Adventures of Conan Books in Order

Roberts's Conan books are a good match for readers who want the wandering barbarian, the dangerous road, and a plot that twists a little. Conan is still Conan, strong, practical, hard to frighten, and very good in a fight, but these books also enjoy schemes, cons, hidden agendas, and the sort of trouble that grows because too many ambitious people want the same thing.

That makes the range of settings especially fun. In these novels Conan can be dealing with sacred relics in Cimmeria, rival rulers on the edge of the Vilayet Sea, warlords on the eastern steppe, corrupt city bosses in Aquilonia, treasure seekers in Kush, or the long road to a lost city. Roberts clearly liked motion. Even when a book has a strong central setting, the story tends to travel through several worlds before it is done.

The tone also shifts nicely from one book to the next. Conan the Valorous leans into sorcery and homeland stakes. Conan the Rogue is practically a gang-war caper with a magical object in the middle. Conan and the Treasure of Python goes after lost-kingdom adventure. Conan and the Amazon pushes Conan into a long trek with uneasy allies and buried danger ahead. The common thread is always momentum.

There is no heavy ongoing arc you need to study before you start. These books are built as separate adventures from different points in Conan's life. That makes the series easy to dip into. If one premise grabs you more than another, you can start there and circle back.

Roberts also keeps the prose clean and the story moving. He is less interested in imitating old pulp phrasing than in delivering a solid sword-and-sorcery novel. That approach works well for Conan, who is at his best when the stakes are clear, the enemies are dangerous, and the next bad decision can bring a whole city or kingdom down on his head.

So if you want Conan stories with strong adventure bones, memorable locations, and just enough cleverness under the violence, these are easy books to recommend.