In the meantime I've broken my customary one-book-at-a-time rule and dived into the third and final Conan volume, which my folks so magnanimously sent in their last care package: The Conquering Sword of Conan. So far it's shaping up well: the first story, The Servants of Bit-Yakin, concerns an ancient lost valley and a treasure worth more than all the rest in the world, the Teeth of Gwahlur, hidden away in it. An ancient sorcerer once dwelt there with his inhuman servants, and when he died he took the secret of the treasure's location with him. Now the trail has grown hot again, and Conan is hot on it. His claims are hotly contested by a neighboring kingdom and its greedy, corrupt priest, so Conan has his work cut out for him...no less so because that sorcerer's inhuman servants are still alive and well!
Depending on how soon I finish 50 Great Short Stories, I might even start in on the next book: it's nonfiction for a change. Marco Polo: Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen is technically a biography, but the way the critics tell it, it plays the tune of a travelogue and an adventure story at times. I hear it's a splendid book, the best work so far on the life of the renowned Venetian explorer. I can't wait to get into it. I'd like to emulate old Marco. Imagine it! An enterprising Westerner travels far to the east by the longest and most famous trade route in history and gets into the good graces of a barbaric conqueror, Genghis Khan...or wait, was it Kublai Khan? This is why I need to read the book. It's flabbergasting and dumbfounding when you stop and ruminate. How dangerous that undertaking was! How deep into the unknown that man's travels penetrated, and how gutsy he was. I travel today with the assurance that I'm going to make it back alive, and in a timely manner. Marco Polo went deep into the heart of the uncivilized unknown, on the road for months and years, in danger of his life at every turn from wild beasts and savages and imaginary but nonetheless imposing monsters. What a way to live one's life! I think I was born in the wrong millennium.
On a final note, I'm vacillating on whether to hurry up and buy volumes 8-11 of One Piece right here and now in Korea, or save the hassle of trying to transport them out of here in two short months and just order them from Amazon.com when I get to Alaska. Argh, it's an agonizing decision! Luffy's right in the middle of an epic battle with the dastardly Don Krieg, admiral of a pirate armada, who's attacking a seagoing restaurant defended by that swift-kicking cook, Sanji, whom Luffy is determined to have on his crew. Darn, I can't stop now! You know how it goes. You get into a story, the drama gets rolling, the fights explode and the action compounds and you just don't want to stop. You've got to know how it finishes. I know you're supposed to read comic books slowly and savor them, but I swear I get through two volumes a day. That's right, I said volumes, not issues. That's about seven issues in one volume. I'm not a proper comic book fan at all, I know, tell me.
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