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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 11, 2021 10:47:13 GMT
"The Flying Halfback" was even worse than I expected. The biographical information I found about Robert S. Carr was much more interesting--he seems to have led a colorful life. H. L. Maxson - The Ether Ray: Powerful Beam Makes Objects Vanish Into Thin Air. Struggling for inspiration, Richard Conrad, fiction writer, replies to a 'situations vacant' advertisement placed by Professor X. Etheray (a clever pseudonym). The Professor seeks a man prepared to risk his life to test the greatest invention in the history of science! Dire cheat ending. The sort of story that makes me want to throw the book against the wall. Edward Podolsky - The Masters From Beyond: Last Days in a Lifeless World. As it was with the Marie Celeste, so the same fate befell the passengers and crew of the Caroline during the summer of 1898. Alien abduction, 'the Devils Footprints,' brain-eating ET's roaming the Russian wastes. Captain Gennet's record of events reads like the ravings of a lunatic! J. U. Giesy - Ashes of Circumstance: The Cold Ashes of a Cigar Spelled Sudden Death for Two. A paranoid man is prone to jump to the wrong conclusion. And also to forget that his best friend — who he suspects of having an affair with his wife —is not the only smoker of the two. The Terrific Experiment and The Masters From Beyond are wild. Not the least enthused by Ashes of Circumstances. I have no idea what "Ashes of Circumstance" was even doing in an issue of Weird Tales. On other hand, I enjoyed "The Masters From Beyond," even if it reads like a cut-and-paste of lore I first encountered in C. B. Colby's Strangely Enough: there's the Mary Celeste, the Devil's Footprints, and the Great Wheel of Light, among other Fortean favorites. I didn't recognize the Russian brain-eaters, however. I had to laugh at the part where a character starts listing the latitude and longitude of a fireball at sea and all the towns visited by the Devil's Footprints--he'd apparently memorized this information!
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Post by dem bones on Jun 11, 2021 13:13:48 GMT
The sort of story that makes me want to throw the book against the wall. Wright complained he'd inherited several awful Baird purchases, and it reads like he tried to be done with most of them in this issue. Not sure The Masters From Beyond, The Terrific Experiment and Seven Ring'd Cup are "better", but I certainly enjoyed them.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 14, 2021 15:28:02 GMT
W. J. Stamper - Jean Beauce: Haitian Dictator Metes Out a Gruesome Punishment Having deposed and beheaded the ruling power of Cap Haitian, Caracol, the revolutionary leader, cordially invites three men of affairs to his palace to confer on a new constitution. What a noble and democratic gesture on the part of the great man! How magnanimous to overlook their support of his opponent! Clearly his reputation for vengeance and cruelty is a fabrication of his enemies! "Jean Beauce" reminds me of every other story I've read by Stamper, which isn't many (because he didn't write many). Frank Belknap Long - The Were-Snake: Arthur Fights With the Goddess Ishtar in her Subterranean Retreat. Desperate to impress Miss Beardsley, Arthur, freelance paranormal researcher, defies all warning to investigate the alleged haunting of the temple of Ishtar. Glowing green eyes penetrate the desert night. The beautiful, unspeakably evil Goddess casts her spell. A scream from Miss Beardsley, her parasol imperiled! I was surprised to realize that I hadn't read "The Were-Snake," particularly given that it name-checks Abdul Alhazred. Unfortunately, Long takes Ishtar and turns her into ... a giant snake? Why? H. Thompson Rich - The Seven Ring'd Cup: Thrills a Plenty are Met With in the Search for Jamshyd's Cup "Then Doris read a while. Somehow she didn’t feel like writing today, even with the exchequer so short and a story contracted for from Pilgrims’ Magazine. The truth of it was, she was sick of writing pot-boilers! She would have jumped at the chance to sit down quietly and write a novel, but these incessant stupid stories to be mingled with Hints on Knitting and How to Put Up Jams and Jellies were beginning to get on her nerves. She was tired of writing for women. She wanted to write red-blooded yarns for men to read — and she couldn't because she hasn't had the experiences. "So Doris Lee places an advertisement in the Times, offering her services as a solver of mysteries. Her first client, Henderson Osbourne, young, handsome, potentially immensely wealthy, has a tricky one. His late father, Franklyn, engraved a cipher on the side of a Persian cup revealing the whereabouts of a treasure trove. To date Henderson has been unable to crack the code. Perhaps Doris can help? Middle Eastern adventure, treachery. live burial, and romance ensue. It's very charming, actually, if not at all what I'd expected after the unhinged lunacy of his The Purple Cincture. Apart from one or two sour notes, "The Seven Ring'd Cup" is a charming Indiana Jones-style adventure. Not really a weird tale, but Doris Lee is a great character. Rich should've written more stories about her.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 16, 2021 10:46:44 GMT
Not really a weird tale, but Doris Lee is a great character. Rich should've written more stories about her. I wonder if he did? He was a prolific genre hopper, wrote for Astounding, Ghost Stories, Argosy, Munsey's, North-west Stories, Love Romances, Snappy, Saucy, Breezy, among others. You'd hope he gave Doris a couple of outings. Agree that Stamper's Haitian torture tales are much of a muchness, but find them very enjoyable. These, The Masters From Beyond, The Blackthorn Gallows and The Terrific Experiment were my favourite's, though the O. Henry reprint stands head and shoulders above everything else in issue.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 3, 2021 14:02:23 GMT
Latest reissue just turned up! Farnsworth Wright [ed.] - Weird Tales: July 1925 (Wildside, 2021) H. Warner Munn - The Werewolf of Ponkert Paul S. Powers - The Death Cure Eli Colter - Farthingale's Poppy Harold E. Somerville - The Sudden Death of Luke A. Lucas Arthur Thatcher - The White Queen of the Corolans [Part 1 of 2] R. G. Macready - The Plant-Thing John Lee Mahin, Jr. - The Red Lily H. P. Lovecraft - The Unnamable Henry S. Whitehead - The Wonderful Thing W. J. Stamper - Fidel Bassin E. Hoffmann Price - The Stranger from Kurdistan J. Schlossel - Hurled into the Infinite [Part 2 of 2] Robert E. Howard - Spear and Fang Alphonse Daudet - The Three Low Masses Seabury Quinn - Servants of Satan #6: The End of the Horror Elwood F. Pierce - The Dream of Death Adrian Pordelorrar - The Conqueror (Verse) Jan Dirk - Clay-Covered Justice The Eyrie
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 4, 2021 11:13:14 GMT
Latest reissue just turned up! Farnsworth Wright [ed.] - Weird Tales: July 1925 (Wildside, 2021) H. Warner Munn - The Werewolf of Ponkert Paul S. Powers - The Death Cure Eli Colter - Farthingale's Poppy Harold E. Somerville - The Sudden Death of Luke A. Lucas Arthur Thatcher - The White Queen of the Corolans [Part 1 of 2] R. G. Macready - The Plant-Thing John Lee Mahin, Jr. - The Red Lily H. P. Lovecraft - The Unnamable Henry S. Whitehead - The Wonderful Thing W. J. Stamper - Fidel Bassin E. Hoffmann Price - The Stranger from Kurdistan J. Schlossel - Hurled into the Infinite [Part 2 of 2] Robert E. Howard - Spear and Fang Alphonse Daudet - The Three Low Masses Seabury Quinn - Servants of Satan #6: The End of the Horror Elwood F. Pierce - The Dream of Death Adrian Pordelorrar - The Conqueror (Verse) Jan Dirk - Clay-Covered Justice The EyrieInteresting lineup; I ordered this one right away. Off the top of my head, I think I've read around half of the stories--specifically, the ones by Munn, Macready, Lovecraft, Whitehead, Stamper, Price, and Pierce (the last courtesy of 100 Wild Little Weird Tales). I'm not sure I've ever read the Howard story. I'm particularly curious about Colter's contribution.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2021 11:27:55 GMT
Munn's Werewolf of Ponkert has bested the trials of the time. Still a well-done story.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2021 12:12:47 GMT
I'm not sure I've ever read the Howard story. It is his first published story, and it shows. Interesting if you are seriously into Howard, but nor really recommended.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 4, 2021 15:51:17 GMT
Munn's Werewolf of Ponkert has bested the trials of the time. Still a well-done story. I read "The Werewolf of Ponkert" and one of its sequels, "The Werewolf's Daughter," in a 1976 mass market paperback published by Centaur Press. I don't think I've read any of the other (many) stories in the series, but evidently Altus Press reprinted them all in a 2015 collection titled Tales of the Werewolf Clan that borrows the July 1925 Weird Tales cover depicted above. I'm tempted to investigate further. It is his first published story, and it shows. Interesting if you are seriously into Howard, but nor really recommended. I figured as much given that even some of his fragments have been reprinted more often.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 8, 2021 11:00:46 GMT
Fool! Why did you bring me back? Do you know that I am dead? Yes, damn you, still dead — "Could resist no longer. Weird Tales, July 1925. Again, Brosnatch responsible for accomplished cover painting and all interior illustrations. For Not at Night watchers, Christine Campbell Thomson reprinted just the two stories from this issue; R. G. Macready's The Plant-Thing in the first volume, W. J. Stamper's Fidel Bassin in the following year's More Not At Night. Andrew Brosnatch Paul S Powers - The Death Cure: He Restored Life to the Body, But Could Not Bring Back the Soul. Stood up by their dealer, junkie Tim the Spotter and coke head Broadway Charlie break into the home laboratory of Dr. Abraham le Forne, 'Specialist in Diseases of the Mind,' a mummy-faced horror in a blood-splattered apron (he's just removed a particularly squelchy brain). Le Forne proposes a drugs-for-participation-in-an-experiment arrangement, and the intruders are too desperate to refuse. Le Forne deliberately overdoses both volunteers and callously informs them of the fact. Not to worry - his miracle serum will return them from death just so long as he doesn't wait until rigor mortis sets in. Harold E. Somerville - The Sudden Death of Luke A. Lucas: The Rumer of Luke's Demise Spread Like a Prairie Fire. Lucas pinballs all over town, trailing the source of the damaging newspaper report that he died earlier today. All a hilarious On the Buses size mix up. This issue's The Midnight Visitor. From memory, the weird story reprint, The Three Low Masses, is no great shakes either. Andrew Brosnatch Seabury Quinn - Servants of Satan #5: The End of the Horror: True Tale of New England Witchcraft Author concludes his account of the Salem Witch Trials with a tribute to the formidable Lady Phips, wife to the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, who persuaded her husband to put a stop to the lunacy. The mischief of Ann Putnam and friends had by now claimed nineteen lives, with a further two hundred accused parties awaiting either trial or a one way journey to Gallows Hill. I'm surprised Haining didn't reprint the series in one of his witchcraft books - it has the hallmark of his favoured material.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 8, 2021 17:56:42 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch Henry S. Whitehead - The Wonderful Thing: In the Time of Zachary Taylor, Even as it is Today. Middleton, 1842. Young James O'Hara nightly dreams of proposing to a beautiful young woman, Edith Foote, and the subsequent warm celebration at her Durham family home. The cruellest astral romance; he has fallen in love with a figment .... a girl of gossamer." Tormented beyond endurance, James sets out for Durham to find her. Will there be a happy ending? Hadn't read this before as I'd have remembered. Love is truly wonderful. R. G. Macready - The Plant-Thing: Tale of a Carnivorous Tree. The star reporter on The Clarion seeks an interview with Prof. Carter, suspected of wholesale vivisection on account of a recent phenomenal investment in livestock. Turned away by the Malay manservant, the journalist scales the wall and drops into .... what a luxurious garden!
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 8, 2021 19:51:54 GMT
Could resist no longer. Weird Tales, July 1925.
Out of curiosity, did your February 1925 come in a different size than your July 1925 and September 1925? Or was that just me?
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Post by dem bones on Jul 8, 2021 20:16:09 GMT
Could resist no longer. Weird Tales, July 1925.
Out of curiosity, did your February 1925 come in a different size than your July 1925 and September 1925? Or was that just me? The February one is smaller and thicker which, I think, may have been the case with the original, as they'd yet to settle on size. Wasn't it late 1923/ early 24 Baird went with a bedsheet format? It will be in the Weinberg book which I can't get to just now. A fellow called Michael J Seibert has recently published a facsimile of the Jan 1937 issue (as a one off?) with groovy cover painting depicting scene from Seabury Quinn's The Bat is my Brother Children of the Bat courtesy of Marion Bondage's heroine
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Post by dem bones on Jul 9, 2021 17:54:17 GMT
I'm particularly curious about Colter's contribution. CB. if you've not yet read it, you may wish to look away now. Andrew Brosnatch Eli Colter - Farthingale's Poppy: Four Men Make a Tremendous Effort to Revive the Dead. When Frank Gordoon, a man of phenomenal will-power, inexplicably drops dead, his best friend, Dr. Farthingale. cannot bring himself to embalm the corpse and instead transfers it direct to pine coffin and installs both in family vault. This is just as well. Their mutual friend Lawrence believes Gordoon, who had recently studied astral projection, is trapped outside his body. Before agreeing to grave-robbing, the Doctor, a self-confessed rank materialist, begs Frank for a sign to prove Lawrence correct. H. P. Lovecraft - The Unnameable: Two men sat atop a seventeenth century tomb in the old Arkham burial ground. Joel Marston, level headed principal of a New England high school, mocks Randolph Carter's assertion that there could exist an entity so unutterably terrible as to be indescribable, unnameable. Guess which of them is proved correct? Inevitable gibberish interlude on third page is actually quite funny.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 9, 2021 18:09:59 GMT
Can I ask what a good introduction would be to these sort of tales? Is there one? They often sound bizarre, I'd like to try some. Maybe old copies are available on Internet Archive. Do people have favourite authors who have never been reprinted? And can only be found in these old magazines?
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