Ralston Shields - Food for the Fungus Lady

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Ralston Shields - Food for the Fungus Lady (Dancing Tarantula, 2014)

Gavin L. O'Keefe

John Pelan - The Lethal Ladies of Ralston Shields

Black Mother of Murder
Daughter of the Devil
Priestess of the Pestilence
Food for the Fungus Lady
I Summoned Dr. Death
Mistress of the Blood-Drinkers
Little Miss Dracula
The Blood Kiss
Vengeance of the Living Dead
A Kiss for the Blood Lady

Blurb:

On a story by story basis, Ralston Shields is arguably the very best of all of the weird menace authors. The man behind the Shield pseudonym, John Baxter, only wrote a dozen stories that we know of. Of that dozen, eleven can quite rightfully be called masterpieces of the form. His only misstep was a short piece that simply didn't allow him the room necessary to build his characters and develop the plot. However, eleven out of twelve is a most impressive record indeed.

Shields work is notable for the sophistication for his work. In terms of prose style, his tales have a lush, exotic tone that one would expect to see in the work of a far more experienced author. His character development is without equal among his contemporaries in the weird menace genre. Both male and especially female characters are strongly depicted and allows for him to fully develop his central theme-that of the femme fatale.

The ten stories gathered herein all appeared in a three-year span, and are definitely high points of the third wave of weird menace tales. The fact that Shields' work has been largely forgotten for nearly eighty years is nothing short of tragic. We're certain that readers discovering his work for the first time in these pages will agree that this collection is long overdue!

Another author long overdue his own thread. John Baxter, aka Ralson Shields was a favourite of Robert Kenneth The Shudder Pulps Jones, who commended the "rich sensuality, a romanticism, if you will" of his stories, most of them variations on the deadly temptress versus honeymooning newly-weds theme.

Little Miss Dracula: (Dime Mystery Magazine, Aug 1938). "The Countess Emily, at his first touch, writhed convulsively where she lay — as if under unbearable pain, or perhaps unbearable pleasure. Her soft white hands closed and unclosed; her fingers twisted among the silken cushions on which she lay."

Four years into their marriage, suave Hungarian Count Nigel Becker-Hazi is bored stupid with playing vampire to wife Emily's tragic Gothic heroine. Emily, sole heiress to van Driker millions, still hasn't realised that Nigel is a phoney, all opera cloak and joke shop fangs.

What he needs is a real woman. So tonight, before biting Emily's neck, Nigel spikes her Tokay with a powerful sedative. Out on the town, he meets pale, slinky Lispeth O'Connor, who spurns his invitation to dinner, invites him back to her villa instead where a glass of red wine loosens his tongue. Count Nigel brags of tricking Emily and her purse into marriage with his Dracula impersonation. Lispeth lets on that she too knows a great deal of vampire lore, which is no big surprise. Ten years ago, she murdered her husband and two infant children before taking her own life.

Predictable, but nicely told. Could as easily have appeared in Weird Tales or Strange Tales as a Red Circle pulp.

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A Kiss for the Blood Lady: (Terror Tales, Jan-Feb. 1939). Dr. Corvin saved my life — or did he? For he transferred my healthy brain into the body of a killer-maniac, a man who had spent his days spilling the blood he needed to appease the beautiful, sylph-like Prani. Now, I too craved Prani, and for her, I was willing to offer the blood of my wife!

Gordon and Lila Varney honeymoon at the Soledad Springs health resort in the California desert. They've the place to themselves save for the kindly proprietor, Dr. Corvin, Hester (Gordon's tragic, prematurely withered cousin), and the doctor's idiot nephew, Peter Anstey, who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Gordon. Anstey believes himself haunted by Prani, a beautiful demon whose kisses can only be won through blood sacrifice, as in twisting the heads off any available household pet. Later that first afternoon, Gordon is bitten in the face by a rattlesnake. Corvin breaks it gently - it's almost certain that he'll die horribly within the hour, but even should he survive, his swollen face will be so hideously disfigured as to repulse Lila whenever she looks at him. The one hope is for Corvin to transplant Gordon's brain into psycho Peter's cranium!

Little Miss Dracula is fine, just not really a weird menace, but having now read Priestess of Pestilence and the above gory conspiracy thriller, I'm beginning to appreciate why Knox and Pelan rated him so highly.

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Priestess of the Pestilence: (Terror Tales, May-June 1939). A honeymoon cruise along the Mexican coastline to Panama turns to horror for millionaire Steve McLeod and his heiress bride, Doris, when a glamorous woman leaps into shark infested waters from a passing ship. Steve dies to the rescue. The three-man crew take instant dislike to this Felicitas de Mendizabel and her ugly chameleon amulet whose eyes seem alive to all around them. Kobi, Steve's Japanese manservant, doesn't much like her, either, and warns his master to beware this witch, this 'fox-woman,' before he’s laid low by a mystery illness and dies an oozing mass of bleeding corruption! No sooner has Steve given his loyal friend sea burial than Doris is stricken by the same terrible disease! How fortunate her kindly guardian, Dr. Jehiel Harkness, has travelled with the newly-weds. As Steve frets in his cabin, Felicitas, almost dressed in a grey négligée loaned her by the blushing bride, accidentally barges in on him feigning sympathy. Steve confides in her more than is decent, it is as though he were mesmerised by the ugly charm. Steve, disgusted that he should contemplate a party with his beloved wife of one day on her deathbed, banishes the sultry sorceress from his presence, which makes her only the more determined to get her hands on him.

"You are the idiot, Steven McLeod," she said, speaking carefully measured words. "I offered you my love — I, Felicitas de Mendizabal and you dared to repulse me. But Felicitas will not be so easily cast aside.
Did you swallow my story, about having lost my memory? Fool! I saw you at Guaymas, when you arrived at hotel; in the morning I went to the church to watch your marriage. And I knew then that I desired your love about all things — I longed to be crushed in your strong arms, to feel your lips on mine...
I sailed in the afternoon with friends on their yacht. We overtook your boat; I saw you standing on the deck — and then I knew my chance had come. I leaped into the water when no one was looking — certain you would rescue me. I have only one religion in my life, and that is to get what I want, by fair means or foul. I wanted you, Steven — I risked drowning and sharks to get you. Do you think now I will let that blonde creature you call your wife keep you from me?"

This being a shudder pulp, the McLeod's are innocent victims of a ludicrously convoluted conspiracy to part them from their $millions, though unusually, some of the supernatural goings-on are the real deal.

At time of typing you can read John Pelan's introduction, The Lethal Ladies of Ralston Shields, Here

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"Never forget we were meant for each other. You have become a lamboyo by virtue of my kiss on your throat; soon you will learn to thirst for blood as I do ..."

Monroe Eisenberg

The Blood Kiss: (Dime Mystery Magazine, May 1937). I had but one hunger — a craving intensified by a black science beyond anything a normal being can experience. The thing for which I hungered was the blood of the woman I loved!

A glamorous Malayan adventuress devises a ludicrously convoluted plot to part Dr. Everett Ashton from his secret formula for a miracle coagulant. Administered intravenously, Ultra-fibrin is a life-saving solution, but swallowed, it solidifies the blood in a man's veins! Introducing herself as 'Dr. Isavan Ling,' the devil woman slips Ashton a hypnotic aphrodisiac, bites his lip and demands he feast on his fiancée, Marjory's blood - or would he prefer to watch the girl he loves ravished by her assistant, Gotthold, the squinting sex fiend? Everett's world is caving in — he and Marjory had planned to elope this afternoon! Now he can only watch from a barred strongroom as she is bound to a slab before a cult of Chinese demon-raisers. Where the Hell did they spring from? And oh, the agonising crimson thirst!
Animal lovers are advised that this story contains scenes of guinea pig abuse.

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Amos Sewell (?)

I Summoned Dr. Death: (Dime Mystery Magazine, Feb 1937). Whether or not that old Negress had given me a sorcerer's power, I knew that I would need more than physical aid — after my wife's nude body was exposed to the avid, lecherous gaze of human beasts in the laboratory of Hell's Physician!

When the city doctors fail him, a desperate Phil Turnbull turns to Filipino exorcist, Dr. Fernan Villalobos, to rid his lovely young bride, Estelle, of her suicidal mania. Villalobos, all charm, leads the young couple to a strange chamber, "a weird combination of a modern operating room and a museum of curiosities," many of which are instruments of torture. The patient is laid out naked on a slab while the Doctor and his voodoo cultists sacrifice a rooster. It is done. Villalobos pronounces Estelle cured - the evil spirit has departed with that of the bird. Phil, sickened by what he just witnessed, hastens to get his wife away from this terrible place. Not so fast, beams the Doctor. There is the little matter of the bill. $10,000! You don't have it? In that case, he gloats, Estelle will remain his to do with as he pleases until the debt is paid in full. When Phil threatens to inform the police, Villalobos demonstrates what happens to fools who earn his displeasure, destroying a cringing minion with doll magic. Fearless of further interference, the fiend gathers the brotherhood for an auction. Estelle is to be sold to the highest bidder!

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Monroe Eisenberg (?)

Mistress of the Blood-Drinkers: (Horror Stories, March 1940). Roger Coleman was happy-until the day he met the lovely and incredibly evil Naida Sadko. From then on he existed only as her slave, an abject shell of a man who lived solely that she might live, too... that she might feed upon his living flesh and blood!

"But the weird eruption of blisters increased and spread. At length the loathsome little sacs swelled to the bursting point, and the body of my sister, which had only so recently been a glorious thing to behold, was transformed to an oozing and hideous caricature. The fluid that burst from her skin had a nauseous odor, as if the decay of the grave were already setting in before her heart had stopped beating. It was almost like a merciful relief when Alice died, shortly before midnight."

A variation on Priestess of the Pestilence, with Naida Sadko, a Priestess of the Sacred Race of Vashni, taking besotted femme fatale duties and Dr Joshua Caulder as sainted family physician. Setting is Nob Hill, San Francisco. Roger Coleman, a prosperous trader in Oriental artefacts, has only recently lost his sister to "Vollmer's Disease" when he and wife, Nan, develop the same revolting symptoms. Naida, a glamorous customer at the store, works elaborate Asian mumbo jumbo to completely cure Roger but refuses to save Nan unless he first surrender to her bloody kiss! Roger reluctantly complies to become one with the Vasni. His fingers claw to talons. His palms sprout tiny blood-sucking membranes. He feels an overwhelming desire to tear apart his beloved wife!

[helrunar]

Lethal ladies indeed! Your notes on these are quite entertaining. He seems to have written the same yarn over and over again. Hope he found a nice capable dominatrix to keep him happy by chaining him up and stomping all over his back in stiletto boots of an evening, prior to allowing him to submit to the blood-laced kiss. Or whatever it was.

cheers, Hel.

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Jul 2, 2024 0:38:00 GMT helrunar said:

He seems to have written the same yarn over and over again.

Not quite, though John Pelan advises taking a break between stories, as opposed to crashing through them in one hit. 'Shields' was a master of the improbably involved conspiracy designed to send the hero/ heroine [depending on which is heir to a fortune] insane, often by spiking their drink with aphrodisiacs or cannabis to induce "murderous passions". The one disappointment with the
Dancing Tarantula compilations is they lack the original magazine illustrations which, for this reader at least, are essential to the weird menace experience as the novelettes of endless hate and unutterable doom themselves.

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How to make a mindless cretin.

Monroe Eisenberg (?)

Vengeance of the Living Dead: (Terror Tales, Sept. 1940). When the heavy knife plunged into Tom Stuart's heart, James Beswick felt that at last his vengeance was complete. No one, he told himself, could possibly believe in Stuart's ravings about wandering souls ... and the Justice of Karma

On his return from Tibet, Tom Stuart - young, virile, good-looking - resolves to make a clean breast of things with his patron, Dr. James Montague Beswick. He and Wanda — Beswick's trophy wife — are lovers. The Doctor, smirking, hears Stuart's confession with glee. As if he didn't know of their sordid affair! He only recommended Tom for the Pardee-Fleischer expedition to get him out of the picture while he completed phase one of his diabolical revenge! "It was a most interesting experiment ... To transform an alert and intelligent adult woman into a mental defective, somewhat between a high-grade idiot and a very retarded imbecile. Certain drugs, mescal and cocaine derivatives, administered secretly in her food, made it easier; but the real work was done by radiations of extremely short frequency, which I focused upon her while she slept ..."

Stuart makes to attack, but Kandru, Beswick's hulking manservant, fells him with a drugged dart from his blowpipe! When the young archaeologist regains consciousness, he is bound beneath the blade of a modified guillotine. Gloating over his helpless captive, the Doctor reassures him that it won't be he triggers the knife, but Wanda, the cretin that once was his faithless wife! After which, he will dissect the corpse, dissolve it piece by piece in the acid vat.

Pretty much your standard, exciting weird menace torture tale up to now, which makes the next sequence all the more startling.