Kings of the Night
core short fiction 1930 Conan / Kull / Bran Mak Morn
Record
| First published | 1930 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | short fiction |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.92 (80 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 66 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781406572773 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
The first tale to present Bran Mak Morn as a reigning monarch of the Picts, actively leading his diminished people in their ongoing war against occupying Roman forces along the empire's northern frontier. When the desperate military situation calls for aid beyond what mortal strength can provide, the wizard Gonar performs a necromantic ritual that reaches across the ages to summon the ancient Atlantean king Kull, hero of an entirely separate Robert E. Howard cycle set in an earlier mythic epoch, to fight alongside Bran against the Roman legions. Their striking meeting brings together two legendary rulers from vastly different eras of Howard's invented prehistory, uniting Bran's grim, embattled present with echoes of a far older heroic age as the Picts fight to hold their remaining territory against Rome.
Where it sits
- Universe: Conan / Kull / Bran Mak Morn
- Series: Bran Mak Morn (lifetime-published stories) core; position 2 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Robert E. Howard
Notes
- From the series record (Bran Mak Morn (lifetime-published stories)): The 5 Bran Mak Morn stories Howard sold and saw published in his own lifetime (all Weird Tales, 1927-1932), per a dedicated Howard-scholarship bibliography (reh.world). 'The Lost Race' (Bran mentioned only as legend; the protagonist is a Gael, Cororuc) and 'The Children of the Night'/'The Dark Man' (in-story framing device narrators, not Bran himself) are included per that same scholarship source's own classification of the Bran Mak Morn cycle -- Worms of the Earth and Kings of the Night are the only 2 with Bran as the story's own on-page protagonist. 'Kings of the Night' (Weird Tales, November 1930) is a crossover: Kull of Atlantis (admitted separately this same run) is summoned via time-travel magic as a guest character to help Bran fight the Romans.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Bran Mak Morn (lifetime-published stories): position 2 of 5: previous The Lost Race (1927) · next The Children of the Night (1931)
- Internal chronology, within Conan / Kull / Bran Mak Morn: position 4 of 7: previous The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune (1929) · next The Children of the Night (1931)
Sources
- The World of Robert E. Howard: Bran Mak Morn
- Wikisource: Weird Tales, Volume 9, Issue 1 -- The Lost Race
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Mak_Morn
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