The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

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Conan / Kull / Bran Mak Morn

#5593.91 in the official ranking · full ranking

Books 27 books Status Complete 1927–1987 Reading commitment High Robert E. Howard Last reviewed 2026-09-27

Overview

Robert E. Howard's three ages of the same Earth, catalogued as one universe. Kull of Atlantis, the exile who seizes the throne of Valusia, belongs to the Thurian Age before the cataclysm; Conan the Cimmerian, the character most credited with founding sword and sorcery, to the Hyborian Age that follows it; and Bran Mak Morn, last king of the Picts, to Roman Britain. Howard bound them together himself: his essay The Hyborian Age carries the world from Kull's time to Conan's, The Phoenix on the Sword reworks a Kull story into Conan's first published adventure, and Kings of the Night brings Kull forward across the centuries to fight beside Bran Mak Morn.

Sword & sorcery, Historical fantasy · For Adult

Core Canon: Reading Order (27 works) counts toward ranking

The Conan Stories Robert E. Howard

WorkYearCanonRating
Cover of The Phoenix on the SwordThe Phoenix on the Sword1932core3.90 (1,724 ratings)
Cover of The Scarlet CitadelThe Scarlet Citadel1933core3.92 (1,007 ratings)
Cover of The Tower of the ElephantThe Tower of the Elephant1933core4.11 (1,809 ratings)
Cover of The Pool of the Black OneThe Pool of the Black One1933core3.51 (546 ratings)
Cover of Black ColossusBlack Colossus1933core3.75 (756 ratings)
Cover of Rogues in the HouseRogues in the House1934core3.78 (641 ratings)
Cover of Shadows in the MoonlightShadows in the Moonlight; Howard's own manuscript title was 'Iron Shadows in the Moon'; Weird Tales published it as 'Shadows in the Moonlight'; some later paperback editions retitled it again as 'Xuthal of the Dusk'. This entry uses the first-published (Weird Tales) title.1934core3.65 (586 ratings)
Cover of Queen of the Black CoastQueen of the Black Coast1934core3.88 (1,138 ratings)
Cover of The Devil in IronThe Devil in Iron1934core3.58 (601 ratings)
Cover of The People of the Black CircleThe People of the Black Circle; Serialized in 3 parts, Weird Tales Sep-Nov 1934.1934core3.72 (653 ratings)
Cover of A Witch Shall Be BornA Witch Shall Be Born1934core3.75 (775 ratings)
Cover of Jewels of GwahlurJewels of Gwahlur; Howard's own manuscript title was 'The Servants of Bit-Yakin'; published under this title in Weird Tales.1935core3.69 (522 ratings)
Cover of Beyond the Black RiverBeyond the Black River; Serialized in 2 parts, Weird Tales May-Jun 1935.1935core4.01 (788 ratings)
Cover of Shadows in ZamboulaShadows in Zamboula; Howard's own manuscript title was 'The Man-Eaters of Zamboula'; published under this title in Weird Tales.1935core3.64 (459 ratings)
Cover of The Hour of the DragonThe Hour of the Dragon; Howard's only full-length Conan novel; serialized in 5 parts, Weird Tales Dec 1935-Apr 1936. Also submitted as a standalone book to UK publisher Dennis Archer in 1934, who went bankrupt before printing; first true book publication was the 1950 Gnome Press edition (retitled 'Conan the Conqueror').1935core4.11 (5,059 ratings)
Cover of Red NailsRed Nails; Serialized in 3 parts, Weird Tales Jul-Oct 1936; the last Conan story published in Howard's lifetime.1936core4.04 (2,245 ratings)
Cover of The Frost-Giant's DaughterThe Frost-Giant's Daughter; Complete Howard manuscript rejected by Weird Tales in his lifetime; the original Conan text was first published posthumously in Gnome Press's Conan the Barbarian (1954).1954core3.66 (364 ratings)
Cover of The God in the BowlThe God in the Bowl; Complete Howard manuscript rejected by Weird Tales in his lifetime. A heavily rewritten version by L. Sprague de Camp was first published in 1952 (Space Science Fiction, Sep) -- this database registers a different text, not that rewrite. Howard's own restored/unaltered text was first printed in THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT (Donald M. Grant, 1975), predating the more widely-cited Wandering Star (2002)/Del Rey 'The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian' (2003) scholarly editions by decades. Correction 2026-08-06: this entry previously listed 1996, sourced from an unverified secondary claim; 1975 is the correct first-appearance year for Howard's own text per reh.world's detailed publication history (Grant 1975 restored text -> Grosset & Dunlap 1978 -> Wandering Star 2002 -> Del Rey 2003 -> Gollancz 2006). No rating-platform work page distinguishes Howard's restored text from de Camp's rewrite -- the only standalone rating-platform page under this title (work id 17567455) is explicitly the 1952 de Camp version, a different registered work by this project's own rule, so it is not used for this book's rating. Reader-rating data collection for this specific book is not expected to be resolvable through the standard per-book rating-platform lookup; it would require either the rating platform adding a distinct restored-text edition page, or a documented exception to the standard lookup.1975core3.66 (318 ratings)
Cover of The Vale of Lost WomenThe Vale of Lost Women; Complete Howard manuscript rejected by Weird Tales in his lifetime, likely for its racially charged content; not published until The Magazine of Horror, Spring 1967. No other-author rewriting involved.1967core2.83 (156 ratings)
Cover of The Black StrangerThe Black Stranger; Complete Howard manuscript rejected by Weird Tales in his lifetime. De Camp separately rewrote it into a different, altered story titled 'The Treasure of Tranicos' (1953); Howard's own unaltered text was not printed until the Echoes of Valor anthology (1987), later restored in Del Rey's The Conquering Sword of Conan (2005). This entry registers Howard's own text, not the 1953 de Camp rewrite.1987core3.75 (87 ratings)

20 works wholly written by Robert E. Howard himself (16 published in his lifetime, 1932-1936, plus 4 complete manuscripts he finished but that were rejected by Weird Tales and only published posthumously in his own unaltered text, 1954-1996), the modern Del Rey 'Original Conan' trilogy (ed. Patrice Louinet, 2002-2005) presents all 20 together as the definitive, textually-restored, Howard-only edition. No internal in-story chronological order is recorded here: at least six independent, mutually disagreeing chronologies have been proposed by different editors/scholars since 1936 (Miller/Clark, de Camp's two versions, William Galen Gray, Joe Marek, Dale Rippke), and Howard himself is documented as having 'had little more than a general idea of the character's career path' and deliberately wrote the stories out of sequence, the same principled non-invention applied to Steven Brust's Dragaera. Book order here follows first-publication-of-the-actual-registered-text year, which is a sourced fact, not an invented reading order.

Kull of Atlantis (lifetime-published stories) Robert E. Howard

WorkYearInternal chron.CanonRating
Cover of The Shadow KingdomThe Shadow Kingdom19291core3.65 (264 ratings)
Cover of The Mirrors of Tuzun ThuneThe Mirrors of Tuzun Thune19292core3.47 (137 ratings)

The only 2 Kull-as-protagonist stories Howard sold and saw published in his own lifetime (both Weird Tales, 1929) -- confirmed via a dedicated Howard-scholarship source (The Pulp Super-Fan) and Wikipedia. A third lifetime-published story, 'Kings of the Night' (Weird Tales, November 1930), features Kull as a time-displaced guest character in a story primarily about Bran Mak Morn -- registered under Bran Mak Morn's own Core Canon instead (admitted separately, this same run), with the crossover noted here rather than the same book double-registered under two universes.

Bran Mak Morn (lifetime-published stories) Robert E. Howard

WorkYearInternal chron.CanonRating
Cover of The Lost RaceThe Lost Race19271core3.29 (51 ratings)
Cover of Kings of the NightKings of the Night19302core3.92 (80 ratings)
Cover of The Children of the NightThe Children of the Night19313core2.85 (98 ratings)
Cover of The Dark ManThe Dark Man19314core3.89 (35 ratings)
Cover of Worms of the EarthWorms of the Earth19325core4.01 (696 ratings)

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.

Library / Expanded (5 works) context only

Quick answers

Why is it ranked #559?

Ranked #559 in the official ranking.

How the ranking works →

Why explore this universe?

Rated · 27 books · Complete · 22k ratings · Ranks #559 overall

Good choice if you want a long-running sword-and-sorcery universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.

Reading order

Publication order (27 Core Canon books)

  1. The Lost Race (1927)
  2. The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune (1929)
  3. The Shadow Kingdom (1929)
  4. Kings of the Night (1930)
  5. The Children of the Night (1931)
  6. The Dark Man (1931)
  7. The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)
  8. Worms of the Earth (1932)
  9. Black Colossus (1933)
  10. The Pool of the Black One (1933)
  11. The Scarlet Citadel (1933)
  12. The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
  13. A Witch Shall Be Born (1934)
  14. Queen of the Black Coast (1934)
  15. Rogues in the House (1934)
  16. Shadows in the Moonlight (1934)
  17. The Devil in Iron (1934)
  18. The People of the Black Circle (1934)
  19. Beyond the Black River (1935)
  20. Jewels of Gwahlur (1935)
  21. Shadows in Zamboula (1935)
  22. The Hour of the Dragon (1935)
  23. Red Nails (1936)
  24. The Frost-Giant's Daughter (1954)
  25. The Vale of Lost Women (1967)
  26. The God in the Bowl (1975)
  27. The Black Stranger (1987)

Documented internal/story order: 7 of 27 Core Canon books

  1. The Shadow Kingdom (1929)
  2. The Lost Race (1927)
  3. The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune (1929)
  4. Kings of the Night (1930)
  5. The Children of the Night (1931)
  6. The Dark Man (1931)
  7. Worms of the Earth (1932)

Internal chronology is documented for 7 of 27 Core Canon books; the remaining 20 are not yet mapped onto the same ordinal scale.

Awards (verified)

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Suggestions computed from what Conan / Kull / Bran Mak Morn and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.

Official resources

Research details

Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.91 across 21,595 ratings on 27 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.

How do we know this?

Admission: Conan the Barbarian admitted; Core Canon = Howard's own 20 works; posthumous pastiche excluded accepted 2026-08-05

Sources: (see source tier definitions)

Related universes: see the Related universes section above.

Last reviewed: 2026-09-27

Rule: Core Canon = the 20 Conan works wholly written by Howard (registered as one series, The Conan Stories), the Kull collections (2) and the Bran Mak Morn books (5): 27 works in their own series orders. Expanded = the five Conan fragments completed by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter; decades of pure pastiche remain out of scope. Merged into one universe on 2026-09-27 under the one-world rule. Solomon Kane is left as a separate universe: the same historical Earth, but no shared age, story or character.

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