Stygia now comes to the rescue of Ace’s new “Hyborian Adventures” series after the massive misstep of the first trilogy set in Cimmeria. Cimmeria speciously sounded like the perfect place to inaugurate the new series of novels set during Conan’s reign in Aquilonia; it is, after all, the land of Conan’s birth. However, in practice Cimmeria makes for a dull setting: grim, one-note, dour. Conan left his homeland for reasons, and those reasons kept the “Legends of Kern” trilogy from getting anywhere through three three wandering volumes. Stygia should have served as the inaugural setting, but arriving second isn’t too shabby.

Scion of the Serpent moves fast and offers a more varied and rich sword-and-sorcery experience for the reader. It also has superior structure and a tighter character focus than the Kern novels. The author, J. Steven York, does not have quite the knack for choreographing fight scenes, but he excels in the fantasy horror department—and for a tale set in dark-hearted Stygia, that’s what matters the most.

The novel opens well with the tragedy that will drive the main character, Anok, for the rest of the book. Once the prologue finishes, the novel enters its slowest portion; the reader knows that Anok will eventually have to enter the Cult of Set to plan his revenge from within, but this section of the story doesn’t get underway until the around halfway mark. York does provide some action before this, most notably a pursuit in the desert that works as a grisly suspense and endurance piece, but the feeling of a plot marking its time is hard to shake. The most interesting part of these early sections is seeing how York borrows liberally but effectively from the chapters in The Hour of the Dragon set in Khemi, the port city of Stygia, during the time of Festival when “rivers of blood” flow through the streets and “the Sacred Sons of Set”—enormous snakes—stalk the streets.

Once Anok starts to investigate the Cult of Set and tries to find a way to infiltrate it, the book finally blossoms and gets into a fantasy-horror groove with wicked delight. The last half of the book contains a number of enticingly readable sequences; if readers remember nothing else about the book, they will remember Anok’s encounter with the hideous creatures known as “the Fingers of Set.”

Another of the surprising elements of Scion of the Serpent is its high erotic content. York pulls few punches with Anok’s romantic dalliances. Sex has always played an important part in Conan stories, but here for possibly the first time the prose actually reaches into “R-rated” territory. I imagine that Howard would have written sex scenes like this in his works had he lived in a more permissive time for publishing.

Of course all the action, horror, and sex in the novel would mean nothing without solid characters to hold it all together, and York succeeds with his small and well-developed cast, knitting them together and avoiding the sprawling list of forgettable names that bogged down the Kern series. The hero Anok has enough complexity and internal conflict to make him more interesting than just as an avenger. The supporting cast members have even more vivid and individual personalities. That they come from a broad spectrum of nationalities helps tremendously, and this is one of the advantages of setting a story in land like Stygia where all outsiders must work closely together regardless of their ethnicities. Sheriti makes for an appealing and realistic heroine, much unlike the buxom-babe stereotype. The story does include a buxom warrior-woman, the Cimmerian Fallon, just for good measure. (However, after the Kern novels, Cimmerian characters should have temporarily retired. Why couldn’t Fallon have been an Aesir? Or a Hyperborean? The latter choice would have been extremely interesting.) The romantic interplay between Sheriti and Anok has a tender and fragile feeling that deepens the characters in a way that the obligatory romantic liasons found in sword-and-sorcery novels usually do not.

Quite a lot goes on in the plot department, and it leaves multiple magic devices, prophecies, and quests strewn over the narrative landscape, apparently waiting for further development in the next two installments. Fortunately, they don’t slow down the story too much once the pace starts to accelerate in the second half.

Scion of the Serpent ends on a shocking and daring note with its glorious bloody and horrifying climax. It does the job of closing out the book with a sense of completion while also raising many new questions to propel it into the sequel, Heretic of Set. Even if the two follow-up novels never appeared, Scion of the Serpent would stand as a worthwhile fantasy read. Thankfully, the next two books are on the way…and I’m eager to follow Anok deeper into the coils of the serpent.