Arthur H. Landis (ed.) - Coven 13 #2 (Nov. 1969)
Cover illustration: William Stout
Joseph Harris - The Transmogrification Of Ridgely P. Winters
Robert L. Davis - Once Upon A Werewolf
John Lipford - A Message From Brother
Samuel M. Clawson - Double Hex
Wylly Folk St. John - The Shadow Trader
Harlan Ellison - Rock God
Dale C. Donaldson - Pia!
Editor's Department - Arthur H. Landis
Bell, Book & Tarot ("About Witches & Such: An Objective Peek" by Jean Cirrito)
Poetry Corner
Readers SectionCoven 13 was launched in September 1969 and lasted four issues under the editorship of Arthur H. Landis before changing it's name to
Witchcraft & Sorcery with a new man at the helm, Gerald W. Page. Page presided over six issues until the entire operation folded in 1974. Have only seen the one issue but from stories found elsewhere (most notably in Richard Davis's
Years Best Horror Stories trilogy for Sphere) it was a worthy effort!
Dale C. Donaldson - Pia!:
20th Century urban life, like that of mod-suburbia, has a lot more going on than simple wife-swapping. In effect, the past is always with us - in one way or another..
Writing in his superb introduction to
Book Of The Werewolf (Sphere, 1973), Brian J. Frost describes
Pia! as "perhaps the most gruesome werewolf story ever written." It's certainly very entertaining:
When Hutch and his beautiful wife, Ruth, are told by psychic researcher Dr. Cheeves that one of their closest friends is a lycanthrope, their response is to invite their six most intimate acquaintances to the apartment at the
Bell Manor Arms on the night of the next full moon.
"Slung back and over the bed was Davidson .... what was left of him. His face was a gory mess, completely unrecognisable. It was as if some monstrous claw had torn his features away, only white cartilage, stringing, gave evidence as to where his nose had been. One eyeball hung loosely from a gaping socket: the other was gone, leaving only a raw, blood-filled hole."
A deranged beast to be sure but which of them is it? Builds to a suitably Grand Guignol ending with several nice gory deaths along the way.
Peter Haining revived Samuel M. Clawson's
Double Hex - dark doings on Gobblers Hill - for the second volume of
The Black Magic Omnibus.
I don't have any more copies of
Coven 13 other than the above, but looking through a stack of xerox's my dear friend Shroudeater gave me back in the 'nineties, I found a Bill Pronzini gem from the March 1970 issue,
Bill Pronzini - I, Vampire!: The self-proclaimed undead posts his manuscript - which he modestly refers to as "the great work of this or any other century" - on the history of his race to Thomas Retnick, the notoriously splenetic editor of
Current magazine, and seems genuinely put out when Retnick sends him the inevitably sarcy rejection slip by way of reply. Before long they are involved in an exchange of hostile letters until Retnick dies in mysterious circumstances, his body drained of blood and the carpet smeared in bat shit.
Both
Coven 13 and
Witchcraft & Sorcery were big on werewolves and vampires. The latter ran another top fang fest in:
Gerald W. Page - Thirst: San Coleman is a decent family man down on his luck. He's a skilled mechanic but there's not enough call for his talent in the tiny farming community around the Overhill Mountains. Preoccupied with his problems, he gets lost in the woods and is attacked by a shadowy figure with a stick. Sam crawls into a cave and collapses due to the huge amount of blood he's lost from the wound in his neck.
When he regains consciousness he's in the mortuary (lucky for him they're short staffed!). The doctor drives him home to Grace and the kids but ... there's something wrong. Why has he developed a pathological hatred of metal all of a sudden? Why isn't he hungry? And what to do about this dreadful thirst?
A good old fashioned blood and thunder, stake and fang pulp novella with all the trimmings (it even has the and-all-this-because-a-black-cat-jumped-over-a-dead-man's-coffin chestnut).
Subscribers to
Coven 13 received a free 9 X 7 full colour lithograph of William Stout's cover illustration for #1. Wonder how many of them are still floating around?
