitrio from “The God in the Bowl” returns and so does Murilo from “Rogues in the House.”

Remember the prophecy in the prologue? “Khemi Asud and Khemi Ahmar again will be one.” Well, that is the main plot of the new story. Khemi Asud and Khemi Ahmar are ancient names for Stygia and Nukanda. Once they were a united country and work is on the way by the Nukandians to reunite them. The parents, Isis and Osiris, war against Seth. On Seth‘s side is that Stygian wizard Toth-Amon. (Yep, we got a wandering “h” throughout the whole book.)

I won’t detail the rest of the story, suffice to say, there are subplots with Demitrio and the queen of Nukanda, the king of Turan and his sons, a cult of assassins, Toth-Amon and his Black Circle, Murilo and his mercenaries, magical twin jewels, and other stuff I’ve forgotten. This is a NOVEL. It has all the twists and turns you would expect in a 400+ page book.

The current crop of short works that I’ve read are just too one-note. Conan is a cynical bad-ass, Conan kills people, Conan kills a monster, Conan goes on to the next adventure.

Does this novel get a little plodding? IMHO, sadly it does. The author is best when dealing with individuals and their motivations. He provides logical reasons for his characters behaving the way they do, and I loved that. But he often adds more setbacks than necessary that seem like padding. I didn’t like every choice made by the author. There is a particular explosive choice made that I really disliked. But all in all, I did enjoy the book and think novels along this line should be the future for Conan.

I like short stories. REH wrote plenty of great short stories. “Queen of the Black Coast” is a great story, but it doesn’t quite work as a “short” story. Too much time passes in the background, and we never see a realistic romance bloom. That is why we’ve seen this story expanded several times. First by Roy Thomas in the Marvel Comics comic-book series and then again by Brian Wood in the Dark Horse comic-book series. Both of those versions have their plusses and minuses. So does this one.