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Post by dem bones on Jul 21, 2021 15:29:01 GMT
Farnsworth Wright [ed] - Weird Tales, Jan. 1937 (Gilman House, 2021) Seabury Quinn - Children of the Bat
Paul Ernst - The Dead Moan Low
Thorp McClusky - The Woman in Room 607
Edgar Daniel Kramer - City in the Sea (verse)
H. P. Lovecraft - The Thing on the Door-step
Alfred I. Tooke - Fate Weaves a Web
G. Garnet - The Headless Miller of Kobold's Keep
Howell Calhoun - Omega (verse)
Henry Kuttner - The Eater of Souls
Duane W. Rimel - The Disinterment
Durbin Lee Horner - The House on Fifth Avenue
G. G. Pendarves - The Eighth Green Man
The Eyrie Another recent facsimile reissue, this from Gilman House. It's lovely!  Virgil Finlay: An unusual tale, about the degeneration of the Kobolder family through centuries of inbreeding Antiques dealer Robert Darnely traces an impossibly rare Caxton's Bible to a shunned community of long-lived deformed inbreeds in the Tennessee mountains, Kobold's Keep has a terrible reputation on account of great-great-great-several times over grand-pappy Kobolder, a vampire who drank the blood of his victims via the stump where their head used to be before he removed it with an axe. Darnley's guide, Glim, a squat, ancient toothless Cyclops, is the looker of the village, the only one the townsfolk of Merlin will tolerate. Top notch overblown hillbilly horror. Duane W.Rime - The Disinterment : Resurrected from a hideout death in the grave, this man found himself yoked to an even greater horror in life. When narrator contracts leprosy in the Philippines, his lifelong 'friend,' Dr. Marshall, is ecstatic. At last a human guinea pig for the zombie drug he acquired in Haiti! Durbin Lee Horner - The House on Fifth Avenue: Who were there grisly guests, who sat around the table like ghastly specters? Helen Gibson brings home her fiancee to meet the family. Saul Brennan finds the occasion more harrowing than anticipated - all present are no longer of the living. Ghost story rationalised as a mutual near death experience, which, truth to tell, rather ruins it.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 22, 2021 7:43:13 GMT
Hadn't spotted this:  Harold S. DeLay: Destiny wove a net from which there was no escape - an odd and curious story. The Great Alleppo is a genuine fortune teller who charges $1000 per question to a maximum of three. Sometimes the client will not like what he's told. For instance, our narrator, a lawyer, has just learned that he will be murdered within a week, and "when fate weaves a web there is no escape." His only hope is that the whole set up is a brilliantly executed scam. Henry Kuttner - The Eater of Souls: A short tale about a strange entity on a distant world. A gargantuan Lovecraftian Demon-God prowls the Gray Gulf of Bel Yarnak, or some such codswallop. The Sindara vows to slay it. So not-my-thing that it may well be a masterpiece. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 22, 2021 8:37:07 GMT
Henry Kuttner - The Eater of Souls: So not-my-thing that it may well be a masterpiece. No, I don't think so. Never read the story, but you surely are spot-on. Aside from a few early tales I think his work is thoroughly mediocre and especially his Elak fantasy stories the definition of a dull pastiche. |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 22, 2021 15:25:05 GMT
Henry Kuttner - The Eater of Souls: So not-my-thing that it may well be a masterpiece. No, I don't think so. Never read the story, but you surely are spot-on. Aside from a few early tales I think his work is thoroughly mediocre and especially his Elak fantasy stories the definition of a dull pastiche. is only two and a half pages in length so, whatever anyone's opinion or lack of one, no great harm done. By contrast, the issue's Weird Story Reprint is truly excellent, though it could use a different title.  Hugh Rankin ( Weird Tales, March 1928) : (originally Weird Tales, March 1928). An uncanny horror befell the guests of the innkeeper when the Green Men held their revels Naugatuck valley, Connecticut. Nicholas Birkett, know-it-all and daredevil, sneeringly ignores a 'dangerous road' warning despite the concern of his passenger, Raoul Suliman d'Abre, the famous explorer prone to an uneasy feeling whenever evil is near. Eventually they arrive at 'The Seven Green Men', a lonesome roadhouse taking it's name from a gloomy row of trees, each cut and trimmed to the height of a tall man. A suitably creepy innkeeper, who knows a fool when he sees one, entices Birkett to return on the promise of introduction to an exclusive society, the Sons of Enoch. A furious d'Abre persuades his friend to drive them to another inn, The Brown Owl where the explorer relates their adventure to a New England farmer. Old Paxton is horrified. His boy once visited the same roadhouse - it bore a slightly different name back then - and, well it did nothing to improve his well-being. Birkett meanwhile, has sneaked off in the car. He'll infiltrate this snooty secret society or die trying! |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 22, 2021 16:55:55 GMT
 Virgil Finlay : A strange, weird tale about a woman who clung too closely to life. Featuring accidental occult investigators Police Commissioner Charles B. Ethredge and Detective-Lieutenant Peters. It begins when a spellbound Ethredge is lured back to a dingy room at the Northrup Hotel by Marilyn Des Lys, a stunningly attractive cooch dancer. Marilyn has taken a shine to the top cop and makes no secret of her determination to prize him from fiancee, Mary Roberts. Perhaps it is the spiked booze, but the Commissioner is smitten. He joins her on the bed. But there's something wrong - Marilyn is not only dead but eight days cremated! Such is her obscene will to live that she has returned from the urn, initially as a whirling column of thick mist. Ethredge makes a break for it before she can reduce him to a cruelly emaciated cretin! It transpires that Marilyn belongs to a cult of like-minded wannabe immortals who prey upon dope fiends and drunks, draining their juices to retain human form. The ruthless Miss Des Lys is not done with the Commissioner. "Would you have Mary Roberts a mindless skeleton? If you would not, then kiss me now." Not my favourite McClusky, although squelchy climax had me in fits. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 22, 2021 22:31:43 GMT
G. G. Pendarves - The Eighth Green Man: (originally Weird Tales, March 1928). An uncanny horror befell the guests of the innkeeper when the Green Men held their revels Naugatuck valley, Connecticut. Nicholas Birkett, know-it-all and daredevil, sneeringly ignores a 'dangerous road' warning despite the concern of his passenger, Raoul Suliman d'Abre, the famous explorer prone to an uneasy feeling whenever evil is near. Eventually they arrive at 'The Seven Green Men', a lonesome roadhouse taking it's name from a gloomy row of trees, each cut and trimmed to the height of a tall man. A suitably creepy innkeeper, who knows a fool when he sees one, entices Birkett to return on the promise of introduction to an exclusive society, the Sons of Enoch. A furious d'Abre persuades his friend to drive them to another inn, The Brown Owl where the explorer relates their adventure to a New England farmer. Old Paxton is horrified. His boy once visited the same roadhouse - it bore a slightly different name back then - and, well it did nothing to improve his well-being. Birkett meanwhile, has sneaked off in the car. He'll infiltrate this snooty secret society or die trying! This story is the quintessence of pulp. Lurid prose! Inexplicable mysticism! Barrels of exclamation points!!! I love it so, so much. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 22, 2021 22:38:41 GMT
Henry Kuttner - The Eater of Souls: So not-my-thing that it may well be a masterpiece. No, I don't think so. Never read the story, but you surely are spot-on. Aside from a few early tales I think his work is thoroughly mediocre and especially his Elak fantasy stories the definition of a dull pastiche. That may be fair, but I still have a soft spot for his stories. Well, not the Elak ones, but the horror tales and some of the science fantasy ones (such as The Dark World and Valley of the Flame). |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 24, 2021 5:18:11 GMT
 Virgil Finlay: A grim tale of stark horror — a story of the redoubtable little French occultist and crime fighter, Jules de Grandin, and a weird exploit in the wilds of Yucatan.Cover story begins with the gruesome murder of a young bubble dancer, Rita Smith, crucified to the door of Mike Caldes night club with railway spikes. Lying beneath her foot, a bat wing inscribed with the grim warning, "Thus always to traitors." When Caldes is murdered in similar fashion, Nancy Meigs, a second burlesque dancer confides in de Grandin, Trowbridge and Costello. Back in '29, while destitute in Tupelo, Nancy and Rita had been coerced into joining the Children of the Bat, a criminal fraternity presided over by a devilishly beautiful priestess known only as La Murcielaga. From that day forth they were damned. To betray the cult is punishable by crucifixion, to attempt escape similar. Nancy bravely agrees to lead de Grandin, Trowbridge and Sergeant Costello to the jungle lair of the Bat Mother. Not the 'best' de Grandin, but neither is it the tedious mess I'd feared from friend Weinberg's appraisal. Plenty of nasty incident, and the antics of a craven Police Commandant do much to enliven the latter stages. Abrupt ending is a bit terrible, mind. |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 26, 2021 7:36:26 GMT
 Virgil Finlay It's common knowledge among the circus folk that Welch, aka 'Professor Brokar' the master hypnotist, is carrying on with young trapeze artist, Celia Wallace, behind wife Dorothy's back. Dorothy is the other half of his - genuine - act. Every night she allows herself to be mesmerised before an appreciative crowd. And now she's dead. Welch insists her heart gave out, and it's best they get her cremated before the authorities come over nosey and shut down the show. The barker - our narrator - doesn't like the smell of the thing, but we all got to eat and, whatever his qualms, there's nothing can be done for poor Dorothy now. As they feed the coffin into the furnace, the wind in the chimney moans something awful, like a woman in terror. Welch takes Celia as his new assistant with a view to marriage once the dust settles on recent tragedy. But, unbeknown to him, there was a witness to his terrible crime. A ragged, six-year-old idiot kid stalks the show from town to town. "Wan' see him make lady sleep like dead. Like he did other lady before they burned her in the stone house." Welch hadn't planned to make a habit of murder but it fast reaches a point where the cretin is making his life a misery. |
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jul 26, 2021 10:41:10 GMT
No, I don't think so. Never read the story, but you surely are spot-on. Aside from a few early tales I think his work is thoroughly mediocre and especially his Elak fantasy stories the definition of a dull pastiche. That may be fair, but I still have a soft spot for his stories. Well, not the Elak ones, but the horror tales and some of the science fantasy ones (such as The Dark World and Valley of the Flame). My memory insists that practically all the tales in his Ahead of Time are excellent - "Camouflage", "Shock" and "Ghost" have lingered in my mind, though I've seen suggestions that C. L. Moore was an uncredited collaborator. |
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