Review: Robert E. Howard's "The Shadow Kingdom"

First published in Weird Tales all the way back in August 1929 (Volume 14, No. 2), this story is the first appearance of Kull of Atlantis, a character Robert E. Howard would write several short stories about and who would be part of the inspiration of his later character, Conan.

It's a major milestone in the sword and sorcery genre, and you can read it free:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Weird_Tales/Volume_14/Issue_2/The_Shadow_Kingdom

This story is short but it does a lot. It establishes the character and background of Kull, some of his major allies, and one of his major motivations: to fight the serpent-men!

Howard's language is a bit flowery but descriptive and effective, and the dialogue is excellent. There's a great little trick that Howard employs early in the story that is a bit obvious, but useful and instructive because it is obvious. Since this is the first Kull story, Kull doesn't really have a background yet, so Howard establishes it by having another character relate a few points of Kull's history in an effort to show Kull that he can be trusted. It's a device that can be done better if done more subtly, but something about the way it happens in this story interested me.

It's worth noting that Howard wrote a short "history" of this world called "The Hyborean Age" that wouldn't be published until 1936.

The descriptions of combat are a bit hazy but that does fit in with Kull's berserker style. I also liked the way Howard described Kull's behavior when he was wounded but forced to press on.

The plot is fairly complex for such a short story. We have two unlikely allies, an unknown truth revealed, two battles, some fun trickery, a resolution, and a solid hook for further adventures. Character development is somewhat scanty, and most of it goes to Kull himself, with a little to Brule and Ka-Nu, his allies, but really only to the point that we learn whether or not they can be trusted.

One little thing caught my eye. At one point, the phrase "Ka nama kaa lajerama" is used as an incantation... It made me think of an old PC game called "Prisoner of Ice" which had a major Lovecraftian influence, but at one point a phrase is uttered: "Ka nama ftag'n Cthulhu." That phrase appears to combine the "ftag'n Cthulhu" from Lovecrafts with Howard's "Ka nama!" I guess the guys at Chaosium were reading both, because "Ka nama" does not appear in Lovecraft, as far as I could find.

For spoiler bits, check out the "Spoiler Section" chapter in the embedded video.

All in all, this was a fun story with a great hook at the end, and as it's the first Kull story, it's also very important to a lot of sword and sorcery stuff that would come later. Check it out if you're interested, it's only a 30 minute read or so!