Take Lord Of Blood Edited By Dave Van Arnam Physical Book

this is a book of wasted potential, Something of a Conan pastiche, it attempts to differentiate itself with background material of the last technological war, and with an interesting difference in the protagonist: he comes from a different culture and is occasionally mystified by the strangeness of these Flanage people.


Unfortunately, none of it really comes together, The setting is never detailed to the point of being real despite my best hopes: this is why I plugged away at it, The plot never goes above and beyond, as one might hope for a cover featuring a man in loincloth and hand axe fighting an enormous lion.
Interesting characters are dumped without provocation as the plot goes roaring past, Elements that could have been a worthwhile subplot or complication for the hero instead burn out anticlimactically, The author systematically spoils or disregards anything that might have lifted it out of mediocrity,

It has the air of being a middle book of a trilogy the first was sitelinkStar Barbarian, but it looks like it was never finished.
Perhaps the first one treats the setting and subject with more oomph,

Edit after reading Star Barbarian: Well, that was a waste, Don't look to Star Barbarian to find a satisfactory beginning to this book, Don't look to this book for a satifactory ending to Star Barbarian, If you are bothered by an incomplete trilogy, don't bother with either book, For the most part this reads like a fantasy, That is, like most fantasies, it takes place in a world and society that functions

with a technology of some point in our preindustrial past.
I would estimate this one at approximately bronze age, There is no magic though, That might almost make it read like an historical novel except that there is no historical period in the history of the Earth that one could place it in.
Instead, it is science fiction, The low technological state is attributed to the loss of civilization by a colony on another planet about three thousand years before, There are barbarians and slavers, There are warring kingdoms and adventure, There are exotic backgrounds and dashing heros, Even though it is technically science fiction that is not made much of a deal for most of the story, Finally, though, the protagonist lays hands on some of the weapons of the lost starfaring civilization and we are reminded of how much of a science fiction tale this actually is.
I liked it. Give it a try. You might like it too, SLAVEAND SLAVER!

Condemned to death, the barbarian hero Valzar was thrown into the sea, along with his bondslave Lynor, The peace of the slavemasters had returned to the lands of the north, . . or so it seemed. But the slavemasters reckoned not the gods of chance, those frivolous supernatural beings who delight in fouling the plans of men, And more important, they reckoned not the magic of the ancient science that still lived in the Forbidden Temple, In a time when men had long forgotten the mysteries of science, it was necessary for the final guardians of those mysteries to strike out in the ultimate battle against the forces of darkness.
But to lead that battle, they needed the Barbarianand so the Barbarian lived!,