Kull: Exile Of Atlantis – Robert E. Howard, 2006 [Edited by Patrice Louinet] ★½

First Forays into Fantasy

It can be tempting to review a book by reviewing the author, especially when the author is famous for other books. How does this compare to those? It’s sad sport, and brutally unfair, but here I go anyway.

This Del Ray short-story collection presents Robert E. Howard’s first fantasy hero, Kull, who escaped a dead-end life on the island of Atlantis to become king of Valusia, “Land of Enchantment,” and mighty champion against threats both human and otherwise.

So let’s get it out of the way now: Kull is Howard’s initial attempt at establishing a barbarian conqueror, very much a rough draft, with not nearly the same depth or vitality as Conan. But Kull came first.

“He ruled Valusia but for all that he was an Atlantean and a ferocious savage in the eyes of his subjects,” Howard explains in the story “The Cat And The Skull.” “War and conquest held his attention, together with keeping his feet on the ever rocking throne of the ancient empire…”

In 1967 Lancer Books published its first Kull story collection, following up their success with Conan books. The collection included unpublished stories and story fragments completed by Lin Carter, and successfully introduced Kull to Conan fans.
 Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kull_(short_story_collection)

Kull has qualities all his own, like grey eyes instead of Conan’s blues. This barbarian king is also more contemplative, more serious, more concerned with right and wrong and with philosophy, and has no interest in women. He is different in his manner and ideals.

He is only intermittently interesting.

Conan’s Hyborian world is a broad canvas of diverse peoples, nations, and cultures. Kull’s Valusian universe, by contrast, is like a picture frame filled with some nice sketchings, a few doodles, and lots of empty wall. World-building was not on Howard’s menu yet.

In his introduction to this book, Steve Tompkins puts it so:

This is a world less mapped than Conan’s and more lapped by mystery and mysticism at its edges: ice caves in the far north; reptile-reeking jungles in the far south; to the west, the isles beyond the sunset; to the east, the River Stagus and World’s End.

Kull's life journey includes some stops Conan didn't take, at least not in Howard's stories. In this adaptation of Kull's backstory explained in "Exile Of Atlantis," we learn he was once a gladiator.
From Marvel Comics "Savage Sword of Conan" issue #177 at https://swordsofreh.proboards.com/thread/184/art-kull?page=3

But it isn’t just the world that falls short of Howard’s later standard. The stories themselves are often weak, too. Sometimes the weakest part is Kull himself, who is either too passive or too impulsive.

This is true even with the one story here I would rate as quite good, “The Shadow Kingdom,” which anticipates the 1988 John Carpenter movie “They Live” and blends philosophical and action-yarn elements in a uniquely satisfying way.

Kull is introduced watching a Valusian parade in his honor, taking in the pageantry but aware there is still much discontent in both the crowds and the palaces around him, a barbarian, wearing the kingdom’s crown:

Little did Kull heed. Heavy-handed had he seized the decaying throne of ancient Valusia and with a heavier hand did he hold it, a man against a nation.

 

Kull's publication debut came in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales, illustrated by Hugh Rankin. Here in the climax of "The Shadow Kingdom," King Kull lays waste to a chamber of serpent men.
Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_Kingdom#/media/File:Hugh_Rankin_-_The_Shadow_Kingdom.jpg

So when Kull is urgently summoned by a Pict leader, Ka-nu, whom he has reason to think hostile, about some danger to his rule, he goes off alone to talk to him. Typically impulsive, maybe, but at least this time Kull’s actions are justified. Ka-nu warns him of “worlds within worlds” and a conspiracy so deep and vast it will require help from Ka-nu’s right-hand man, Brule the Spear-slayer, for Kull to root out.

The premise is intriguing, the execution clever, and the conclusion is rousing fun. Yet most of the time, Kull serves as the caboose of this train ride. He listens to warnings and either reacts or observes depending on what Brule is doing.

Brule is the man as far as most Kull stories go. He is gruffer than Kull, and in their first meeting nearly comes to blows with the Atlantean. But they become close companions after the events of “The Shadow Kingdom” and in later adventures he emerges as Kull’s steady protector.

There would be less need of him if Kull had the survival skills of a cantaloupe. In “The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune” a bored Kull leaves his throne to ponder mirrors inside a strange wizard’s palace. The more he stares at them, and at their mysterious reflections, the more lost he becomes, unwilling to break off and return to his normal duties.

Another Kull story featured in the Del Ray collection, "By This Axe I Rule," was repurposed into the first Conan story, "The Phoenix On The Sword," with more supernatural elements weaved in. Kull stories avoid outright magic more than Conan stories do.
Image by John Severin from https://m.facebook.com/swordsofsorcery/photos

Howard was on a mission in these stories, using them as platforms for explorations into Theosophy and race consciousness. Much prattle ensues about “which was reality and which illusion” while Kull stares at himself in the mirror. Kull perceives some answer to life’s riddles by endless gazing, but what that answer might be is never explained, as the story abruptly cuts out.

In his useful endnotes, Patrice Louinet points out that “The Shadow Kingdom” and “Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune” were published in back-to-back issues of Weird Tales in 1929, thus being very early examples of the sword-and-sorcery genre getting into print. Alas, these were to be the only Kull-centered stories Howard sold in his lifetime.

Howard kept at Kull for a year or so, and the collection includes unsold as well as unfinished stories. In the former category is an untitled story that explains Kull’s origin in Atlantis, which contrary to Greek myth is more Cro-Magnon in nature. After some back-and-forth with his dopey comrades, Kull flees Atlantis after violating a cruel and stupid law.

Sometimes titled “Exile Of Atlantis,” the story has no real action, no character depth, no plot development, a lot of broody chatter about what it all means, and a wrap-up both hollow and grim. For all that, the story sets the right tone for what comes after by being indifferent at best.

Though never as hot a property as his successor Conan, Kull has endured in print and in 1997 made his screen debut in Kull The Conqueror, starring Kevin Sorbo (on right, with Tia Carrere looking on). It did not do well at the box office or with critics.
Image from https://www.amazon.com/Kull-Conqueror-Kevin-Sorbo/dp/B01E0L2ORG 

Except for “The Shadow Kingdom,” which works fine as a stand-alone piece, the Kull stories feel rudimentary and poorly-thought-out. Howard’s work is usually so dynamic, meaty and fine-tuned even when he is producing a simple adventure piece that the falloff here really hit me, especially as I know Kull is a popular character. 

In “The Cat And The Skull,” Kull is again mesmerized, this time by a talking cat named Saremes who is brought to his palace to advise him on matters of state. If that sounds like a Don Knotts movie to you, it gets worse. When the cat tells Kull that Brule is under attack a distance away in the Forbidden Lake, Kull rides off to rescue him.

What ensues is a long, drawn-out battle where Kull is attacked in successive fashion by an array of sea creatures, including a four-armed shark. Just when things couldn’t get any sillier, he is dragged across a watery landscape by a giant snake and confronted by an angry sea king. The pair go back and forth awhile about where Brule is, though Kull avoids the embarrassment of explaining how he got his hot tip.

The powerful archmage Thulsa Doom, famously played by James Earl Jones in the 1982 Conan movie, only appears once in Howard's fiction, in the climax of the Kull tale "The Cat And The Skull." Here the moment is illustrated for the Del Ray book by Justin Sweet.
Image from https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Thulsa_Doom

While not quite as ridiculous, other stories are not memorable, either. In one left unfinished, Kull gives chase to an eloping couple, abandoning his throne and leading his army across other nations. It’s not the marriage he is upset about; rather, it is about some insults the groom directed at Kull while fleeing. The more emotionally balanced Conan would have just laughed them off as idle words.

Other completed stories are like that Woody Allen joke about bad food served in small portions. These are unusually short for Howard, which is all they have going for them.

The one other story in this collection that saw publication in Howard’s lifetime, “Kings Of The Night,” is also the only Kull story produced by Howard in the 1930s. It focuses on another Howard hero, the Pictish king Bran Mak Morn, defending his territory against Roman encroachment. Kull is summoned from the mists of time to help out.

“Kings Of The Night” isn’t Kull’s story, but like “The Shadow Kingdom” combines metaphysical mystery with lusty combat scenes in a somewhat engaging way which makes it worth recommending.

“Man is forever at the center of what we call time and space,” a magic-user named Gonar tells Bran at the beginning of the story. “I have gone into yesterday and tomorrow and both were as real as today – which is like the dream of ghosts!”

Kull had a brief-lived run as a title character in Marvel Comics in the 1970s, which portrayed him as a mix of Conan and Prince Valiant. Marvel Kull was depicted wearing a small gold crown over his brow, something Howard mentions in "Kings Of The Night."
 Image from https://store.dreamlandcomics.com/kull-the-conqueror-14-very-finenear-mint-90-marvel-comic-p300942.aspx

Which becomes the theme of the story as Kull joins the fight, leading a fighting wedge of Viking warriors to beat back the Roman advance. Kull is put in a terribly exposed position but does not mind; he thinks it all a dream anyway. How Bran uses Kull’s selflessness to his own end gives the story an unexpected late-inning twist.

Also included in the book are some early writings Howard did, including poems that feature Kull (in one he dreams of fighting a tree). Also included are story pieces around a prehistoric character named Am-Ra, whose name would echoed in later Conan adventures.

Howard buffs will want this book because of connections like those, and because Kull is a recognized harbinger of a great genre. But as a character, or as a basis for a series of stories, he is simply too inert.

Tompkins allows for Howard’s growing pains in his introduction: He was less market-minded than he would become, and the series exhibits not the precision-guided productivity of the later professional but a purple and gold romanticism that is not uncommon in a writer barely into his twenties.

Which is putting it kindly. Howard never lost that romanticism; it imbues his writing across the many characters and genres he stooped to conquer. But I didn’t realize how critical elements like discipline and structure were to his greatness until I discovered their lack here.