by Robert E. Howard (1929)
We recommend books we believe in. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Imagine the throne room of Valusia shrouded in flickering torchlight, where King Kull, the towering barbarian from storm-lashed Atlantis, locks eyes with his grand vizier. The man’s face melts away like wax, scales erupting in a hiss of otherworldly malice—a serpent-man, ancient enemy of humanity, wearing stolen flesh. Your heart hammers as Kull’s sword cleaves through the impostor, green ichor spraying the marble, because in that instant, every face around you twists into nightmare.
That’s the electric jolt of Kull: Exile of Atlantis, Robert E. Howard’s raw primal howl from 1929, a collection of stories that seize you by the throat and hurl you into a world of crumbling empires and slithering horrors. Feel the salt spray on your face as young Kull, exiled from his island tribe after slaying a king in “Exile of Atlantis,” wrestles massive serpents in mist-choked seas, his muscles straining against coils that could crush stone. Or the dread coiling in your gut during “The Shadow Kingdom,” where Kull prowls the palace corridors, sniffing out traitors amid whispers of conspiracy—every shadow hides a shape-shifter, every ally a potential foe with fangs. Howard’s prose hits like a war axe: short, savage sentences that build to frenzied battles, where blood soaks the sand and magic unravels reality itself.
What sets Kull apart from the sword-and-sorcery that followed? This isn’t polished heroism; it’s the unfiltered fury of a thinker trapped in a barbarian’s body. Kull broods on the throne, questioning the illusion of power—“By this black earth and yon blue sky!” he roars—grappling with philosophy amid the carnage, deeper and more haunted than the pulp kings who came later. In “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune,” he stares into enchanted pools that dissolve the world into dream, forcing you to confront the fragility of flesh and crown. Howard forged the genre here, three years before Conan, with a grim fatalism that echoes through forgotten Atlantean ruins.
If you devoured the bloody exploits of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Michael Moorcock’s brooding Elric, craving their roots in something fiercer and less forgiving, Kull will ignite your blood. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve plunged back into these tales, each reread uncovering new layers of savage wonder.
Tonight, crack open Kull: Exile of Atlantis—let the serpent-men come for you.
Browse all book recommendations • Epic Fantasy Novels — Adventure-first. Keeping the door open.
