Having recently revisited Gardner Fox's Sword & Planet novel Warrior of Llarn, 1966's Thief of Llarn. Poor Alan Morgan can't relax into married life with the beautiful princess Tuarra of Karthol because the thieves' guild of Llarn is stealing all the ultra-rare, precious stones called verdals. One of which happens to be in Tuarra's wedding ring.
On their way to consult with some scientists in another city-state, Morgan and his wife are waylaided by an immortal, psychic entity, who also is very much concerned about the verdal thefts. He forces Morgan to go undercover for him under threat of death rather than, you know, just teaming up. As the legendary thief, Uthian the Unmatched, Alan Morgan must steal a verdal from a remote, ancient city, then infiltrate the thieves' guild to find out who has commissioned these crimes and why. As is typical with this sort of thing, it is a leader with designs on conquest and a super-weapon.
This sequel is, I think, better than the first. Where Warrior of Llarn, while colorful, followed the predictable points in the Sword & Planet Hero's Journey, this one is freed from those restrictions. There are couple of interesting perils and new cultures and the character of super-thief Uthian the Unmatched brings a bit of Sword & Sorcery verve to things, even if he's only Alan Morgan playing a role. The Tower of Ten Thousand Deaths was neat as was the variegated force field that protected the verdal Morgan had to steal. He seemed like something that might have appeared in Fox's Adam Strange.
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