I loved the E Howard Conan stories. So comfy, he's great at painting you a vivid world and characters without being wordy, and I agree the main character is so cool. Howard has a great style. I remember a moment from one story that has stuck in my head for more than a decade, since i first read it:

The story starts with Conan on horseback fleeing from a bunch of city guards who are chasing after him. He reaches the pier where all the ships are docked and he's about to run out of land to flee across so he heads towards a ship that he sees is just starting to pull away and he makes the horse leap across the widening water gap and he lands in the middle of the ships deck as it takes off and the by the time the guards reach the edge of the pier the ship is too far away for their horses to jump to it and Conan gets away.

But so then now he's on his horse on the deck of a random ass ship that's setting sail and all the sailors are surrounding him with their swords out hella suspicious. The captain of the ship comes forward and asks Conan to explain himself or they're gonna kill him and throw him overboard.

Conan then calmly and matter of factly explains to them what happened: He was in town visiting a friend and they were at the tavern or whatever reminiscing and then the next day or something like that the guards of the city came and escorted Conan to the court for questioning because the authorities were looking for Conan's friend and had seen them together. The judge, surrounded by soldiers and officers tells Conan they are looking for his friend because of a theft or something and they want Conan to tell them where his friend is.

Conan understands but he tells them that the man they are seeking is his friend, and though he understands why they want to find him, his loyalty as a friend can't permit him to help them in their search. He even like apologizes for it, but that there's nothing he can do. One simply doesn't betray a friend especially a friend one owes one's life to, as is the case with this friend.

At that point the judge declared Conan guilty of obstructing justice and orders him killed. And it's at that point, Conan says in the story, that I realized all of these people were insane. So I took out my sword, leaped over the stand and split the judge's head in two, took out the guards guarding the door and high-tailed it outta there.

The sailors on the ship and their captain, who are all essentially mercenaries, are amused by the story and immediately take a liking to Conan and recruit him/accept him aboard.

And that's how that particular story starts

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I wish we had gotten a long form novel of this guy. The prose of R. Howard is amazing, he was excellent at painting pictures without being overly…