Robert E. Howard Readers discussion
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Kull
Kull & the Thurian Age
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Kull: Exile of Atlantis
I first read the Ballantine/Del Rey volume & have always liked it best. After it fell apart, I replaced it & didn't care for all the fragments in the real version.He was a good character, although I always liked Conan's exuberance better. Kull is a bit too brooding for my taste.
He is brooding and cerebral. I like that he is different from Conan, giving lie to some people's assertions that all of REH's characters were basically the same.I re-read "The Shadow Kingdom." Although an earlier REH tale, I am always pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy this story - from beginning to end it captivates. REH manages to evoke the feel of a decadent, ancient civilization - a decaying empire that has seen better days. I loved the scene with the ghost. REH drew upon the best of horror, action, and other genres to really create something new here.
REH manages to convey a sense of the gulfs of time surrounding Kull's era on all sides - gulfs that have palpable weight. This sensation does well to create a claustrophobic sense while reading the story that adds to the overall paranoia. There is no help coming other than that which he was offered by Ka-nu. REH manages to isolate the character even while in the midst of a primordial metropolis, even while the character is a king with power, even while making that king the ruler of the greatest kingdom of the time. Other authors have to go to great lengths to get that sense of isolation and/or actually isolate them (put them on a boat in the ocean to face off the greatest of sharks, or on a spaceship orbiting Jupiter where no one can reach them, etc.) but REH isolates his character without physically isolating him. It captures the same atmosphere that the original Alien movie later captures (which again had to actually isolate its characters to achieve that).
To me, this story is a masterpiece.
Also - the artwork by Justin Sweet really adds to the reading experience. He captures the atmosphere well. The drawings are vague and atmospheric, too much concreteness in the art and the effect of the writing would be spoiled. Even in the art, that sense of claustrophobic paranoia and isolation was perfectly captured.
Re-read "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune." Great introspective story of depression, despair, and desire. It also had a tie with the preceding story in the treacherous person of Kaanuub of Blaal - the treacherous guy mentioned in "The Shadow Kingdom."Kull once again needed Brule to save him from his own lack of perception - Kull is so introspective and wrapped up in himself, he really doesn't notice external events much. This is a huge difference between Kull and Conan - Conan is much more self-actualized and self-reliant than Kull.
I feel like this story really captures the essence of depression. Again, REH manages the sense of doom and paranoia, the crushing weight of the ages, and the bleakness of a depressive's life. Even though he is king, Kull is an unhappy man.
Reread the untitled draft that takes Kull to the end of the world. Interesting story - it's too bad REH didn't finish it.Of course, the first time I read this story, it was as "Riders Beyond the Sunrise" in Lancer's King Kull, as edited and finished by Lin Carter. In this posthumously completed version, Kull crosses the Stagus alone and faces his foe, who turns out to be Thulsa Doom. This version really lacked the power of the incomplete version presented in the current volume I am reading.
The next time I encountered this tale, it was in Baen's REH Library Kull, and it was left unfinished. This time, in the Ballantine/Del Rey Kull: Exile of Atlantis, the unfinished story is enhanced by Justin Sweet's artwork... and its placement in the order REH wrote it - which means it was written before Thulsa Doom was created. I'm not sure why Lin Carter (and L. Sprague de Camp) liked giving REH characters arch-nemeses (example: Thoth-amon for Conan) they didn't need. Also, in the incomplete version, the whole of Kull's host volunteered to accompany him to certain death, a powerful moment for the story - a moment completely wiped away in Lin Carter's version.
Kull was not as introspective in this story as in the previous two. Kull does muse that, to his mind, anyone should be able to marry whomever they please (a theme that I think replays itself in future Kull stories IIRC). This story also gives some detail to the layout of the Thurian continent during Kull's age, giving placement to several nations in relation to Valusia.
Kull's volcanic anger is also showcased well in the beginning of this story, showing the truth of what Tuzan Thune said in the last story when he commented that he could raise a demon more furious than all in Hell just by striking Kull in the face.
I liked this one, although Kull seemed more Conan-like in this one than he did in the previous stories.
I love the Del Rey unadulterated Howard volumes, but my favorite Kull art was the Donald Grant edition,Robert E. Howard's Kull, with illustrations by Ned Dameron.
(And Kull may be my favorite REH character, for whatever reason.)
The Donald Grant edition is one edition of Kull I don't own. They typically are beautiful editions. I only have the Del Rey, Lancer, Baen, and Bantam editions.
Re-read "The Cat and the Skull" (Aka "Delcardes' Cat"), wherein the sorcerer Thulsa Doom was introduced. Although the lake battles were interesting, as was the encounter with the lake people, overall the story was meandering - and again hinging on the idea of marriage. Again, Kull is okay with people marrying who they like, instead of the arranged/appropriate marriage style of Valusians. I did think it was a master stroke to call this wise, ancient cat "Delcardes' Cat." Delcardes sounds a lot like Descartes - who is a philosopher, and so, with a name, instantly makes us think of philosophers and philosophy - brilliant move, even if REH then inverted the idea by making Delcardes a love-struck girl.
Overall, though, a weak story. Thulsa Doom wasn't in it long enough to really matter - to modern eyes, it rather has a Scooby Doo feel to it. I think it would have worked better if Thulsa had been Kuthulos the whole time, having tricked the girl and so on.
The story "Skull-Face" was apparently written shortly after this one, and the descriptions of the villains match - even Skull-Face's history is fairly consistent with Thulsa Doom. I like to think they are the same character.
Re-read "The Screaming Skull of Silence." I am always awed by this story. How REH managed to take such an abstract concept and turn it into a concrete monster amazes me. I am not sure why Weird Tales rejected this story - while not in the same league as "The Shadow Kingdom," I really don't think it is less than "The Mirrors of Tuzan Thune," which was accepted.I like how REH used the Kull stories to examine philosophical concepts within the context of an adventure.
Re-read "The Striking of the Gong." This was a brief little tale that explored some of REH's philosophical musings on space and time, and their relativity, during a near-death experience for Kull that, here on his mortal sphere lasted between the strikings of a gong, but in the other-world, lasted billions of years. Not so much an adventure but a weird little philosophical illustration.Also re-read "The Altar and the Scorpion," where the giant, cadaverous, glittering-eyed evil priest meets his end at the sending of a scorpion by an elder god. Dale Rippke, in one of his essays, suggests this priest is of the race that eventually spawned Xaltotun and Akivasha. I rather like that idea.
Could I interest you in a couple of Kull of Atlantis quizzes? :-) https://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/by_...
Apparently I already took part I and got 13/15 (missing two I would have gotten correct had I taken it today).The second one has me stumped with the Thulsa Doom question as he didn't have a sword in "The Cat and the Skull." That's not really fair throwing in pastiche material. I'm not going to count that one, so I got 12/15 on the second - and two of those I had the right answer but second-guessed myself. The other one I had no idea - I guess it is either pastiche or from one of the stories I haven't gotten to yet recently enough to remember (about the mortal danger of the king).
Tough quizzes, though.
I used King Kull as the basis for the quizzes, which was the only version of the stories available in the UK when I bought it (seemingly in the Thurian Age itself!). I can only apologise for having inadvertently duped you ;-)
Oh! That makes sense.
Re-read "The Curse of the Golden Skull" and two fragments (The Black City, and an untitled fragment). All were short, minor efforts, although I liked the atmosphere in Curse."The Curse of the Golden Skull" was most notable to me with mentions of Jaggta-noga (who appeared in at least three issues of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian, starting with issue #5), the iron bound books of Shuma Gorath (who even appeared in the Avengers, as well as Conan), and so on. Roy Thomas was always good about incorporating all kinds of REH stuff in his comics.
"The Black City" fragment could have been something, I think. It had the nice start to a mystery.
The Untitled Fragment was weird because it postulated Celtic blood in Brule - who predated the Celts.
Re-Read "By This Axe I Rule!" Of course, this story is famous for its being re-written into "The Phoenix on the Sword," the first Conan story. Again, this one had a plot element involving a marriage - a noble wanted to marry a slave but couldn't, and at the end, Kull decides he is king and will allow what he wants (I guess he is tired of all these people asking him for permission to marry people they aren't allowed to marry - good thing he didn't have Kim Davis as a clerk). Of course, that element was removed for the Conan story, and he added some dark sorcery not present in the Kull version. I am guessing REH was less worried about marriages by the time he was writing Conan.
I love the end of the Kull version - it is very dramatic. Kull was not as brooding in this one, and, unlike most of the previous Kull stories, it did not explore philosophical concepts or psychology. It was just an attempted coup and arguments about marriage.
That might well be my favorite Kull story. It wasn't nearly as good as a Conan one. Brooding Kull hemmed in by statecraft was far more dramatic in going back to his roots.
As a Kull story, I do prefer "The Shadow Kingdom," but "By This Axe I Rule!" is probably my second favorite just because of the dramatic ending, with the smashing of the law and the declaration that he not only is the law, he is king.
I haven't commented much, but have been enjoying your posts on the stories. Thanks.
Re-read "Swords of the Purple Kingdom" last night. Another story where the plot hinges on an attempted coup and a problem concerning marrying who someone wants. But this time, instead of the law, the father (who is a friend of Kull's) doesn't want the marriage. It was nice seeing Delcardes again, but now she wants to marry someone else.I wonder why REH was so focused on who could marry whom so much when writing the Kull stories. Was it a comment on interracial marriage being discussed at the time he was writing?
I didn't know interracial marriage was a hot topic back then. I would have guessed it was more about women's rights, the right to marry who they wanted rather than their family.
That's possible. I'm not sure it was an issue then or not, just wondering why the Kull stories seem to obsess about the issue.
I just met a guy, David Kull. He pronounces his last name 'Cool'. I've always pronounced 'Kull' to rhyme with 'hull'. Is it just me?
Jim wrote: "I just met a guy, David Kull. He pronounces his last name 'Cool'. I've always pronounced 'Kull' to rhyme with 'hull'. Is it just me?"Nope, that's how I've always pronounced it as well. But when I was young, I pronounced the comic book title Avengers to rhyme with "scavengers", so take my comment with a grain of salt ...
I pronounce it like hull as well. I've never heard anyone pronounce it differently. BTW I enjoy the comments. I've been out of it a bit as I recently had some health challenges but I've been reading the comments.
Hope you get better soon, Michael. I'm glad I'm pronouncing it correctly. I don't always. Like Joseph, probably due to reading so much as such an early age, I quite often get laughed at for not being able to pronounce a word properly that I know well. It's just that it doesn't come up in speech often.
I have the same problem.
I think REH was semi fixated and afraid of the concept of interracial marriage. With the recent blog entry by Underwood weighing on my mind as far as REH's personal library is concerned it certainly seems like he did quite a bit of research on this himself. However, while there may have been some apprehension he also seemed quite willing to break from convention as well such as many of his stories ending with the tired Kull deciding there were bigger fish to fry then whom someone wanted to marry. I think though viewing the time period, the wounds of the civil war in the United States were not yet healed completely (there were still plenty of people around who were veterans of that conflict with their own opinions on things) intermixing with this newer breed of folks that had telephones ( a device that made distances seem much smaller ) and faster automobile travel, why it must have been about as advanced and scary to those folks as the internet age has been for some of us. Think about how small the internet has made this world seem, now relate that to early 20th century tech changes from the 19th century and that would have been about the same kind of transition for some folks. Their world changed over night, and yet the people who held power were still from the generation before that was uncomfortable with these new fangled ideas and everything moving so fast. My own discussions with my Great Grandfather back in the 80's certainly gave me that impression. I think when we look at a lot of Howard's writings we almost have to do it through a veil of culture shock that must have been present.
I'm not sure how I missed this comment from months ago, but I think you are right, Christopher. He did seem rather fixated with the idea and I think you expanded on that well.
I'll be starting this one in a week or so...
Wonderful! Feel free to leave comments on the stories as you read them! Would love to discuss them.
Yesterday I read the Introduction and the first story. The Introduction was well-written and insightful, although a little bit wordy at times. It really did a good job of providing some historical perspective on the Kull stories as well as many of Howard's likely influences when he created the character and setting. I was unaware that "The Shadow Kingdom" is regarded as the first American Sword & Sorcery story, and second overall only to a 1910 story The Fortress Unvanquishable by Lord Dunsany. I did, however, know that "By This Axe I Rule!" was unpublished as a Kull story but had been reworked into a Conan story "The Phoenix on the Sword." The first story was unpublished and untitled until it appeared in the Ace Reprint King Kull when it was given the title "Exile of Atlantis." It was a good introduction to the Kull character and the world he lives in, although the story itself was brief and felt like a fragment or beginning of a larger story.
The illustrations are excellent by the way, they really bring the scenes to life. I thought the illustrations in the Conan volumes to be somewhat hit or miss to be honest.
So we're off to a good start. I'll post more thoughts as I read additional stories, probably 1-2 per week until I'm finished.
Awesome! Glad to have you adding to the discussion and viewpoints for these stories here!Yes, I agree about "Exile of Atlantis." There is something unfinished about it. I think I commented when I read it a while back that it wasn't much of a story, being just a quick setup and climax, but it does give a fair introduction to Kull and his world. It feels like the prologue to a larger story, not a story in and of itself, I guess I am trying to say.
I also loved the illustrations in that volume.
Vincent wrote: "Awesome! Glad to have you adding to the discussion and viewpoints for these stories here!..."Thanks, Vincent.
I just finished The Shadow Kingdom. What a terrific story! Per Wikipedia, this is the first published American Sword & Sorcery story (Lord Dunsany beat Howard to the punch on the other side of the pond a decade or so earlier). King Kull faces a threat of treachery in the form of shape-shifting lizard people which he addresses with the sharp end of his broadsword. Readers get more information about the politics of Valusia and neighboring kingdoms as well.
As I looked up this story on Wikipedia, I was surprised to learn that this is often credited as the origin of the "Reptilian Conspiracy Theory" (which also of course reminds me of the TV miniseries "V" that aired when I was a youngster). Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptili...
OMG, that is hilarious! Of course, when people talk of lizard people in our government, I think of REH's story, but I never thought it actually was the original spark!I definitely remember V too. Saw an article recently where Kenneth Johnson now gets people coming up and congratulating him on predicting how lizard people have now taken over the government - and he has to tell them V is a warning about fascism in America, not about lizard people.
Anyway, The Shadow Kingdom is an AMAZING story. Absolutely a masterpiece, weaving together elements of horror and action, a story that feels so claustrophobic, with elements of isolation, deceit, paranoia, and decadence. The atmosphere created by REH is palpabale and tense.
Thank you for giving us your thoughts! I love the insight about the lizard people conspiracy theory.
He gives lectures to crowds of up to 6000 people? Wow. I wonder how we've survived as long as we have.
LOL. It's amazing what people will believe if you say something with enough conviction.
Jim wrote: "...I wonder how we've survived as long as we have."Especially with all those lizard people around... ;-)
I finished "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune." It starts off well but ends up being kind of predictable at the end. The middle was a little dull, although there was more existentialistic musing than I expected. Which is the real Kull...?
Yeah, that one showcases just how introspective Kull is. Kull is very wrapped up in himself and would have died if not for Brule. I do feel REH really captured a sense of what depression is really like - but it does make for a depressing and dull story in many respects..
I finished "Untitled Draft" which has Kull chasing two renegade lovers across a few countries. The story (but not the chase) ends as Kull and his 300 man army cross the Stygian river with the help of a ferryman from the Elder Race of men, obviously a nod to Greek mythology. Although the story was unfinished I thought it provided an interesting insight into the countries near Valusia. The last town Kull passes through reminded me a little of Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar.
It's a shame he didn't finish that one. I would have loved to read how REH would have finished it (although Lin Carter wrote what I felt was a disappointing ending to it in the Lancer edition).
I finished The Cat and the Skull (AKA "Delcardes' Cat") last night. The first appearance of Thulsa Doom! And I also enjoyed the people under the lake. Some of Kull's somber conversations with the cat made me giggle, and of course I saw where the story was going long before it got there, albeit not the Thulsa Doom appearance. Still, it's probably my second-favorite story in the collection at this point (Shadow Kingdom is still the best, so far).
Yeah, I felt like Thulsa Doom at the end kind of came out of nowhere. I called it a Scooby-Doo ending in my review somewhere up above. But overall I enjoyed that story.
The Screaming Skull of Silence - I liked this one a lot too, a nod to "Pandora's Box" with a sorcery-sealed door that holds back a deathly cosmic silence. I kept thinking of how much a parent might enjoy this in a home full of noisy children.... ;-)
OH! What an astute observation about it being a nod to Pandora's Box. I like that a lot. I hadn't considered it quite like that, but that is an excellent observation. And yes, a parent might indeed wish for that. Maybe that's its origin!
...and I finished The Striking of the Gong, which explored a lot of the same themes as The Mirrors of Tuzun Thume. Kull finds himself adrift in the void, and encounters a spirit figure, or maybe an Elder One, and they share a brief existential conversation before Kull finds himself back in (our) reality where we learn that the entire story has taken place in one striking of the gong, during which Kull has survived an assassination attempt thanks to the quick intervention of his bestie, Brule. So was it a dream? Or did it really happen? REH allows us to ponder the answer to that question without giving us any quick and easy answers - and this is one of the things I enjoy about Howard: although he was writing adventure stories for the pulps, he didn't talk down to his audience. The story was just OK overall though.
Vincent wrote: "OH! What an astute observation about it being a nod to Pandora's Box. I like that a lot. I hadn't considered it quite like that, but that is an excellent observation...."Thanks Vincent. The more fantasy I read the more I have become conscious that most of it (the good stuff anyway) relates back to ancient mythology, in many cases Greek mythology. I've decided that I'm going to start reading up on more mythology to give myself a broader knowledge base in order to better appreciate the more modern works,
"The Striking of the Gong" was a trippy little philosophical exploration. And, yes, that is a good idea about re-reading ancient mythology.
Okay, I finished four more stories, but they were all small ones. Here goes...The Altar and the Scorpion - Kull doesn't make an appearance. Instead, we hear that Kull is riding to fight an evil priest and his minions, but the priest insults a forgotten "lesser" deity who takes matters into his own hands. I enjoyed this one.
The Curse of the Golden Skull - Kull also doesn't appear in this one. Instead we observe one of Kull's victims, mortally wounded, as he dies after invoking a curse that lasts for years before it is triggered. I liked this one too, but not as much as the previous un-Kull story.
The Black City (Unfinished Fragment) - one of Brule's warriors disappears, and then.... Hints of an underground city are compelling but not paid off, of course. Lin Carter eventually finished this one as The Black Abyss in the Lancer Books edition.
Untitled Fragment - Kull and his bestie Brule and a prince are sitting around playing cards (I swear I am not making this up) and Brule is about to tell a story...but then the fragment ends. This was not as good as the previous unfinished fragment and was clearly included for completeness's sake - it doesn't add much to Kull's character or world, but it certainly doesn't hurt. It was eventually finished by Lin Carter for the Lancer Books edition.
Next up, later this week I'll read By This Axe I Rule! which was not published during REH's lifetime. He eventually converted this story into the Conan story The Phoenix in the Sword.
Robert E. Howard Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
Riders of the Purple Sage (other topics)The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth (other topics)
King Kull (other topics)
King Kull (other topics)
Robert E. Howard's Kull (other topics)
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It's interesting to read the origins of the Sword & Sorcery genre, for here it begins.
First up is the untitled story previously published as "Exile of Atlantis." Not much of a story, really. Kull and some buddies (including one named Am-ra) encounter a girl being burned at the stake, and Kull kills her mercifully.
Not much of a story really, and not quite sword and sorcery yet - although there is a sense of religious fanaticism in the people wanting to burn the girl alive. Kull is not king yet.