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Post by dem bones on Dec 10, 2008 18:53:24 GMT
Lin Carter - Weird Tales #1 (Zebra, April 1981)  Tom Barber
Robert E. Howard - Scarlet Tears
What was in the jade box that was worth so many lives?
Ramsey Campbell - Down There
A chilling yarn by a modern master
Clark Ashton Smith - The Light From The Pole
Icy terror strikes from beyond - a tale of Hyperborea
Hans Bok - Someone Named Guibourg
A curse that spanned generations
Robert A. W. Lowdnes - The Courier/ The Worshippers verse
August Derleth - Bats Belfry
A Weird Tales "first"
Carl Jacobi - The Pit
Some things in the ground are better left undisturbed
Tanith Lee - When The Clock Strikes
Vengeance rises from the grave
Robert E. Howard - Red Thunder verse
Seabury Quinn - Some Day I'll Kill You
Some promises take more than a lifetime to keep
Mary E. Counselman - The Healer
An eerie tale of a man who absorbed the pain of others ...
David H. Keller, M.D. - The House Without Mirrors
From the casebook of Adam Lazarus, Doctor of Souls
Lin Carter - Dreams In The House Of Weir
A new tale of the Cthulthu Mythos
One of several attempts to relaunch the classic pulp magazine (never thought much of the idea myself), this time in paperback format (I think it ran for four issues?). A non-De Grandin from Seabury Quinn, vintage vampire lunacy from Derleth, Ramsey Campbell at his most depressing and a very nasty psycho outing from Carl Jacobi are among the highlights. Ramsey Campbell - Down There: Elaine's branch of the Inland Revenue have temporarily moved into an old building while their own undergoes renovation. She's working late, alone with only her immediate manager, Steve, and the alcoholic caretaker, Tuttle, who is in the habit of leaving mouldy sandwiches about the place - or so it seems. As the stormy night drags on, Elaine becomes increasingly aware of Steve's restlessness. She supposes he has a date. When he suggests - then demands - they leave the building, she is furious, but Steve knows what he's about. The huge sub-basement is home to a tribe of voracious fungoid blobmen. Carl Jacobi - The Pit: Chadwick unwisely excavates an old Indian burial ground of evil repute for the stone to construct his summer house. He now leads a double life in which, unknown to himself, he kidnaps and murders young women. His latest victim is his girlfriend, librarian Emily Hunter, who he leaves bound and gagged at the Cairn awaiting his return. Because first there is Sheriff Blunt to garrotte ... August Derleth - Bat's Belfry: A reprint from the May 1926 issue. Essentially, August Derleth's Dracula. Sir Harry Barclay moves into Lohrville Manor, a Mansion on the fog-bound moors. The place has a sinister reputation on account of his predecessor, Baron Lohrville who dubbed it 'Bats Belfry' and a spate of disappearances of young women from a neighbouring village. Barclay learns to his cost that the Baron has set up headquarters in the cellar, with four dishy brides at his call. Sir Harry finds the experience suitably draining.
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Post by nosferatu on Jul 1, 2011 19:06:35 GMT
Just found this...  Robert Aickman - The Next Glade Charles Sheffield - Crocuses James Anderson - The Belfrey Ray Bradbury - There Are No Ghosts in Catholic Spain Frank Belknap Long - Homecoming John Brizzolara - Compliments Of The Season Lloyd Arthur Eshbach - The City of Dread Robert E. Howard - The Doom Chant of Than-Kul Steve Rasnic Tem - Save The Children Clark Ashton Smith - The Sea Gods Anthony M. Rud - Ooze Stuart H. Stock - Late Night Final Lin Carter - The Vengeance of Yig |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 1, 2011 19:11:40 GMT
Neither the Howard nor the Smith story seems familiar. Are they possibly "posthumous collaborations" with the editor?
Edit: Forget it. It seems both are poems.
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Post by justincase on Jul 1, 2011 20:15:13 GMT
Just found this... Robert Aickman - The Next Glade Charles Sheffield - Crocuses James Anderson - The Belfrey Ray Bradbury - There Are No Ghosts in Catholic Spain Frank Belknap Long - Homecoming John Brizzolara - Compliments Of The Season Lloyd Arthur Eshbach - The City of Dread Robert E. Howard - The Doom Chant of Than-Kul Steve Rasnic Tem - Save The Children Clark Ashton Smith - The Sea Gods Anthony M. Rud - Ooze Stuart H. Stock - Late Night Final Lin Carter - The Vengeance of Yig Very nice - Love that cover too! |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 1, 2011 22:43:02 GMT
yes, a beauty for sure, and a reprint of Ooze into the bargain! i prefer the Lin carter paperbacks to the version of Weird Tales that followed in 1984 under Gil Lamont & Gordon Garb. Anyone seen the issues Sam Moskowitz edited between 1973-4? |
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Post by ohthehorror on Jul 8, 2016 19:15:30 GMT
When The Clock Strikes by Tanith Lee - The story opens with in a once glorious and luxurious ballroom, now dusty, old and with a lost and abandoned feel to it. On the mantle is a clock that's been there for two hundred years. It's face is porcelain and figures of silver mark each hour, the twelfth being death himself. A man now tells us it's story.
A woman, a witch and devotee of Satanas, is driven to her death by a mob of locals led by her husband who overhears her and her daughter practicing their craft in the tower. She drives a knife through her own heart after extracting a promise from her daughter to avenge her, which she agrees to. We're treated to a lengthy tale involving the daughter Ashella, so called due her habit of rubbing ash into her beautiful red hair. She's described to us a too beautiful to look at(or something of the sort), and has some considerable power of her own, some of it passed onto her by her unfortunate Mother it seems.
It's a story of vengeance and death, and has more than a hint of the Cinderella Fairy Tale about it, right down to the carriage complete with animal headed attendants and a glass slipper no less.
Enjoyable story.
Dreams In The House Of Weir by Lin Carter - This is very Lovecraftian. It's written in the form of Journal entries by Hareton Paine who has taken a house in the country while he translates the complexities of the Sanskrit Schlokas into decent English(and it occurs at this point that I may have got this bit confused with another story, eek!). It's an imposing old house, maybe a little on the dreary side, and not a little creepy too. His wife, Elaine, doesn't take to it at all and isn't helped I shouldn't wonder by the little hand written booklet she finds on the bookshelves, Visions From Yiddith. Things get stranger as Hareton starts to have very weird dreams of strange lands and even stranger creatures. Here's a little taster,
His dreams continue and soon he realises he's seeing into another land, a very alien world complete with very alien beings. These are surely the ancient ones that Lovecraft spoke of. He soon finds out that a great battle is constantly in progress. On the one side, huge, white worm-like creatures that attempt to get to the old gods that are protected by powerful magic that the creature Hareton sees in his dreams, and is studying in a bid to hold back the onslaught. It's a fantastic premise, and perfectly carried off by the author. The feel of an alien world(plane?) whos denizens are able to travel via envelopes of light and manifest in peoples visions and dreams, and in the case of the wonderfully horrific slimy, white worms, able to actually manifest in the physical sense, as we find out at the end when we're treated to a kind of PostScript to the journal by a Police Inspector, Forster.
Really good story with very vivid imagery. Loved it.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 7, 2021 18:15:03 GMT
Robert E. Howard - Scarlet Tears: What was in the jade box that was worth so many lives?. Two years ago, treasure hunter Richard Corwell, old enough to know better, looted a box of curious gems from a tomb in India. Now Corwell House is under siege from seventy thuggee led by Khema, a deathless Black Magician, sworn to possess the sacred 'Scarlet tears of Kali' at any cost. Fearful for her uncle's life, Gloria Corwell confides in Kirby, the sledgehammer-fisted Irish detective. But with the servants butchered, how long can the resourceful but woefully under-armed trio hold out against the murder-loving Oriental cultists? Multiple casualties, white woman in peril terror and something for mummy fans. Previously unpublished?
Carl Jacobi - The Pit: (Lin Carter [ed.], Weird Tales #1, April, 1981). Some things in the ground are better left undisturbed. Chadwick, the new owner of remote Owega House, unwisely excavates the old Native American burial ground for stones to use in the construction of a summer house. So begins a double-life whereby, unknown to himself, the city slicker takes to abducting and garrotting young women, presumably to appease the evil spirits he's awoken.
Seabury Quinn - Some Day I'll Kill You: (Strange Stories, Feb. 1941). Some promises take more than a lifetime to keep. "Some day, I'm going to crop that mane of yours, my dear, and you'll not raise a hand to stop me." So warns horrible beauty Ernestine McMurtie, when Marilyn Hosmer suggests she quit flirting with her fiance, William Jeffers. Marilyn retaliates with an alarming threat of her own. They truly dislike one another. Walk on part for Dr. Trowbridge as fed up physician who, realising his young patient is doomed, leaves the breaking of bad news to a colleague ("I'm not the hanging judge. Let Van Raalte pronounce the death sentence").
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Post by andydecker on Apr 9, 2021 8:07:13 GMT
Robert E. Howard - Scarlet Tears: Multiple casualties, white woman in peril terror and something for mummy fans. Previously unpublished? This is one of those unsold "Found in the attic" stories. According to one Howard bibliography site it is "extensively rewritten by Lin Carter". |
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Post by dem bones on Apr 9, 2021 20:11:07 GMT
Robert E. Howard - Scarlet Tears: Multiple casualties, white woman in peril terror and something for mummy fans. Previously unpublished? This is one of those unsold "Found in the attic" stories. According to one Howard bibliography site it is "extensively rewritten by Lin Carter". Had a feeling that might be the case as it still reads like an unpolished first draft. "Just as he was beginning to lose patience, the dark figure emerged from the dark doorway ..." But an exciting, if even more improbable than usual mummy pulp for all that. To give him his due, the Carter Weird Tales paperbacks are more in sympathy with the original magazine than some of the later revivals. |
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Post by andydecker on Apr 9, 2021 20:38:25 GMT
Looking for the Howard story let me browse my Howard shelf and reading a bit up on lesser known tales completed by other writers.
I happened to stumble upon the same fragment finished by two writers decades apart. It is a Cormac Mac Art stoy, Tigers of the Sea. It was completed first by Richard Tierney for the Ace edition in 1979 and then by David Drake in 1995 for the Baen edition.
I read both versions. Drake was so kind to tell where Howard's fragment ended, so it was easy to compare. I never read much of Drake's work, but I was surprised how much I liked his version. Thought it much superior to Tierney. Both writers put things into the narrative which I thought unlikely that Howard would have done. Tierney basically lifted his plot from the Howard story The Dark Man, while Drake developed a new plot. He even provided a twist which Howard never would have done, it violates the pulp rules of the 30s.
Howard's work must be the most often re-written and/or finished by other writers.
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