Elak of Atlantis
#5833.54 adjusted 3.89 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 1985 Reading commitment Low Henry Kuttner Last reviewed 2026-10-12
Overview
Elak of Atlantis is Henry Kuttner's own entry in the sword-and-sorcery mode Robert E. Howard had established a few years earlier with Conan: a wandering, sword-wielding heir to a throne he does not want, adventuring across an invented, antediluvian Atlantean world of sorcery, sunken cities and rival kingdoms.
The four stories appeared in Weird Tales between May 1938 and January 1941, entirely under Kuttner's own name; they predate his 1940 marriage to fellow pulp writer C.L. Moore, so none of the collaborative pseudonyms (such as Lewis Padgett) the couple later shared apply here. The stories went uncollected in book form for decades, first gathered as a single volume in 1985.
Sword & sorcery · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
Elak of Atlantis Henry Kuttner
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunder in the Dawn | 1938 | 1 | N/A | ||
| The Spawn of Dagon | 1938 | 2 | N/A | ||
| Beyond the Phoenix | 1938 | 3 | N/A | ||
| Dragon Moon | 1941 | 4 | N/A |
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.
Elak of Atlantis (1985) core · 3.54 (217 ratings); The collection of Kuttner's four Elak stories (Weird Tales, 1938-1941): first collected by Gryphon Books in 1985 with two Prince Raynor tales; the 2014 Diversion Books edition, whose ISBN is recorded, contains the four Elak stories alone. The reader rating is the work-level figure across its editions.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Elak of Atlantis? Elak of Atlantis's Core Canon is 5 books.
- What is the reading order for Elak of Atlantis? Publication order, starting with Thunder in the Dawn. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Elak of Atlantis finished? Complete (1985).
- How much reading does Elak of Atlantis take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book).
- How is Elak of Atlantis ranked? #583 in this site's official ranking, based on 217 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #583?
Ranked #583 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.54 across 1 core book.
- A smaller readership (217 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- 0.34 behind #582, The Jumbies.
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Modestly rated · 1 book · Complete · 217 ratings · Ranks #583 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment sword-and-sorcery universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this universe.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.54 across 217 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. 4 additional Core Canon books haven't been rated yet, so they aren't counted here. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Elak of Atlantis restructured: the collection becomes the Core book, the four stories Expanded accepted 2026-10-12
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-10-12
Rule: Core Canon = the collection Elak of Atlantis (first collected 1985), which gathers Kuttner's four Elak stories. Expanded = the four stories individually, in magazine-publication order: Thunder in the Dawn, The Spawn of Dagon, Beyond the Phoenix (1938) and Dragon Moon (1941).