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Post by dem bones on Jan 30, 2008 11:44:05 GMT
Stefan R. Dziemainowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors (Bonanza, 1988) A story for each year the classic horror and fantasy magazine was publishedHannes Bok Foreword - Stefan R. Dziemainowicz Introduction - Robert Bloch
Anthony M. Rud - A Square Of Canvas C. M. Eddy - The Loved Dead Nictzin Dyalhis - When The Green Star Waned R. Anthony - The Parasitic Hand Edmond Hamilton - Evolution Island H. Warner Munn - The Chain Robert E. Howard - The Shadow Kingdom Henry S. Whitehead - The Shut Room Seabury Quinn - Satan's Stepson Jack Williamson - The Wand Of Doom Clark Ashton Smith - The Isle Of The Torturers C. L. Moore - Dust Of Gods Laurence J. Cahill - Charon Arthur J. Burks - The Room Of Shadows Mary E. Counselman - The Black Stone Statue Gans T. Field (Manly Wade Wellman) - The Hairy Ones Shall Dance Robert Barbour Johnson - Far Below Fritz Leiber - The Automatic Pistol H. P. Lovecraft - The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward Henry Kuttner - Masquerade Robert Bloch - Black Barter Frank Belknap Long - The Peeper Carl Jacobi - Barnaby's Fish Ray Bradbury - Let's Play Poison C. Hall Thompson - The Will Of Claude Ashur Theodore Sturgeon - The Professor's Teddy Bear Frederic Brown - Come And Go Mad Isaac Asimov & James MacCreigh - Legal Rites August Derleth - Something From Out There Joseph Payne Brennan - The Green Parrot Richard Matheson - Slaughter House Everil Worrell - Call Not Their Names
Sometimes I despair of the modern anthologist, I really do! John Pelan recently wrote on Horrabin Hall that one of the collections Peter Haining wanted to edit for Midnight House was an Anthony R. Rud selection but "I opted to pass ... for reasons which ought to be apparent to anyone that has read Rud" Well not bloody this one it isn't! Anthony R. Rud - A Square Of Canvas: ( Weird Tales, 1923). The history of Hal Pemberton, the internationally acclaimed artist, as narrated by himself to a female visitor to the mental institution where he now resides. It seems that only acts of horrific sadism - the mutilation of rabbits and a pony or two- could inspire him to paint his works of genius. And when he could no longer draw inspiration from the animal kingdom, he turned instead to his beautiful young wife. I placed a cot in the studio, fastening strong straps to it. Then I made ready a gag, and sharpened a keen Weiss knife I possessed until its edge would cut a hair at a touch. Last, I made ready my canvas.
She came at my call. At first, when I seized her and tore off her clothing she thought me joking, and protested laughing. When I came to placing the gag, and bound her arms and legs with strong straps, however, the terror of death began to steal into her dark eyes.
To show her that I loved her still, no matter what duty impelled me to do, I kissed her hair, her eyes, her breast. Then I set to work .... In a few minutes I was away and painting as I had never painted before. A red stream dripped from the steel cot, down to the floor, and ran slowly toward where I stood. It elated me. I felt the fire of a fervor of inspiration greater than ever had beset me. I painted. I painted! This was my masterpiece.
Drunk with the fury of creation, I threw myself on the floor in the midst of the red puddle time and time again. I even dipped my brushes in it. Mad with the delight of unstinted accomplishment, I kept on and on, until late in the evening I heard my little daughter crying in her room for the dinner she had not received. Then I went downstairs, laughing at the horror I saw in the faces of the servants."Rud, who, also wrote for Weird Tales under the name R. Anthony, contributed the blob-of-slime classic Ooze to the very first issue and Christine Campbell Thomson used both The Witch-Baiter and The Parasitic Hand (spoiler below) in her superlative Not At Night's. Anyhow, another huge collection (656 pages) incorporating Lovecraft's novel and Seabury Quinn's lengthy de Grandin, Satan's Stepson. The stories appear in order of publication, so we start in 1923 with Rud's lovable mad artist escapade and branch off into all manner of strange directions, taking in SF and Sword & Sorcery. Mary E. Counselman - The Black Stone Statue: Kennicott's plane crashes in the dense Brazilian forest. His co-pilot, broken-legged and delirious, makes off into the trees before he can stop him. Kennicott tracks his friend to to an expanse of petrified forest where everything "glitters like soft coal". Along with several small animals, the injured man has been turned to stone by the touch of a slug-like entity. Kennicott survives, but is unwise to confide the experience in a struggling sculptor ... Henry Kuttner - Masquerade: The old lunatic asylum now serves as home to the Carta clan, A Charles Addams esque bunch comprising hunch-backed grandpa Jed, imbecile son Lem and daughter Ruth who has a thing about whipping the skeleton of a former love-rival. The Carta's may or may not be the Henshawe vampires - they might just as likely be homicidal killers who murder their guests in their beds. A honeymooning couple shed some much needed light on the matter. Arthur J. Burks - Room Of Shadows: This one is as insane and wonderfully entertaining as Bassett Morgan at his brain-transplant best. Weird goings on at an exclusive New York hotel, home to Lun Yukra, a Eurasian vampire and pimp. The girls he systematically vampirises are transformed into dogs and forced to do his bidding. Enter Eda, searching for her prostitute sister, and Adam Clerc, an explorer, whose paths entwine after Eda - mesmerized by Yukra - enters Clerc's room in the form of a black cloud and sucks his blood. The two combine to take on the undead with bizarre and grisly results. R. Anthony - The Parasitic Hand:John Pendleton has a fully formed hand growing out of his side which has remained dormant for 23 years - until now. When Dr. Burnsturm decides to remove it, he has a fierce battle on his hands as it tries to drive the scalpel into the patients heart. Seven months later, Pendleton returns, complaining that "something is chewing and clawing within me." Frank Belknap Long - The Peeper: Mike O'Hara, alcoholic gossip columnist, is literally scared to death after encountering the ghost of himself as a younger, better man. A mysterious epitaph appears in print, written by someone who signs himself 'The Peeper'. Robert Barbour Johnson - Far Below: ( Weird Tales, June-July 1939). New York. From dusk 'til dawn a special unit of ten men led by Inspector Craig patrol the subway under Manhattan, as they have done for quarter of a century since the "giant, carrion feeding, subterranean molemen" derailed a train and ate six of the passengers, maiming several others, leading to a huge cover-up by the authorities. But the longer a man works down there, the more he takes on the characteristics of the underground-dwellers and one of the special detail has already been gunned down when the change overtook him. Craig knows that his days too, are almost numbered. Obviously inspired by a scene in Pickman's Model - Inspector Craig even name checks Lovecraft and boasts of having given him a tour of the tunnels!
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Post by dem bones on Jun 6, 2021 9:53:52 GMT
Doak [Hugh Rankin]: Henry S. Whitehead - The Shut Room: ( Weird Tales, April 1930). The Coach & Horses Inn on the Brighton Road is haunted by a phantom thief of leather goods. The Earl of Caruth and Gerald Canevin track the spectre - that of Simon Forrester, eighteenth century highwayman - to the room in which he was taken and bloody murder was done. Forrester cannot rest until reunited with his beloved holstered pistols, Jem and Jack. References Mr. Carnacki's investigation of 'The Whistling Room' as a case sharing vague similarities.
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