Kinsmen of the Dragon is a fantasy novel by author Stanley Mullen

Stanley Mullen

Stanley Mullen was an American artist, short story writer, novelist and publisher. He studied writing at the University of Colorado at Boulder and drawing, painting and lithography at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center where he was accepted as a professional member in 1937...

. It was published in 1951

1951 in literature

The year 1951 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*E. E. Cummings and Rachel Carson are awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.*Flannery O'Connor is diagnosed with lupus....

 by Shasta Publishers

Shasta Publishers

Shasta Publishers was a science fiction and fantasy small press specialty publishing house founded in 1947 by Erle Melvin Korshak, T. E. Dikty, and Mark Reinsberg, who were all science fiction fans from the Chicago area...

 in an edition of 3,500 copies. The book had originally been announced by Mullen's own Gorgon Press.

Plot introduction

The novel concerns an empire of invisible wizards and adventure in the realm of Annwyn.

Reception

Writing in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, J. Francis McComas

J. Francis McComas

Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....

 declared that "Practically every theme of fantasy and science fiction has been mistreated in this silly melodrama." Damon Knight

Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

 described it as the paradigm of the idiot-plotted story, "a plot that is kept in motion solely by the fact that everyone involved is an idiot." James Blish

James Blish

James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...

 characterized it as "an incredibly bad novel from any point of view," suggesting that other genre reviewers had been "gentle" with Mullen because he was a popular member of the fan community.

However, Astounding reviewer Forrest J Ackerman

Forrest J Ackerman

Forrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...

pseudonymously found Kinsmen to be "a first-class first novel, blending astounding science with unknown wizardry."