Before we go into what stories we’re reading this week, we just wanted to let you know that the first BookCast episode airs tomorrow, but all BookCast episodes after that will air on Fridays. So after this week, our normal DPW Podcast episodes will go back to airing on Tuesdays.

With that bit of info out of the way, let’s get into the stories. This week we’re only reading two Conan stories as they are a bit longer than the first three we read last week. The stories for this week are “The Tower of the Elephant” and “The Scarlet Citadel.”

If you click the two links below, you can read the stories for free or listen to them on Youtube

The Tower of the Elephant: Howard’s most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, was a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago. Conan featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936 which is why Howard is now regarded as having spawned the ‘sword and sorcery’ genre. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. ‘The Tower of the Elephant’ is a story in the Conan series in which Conan tries to steal a precious gem from an evil sorcerer.

—Amazon

The Scarlet Citadel: This is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine circa January 1933. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns a middle-aged Conan battling rival kingdoms, being captured through treachery and escaping from an eldritch dungeon via unexpected aid. The story includes Tsotha-lanti who is an evil wizard whose sorcerous arts help ensnare King Conan.

—Fandom