These undead wizards appear as mostly skeletal with only the scant, mummified remnants of flesh left hanging from their yellowed bones, and in the deep black pits of their perpetually grinning skulls, red pinpoints of hellish light. But I have to admit it scratched the sword & sorcery itch but didn't quite fully satisfy.Whether it is at the head of an undead horde or a shadowy figure behind the scenes using monsters and people like chess pieces the undead wizard known as the lich is adept on and off the field. I cannot really recommend this book to anyone new to the Sword & Sorcery genre but a clean slate and an immature mind might be required to really and thoroughly enjoy this. There is also the misogyny present in a few collar-tugging incidents and the sexual focus on the female form got to be a bit weird pretty quick, not in some places mind you, but in most. His strength was off the charts and in the last third he leaped from the top of a tower to the slanting stakes at the edge of the spiked moat below, sliding on the soles of his "war boots" down along them at landing. This book is an okay diversion if you're starving for some sword & sorcery but its barbarian swordsman, the titular Kothar, seemed a bit too invincible for all of it. Although, the giant worm-god-thing was pretty cool. There is plenty of monsters and demons but most are kind of cliched at this point (lizard-beasts, tentacled horrors, a yeti). However, for the most part, this book completely lacks atmosphere. The writing was slightly better here and a semblance of an atmosphere seemed to seep in.
The second third was not very memorable and the last third did pick up the pace a little.
Inside the tomb of Afgorkon when Kothar gets his cursed sword and the flayed sorcerer hovering above the land tortured by the whipping winds screaming. The first third of the book had two interesting scenes.
Howard's Conan but that is an impossibly high standard. It's not as bad as Brak the Barbarian but it's not as good as Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books. It seemed rather thin then and after sitting down and actually reading through it cover to cover, it still has some lack as compared to some other barbarian swordsmen stories. I first had skimmed this volume and its companion a while ago as research for an article.
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