by Henry Kuttner (1916)
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Picture this: you’re crouched in the dripping shadows of a crumbling Atlantean ziggurat, the air thick with incense and the guttural chants of serpent priests, as Elak—lean, dark-haired rogue with a prince’s blood and a thief’s grin—poises his sword for the strike. One wrong move, and Dagon’s spawn uncoils from the idol’s mouth, fangs gleaming like cursed ivory. Your heart hammers as Kuttner unleashes the chaos, blades flashing, sorcery twisting reality into nightmares.
That’s the raw thrill of Elak of Atlantis, four blistering tales from the golden age of Weird Tales that plunge you into a sinking empire of vice and vanishing gods. Elak, exiled heir to a throne lost to intrigue, roams with his roguish sidekick Lycon—a booze-soaked brawler whose loyalty shines through every tavern brawl and narrow escape. In “Thunder in the Dawn,” they crash a festival of blood where volcanic rites summon thunder gods, Elak’s agility dodging spears while Lycon swings a pilfered axe with gleeful abandon. “Dragon Moon” drags you through mist-haunted highlands where a lunar beast devours villages, its scales shimmering like forbidden jewels, and Elak wrestles it bare-handed amid howling winds that feel like they’ll rip the pages from your grip.
What hits hardest is the pulse of dread woven into every sword clash—the way Kuttner’s sorcery isn’t flashy fireworks but insidious whispers that corrupt flesh and bend minds, like the golden madness in that feverish novella where Elak infiltrates a pirate isle ruled by a demon coin that turns men to gibbering slaves. You feel the sweat on your brow, the burn in your lungs from sprinting through labyrinths alive with traps. This isn’t epic sprawl; it’s lean, feral adventure, pulp poetry that races like a heartbeat before the kill.
Kuttner strips sword-and-sorcery to its bones here, years before the genre bloated up—no brooding barbarians brooding over destinies, just two sharp blades carving through a decadent Atlantis where every shadow hides a cult or a curse. It’s the primal blueprint for buddy-swordplay, the spark that lit Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but fiercer, unpolished, like lightning straight from the storm.
If you devoured Robert E. Howard’s Conan yarns and craved leaner rogues with banter that bites, or if Leiber’s Nehwon left you hungry for its untamed roots, this collection will hook you like a harpoon. I’ve reread it on stormy nights, each time chasing that electric rush of peril and camaraderie.
Grab Elak of Atlantis tonight—your next escape into blade-sharp wonder starts with the first bloodied page.
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