Title: The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 5, January 1935
Author: Various
Editor: Charles D. Hornig
Release date: March 27, 2021 [eBook #64942]
Language: English
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
You will notice that this is the Special Weird Poetry Number.
The next issue will be the Special Short Story Number,
and the March issue will be dedicated to Weird Tales. By the way, F. Lee Baldwin, the author of our well-liked department, "Within the Circle," has compiled an excellent biography of H. P. Lovecraft which will appear in the Weird Tales number with a special wood-cut of the famed writer by Duane W. Rimel. Coming up is also volumes of material from Seabury Quinn, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, R. H. Barlow, Robert Nelson, and all your other favorite writers.
Upon suggestions from many of our readers, we are dropping "Our Readers Say" department with this issue. As H. Koenig points, continuous repetition of "I liked this" and "I liked that" does not make very interesting reading. Therefore, "Our Readers Say" will be replaced by this "Forward" each month besides fan articles made from the most interesting of our readers' communications.
Due to the huge influx of contributions, we find it very difficult to oblige all of our contributors by placing their material in print promptly. We intend to use the best material first and must ask the patience of all those who have sent us articles. Please remember our limited space.
I have just had an opportunity to check up on Blackwood's "The Wolves of God," (writes H. Koenig). The book was written by Blackwood and Wilson as I indicated in my last letter. I find, however, that the only story credited directly to Blackwood was the last story in the book entitled "Vengeance is Mine" and not the title story. Hence, if you should publish my earlier letter, please make the correction. Incidentally, it may be well that Blackwood had a hand in the other stories. But if so, the Table of Contents does not so indicate.
You will remember that in our editorial for the November, 1934, number, we stated casually that the average intelligence of the general public was that of a moron. We have received a post-card containing the following from "One of the 'General Public'," post-marked Newark, N. J.:
"In recently wasting time glancing through that collection of waste paper which you honor with the title of a magazine, I noticed that you consider the general public—of which I am proud to be a member—a collection of moronic individuals, and the followers of your creed of a "higher type of intellect." I just hate to disagree with you, but if you investigate the reason for the small number of such creatures, you would probably find out that most asylums censor their inmate's mail. Unfortunately, lack of space and postal laws prohibit my expressing of my true opinion of both the (?-!—) and its readers. I challenge you to print this."
It is easy to see that the writer of this card is "one of the general public." Here we find the customary challenge to print it and the lack of signature, which must denote that the writer is either ashamed or afraid to append his name. Concerning asylums, however, we hadn't even thought of soliciting the inmates. That's not a bad idea. We'll have to take that point up at the next Director's Meeting. Which one are you in?
Arthur B. Reeve, creator of the famous scientific-sleuth, Craig Kennedy, makes his bow to Weird Tales readers with a novelette in the May issue!... Jack Binder, brother of the popular author Eando Binder, will do most of the illustrating for Weird commencing with the April number.... C. L. Moore has pulled a "Clark Ashton Smith" and has drawn the illustration for her forthcoming yarn in WT "Julhui".... There will be no women on Weird Tales' covers for two consecutive issues this year, April and May!
Dr. Death is the title of the latest fantasy magazine to appear on the newsstands. It features a weird-scientific novel each month written by "Zorro," which is the pseudonym for Harold Ward. Rounding out the rest of the issue are three or four thrillers with a pseudo-scientific or weird background.... Donald Wandrei's latest Ivy Frost novelette, "They Could Not Kill Him," appears currently in Clues.... The April cover of Weird Tales will illustrate a scene in A. W. Bernal's "The Man Who was Two Men," and deals with an amazing development in radio after television.... Bernal, by the way, is a student in the University of California, and sold his first yarn, "The Man Who Played with Time," which appeared in March, 1932 WT at the early age of 15.
Farnsworth Wright brings up an interesting point regarding titles of stories. Hardly a month goes by that does not bring at least one story titled "The House of Fear," another entitled "The House of Living Death," and another entitled "Hands of Death." The commonest title on manuscripts submitted is "Retribution," but stories with the word "House" in the title are almost as frequent. Of course, these titles are changed if the story is accepted, to avoid repeating the same title that has been used in the magazine before. "The House of the Living Dead," by Harold Ward, appeared in WT for March, 1932. Quinn's cover design story for the February, 1935 issue had the same title, in manuscript, but the title was changed to "The Web of Living Death." Harold Ward's cover design story for the March issue this year was originally titled "Hands of Death," but this was too similar to Quinn's tale title, "Hands of the Dead" in the current January issue, so the title of Ward's story was changed to "Clutching Hands of Death."
Part Sixteen
(copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook)
VIII. The Weird Tradition in America
The public for whom Poe wrote, though grossly unappreciative of his art, was by no means unaccustomed to the horrors with which he dealt. America, besides inheriting the usual dark folklore of Europe, had an additional fund of weird associations to draw upon; so that spectral legends had already been recognized as fruitful subject-matter for literature. Charles Brockden Brown had achieved phenomenal fame with his Radcliffian romances, and Washington Irving's lighter treatment of eerie themes had quickly become classic. This additional fund proceeded, as Paul Elmer Moore has pointed out, from the keen spiritual and theological interests of the first colonists, plus the strange and forbidding nature of the scene into which they were plunged, the vast and gloomy virgin forest in whose perpetual twilight all terrors might well lurk; the hordes of coppery Indians whose strange, saturnine visages and violent customs hinted strongly at traces of infernal origin; the free rein given under the influence of Puritan theocracy to all manner of notions respecting man's relation to the stern and vengeful God of the Calvinists, and to the sulphureous Adversary of that God, about whom so much was thundered in the pulpits each Sunday; and the morbid introspection developed by an isolated backwoods life devoid of normal amusements and of the recreational mood, harassed by commands for theological self-examination, keyed to unnatural emotional repression, and forming above all a mere grim struggle for survival—all these things conspired to produce an environment in which the black whisperings of sinister grandams were heard far beyond the chimney corner, and in which tales of witchcraft and unbelievable secret monstrosities lingered long after the dread days of the Salem nightmare.
Poe represents the newer, more disillusioned, and more technically finished of the weird schools that rose out of this propitious milieu. Another school—the tradition of moral values, gentle restraint, and mild, leisurely phantasy tinged more or less with the whimsical—was represented by another famous, misunderstood, and lonely figure in American letters—the shy and sensitive Nathaniel Hawthorne, scion of antique Salem and great-grandson of one of the bloodiest of the old witchcraft judges. In Hawthorne we have none of the violence, the daring, the high colouring, the intense dramatic sense, the cosmic malignity, and the undivided and impersonal artistry of Poe. Here, instead, is a gentle soul cramped by the Puritanism of early New England; shadowed and wistful, and grieved at an unmoral universe which everywhere transcends the conventional patterns thought by our forefathers to represent divine and immutable law. Evil, a very real force to Hawthorne, appears on every hand as a lurking and conquering adversary; and the visible world becomes in his fancy a theater of infinite tragedy and woe, with unseen, half-existent influences hovering over it and through it, battling for supremacy and moulding the destinies of the hapless mortals who form its vain and self-deluded population. The heritage of American weirdness was his to a most intense degree, and he saw a dismal throng of vague spectres behind the common phenomena of life; but he was not disinterested enough to value impressions, sensations, and beauties of narration for their own sake. He must needs weave his phantasy into some quietly melancholy fabric of didactic or allegorical cast, in which his meekly resigned cynicism may display with naive moral appraisal the perfidy of a human race which he cannot cease to cherish and mourn despite his insight into its hypocrisy. Supernatural horror, then, is never a primary object with Hawthorne; though its impulses were so deeply woven into his personality that he cannot help suggesting it with the force of genius when he calls upon the unreal world to illustrate the pensive sermon he wishes to preach.
Hawthorne's intimations of the weird, always gentle, elusive, and restrained, may be traced throughout his work. The mood that produced them found one delightful vent in the Teutonised retelling of classic myths for children contained in "A Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales," and at other times exercised itself in casting a certain strangeness and intangible witchery or malevolence over events not meant to be actually supernatural; as in the macabre posthumous novel "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret," which invests with a peculiar sort of repulsion a house existing to this day in Salem, and abutting on the ancient Charter Street Ground. In "The Marble Faun," whose design was sketched out in an Italian villa reputed to be haunted, a tremendous background of genuine phantasy and mystery palpitates just beyond the common reader's sight; and glimpses of fabulous blood in mortal veins are hinted at during the course of a romance which cannot help being interesting despite the persistent incubus of moral allegory, anti-Popery propaganda, and a Puritan prudery which caused the late D. H. Lawrence to express a longing to treat the author in a highly undignified manner. "Septimius Felton," a posthumous novel whose idea was to have been elaborated and incorporated into the unfinished "Dolliver Romance," touches on the Elixir of Life in a more or less capable fashion; whilst the notes for a never-written tale to be called "The Ancestral Footstep," shows what Hawthorne would have done with an intensive treatment of an old English superstition—that of an ancient and accursed line whose members left footprints of blood as they walked—which appears incidentally in both "Septimius Felton" and "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret."
(Mr. Lovecraft tells you more about Nathaniel Hawthorne in the next issue. Don't miss Part Seventeen).
(A True Experience)
(Apologies to Kenneth B. Pritchard)
Many people have seen freaks and monsters, both in the circus and in their nightmares, especially after a gay night, but this which I tell of happened when I was cold sober, on a crispy winter night in the middle of July. (Don't laugh—this might have happened in Australia—Editor).
I had returned from a party, and to be sure, I was half lit up, for I had dashed down several canters of buttermilk, but nevertheless, I was cold sober when I met the great adventure! I had just about reached home, when my sixth sense warned me that something was wrong. I looked about.
The snow covered the ground several inches thick, but as far as I could see, not a single footprint marred the beauty of it. I even turned to look behind me, but could not see my own tracks. Too peaceful. I had a grim foreboding of something evil. For want of something better to do, I bent over and tied my shoelace. And then I saw it!
For as I bent over, I caught a glimpse of a monstrous foot protruding from behind a nearby tree! Hastily, I assumed an innocent manner and straightened. I must not let the Thing know I had seen it! Nonchalantly, I lighted a Fizwig and blew smoke rings. And then it happened!
For the monster stepped out from behind the tree and approached me! He was the strangest thing I had ever seen! All of six foot tall, four queer limbs protruding from his body, a round, shiny cranium perched upon what I took to be shoulders, and a mass of hanging brown stuff sticking to the cranium. He had on some queer dress of blue material, with shoulder straps on each side. I mumbled in fear and awaited his approach.
For several seconds he surveyed me, and then, much to my absolute horror, he spoke. Spoke to me! My hair stood straight up in the air, my eyes rolled, and I fainted at those fearful words: "I say, old chap, could you direct me to the post office?"
(A True Experience)
On Saturday evening, October 21, 1933, a strange thing was noted by two friends and myself.
It was quite dark, for clouds were thick and hanging low in the sky.
From out of the east there flashed a beam as of a searchlight questing thru the atmosphere. It shone at intervals of a few seconds. These intervals were irregular, and sometimes the beam would last longer than at others. Once, it lasted easily ten seconds, and probably more.
At times this light seemed a reflection from the clouds; but then again, after the almost beam-like light had ceased, the light came directly from the clouds seemingly from someone in or above them!
There are no really high places in my city (Pittsfield, Mass.) to shine a light from that position.
Was it a search beam, a natural phenomena, or something from Beyond?
"The Ghoul," British weird tale of the screen, disappeared from Los Angeles screens the day Forrest J. Ackerman arrived there, playing no theater during all the summer months he looked for it. The morning he left, it came on again!
Jack Williamson is recuperating from an appendix operation and has done no writing for quite a while. He says: "—My drugged slumbers in the first few days after the operation bred some of the weirdest dreams yet, and I'm anxious to get back to writing".... When in Key West last winter, he and Edmond Hamilton had a few adventures such as capsizing a skiff out in the Atlantic and towing it behind them as they swam back to shore. Hamilton caught a monster jew fish.
Wright has bought "The Cyclops of Xoatl," featuring Two-Gun Bart Leslie and his pursuit of a cannibal monster in Mexico. The tale is by E. Hoffmann Price and Otis Adelbert Kline.... The two are now planning a story of Burma, about leopard men.... Pierre d'Artois, Price's veteran swordsman, is more or less a picture of his old fencing-master of long ago during his academic days.... Price says about "Queen of the Lilin": I ploughed through a good deal of research in order to present Lilith authentically. A good deal of the Lilith lore had to be cut out in the interests of brevity, which I regretted, as I felt that some of the fans would enjoy a closer acquaintance with the fascinating Queen of Zemargad.
R. H. Barlow is in Washington taking treatment for his eyes. He is also taking a light art course at the Corcoran Gallery.
Alonzo Leonard, who appeared sometime ago in "Believe It Or Not" for inventing a private language, is an authority on cults, ancient languages, superstitions, and strange beliefs. He has compiled a set of "books," 48 volumes, of all strange happenings and things of unusual nature. The collection is called "Encyclopedia Satanic."
(Hitherto Unpublished Verses)
"Lost Horizon" by Hilton.
Weird stories are so often bloody and gruesome that it is a delight to find one written in an urbane and restrained style. "Lost Horizon" tells of the stealing of a plane and its four passengers (two British consular agents, an American absconding banker, and an American missionary) during a tribal outbreak north of India and their intentional removal to a remote valley in Tibet where they find a semi-Christian and semi-Buddhist monastery, inhabited by a group of serene men and women who have achieved an indefinitely prolonged life.
The main portion of the story concerns life in the monastery and the attempt by its head to persuade the few prisoners to remain there, exchanging a hurried, confused, and short life in so-called civilization for calm, peace, and longevity in Tibet. Naturally, and inevitably, the denouement is a tragedy, indirect, but poignant.
Mr. Hilton is an urbane satirist (if that is not a contradiction of terms) who has produced a beautiful story, weird and unusual, but without the so-frequent accompaniment of vampires, ghosts, or the like. He writes delicately in a style reminiscent of Owens' "The Wind that Tramps the World." "Lost Horizon" is not for the blood-and-thunder reader; it has no "crashing suns," no "supernatural," no "unseen presences," no incredible "brain surgeons," no "werewolves," but it does have an unusual plot, weird in a faint and beautiful manner. For the not-too-hardened it will be a pleasure.
Death is a wheel....
Death is a wheel, grinding, rending, crushing. The little boy skipped gayly to the grocery store for his mother. Crossing the street, he did not see an oncoming truck. It was too late and—Death is a wheel, grinding, rending, crushing. Death is a wheel....
Death is a dollar bill....
Death is a dollar bill. A gust of wind swept a vagrant dollar bill into the gutter. It sped onward thru the streets. Onward to a jutting pier. Onward it went. A man espied it. He ran for it. Stumbled. Ran on. He came to the end of the pier. Fell into the water. But he grasped the dollar bill. "I've got it!" he cried. And then he sank beneath the waves. Death is a dollar bill....
Death is a dream....
Death is a dream. "Death, too, must be a dream," said the man in his dream. "Petty hills. Endless. Light all about. Light ... gladness ... music ... voices of women. But my throat. How tight. I am choking.... Breath, breath. My breath. Pretty hills. Endless. My breath. God, my breath. Light ... breath ... hills ... music ... voices of women. Breath...." Death is a dream....
(Series Eight)
British science fiction, with the death of "Scoops," has just about gone pfft, to quote a New York columnist. The small four-cent magazines in the field do not run enough "science" fiction to make reading them worth your time.
The "Triumph" is still running the "Invisible Charlie" series, and they get no better each time. The "Wizard" has come forth with the "Worms of Doom." It's the old idea of the gent with a world-conquering mania again. He lets loose strange worms upon the world, said worms capable of devouring steel. Of course, they devour the most popular buildings first of all. It's funny how the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building taste better than ordinary ones.
"Amazing Stories" publishes a British Edition over there, so that helps somewhat. When questioned, "Wonder" and "Astounding" say that they don't publish such editions, but "Wonder" adds "as yet," so maybe someday....
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THE FANTASY FAN
In the early days of science fiction when there were not many authors who wrote it and Amazing was chiefly a magazine of Verne-Wells-Poe reprints, Bob Olsen was writing and had a friend who thought he could too. Bob had two tales published in Amazing without mentioning the accomplishment to his friend who succeeded in having nothing accepted (he was not writing stf). Then, with the third story, Bob's name appeared on the cover, giving him quite a thrill. 'Stories by: H. G. Wells, Bob Olsen, Edgar Allan Poe', it read. "Uh, what do you think of that?" asked Bob proudly, now displaying his work, his name with Wells and Poe. The friend sized up a moment. Then, "They've got you just right, all right," he seemed to have to admit, Bob swelling with pride—"half way between a live one and a dead one!"
Bob still thinks he was a little bit envious, tho.
Tell your friends to read
THE FANTASY FAN
Years ago, when Hugo Gernsback's "Scientific Adventures of Baron Munchhausen" were appearing serially in the Electrical Experimenter, it occasionally transpired that an installment was omitted. At such intervals various ingenious excuses were offered to explain the missing chapters. Perhaps the gem of them all is the one which we are reproducing herewith, taken from a 1915 issue.
"Baron Munchhausen, as will be noted, has failed to make his appearance this month. Urgent wireless telegrams to his chronologist-in-chief, the Hon. I. M. Alier, of Yankton, Mass., disclosed the fact that the venerable old gentleman had contracted a virulent case of Atmospheris Marsianis, which sometimes attacks Interplanetary travellers not acclimatized to the peculiar Martian air. Mr. Alier, however, states that Professor Flitternix, the Baron's companion, advises him that Munchhausen will be back on the job next month. Of course we're sorry, but what can we do?"
ADVERTISEMENTS
Rates: one cent per word
Minimum Charge, 25 cents
Back Numbers of The Fantasy Fan: September, 1933, out of print; Oct., Dec., 1933—Jan., Feb., Mar., May, June, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec., 1934, 10 cents each.
Nov., 1933—Apr., July, 1934, 20 cents each.
CLARK ASHTON SMITH presents THE DOUBLE SHADOW AND OTHER FANTASIES—a booklet containing a half-dozen imaginative and atmospheric tales—stories of exotic beauty, horror, terror, strangeness, irony and satire. Price: 25 cents each (coin or stamps). Also a small remainder of EBONY AND CRYSTAL—a book of prose-poems published at $2.00, reduced to $1.00 per copy. Everything sent postpaid. Clark Ashton Smith, Auburn, California.
BACK ISSUES of Weird Tales for sale, 1924-25-26 to date. State issues wanted. D. M. Roberts, 328 W. Willow St., Syracuse, N. Y.
Important! Many subscriptions to TFF expire this winter. Yours is probably one of them. Don't forget to send in your new subscription if you want TFF to continue monthly publication. Every dollar counts!
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