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Post by dem bones on Oct 9, 2008 10:28:27 GMT
Leo Marguiles (ed.) - Worlds Of Weird (Pyramid, Jan 1965)  Virgil Finlay
Seabury Quinn - Roads
Nictzin Dyalhis - The Sapphire Goddess
Robert E. Howard - The Valley Of The Worm
Edmond Hamilton - He That Hath Wings
Clark Ashton Smith - Mother Of Toads
David H. Keller, M.D. - The Thing In The Cellar
Frank Belknap Long - Giants In The Sky
Illustrated by Virgil FinlayBlurb: The many worlds of weird.
Worlds of wonder ... of swords and sorcery ... of nightmare horror .... of witchcraft, demons, monsters and diabolical peril! Discover them, thrill to them in these masterful eerie gems from Weird Tales - and be ready for an evening of chills!More fantasy orientated than the other books in the series ( Weird Tales, The Ghoul Keepers and The Unexpected), the lead novella is unlike any other Seabury Quinn story I've read, and certainly a million miles from the lurid exploits of phantom fighting de Grandin.. I found Roads - a story of the crucifixion and it's effect on the soldier Klaus, who witnessed it and wound up undead for his pains - too cute for my ghoulish tastes on first reading and haven't felt any great desire for a rematch, but many people who despise de Grandin rate this as his best work! Keller's The Thing In The Cellar has been anthologised almost as often as Dracula's Guest, but it's an excellent psychological horror story and may well have provided the germ for Stephen King's far louder The Boogeyman. More typical of the collection is Edmond Hamilton's gentle tale of David Rand, born with a misshapen spine and shoulders . At first, the kindly Dr. Harriman believes that the orphan’s deformity is a hunched back, but x-rays reveal that he is sprouting wings.
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Post by pulphack on Oct 9, 2008 12:10:53 GMT
yep, a gorgeous cover, and anything with virgil finlay is alright by me. i was watching a documentary about frank frazetta with my mate paul last week, and we started talking about finlay, and how that gorgeous style of b&w illustration is sometimes overlooked these days. the colour artists deserve their praise, but the exquisite world of b&w shouldn't be forgotten.
as to the book, i had it years ago, and to be honest was disappointed. it was weird tales, so why was it ALL sword and sorcery and fantasy? i guess he selected tales that would chime with the times of the reprint, but it wasn't what i'd been hoping for. it's a decent selection, but just not... well, WEIRD enough, really.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 9, 2008 13:40:17 GMT
Agree with you, pulps. Due to Finlay, Worlds Of Weird is very pleasing on the eye, but contents wise it's not a patch on Weird Tales or The Unexplained. Not that there's anything second rate about the stories - it's more that they don't really compliment each other. The irony of it is, WOW is probably the nearest in spirit to an issue of Weird Tales. E. F. Bleiler suggests that Moskowitz ghost edited this and Weird Tales with Marguiles, presumably, responsible for the other two.
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