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Post by dem bones on Oct 3, 2016 17:24:23 GMT
Stanton A. Coblentz - For Love Of A Phantom: ( Weird Tales, July 1946).  A. R. TilburneMy answer to that would be an unequivocal "too ****ing right!" but, as ever, there are exceptions, and this forgotten gem is one of them. Five friends swapping ghost stories by the fireside at the Bachelor Club get-together. Evanson, the obligatory one-who-has-remained-stoically-silent-throughout, is imposed upon to contribute, and does so by relating the events of fifteen years ago, "the strangest and most precious adventure of my life." A snowy November night. Evanson, new to the city, trudges purposely through the streets. He's down on his uppers, lodging at a condemned slum, unemployed, lonely, not a friend in the world. When he returns to his room, a girl, or at least, the top half of a girl, is awaiting his return. In time she materialises fully, though his arms pass through her. Is "Vera" the ever-silent, loving ghost of a young art student who took her own life after being abandoned by her fiancé, or his Guardian Angel? All Evanson knows is that no other woman will ever measure up to his phantom lover. From his début, Treasure Of The Red Ash Desert, in the March 1942 issue, Stanton A. Coblentz contributed thirteen stories to Weird Tales, some of which made the British editions so plan to check them out over coming days. Perhaps his most famous work is one few people seem to have read, a novella which, sadly, does not seem to have been reprinted since it's appearance in Science Fiction for December 1939)  Frank R. Paul, Planet of the Knob-Heads, ( Science Fiction #5, Dec. 1939). Cover courtesy of Pulpcovers.com* For Love Of A Phantom dedicated to Meta and the haunted bench.*
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Post by jamesdoig on Oct 3, 2016 20:21:18 GMT
Frank R. Paul, Planet of the Knob-Heads, ( Science Fiction #5, Dec. 1939). Cover courtesy of Pulpcovers.com That must be a knob head taking off with the girl. |
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Post by dem bones on Oct 3, 2016 21:45:22 GMT
That must be a knob head taking off with the girl. In my experience that is all too often the case. According to the entry in Russell Ash & Brian Lakes Bizarre Books (Pavillion, 1998), the tag-line runs "Jack and Marjorie are brought to the distant world of their captors. In far Andromeda, they struggle against “favors” of the knob-heads - but hope fades as they face the High Knobule!" while the story proper includes the immortal line "In about a week I had recovered from most of the effects of the knob operation." Meticulous research leads me to believe that Planet of the Knob-Heads is a euphemism for the yuppie bar-restaurant that recently opened around the corner from here on Leman Street. |
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