Volume 1

May, 1934 Number 9

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

OUR READERS SAY

"I was very pleased to note the increased space allotted to Lovecraft's 'Supernatural Horror in Literature.' This unique and fascinating treatise, scholarly and well written, gives evidence of studious research and careful compilation. It is an authoritative review of a most alluring subject and should prove interesting and pleasantly instructive to every lover of the weird."--Richard F. Searight

"'The Ancient Voice' rings with laughter all over the pages of the April issue, and although not strictly and convincingly weird, Eando Binder's tale is, nevertheless, a joyous relief to one who has just emerged from a long literary swim in that channel where waters flow and lap afresh and anew with the many 'eloquent tongues in cheeks'."--Robert Nelson

"Robert E. Howard's story 'Gods of the North' in the March issue was right up to his standard, although it was a bit too short. Clark Ashton Smith certainly outdid himself in the poem 'Revenant.' The March number is the best one to date."--F. Lee Baldwin

"'The Ancient Voice' is a splendid tale, with overtones of subtle terror and macabre suggestion that lingers disquietingly in one's memory. It is certainly refreshing to see the shades of opinion represented in the 'Your Views' department and I feel sure that this discussion will be much more intellectually fruitful than the earlier type with its occasionally sharp personal digs. Smith's 'Chinoiserie' is exquisite."--H. P. Lovecraft

"'Side Glances' is interesting. The increased length of Lovecraft's article is relished pleasurably. The diversified views of the section devoted to the display of one's thoughts on various subjects is worth while."--Kenneth B. Pritchard

"The March number is certainly distinguished by Howard's fine imaginative piece, 'Gods of the North,' a story full of auroral splendors, with more than a touch of unearthly poetry. I must also commend Hoy Ping Pong's instructive article, the diverting robot yarn by Mr. Ackerman, and Barlow's bibliographical note on 'The Time Machine.' I missed the 'Annals of the Jinns,' however, and trust that this series will be resumed shortly."--Clark Ashton Smith

"Smith's poem in the March issue was splendid, as always. By all means, publish as many of his poems as possible; I would like to see more by Lumley, and it would be a fine thing if you could get some of Lovecraft's poetry."--Robert E. Howard

"Just finished the last FANTASY FAN and in it find an answer to my query. Does Mr. Ackerman write? He does, and how! Enjoyed his little article very much; a touch of humor is as odd as it is welcome in the mostly rather sombre pages of weird and fantastic fiction."--Natalie H. Wooley

"Apparently, the only well-known weird tale authors that appear in your columns are Smith and Lovecraft. Surely with these two as a nucleus, a much larger following of authors should have been built up during your seven months of existence. If you cannot contact the horror mags, you surely should be able to get results from the authors."--William S. Sykora

We have several weird authors contributing to THE FANTASY FAN besides Smith and Lovecraft, among which are August W. Derleth, Robert E. Howard, R. H. Barlow, and Richard F. Searight.

"I especially enjoy articles such as the one by Miss Ferguson, and that written by The Spacehound, which I was sorry to see, did not appear in the following issue. Barlow's stories have more good thought material behind them than some of those published by better known authors in your publication. Here's to everlasting success!"--J. Harvey Haggard

"The April number is excellent in both appearance and contents, issuing in, as it does, several new features, the 'Prose Pastels,' a new weird writer, Eando Binder, and the larger instalments of Lovecraft's article."--Duane W. Rimel

"Just a note to tell you how much I enjoyed this THE FANTASY FAN. Miraculously, it continues to improve. I don't see how you do it! 'Prose Pastels' by Clark Ashton Smith was a very beautiful bit of word-painting. He has a deftness with the pen that seems to conjure up visions and make the paper seem alive with scenes he describes."--F. Lee Baldwin

As you will notice, readers, we have considerably shortened the readers' letters in this issue, due to the large amount of excellent material we have on hand and our limited space. It will continue to be about this length unless we receive many very strenuous objections.

* * * * *

CELEBRITIES I'VE MET

by Mortimer Weisinger

Henry J. Kostkos, who permits his charming wife to okay his stories, and if the yarn is mediocre, it's "Quick, Henry, the Flit."

Frank R. Paul, who, when asked to be interviewed, modestly answered: "There's not much about me to interview."

Conrad H. Ruppert, whose favorite expression, "Shut up, Weisinger," became a threat to have my scalp when I promised to mention him here. And he claims he isn't modest. Goodbye scalp, maybe I can do without it.

* * * * *

Phantom Lights

by August W. Derleth

Of the four men sitting in the captain's cabin on the _S. S. Maine_, three were listening to Captain Henderson, who was talking of storms in general, an apt topic, since the _Maine_ had been driven head on into a raging tropical gale, and was at the moment making very little headway. The four of them, including the captain himself, were somewhat bored, though none of them showed it. Wembler, the business man, had begun to toy with his spectacles, taking them off, folding them, and putting them back on. Allison, the tall, dark man who was ostensibly a writer, occasionally whispered in an undertone to his companion, whose name had been given as Talbot.

It was Wembler who broke suddenly into the captain's monologue, "Have we stopped? Doesn't seem as if we were moving at all."

The captain shook his head. "No, we've been going very slowly on account of the gale." Then he stopped talking abruptly. "We _have_ stopped," he said, and got up.

At the same moment, a sharp rap on the cabin door brought the other three men to attention. The Captain shouted "Come!"

A tousled head of red hair first appeared in the small opening, and after it a youngish face that seemed to emerge from the hair.

"What is it, Munro?" asked Captain Henderson.

"The anchor's gone out, sir--torn out of its holdings by the storm. We can't seem to be able to draw it back. Attached to something, most likely."

The captain pondered this a moment, then he made an abrupt gesture with his hand. "Well, leave it until this infernal storm has passed--we weren't making time, anyway. Give the order to shut down the engines. Then try to find out just about where we are, and report back to me."

"Very well, sir."

The captain sat down again. "Happens once in a lifetime," he explained. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to smile genially; his mood was not for it. "There's nothing to be done."

His listeners nodded sympathetically. Then the four of them sat in silence until another rap on the cabin door brought them again to alertness.

Again Munro appeared in response to the captain's call. "I've inquired of the first mate, sir," he said, "as to our bearings. He has no idea where we are. He's asked the radio operator to broadcast to see what he can get. We are somewhere about the Moluccas, he thinks, or more probably Java. Seems to be something wrong with our compasses, sir."

The captain nodded ponderously. "Most likely the storm, or some other magnetic influence. You may go, Munro, but if anything crops up, report to me immediately."

Munro vanished, drawing the cabin door shut behind him. The captain shook his head dolefully and waited to see whether one of the other men might say something. No one ventured; so he began once more. "I didn't think we had got as far as Java," he said. "But you can't ever tell--"

Wembler looked up suddenly and spoke. "Say, isn't this the twenty-seventh of February?"

"No, the twenty-sixth," said the captain evenly. He looked at his clock for verification, but found it not. "I'm sorry," he said at once, "it _is_ the twenty-seventh. I had no idea it was after midnight."

Wembler nodded. "A year ago this morning the _Cumberland_ went down off the coast of Java."

Captain Henderson snatched at the change of subject. "That was quite a mystery, as I remember it. There were only a few survivors, I think."

Wembler said, "only one--the first mate. They got some ugly rumours out about him shortly after he appeared. Said he'd blown up the ship during the storm."

"His wife went down, too, if I'm not mistaken," said the captain, as if questioning Wembler's suggestion.

Wembler nodded. "They said it was partly because of her that he did it. There was another man on board, and I understand there'd been bad blood between the mate and this man on account of his wife. Then, too, the first mate had had a terrible time with the captain, and wanted to get even with him. Did the thing in a moment of madness."

The captain looked at him for a moment without seeming to see him. Talbot spoke suddenly. "All of which goes to show how oddly unfounded rumours come up. We know that no one but that first mate survived the disaster--and yet someone got out those rumours about him."

The captain nodded. "You speak about it as if you had seen it all," he said, turning to Wembler.

Wembler laughed. "I knew the first mate pretty well, and I knew what he was capable of doing when he got jealous. His wife was a most attractive woman."

"You think he really sent the _Cumberland_ down, then?" asked the captain.

"I know he did," said Wembler shortly.

"Nonsense!" snapped Talbot with unexpected sharpness. "Only the first mate would know that--and unless he's told you, you couldn't know."

Wembler looked at him curiously. "He didn't tell me--but his wife did."

Talbot looked as if he might explode; then abruptly he said, "Oh, I see--spiritualism." And thus he dismissed the subject.

The door of the cabin opened suddenly, and Munro looked in. "Something wrong, sir," he said.

"Eh? What is it?" asked Henderson.

"Lights on the water. Looks like a ship sinking, or else we're close to Java." Munro paused. "Will you come, sir?"

The captain nodded shortly and turned to his companions. "If you gentlemen would care to come along--? This promises to be interesting. There are greatcoats in the closet over there."

Munro led the way to the upper deck; the four men followed after him, bracing themselves against the gale. On the upper deck they were met by the first mate.

Captain Henderson raised his binoculars and stared vainly into the pall of darkness broken every few minutes by vivid, jagged flashes of lightning. Huge waves obstructed his vision at regular intervals. "Can't see a thing," he shouted. Then he swept the raging sea and sky once more. Abruptly, lights on the water came into view.

"There they are," shouted the first mate.

"Java lights," said the captain.

The first mate shouted again. "No, no, not Java, sir; they wouldn't bob about like that."

The lights were coming closer now. The first mate raised his binoculars and fixed them on the approaching lights. "That's a ship, sure," he said.

"Any distress signal?" asked the captain.

"No."

"Odd. Ship's in distress--plain as a pikestaff."

Munro had been peering through his glasses in silence; he lowered them suddenly and turned to the captain. "Some lettering just now, sir. I saw it quite clearly. An 'm' and the end of a word, which I took to be land."

"English ship, then," shouted the captain. "'M'--yes."

The first mate raised his glasses. "I can see lettering, but I'm damned if I can make it out."

A man came along the deck toward the little group, breasting the furious wind. It had stopped raining, now, and the lightning flashes were not as frequent as they had been. Even the wind had lessened considerably.

Munro saw the oncoming man and shouted to the captain, "here's our distress signal, sir."

The man came up to them, and handed a tightly folded slip of paper to the captain. Henderson opened the paper, and with the aid of the first mate's flash light, read:

"_H. M. S. Cumberland_ calling. Send Harry to us."

"What's this?" shouted the captain.

"Mr. Rogers got only those words, sir; nothing more."

"Must be some mistake!"

"No mistake, sir. I heard that come in myself."

The first mate shouted suddenly. "The lights have vanished." Even as he spoke, there came a sudden brilliant flash in the sky, a flash that was not made by lightning, followed by a thunderous detonation.

Then came a sound that held them, fascinated them--a sound fraught with terror--a woman's voice, clear as a bell, calling from where the lights had been, the voice distinct above the roar of the wind.

"_Harry ... Harry ... Harry...._"

The wind brought the sound to them, magnifying it, subduing it. Immediately after, came a chorus of voices, calling as if from a great distance, "_Harry ... Harry ... Come to us ... Come ..._" the woman's voice yet strong above them all.

The captain muttered something incoherent. Then he turned to the three men who had followed him from the cabin and shouted, waving the message from the radio operator, "_Cumberland_ calling! Something's wrong."

One of the three launched himself suddenly forward, striking Captain Henderson, and pushing him violently aside. He sprawled on the deck, but felt hands helping him to his feet almost immediately. At the same moment the voice of Munro came to him, shouting, "Man overboard--Man _overboard_!"

"Good God!" shouted the captain. "Shut up, Munro. We can't send any one out there to look for him." He swung about and looked at the men grouped about him; almost at once he saw that the man named Allison was missing.

Wembler pushed himself forward, his face white and drawn. "You wouldn't find him, Captain," he said, shaking his head. "You'd never find him. Harry Allison was first mate on the _Cumberland_ a year ago--he wasn't 'Allison' then. And he was my brother-in-law!"

The captain waved his arm toward the place where the lights had been. "And that?" he shouted frenziedly. "What was all that?"

Wembler's hand closed over Henderson's arm. "You heard, Captain. It was the _Cumberland_ sinking, just as she did a year ago when that blackguard blew her up. And I heard my sister's voice calling to Allison--and the others. The souls of those people he killed in his devilish jealousy came back for him!"

* * * * *

SCIENCE FICTION IN ENGLISH MAGAZINES

Series Five

by Bob Tucker

The first two issues of "Scoops," England's new all-stf weekly, carries "Master of the Moon," "The Striding Terror," "The Rebel Robots," "Rocket of Doom," "The Mystery of the Blue Mist," "Voice from the Void," "The Soundless Hour," "The Battle of the Space Ships," "Z-2--Red Flyer," and "Space!"

The first, fourth, eighth and tenth are interplanetary; the second is about a human King Kong, fifty feet tall. "The Blue Mist" tale is of invisibility, and the rest are self-explanatory. "The Soundless Hour" tells of an hour of silence, produced by artificial means.

The "Modern Boy" magazine carried another scientific "Captain Justice" tale, "Siege of the Sea-Eaglet" in their latest number.

"The Skipper," in a late March issue, features a story of a youth who slept 100 years. He awakens to the super-modern world of tomorrow and is promptly clanked behind bars and put on exhibition! "The Death Dust," another story in the same issue, is, as the title indicates, an artificial dust that kills.

This column can't resist a modest smirk, and remind you that an all-stf mag, such as "Scoops," was brought up twice before here.

* * * * *

We hope to present another article in this series very soon.

* * * * *

SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE