The Fantasy Fan, March 1934 The Fans' Own Magazine

Part Six

Chapter 22,747 wordsPublic domain

by H. P. Lovecraft

Through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, we behold a growing mass of fugitive legendry and balladry of darksome cast; still, however, held down beneath the surface of polite and accepted literature. Chap-books of horror and weirdness multiplied, and we glimpse the eager interest of the people through fragments like DeFoe’s _Apparition of Mrs. Veal_, a homely tale of a dead woman’s spectral visit to a distant friend, written to advertise covertly a badly selling theological disquisition on death. The upper orders of society were now losing faith in the supernatural, and indulging in a period of classic rationalism. Then, beginning with the translations of Eastern tales in Queen Anne’s reign and taking definite form toward the middle of the century, comes the revival of romantic feeling—the era of new joy in Nature, and in the radiance of past times, strange scenes, bold deeds, and incredible marvels. We feel it first in the poets, whose utterances take on new qualities of wonder, strangeness, and shuddering. And finally, after the timid appearance of a few weird scenes in the novels of the day—such as Smollett’s _Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom_—the released instinct precipitates itself in the birth of a new school of writing; the “Gothic” school of horrible and fantastic prose fiction, long and short, whose literary posterity is destined to become so numerous, and in many cases so resplendent in artistic merit. It is, when one reflects upon it, genuinely remarkable that weird narration as a fixed and academically recognized literary form should have been so late of final birth. The impulse and atmosphere are as old as man, but the typical weird tale of standard literature is a child of the eighteenth century.

(Next month we will give you a much longer installment of this article, in which Mr. Lovecraft takes up the third section, “The Early Gothic Novel.”)

YOUR VIEWS

You will remember that, in the closing statement in the last department of “The Boiling Point” last month, we asked you, the readers, to tell us what you think of horror stories. Is there any virtue to them? Why do people delight in being horrified?—etc. suggested by Forrest J. Ackerman. H. P. Lovecraft honors us with the first opinion, which we present to you as follows:

“It can be said that anything which vividly embodies a basic human emotion or captures a definite and typical human mood is genuine art. The subject matter is immaterial. It requires an especial morbidity to enjoy any authentic word-depiction, whether it is conventionally ‘pleasant’ or not. Indeed, it argues a somewhat immature and narrow prospection when our judgment is by the mere conventional appeal of its subject-matter or its supposed social effects. The question to ask is not whether it is ‘healthy’ or ‘pleasant,’ but whether it is _genuine_ and _powerful_.”

Have you another idea concerning the horror story? If so, let us know what it is. However, if your opinion differs, don’t tell Mr. Lovecraft that he is crazy or has a diseased mind for thinking as he does, or this department will just become another ‘Boiling Point.’ Or bring up something new, if you will. This is your department, and anything you wish to say concerning weird fiction in general or any of its branches in particular will be printed here. Here’s hoping to hear from you.

REVENANT

by Clark Ashton Smith

I am the specter who returns Unto some desolate world in ruin borne afar On the black flowing of Lethean skies: Ever I search, in cryptic galleries, The void sarcophagi, the broken urns Of many a vanished avatar: Or haunt the gloom of grumbling pylons vast In temples that enshrine the shadowy past. Viewless, impalpable and fleet, I roam stupendous avenues, and greet Familiar sphinxes carved from everlasting stone, Or the fair, brittle gods of long ago, Decayed and fallen low. And there I mark the tall clepsammiae That time has overthrown, And empty clepsydrae, And dials drowned in umbrage never-lifting; And there, on rusty parapegms, I read the ephemerides Of antique stars and elder planets drifting Oblivionward in night. And there, with purples of the tomb bedight, And crowned with funeral gems, I hold awhile the throne Whereon mine immemorial selves have sate, Canopied by the triple-tinted glory Of the three suns forever paled and flown.

I am the specter who returns And dwells content with his forlorn estate In mansions lost and hoary Where no lamp burns; Who feasts within the sepulcher, And finds the ancient shadows lovelier Than gardens all emblazed with sevenfold noon, Or topaz-builded towers That throng below some iris-pouring moon. Exiled and homeless in the younger stars, Henceforth I shall inhabit that grey clime Whose days belong to primal calendars; Nor would I come again Back to the garish terrene hours; For I am free of vaults unfathomable And treasures lost from time: With bat and vampire there I flit through somber skies immeasurable Or fly adown the unending subterranes; Mummied and ceremented, I sit in councils of the kingly dead; And oftentimes for vestiture I wear The granite of great idols looming darkly In atlantean fanes; Or closely now and starkly I cling as clings the attenuating air About the ruins bare.

THE WORDS IN THE SKY

(A True Experience)

by Kenneth B. Pritchard

On one evening in 1916, before the United States had entered the World War, I happened to be out with my mother. The place was Bridgeport, Connecticut, near the corner of Main and State Streets. The stars were shining, as usual, though I gave them no particular notice.

We had turned the corner and traversed several feet, when I chanced to look up into the sky. Lo and behold, the stars had formed themselves into one great patch in the heavens, in the form of letters, and those letters spelled words!

I could read some, at the time, but I tugged at my mother’s arm and asked her what it said. I am hazy as to her answer. Perhaps she told me that there was nothing there, or ignored the childish gesture entirely. At any rate, I looked up again and the words were still there. I don’t believe that my mother even glanced at them.

You are anxious to learn what it said? Well, it took years for that memory to come back to me, but I now have it, in what I am fairly sure are the correct words. The exact ones do not make any difference, for I am sure of their meaning. The message in the sky read, “The United States of America will run red with blood!”

A short time after peering at the stars, some invisible forces took hold of them. The brilliant orbs were shifted as by a mighty hand. They moved like checkers on a vast board. And then, the stars ceased their journeyings; they were once more on their accustomed courses. I lowered my head; the gigantic show was over!

Delusion, you say? I’m afraid I don’t agree with you.

HOW TO WRITE A WEIRD TALE

by Hoy Ping Pong

Unlike its sister, the science fiction story, the weird tale needs a plot. To go about this, select the plot which has been used most since 1926 and write your tale around it. I said _around_. Don’t touch the plot itself; editors won’t stand for that! Above all, _don’t_ invent an original one. Readers won’t know what you’re talking about if you don’t use one that has been plotted 6,438,900 and a fraction times, more or less. At this point, you can discard the plot altogether, because the editor would send your brain-child back if you didn’t, on the grounds that there are too many stories with plots in them as it is. They would rather have action.

Action—that is the keynote! The hero must dash hither and thither over the landscape, saving the beautiful blue eyed heroine, who lisps in baby-talk, from the snakey clutches of the villain who, incidentally, is about to let loose on the city a horde of terrible monsters. Where he got them from is none of your business, so you’d do much better to worry yourself about something else—where your next meal is coming from, for instance. I would suggest that pre-historic monsters be used, for they are easier to account for than ones from other dimensions. Editors have an annoying habit of asking authors where their monsters came from. You had better have the monsters destroy New York City. The inhabitants of this city are so used to being destroyed that they now take it with a chuckle of droll humor. The tax payers might protest a bit though, but don’t mind them.

Here to add a bit of flavor to the tale, bring in a new plot. Discard it and bring in a third. Throw that one away too. Plots are cheap—$1.75 an acre in Missouri. Small plots will do. Then, while the stunned readers are still gasping over the plots, throw in a barrage of big words that none of them will understand, including Webster and Clark Ashton Smith. This will stupefy them.

About this time, put in something really weird and spine-chilling. Ice might do, but it melts too rapidly in warm climes, and a southern reader wouldn’t get his spine thoroughly chilled, so you had better devise something else.

As a final bit of advice, it would be best to have some sort of recommendation to the editor in order to have your story more readily acceptable. So have your Uncle Silas, who has a friend that knows a friend who is an acquaintance with someone that knows the printer who publishes the said editor’s magazine, put in a good word for you.

If this fails (as it undoubtedly will) take your brain-child to him in person. This will save postage both ways, because editors never fail to reject manuscripts from beginners (I object—Editor). Don’t worry over this tho. Let it lay around home a few weeks mellowing with age, and then send it in again, untouched. This time it will be accepted. Maybe.

If you go in person, buy a plot in a local cemetery.

A SAD STORY OF THE FUTURE

by Forrest J. Ackerman

(Following is a brief summary of a recent radio broadcast taken from the story “We Buy Us a Robot—and What Happened” in the American Weekly.)

A married couple had an eight year old robot, and decided that it was about time to get a new one as ‘Willy’ was becoming worn and creaky and inefficient; so, they went to look over the newest models. They selected Julius, a most capable iron-man who could not tell a lie. This proved a disadvantage, however, as, upon entering their home he declared in his deep, hollow, mechanical voice: “Dust—much dust!”

As the wife would grow lonely when her husband was away, she had a phonograph record made of him assuring her how much he loved her. This she inserted into Julius, and listened to him. But this made Julius become very pensive and sad. One day he was found reading love poems and crying. Julius was in love! He realized the hopelessness of the situation.

One day he was found missing. “Oh! He’s committed suicide!” the wife cried, “I know it!”

“But that’s impossible!” her husband assured her, “if he tries to drown himself, he will only be short-circuited and rusted, and could be revitalized and polished up just like new. If he shoots himself, but a few parts need be replaced. Jumping from a window would merely dent him a little. He cannot hang himself; he cannot poison himself; he cannot die by fire. Anyhow, our contract guarantees us against loss by suicide.”

Just then the televisor flashed on. It was an upstairs neighbor.

“My son’s all dirty and greasy,” he bellowed, “and it’s your fault!”

“Our fault? How so?” they asked.

He gave a serial number. “That’s your robot, isn’t it? Well, he went out into the park and called a lot of kids around him; told them he wasn’t feeling well; gave them screw-drivers and asked to find out what was the matter with him. In a few minutes he was scattered all over six blocks.”

Julius, the mechanical man, had taken the only method an automaton knew of committing suicide.——

THE TIME MACHINE

(A Bibliographical Note)

by R. H. Barlow

The first publication of the tale that later became Wells’ most famous short novel, was in a paper issued at his school. The magazine, The Science Schools Quarterly, serialized a story of the same underlying plot, dealing with a Welsh professor. This was, broadly speaking, the debut of the story. It was later re-written, and some decade afterwards, after being published in both the National Observer and The New Review, appeared in a modest little volume published by Wm. Heinomann. Preceding it were two text-books and Conversations With An Uncle came out the day immediately before.

The book in its first English edition, was a modest duodecimo volume measuring approximately 7 X 5 X 1 ins. It was bound in a coarse linen-like grey cloth, and bore in purple lettering as well as the title a peculiar device of a rather emaciated sphinx. It contained pages 152 and XVI. The text, besides the title page was virtually the same as that recently issued in Short Stories of H. G. Wells, but differed in several respects from that Amazing Stories used in their May, 1927 issue.

It appeared simultaneously both in the bound edition and wrappers, the former at the price of 3s, and the latter at 2s 6d.

In the April issue of _Fantasy_:

THE DEAD WOMAN

_by David H. Keller, M. D._

The beloved Dr. Keller has produced, in this story, one of the greatest weird-psychological stories he has ever written. The unusual, horrifying, tale of the terrible thing conceived in the mind of a husband, written as _only Dr. Keller can write_.

“The Last Poet and the Robots” A. Merritt’s beautiful chapter of the Super-Novel, COSMOS

An Interview with Leo Morey

“Science Friction” a poem by J. Harvey Haggard

Another installment of the interesting “Scientific Hoaxes”

Alicia, the sweet sophisticated young lady whose misadventures in Blunderland have been amusing FM readers, says farewell.

The four news columns:

The Science Fiction Eye The Ether Vibrates Spilling the Atoms Scientifilm Snapshots

keep you well informed on coming events in the fantasy field and other features

In future issues

Poetry, stories, and articles by

H. P. Lovecraft Clark Ashton Smith Donald Wandrei Edmond Hamilton David H. Keller, M. D. P. Schuyler Miller L. A. Eshbach Fletcher Pratt and many others

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Cover Design: “Future City” by Clay Ferguson, Jr.