Stella Gibbons of Gibbons's "most enjoyable and vicious" satirical portraits. In her introduction to the book's 2011 reprint, Lynne Truss describes it as "a rich, mature novel, romantic and wistful, full of rounded characters and terrific dialogue" that deserved more commercial success than it received. The public's expectations were still prejudiced by "Cold Comfort Farm", which by 1949 had sold 28,000 copies in hardback and 315,000 in paperback. Anticipating that a sequel would be popular, that year Gibbons produced "Conference at Cold Comfort Farm", her shortest novel, in which the farm has become a conference centre and tourist attraction. There is much
Thulsa Doom even when pierced by a sword or thrown from a great height - he is vulnerable to steel being driven through his body, such steel acting to imprison him and prevent him from getting away. Howard's 1929 novella "Skull-Face" features a resuscitated Atlantean necromancer appearing in the present-day world and seeking to take it over. This villain is very similar to Thulsa Doom, but is named "Kathulos of Atlantis". A character of the same name is the main antagonist in the 1982 movie "Conan the Barbarian". Played by James Earl Jones, the cinematic Thulsa Doom is considerably different from the