Books Like Conan the Barbarian (What to Read Next)
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Table of Contents
You’ve read Conan. Possibly all of it (although there are a lot of Conan pastiches!).
Now the next question is harder: what actually comes close?
For me, the honest answer is nothing. Howard was a singular talent, and Conan is a character who transcends his genre.
But there are great books that scratch similar itches – books that deliver the same primal thrill of a lone warrior against impossible odds, the same exotic worlds, the same rush of steel meeting sorcery.
This guide is organised by what you might be looking for. Whether you want more Howard, the opposite of Conan, or something modern that captures the same spirit, there’s something here for you.
Quick Picks
If you’re in a hurry, here’s where to go based on what you loved about Conan:
| If you want… | Read this |
|---|---|
| Closest to Conan | Kull of Atlantis (Robert E. Howard) |
| Darker and more tragic | Elric of Melniboné (Michael Moorcock) |
| Best modern (ish) equivalent | Legend (David Gemmell) |
| Best duo adventures | Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (Fritz Leiber) |
| Best savage world | Imaro (Charles R. Saunders) |
| Near-perfect modern S&S | The Witcher short stories (Andrzej Sapkowski) |
Each of these is covered in detail below.
Tier 1: Must Reads
These are essential. If you loved Conan, you need these books.
Kull of Atlantis (Robert E. Howard)
Same creator. Closest DNA to Conan.
Kull is Howard’s other great barbarian king – an Atlantean savage who seizes the throne of Valusia thousands of years before Conan’s time. Where Conan is a wanderer who becomes king almost by accident, Kull is a philosopher-king tormented by questions of reality and illusion.
The famous story “The Shadow Kingdom” arguably invented sword and sorcery as a genre and is one of my favourite S&S stories of all time.
If you’ve only read Conan, Kull is the obvious next step. Same raw energy, same vivid prose, but with a more introspective edge. Kull reading order is here.
Best place to start: Kull: Exile of Atlantis (Del Rey) collects all the Kull stories in their original versions.
Elric of Melniboné (Michael Moorcock)
The opposite of Conan. Still essential.
Elric is everything Conan isn’t: a sickly albino emperor, dependent on drugs to survive, wielding Stormbringer – a demon sword that drinks souls and will eventually destroy everything he loves. Where Conan embodies primal vitality and freedom, Elric represents tragic fate and doom.
Moorcock deliberately created Elric as an inversion of Howard’s hero, and the result is one of fantasy’s most compelling antiheroes. The prose is more literary than Howard’s, the themes more philosophical, but the action is still relentless.
Best place to start: Elric of Melniboné (Titan/Gollancz editions) – the first novel in chronological order.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (Fritz Leiber)
The definitive duo. Foundational sword and sorcery.
A giant Northern barbarian and a small, clever thief. Fafhrd is the brawn, the Mouser is the cunning – though both are deadly swordsmen. Their adventures in the city of Lankhmar and beyond are funnier and more sophisticated than most sword and sorcery, but still packed with danger and dark magic.
Leiber actually coined the term “sword and sorcery” and his work defines the genre as much as Howard’s. If you want the buddy-adventure version of Conan – two rogues against the world – this is it.
Best place to start: Swords and Deviltry – the origin stories of both characters and their first meeting.
The Drenai Saga – David Gemmell
The best bridge between classic sword and sorcery and modern heroic fantasy.
David Gemmell wrote characters who feel like Conan’s descendants: lone warriors facing impossible odds, brutal combat, moral clarity mixed with grit.
His most famous character, Druss the Legend, is an aging axeman called out of retirement to defend a fortress against overwhelming hordes. Sound familiar?
Gemmell’s prose is more modern than Howard’s – longer novels rather than short stories, more developed character arcs – but the spirit is the same. His heroes are men of action who solve problems with steel and willpower. They fight because it’s right, even when winning seems impossible.
The Drenai saga spans eleven novels across different time periods, but you don’t need to read them in order. Each stands alone.
Along with Robert E Howard, Terry Pratchett and Joe Abercrombie, David Gemmell is one of my favourite authors.
Best place to start: Legend – Gemmell’s debut and most celebrated novel. Druss at his peak, defending the fortress of Dros Delnoch against the Nadir hordes. This is the fantasy equivalent of the Alamo, and it’s magnificent.
Also recommended: My favourite Gemmell series overall is the Rigante series, and it certainly contains S&S aspects (mixed with epic fantasy).Waylander (assassin seeking redemption), The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (Druss’s origin story) and the Skilgannon stories are all more than just worth reading.
The Troy trilogy is also exceptional. The list goes on…
Imaro (Charles R. Saunders)
Conan’s spiritual brother. African sword and sorcery.
Saunders coined the term “sword and soul” to describe his work – sword and sorcery set in a fantasy Africa rather than a fantasy Europe. Imaro is an outcast from his tribe, born to a banished mother, who grows into the greatest warrior in a land famous for great warriors. The parallels to Conan are deliberate and acknowledged.
What makes Imaro special is the setting. The world is as vividly realised as Howard’s Hyborian Age, but drawn from African mythology and culture rather than European. If you’ve exhausted the usual pseudo-medieval settings, this is a refreshing change.
Best place to start: Imaro – the first novel, collecting and expanding Saunders’ original stories.
Tier 2: Strong Recommendations
Not quite essential, but excellent choices depending on your tastes.
Kane (Karl Edward Wagner)
Darker than Conan. Cult favourite.
Kane is an immortal warrior cursed by a mad god – essentially the biblical Cain, wandering a savage fantasy world for eternity. Wagner was a horror writer as much as a fantasy writer, and it shows. These stories are bleak, violent, and atmospheric.
Wagner also edited and restored Howard’s Conan stories to their original forms, so he understood the source material intimately. Kane isn’t a Conan clone – he’s something stranger and darker.
Best place to start: Really hard to get hold of! Bloodstone or the short story collections Death Angel’s Shadow and Night Winds. Ebay is probably your best bet here.
Solomon Kane (Robert E. Howard)
More Howard. Darker and more religious.
Kane is a dour Puritan avenger, wandering sixteenth-century Europe and Africa with sword and pistol, hunting evil wherever he finds it. The tone is gothic horror as much as adventure – vengeful ghosts, bloodthirsty demons, fanatic devotion.
If you want more Howard but something tonally different from Conan, Kane is perfect.
Best place to start: The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (Del Rey) – the complete collection.
Thongor (Lin Carter)
Direct Conan-style writing. More pulp, less depth.
Lin Carter was a Howard devotee who edited much of Howard’s posthumous work. His Thongor of Lemuria series is essentially Conan with the serial numbers filed off – a barbarian wandering a prehistoric world of sorcery and lost civilisations.
These books don’t have Howard’s depth, but they deliver pure pulp adventure. If you want more of the same rather than something different, Thongor scratches that itch.
Best place to start: Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria.
Jirel of Joiry (C.L. Moore)
Early female sword and sorcery. Weird Tales connection.
Moore was one of Howard’s contemporaries at Weird Tales, and Jirel is one of the earliest female sword and sorcery protagonists. A fierce warrior-woman ruling a medieval French duchy, Jirel battles sorcerers, demons, and dark dimensions.
The prose is more atmospheric than Howard’s – Moore was closer to Lovecraft in style – but the action is still present. Essential reading for anyone interested in the genre’s history.
Best place to start: The collected Jirel stories.
The Witcher – Short Stories (Andrzej Sapkowski)
Near-perfect modern sword and sorcery – in short bursts.
Geralt of Rivia is a monster hunter for hire – mutated, morally grey, operating on the fringes of society. The original short story collections, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, are episodic adventures with personal stakes and dark moral choices. This is exactly what sword and sorcery is supposed to be.
The later novels shift towards darker epic fantasy as the scope expands and Ciri’s destiny takes over. Still good, but a different beast. The short stories are the pure S&S hit.
I’m not really a fan of the TV show, though I’ve watched it all. I absolutely love all three video games.
Best place to start: The Last Wish – the first short story collection and the best introduction to Geralt.
Tier 3: Broader Crossover
These aren’t pure sword and sorcery, but they appeal to the same readers.
John Carter of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
Sword and planet. Same feel, different setting.
Burroughs was one of Howard’s major influences. His John Carter – a Civil War soldier transported to Mars, fighting four-armed green Martians with sword in hand – established the template that Howard would later adapt for fantasy.
Technically science fiction, but the vibe is pure pulp adventure. If you want to understand where Conan came from, start here.
For more, see my John Carter guide.
Best place to start: A Princess of Mars – the first novel, and one of the foundational texts of science fiction.
The First Law (Joe Abercrombie)
Not pure sword and sorcery. But Conan readers often love it. Myself included. This series is truly phenomenal.
Abercrombie’s trilogy features Logen Ninefingers – an infamous Northern barbarian with a bloody past, trying (and failing) to escape his violent nature. Sound familiar? Logen has clear Conan DNA, though the world around him is darker, more political, and more cynical.
The First Law is grimdark epic fantasy rather than classic S&S – the scope is larger, the structure novelistic, the tone bleaker. But Logen’s chapters read like sword and sorcery dropped into a different genre, and the action is brutal and very well-written.
I’d see this as “where to go next” rather than “more of the same.”
Best place to start: The Blade Itself – the first book of the trilogy.
The Black Company (Glen Cook)
Military dark fantasy with sword and sorcery DNA.
Cook’s series follows a mercenary company through decades of brutal warfare, serving morally ambiguous employers against equally ambiguous enemies. It’s not classic S&S – the scope is too large, the protagonists too numerous – but it inherits the genre’s grit, cynicism, and focus on survival over heroism.
If you want something grittier and more modern but still recognisably in the lineage, this is it.
Best place to start: The Black Company – the first novel.
Gotrek and Felix (William King and others)
I read most of these when I was just a young whippersnapper. I remember enjoying them a lot, and not realising the main characters were based on Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
After the first few they got a little repetitive, but the Warhammer world is rich and interesting, and there’s plenty to enjoy here.
Best place to start: the first omnibus is great, see what you think!
If You Like Conan, Try This
A quick reference based on what specifically draws you to Howard:
| What you love about Conan | Try this |
|---|---|
| The lone barbarian wanderer | Kull, Imaro, Thongor |
| Dark sorcery as the enemy | Elric, Kane, Solomon Kane |
| Episodic short story format | Fafhrd & Mouser, Witcher short stories, Jirel |
| Brutal combat | Gemmell, First Law |
| Exotic settings | John Carter, Imaro |
| Morally grey hero | Elric, Kane, First Law |
| Pulp energy and pace | Thongor, Burroughs |
| Modern equivalent | Gemmell, Witcher, First Law |
Where to Buy
Most of these are in print and readily available:
Del Rey editions (for Howard’s work) are the definitive versions – properly edited, restored to original texts. Worth paying extra for.
Gollancz/Titan editions for Moorcock’s Elric are comprehensive and well-produced.
Gemmell is widely available in paperback and ebook from Del Rey/Orbit.
For out-of-print material (some Kane, some older editions), try:
- eBay
- AbeBooks
- ThriftBooks
What About Comics?
If you prefer visuals, I’ve written a separate guide to the best sword and sorcery comics (to be published soon!) – covering everything from Marvel’s classic Conan omnibuses to obscure 1970s DC titles.
For Conan specifically, see my Conan comics reading guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the closest book to Conan?
Kull of Atlantis – same author, same energy, similar setting. It’s more Howard, which is exactly what you want.
Is Elric like Conan?
Deliberately opposite. Moorcock created Elric as an inversion of Conan – sickly where Conan is vital, doomed where Conan is triumphant. But both are essential sword and sorcery, and many readers love both.
What’s the best modern book like Conan?
David Gemmell’s Legend or the Witcher short stories, depending on whether you want heroic last stands or monster-hunting episodic adventures.
Is Game of Thrones like Conan?
No – different genre entirely. Game of Thrones is epic/dark fantasy with political focus. Conan is sword and sorcery with personal stakes. Some readers love both, but they’re not scratching the same itch.
Where should I start with David Gemmell?
Legend. It’s his most famous book, features his most iconic character (Druss), and captures everything that makes Gemmell special.
