Beyond the Phoenix
short fiction 1938 Elak of Atlantis
Record
| First published | 1938 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | short fiction |
| Canon status | |
| Internal chronology | 3 |
Synopsis
In Kuttner's Atlantis, a continent of many rival kingdoms, the wandering swordsman Elak and his drink-loving companion Lycon take mercenary work guarding the small western kingdom of Sarhaddon. There they become entangled in a palace conspiracy: the kingdom's high priest, Xandar, secretly serves a dark and inhuman god named Baal-Yagoth and schemes against King Phrygion and his daughter, Princess Esarra. Xandar lures Elak and Lycon away from the king's chambers so his agents can strike, and though Elak returns in time to cut down the assassins and duel the priest himself, he cannot prevent the king from being fatally wounded. With his dying breath, Phrygion presses a magical bracelet into Elak's hands and charges him with protecting Esarra from Xandar's continuing designs.
Where it sits
- Universe: Elak of Atlantis
- Series: Elak of Atlantis core; position 3 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Henry Kuttner
Notes
- From the series record (Elak of Atlantis): All four stories were first published in Weird Tales (May-June 1938 through January 1941), each a self-contained novelette-length adventure; registered here as Core Canon under the same collection-as-Core exception this project applies to other pulp-era short-fiction cycles: the primary reading unit for this universe is the short fiction itself, later gathered into book form, not a novel.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Elak of Atlantis: position 3 of 4: previous The Spawn of Dagon (1938) · next Dragon Moon (1941)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Elak of Atlantis
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Kuttner, Henry
- http://adventuresfantastic.com/kuttners-elak-of-atlantis-beyond-the-phoenix/
- https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20210176
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