Jefferson N. (Jefferson) reviewed on + 170 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is the complete collection of the stories of King Kull of Atlantis from Robert E. Howard. I have seen people say these stories are not so good because they are redundant and every story is about someone trying to take Kull's kingdom from him. My response is "What other stories about a king would there be?" I will admit that I enjoyed other characters from Howard more. Kull is the forerunner of Howard's other barbarian characters and he is far more existential that Conan or Bran Mak Morn. He wants to understand his universe; his only problem is his barbarian ideas make his deep thoughts seem a little silly at time. But this was Howard in his youth and you can see him forming his ideas of life and the universe as these stories progress. If for nothing else, you should read the story "The Shadow Kingdom". It crosses into the world of Lovecraft's Mythos and it's a good action/horror story. I think the biggest problem I had with this book was the fact that the one story I know that Kull was in that isn't in the book is "Kings of the Night". This story had Kull being brought into the future to help Bran Mak Morn fight the Romans. I understand that in the Baen Howard Library that they had the story in the fourth volume featuring Bran Mak Morn, but I think it would have been good to have included it here as well. But, if you want to read it, you can get that book, too. It's a good one. As one final aside: If you have the old 1970's novel of Kull, don't go to too much trouble to get this one. It says it's the only complete version, but I looked through a copy I found at a book store, and it looks about the same. It might be missing a story fragment, but nothing that I could see.
