RIP Basil Copper. Another Master has crossed over

I just found out that „Basil Copper“ passed  away 4 days ago. He was 89 years old. Mr. Copper is most well-known for his horror stories and 52 “Mike Faraday” detective mystery novels.

What many fans don’t realize is that he was also a journalist and newspaper editor for a large part of his professional life.  Sadly, Mr. Copper isn’t as well-known as he deserves in the United States. Most of his novels and collections have been printed in America were released by the specialty publishers “Arkham house” and “Fedogan &Bremer”.  To my knowledge, “The Great White Space” was his only mass market horror paperback released in America. Pinnacle did publish some of his pastiches of August Derleth’s Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Solar Pons.

I first discovered Mr. Copper at the end of the 1970s when I came across a copy of his "Arkham House" collection "From Evil's Pillow" at the public library in Newark Ohio.. I endned up reading it in one sitting. That's how deeply it drew me in. These is simple, old fashioned horror stories that get under your skin before you even know what is happening. Stateside, Mr. Copper’s greatest success was having his famous short story “Camera Obscura” be filmed as a segment of Rod Serling’s old television show “Night Gallery”.

I always enjoyed Mr. Copper’s short stories even when I wasn’t the biggest fan of his novels. I own both of  the  Arkham House collections ,“From Evil’s Pillow” and “And Afterward, the Dark”. These are two top notch collections which contain two of my all-time favorite stories, “The Grey House” and “The Gossips”.

Mr. Copper told his tales in a very straightforward and non-decorative style.  The same could also be said of his stories. He seemed to concentrate his talents on telling good stories without any pretentious “Hey! Look at me! I’m writing!” trappings.  And even though he wrote in an unadorned style, he could evoke an enormously powerful sense of place and atmosphere. I have honestly no idea how correct his description of Sicily is in his novelette “The Gossips” is. I just know that one of my dreams is to go there one day simply based of how he has brought the island to life for me.

I honestly don’t know why he didn’t obtain greater success in the states, which is a terrible shame, considering the rare combination of quality and quantity he produced in his lifetime.

So here’s a toast to your Shade Mr. Copper!

Thank you for enriching my life with your stories!

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

Doug

I am Legend by Richard Matheson. The birth of a genre

I Am Legend

By Richard Matheson

Corgi Books 1971

(Originally published in 1954.)

                                                                  My 1971 copy.

     I’ve had Richard Matheson on the brain lately since writing a post several weeks ago celebrating his 87 birthday. Now because of this bout of “Matheson-Fever” I’ve re-read quite a bit of his work these past 5 weeks. I don’t know whether it was a good idea or not, but I ended up choosing his 1954 Vampire apocalypse novel “I am Legend” for my bedtime reading. As it turned, I spent more time reflecting on the book than I did reading it.  

     My first exposure to this story must have been around 1971 or so. I do know that 71 was when my parents first allowed me to stay up on Friday nights to watch “Chiller Theater” on channel 10 out of Columbus. Chiller Theater on WBNS specialized in lots of old Black and White horror films at that time. One of the first films I remember getting to stay up and watch was the 1964 film “The Last Man onEarth” starring Vincent Price. Even though I later learned that Mr. Matheson was unhappy with the production and ended up having his name removed from the script credits, this is the most faithful film adaptation so far and is also one of the most frightening films that I’ve ever seen. I know that it upset the hell out of my back then and this of course meant that I was in a ten year olds horror heaven!  I didn’t get a hold of the novel until a few years later when I found a used copy of the film tie-in  paperback to its second Hollywood incarnation under the title “The Omega Man” starring Charleston Heston. I was thrilled to discover that the novel outdid the film.

     “I am Legend” is one of those stories that just won’t let me go. It is so full of ideas and concepts that force me to play it over and over in my mind, all the while asking myself “what would I do in this situation?”

 

     The premise of the novel is a fairly simple one. A plague has decimated the entire planet and it appears as though only one man has survived it. And this isn’t just your normal pandemic where everyone starts coughing and sneezing before eventual falling down dead. Ok, they do all fall down dead. There’s only one catch. They don’t stay dead. The infected return from the dead as vampires or so it seems.

     The novel picks ups in January 1976 (it was published in 1954) and is told in first person style through the journal of Robert Neville, who seems to be the only one who has survived the plague. Robert has literally boarded himself up in his suburban home converting it into a fortress so that he can fend off the nightly onslaught of his undead neighbours.  He is a man living out his life under siege and it has taken its toll on his mental health.

     Robert Neville isn’t your typical heroic figure who has purpose and answers. He is a normal man being overwhelmed by his existence. While reading the novel you catch on quite quickly that the vampires are not the real threat in Robert’s existence. What are destroying him is pure and simply loneliness and despair. The man isn’t living; he simply exists on a day to day basis with no real goals or any kind of future perspective. Because of his loneliness, Robert is trapped in a downward spiral of madness and alcoholism.  It sounds clichéd, but robber Neville is his own greatest enemy in the novel. The story oozes an atmosphere of despair and hopelessness that makes it hard going at times. This is in no way a rousing adventure story of a man battling for humanity. There isn’t any humanity left in Matheson’s over run world of vampires.

     What immediately sets the novel apart from most vampire novels is Mr. Matheson’s scientific rational for the vampirism. These aren’t gothic supernatural entities. They are victims of a plague which has reanimated them and left them thirsting for blood. We discover that Neville spends his days fortifying his home defences and tracking the vampires to their lairs so he can exterminate them. He spends his night inside his barricaded suburban home drinking himself blind while playing records so loudly that he can’t hear the vampires taunts for him to come out.

Many of these vampires are old friends, neighbours and colleagues from his prior existence.  The female vampires will even perform lewd dances before his front door in an effort to lure him out. We find out the Robert is a man who truly wished to die, but can’t bring himself to take that last deciding step.

     The second third of the novel shows Neville coming to the realization that if he can’t bring himself to take his own life he must find a reason to live and not just to exist on a day to day basis He decides to discover the cause of the plagues and to maybe find a cure. Neville is not the scientist he is portrayed as in the three film adaptations of this novel. He has to teach himself microbiology. He goes about this by raiding the shelves for textbooks at the local library and scrounging up what medical equipment he can find. As he learn more and more about biology and pathogens he also begins to study and cold heartedly experiment on the vampires.

These experiments he conducts on (non)living subjects show a total lack of empathy that is quite horrify. He takes no pleasure in his experimentations, but neither does it disturb. He has simply quit perceiving his test subjects as anything related to humanity. He discovers that the plague has been caused by an air borne bacteria that first kills and then reanimates its victims. He also learns that behaviour of the vampires is both physiological and psychological. The reanimation, resistance to bullets, growth of fangs, thirst for blood, disintegration after staking and allergy to sunlight are genuine physical processes. The fear of mirrors, garlic and religious symbols are nothing more than self fulfilling prophecies. The victims realize that they are vampires. So it is only logical to them that they can’t stand their own reflections, the smell of garlic or symbols of the religions that they themselves practiced in their former lives since everyone “knows” that this is how vampires behave. Neville also discovers that all of the vampires are not dead. In some cases the victims have become “converted” without having been killed by the plague. This last point is something that will play a major role in the novels third and final act.

The novel’s final act has Neville discovering a woman, Ruth, wandering around in broad daylight. As he attempts to approach her she seems terrified of him and tries to flee. In a very unsettling scene he literally has to chase her down, restrain her and forcibly take her back to his home. Ruth tells him the story of how she has survived the last three years and how during that time her husband and child were killed. Now even though Neville is overjoyed at finding another survivor, the past three years of surviving in a world populated with vampires has made him a cold hearted and suspicious man. Don’t forget the man is still half insane. It’s just now that he’s a sober and lucid mad-man.  Robert immediately perceives that Ruth’s “story” is full of discrepancies so large that even John Holmes could drive through them without brushing against the sides.  We finally discover that Ruth isn’t the only survivor. There are many more. Unfortunately they are all infected but haven’t totally succumbed to vampirism. They have even developed a serum that halts most of the symptoms and the thirst for blood. And in comparison to the “genuine” vampires, they haven’t suffered any brain damage. These “survivors” are in full control of their faculties, one hundred percent aware of their situation and in the process of building a new society. Ruth is one of the leaders of this new order and has been sent to spy on Neville. Neville is at first overjoyed to hear of this. Ruth dampens his spirits though by informing him that the “new society” is out to get him. It seems that many of the vampires he disposed of during his daytime hunts were actually “survivors” who also have to sleep during the day. Thinking that the survivors will understand, he refuses to flee even though Ruth begs him to do so.

   The novel ends with Roberts capture and subsequent imprisonment while he awaits his execution for the “atrocities” he has committed.  As an act of mercy, Ruth gives him two tablets to take so he won’t suffer so badly during his execution. The novel ends with Neville looking out the window of his cell at the crowd that has gathered for his impending execution. As he see the fear and horror in their faces when the notice him watching them from his cell he realizes that he himself has become a monster and that he is

“A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.

 I am legend."

This is one damn good novel that will bounce around in your head for weeks afterward. It’s a fast read, but also a disturbing one.

     Even though the story will be 60 years old next year it has held up amazingly well. Matheson’s undecorated and straight forward prose is the main reason for this.

    The only problem, and it by no means Mr. Matheson’s  fault, is that this will probably come of as quite a familiar story to most  younger readers. For “I am Legend” is the progenitor of the “Zombie Apocalypse” genre. If you get a chance to see the 1964 film adaptation you immediately realize that this is George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”. It’s just starring Vincent Price and made 4 years before Romero’s film was made. Almost every single Zombie film mad after 1968 owes a huge debt to “Night of the Living Dead”. And NotLD owes an enormous debt to “I am Legend”. Unfortunately, because of this, many younger readers will have a strong sense of déjà vu when they read the novel. Which is an honest shame, since this is the story started it all.

The novel is a genuine masterpiece of not only genre literature, but also powerful study on loneliness and the toll it takes.

It’s still in print, so if you have never read it you should definitely seek it out and read it!

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

Doug

Doc Savage: Madness from the Sea

Doc Savage: Madness from the Sea

By Kenneth Robinson (Lester Dent)

Bantam Books. 1974. $1.75

Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine April 1936

I’ve always had a weakness for the “Doc Savage” adventures. My love for which almost rivals my love of H.P. Lovecraft tales. So when I first bought this back 1974 I was almost beside myself with joy. After reading the back cover and paying for the book  I rode home on my bike so quickly that I almost got myself killed!

Here’s the back cover blurb……

“William Harper “Johnny” Little John, famed archaeologist and member of Doc Savage’s iron crew, is missing. The fractured remains of a grotesque figurine and a glowing message hastily scrawled on a broken mirror are the only clues to Johnny’s abductors. The words revealed on the shattered glass by Doc’s blacklight lantern would change the Man of Bronze forever: “In his house at R’Lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”

Now you can see why I almost got myself killed by being in such a hurry to get home and start reading!

Before we discuss the story, let me fill you in on how this most unusual of “Doc Savage” adventures came into existence.

As most of you know, H. P. Lovecraft corresponded at a level than can only be described as prodigious and that the writers he exchanged the most letters with went on to be know as the “Lovecraft Circle”. The most frequently mentioned members of this group were Frank Belknap Long, Robert E. Howard, E. Hoffman Price, Robert Bloch and of course August Derleth. The great Fritz Leiber was also a later member of this goup. What most causal fans don’t know is that “Lester Dent” was also a member of the group. Now these days Lester Dent is remembered by his Pen name of “Kenneth Robinson”. This is the house name put on every single Doc Savage adventure. Robinson created the character and went on to pen more than 80 of the Doc Savage novels under the name of “Kenneth “Robinson”.

Anyone interested in reading the scores of letters the two men exchanged need to either get their hands of a copy of “The Selected Letters of H.P.Lovecraft Volume V” published by “Arkham House” in 1976 or to buy a copy of “S.T. Joshi’s” “Converstions between a dreamer from Providence and a Schlock Meister from Manhatten”, published by “Hypothalamus Press” in 1998. The Joshi book is still in print and available from Amazon.

The letters exchanged between these two masters of their prospective fields shows us a great deal of insight between their conflicting world views. HPL believed that a true “gentleman” never wrote purely for financial gain where as Dent believed that a “true” writer could produce such high levels of quantity and quality that great financial success was to be taken for granted and his natural due. Another topic of their correspondence was to whether or not Mr. Lovecraft’s mythology could be effectively transplanted into the action adventure genre.  Dent stated in several letters that he would love to try his hand at placing Lovecraft’s theology” into the world of Doc Savage. Lovecraft gave his implicit permission by cryptically stating..

“My Lord Yog-Sothoth’s House has many rooms”

What is also so interesting about this quote is that “Brian Lumley” has repeatedly pointed out this converstion between HPL and Dent as justification and or defense of his own (accused) divergence from “Lovecraftian ideological purity/dogma”. So as we see here, Mr. Lumley was not the first to place HPL’s “Yog-Sothothery” in an action and adventure setting.

Mr. Dent, after interpreting HPL’s statement as implicit allowance to use the “Mythos” set about writing one of the most wonderfully over the top and insane Doc Savage adventures that ever saw print. It didn’t end with this single Doc Savage adventure though. Lent went and dedicated the adventure to “My Providence Grandfather”.  Mr. Lovecraft, who always appreciated a good inside joke, went and instigated the story that the narrator of his 1931 serialized novel “At the Mountains of Madness” was none other than Doc Savage’s aid “William Harper “Johnny” Little John”! Now, it becomes even weirder. Both Doc Savage Magazine and Astounding Science Fiction, were ATMoM originally appeared, were published by “Street and Smith”.  “John W. Campbell” the editor of “Astounding” and famous SF author decided to get into the act by writing Doc Savage into his famous short novel “Who goes There” the following year. “Who goes there?” is the basis for the two famous films “The Thing from Another world” and “The Thing”.  Here is Campbell’s description of “MacReady” who is actually an incognito Doc Savage investigating the strange goings-on in Antarctica!

“MacReady was a bronze giant of a man with strange gold flecked eyes”

If that isn’t a perfect description of Doc, then I don’t know what is!

 Now let’s discuss the story since I think that I’ve bored you with enough background.

“Madness from the Sea” is more or less a direct sequel to HPL’s “Weird Shadows over Innsmouth”. “Madness” covers the events after WSoI’s narrator escapes Innsmouth and ends with the raid conducted on the town by Federal Agents and the Military.

The adventure starts after HPL’s nameless narrator escapes from Innsmouth and vainly attempts to warn the government of the threat posed to humanity by the hybrid inhabitants of Innsmouth, the “Deep ones” and the ancient gods that they serve. In a last ditch effort, because no one will listen to him, the young man tries to contact Doc Savage. He finally receives an appointment from Johhny Little John, who is the world’s greatest living archaeologist, and tells him his story. As proof, the young man show’s Johnny a few gold coins of ancient and unknown origin. Johnny recognizes the coins from previous expeditions he conducted in the South Pacific under the auspices of “Miskatonic University” during the 1920s before he became one of Doc’s trusted assistants. Since Doc and the other 4 assistants are off on another adventure Johnny decides to set off for Innsmouth with just Doc’s cousin “Patrica Savage” as company. In typical Doc Savage fashion the pair fails to return from their excursion. Doc and the remaining four aides infiltrate Innsmouth under various disguises to get to the bottom of the mystery. Doc and his crew are convinced that a smuggling ring is behind the entire situation and the Hybrids, Deep Ones and Elder Gods are just a cover story used to scare off outsiders. This is the single DS adventure that I’ve ever read that had a threat that wasn’t of mundane origin. After a series of chases, fights and escapes Doc, his five aids, Habeas Corpus the ape, Chemistry the hog and Pat Savage find themselves on the roof of the old “Marshe Gold Refinery” battling for their very lives against a small army of Deep Ones and hybrid humans. Another first for this series is that this is the only Doc Savage adventure where our heroes are forced to kill and do not even try to take prisoners or spare lives. It’s literally a free for all slaughter with dead fish men piling up  hundreds more arriving to fill the gaps of the fallen, the refinery on fire and our heroes at bay running low on ammunition for their “super firers”. The situation looks hopeless when suddenly; Doc’s private airship appears out of the night sky raining death and destruction down upon the army of batrachian horrors.

 (I first read this when I was 13 and I thought that my head was going to explode from all of the excitement!)

 Its turns out that Doc had sent out an emergency SOS shortly before his equipment was destroyed. This tells you how dire the straits are when Doc Savage has to call for assistance.  What happens next in the story is another stroke of cross-over genius. It seems that Doc’s call for help was picked up by playboy millionaire “Richard Wentworth” who is secretly the vigilante crime fighter “The Spider”. After receiving Doc’s distress call, Wentworth, with the help of Ram Singh, his Sikh man servant and fiancé, Nita Van Sloan, breaks into Doc’s secret hangar on the Hudson river and hot wires Doc’s private airship,. Wentworth then stops on the way to Innsmouth to pick up his own private arsenal and then continues on his way to assist Doc and his crew. After having gleefully slaughtered half the population of Innsmouth with military grade weapons, Wentworth lands and picks up our battered and bloody heroes. It’s strange to see some one in a Doc Savage adventure take life and not be chastised over it by Doc.

Now that he realizes the threat imposed to humanity by the events playing out in Innsmouth, Doc immediately begins to organize a counter attack against Innsmouth the moment they safely return to New York.

  For you see, Doc has learned that “the stars are right” and they only have a few days before the inhabitants of Innsmouth and their Deep One allies release Cthulhu from his grave!

After informing the government about the situation in Innsmouth, Doc tells his aids to meet him at the secret hanger in 18 hours.  Upon arriving at the hangar the next morning they find doc waiting for them. It seems that he had flown his proto-type jet to his secret “Fortress of Solitude” that is located above the Artic circle. This is where Doc stores his inventions that he feels could pose a threat to the world if they fell into the wrong hands. They then transfer supplies, weapons and a mysterious crate that Doc brought back from the “FoS” into Doc’s private submarine, the Hell Diver. They then sail north for Innsmouth.

It turns out that Doc has learned of the existence of “Y'ha-nthlei”, the city of the Deep Ones lying in an oceanic trench off the coast before Innsmouth.  Doc has decided that this city must be destroyed at any cost if humanity is to be saved. To make a long story short, after fighting off an undersea army of Deeps Ones and other horror they launch a nuclear tipped torpedo down into the deep sea trench that hides Y'ha-nthlei at its bottom. They are then forced to abandone the Hell Diver and battle their way back to the surface using special designed deep see battle suits of doc's own design. The only thing that bothered me here was also having suits on hand that were custom designed for Habeus and Chemisty.  The tale ends with Y'ha-nthlei being destroyed in an atomic blast, Innsmouth raided by the feds and humanity being, for the time being, saved.

The adventure ends with Doc making an all bands radio broadcast, from the Hell Diver, to the world…..

"Watch the depths everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the depths!“

This has to be the best Doc Savage adventure that I’ve never read. It’s hard as hell to find, so good luck looking for it,

You can find the online text here though!

And HERE!!!

Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Doug

Beware the Beasts

“Beware the Beasts”

(A collection of stories as good as the cover is bad)

Edited by Vic Ghidalia and Roger Elwood

MacFadden-Bartell Books. 1970. $0.75

Cover art by Cover by “Jack Faragasso”

Cover Blurb:

“They dared invade the beast’s realm and saw things no human should ever see. Some of them even came back-seemingly alive…”

Contents:

• 11 • In the Avu Observatory • (1894) • shortstory by H. G. Wells
• 19 • The Cats of Ulthar • (1920) • shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft
• 23 • Here, Daemos! • (1942) • shortstory by August Derleth
• 33 • The Hound • (1942) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• 49 • The House of the Nightmare • (1906) • shortstory by Edward Lucas White
• 59 • The Mark of the Beast • (1890) • shortstory by Rudyard Kipling
• 73 • The Squaw • (1893) • shortstory by Bram Stoker
• 86 • Metzengerstein • (1832) • shortstory by Edgar Allan Poe
• 96 • The Tortoise-Shell Cat • (1924) • shortstory by Greye La Spina
• 111 • The Wendigo • (1910) • novella by Algernon Blackwood

                                                                      My copy.

“Beware the Beasts” has the dubious honour of being the best collection of stories with the most inappropriate cover art and blurb. Look at the cover by “Jack Faragasso” you get the impression that this is a science fiction novel and not a collection of classic horror/monster stories. I have strong memories of buying “MB” and “Belmont2 books from the bargain bin at “Woolworths” back during the early 1970s. I even went and looked this up just to make sure that my memory wasn’t playing tricks. I mean, this was over 40 years ago. It turns out that even though my memory is in good working order, I still wasn’t 100% correct. It seems that during the early 70s and publisher named “Unibooks” sold reprints of “MB” and “Belmont” titles under their own imprint and sold them as instant remainders at such stores “Woolworths”, “Woolco” and “Grants”.  I used to love digging through the bargain bin at Woolworths and finding such good stuff as H.G. Wells titles and Ron Goulart’s “Space for Hire”.

 As I said in my insert beneath the title, “Beware the Beasts” is an outstanding collection of stories selected by Messrs. Ghidalia and Elwood with some of the worst packaging that I ever seen. At first glance and even at the 2^nd, you get the strong impression that this is a SF novel. Only after opening it up and taking a look at the table of contents do you realize that this is actually collection of horror stories. And as an added bonus, almost half of the stories are reprinted from “Weird Tales” original incarnation! So let’s take a look at them there stories!

·         In the Avu Observatory by H. G. Wells

This is a nice little monster story by Mr. “War of the Worlds” Wells. An Astronomer working in an isolated Observatory on a mountain top above the jungles of Borneo receives an unexpected visitor one night in the form of a man sized bat “thing”. The story is fairly mundane and incredibly straight forward in its telling. What makes it such an entertaining story though, is Well’s description of the Astronomer’s “cat and mouse” struggles with the monster bat in the total darkness of the observatory’s dome after his lamp gets knocked over. Just the very idea of being trapped in the darkness with something that’s out to kill me gives me the willies. I want to bring to your attention that this is, in my opinion, is the weakest story in the book.  Which you should realize is not at all a bad thing, considering how enjoyable of a story this is! This puts the collection off to a good start which just keeps improving as you read along.

·         The Cats of Ulthar by H. P. Lovecraft

I love “The Cat’s of Ulthar” even though it’s been re-printed to death. This is one of HPL’s stories that was written during his “Lord Dunsany” phase and is one of his most popular. “Cats” is in Mr. Lovecraft’s “Dream Lands” and is one of my favourite “revenge” tales. An old couple hates all things feline and are responsible for all the cat disappearances in the village of “Ulthar”. Unfortunately for them though, they make their worst and last mistake when they “disappear” the kitten belonging to an orphaned “gypsy” child. This story manages to be simultaneously creepy, poetic and humorous.  You can also see here in the story that HPL genuinely loved cats.

So never ever forget that……

“It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.”

 The online text is HERE

·         Here, Daemos! by August Derleth

“Here, Daemos” is one of Mr. Derleth’s more effective stories. I’m almost willing to bet that this is a small homage to “M.R. James”. A small village in England receives a new Vicar. It’s seems that even though the village’s former minister was well loved, he wasn’t exactly a financial genius and the parish is all but broke. Mr. Webly, the new Vicar, being a very ambitious man and meant for better things, decides to remedy the situation with a wee bit of self righteous grave robbing. This of course would be for a good cause, or so he tells himself and his superiors. The grave in question belongs to a long dead Knight who was rumoured to be a black magician. Local legend says that he had been entombed with his entire treasure and a companion who was to act as guardian of the treasure. Some of the villagers believe that the Knight was buried with his faithful hound “Daemos” The legend also tells that the Knight’s hound was in reality his “familiar” who he always summoned to his side by calling “Here, Daemos!” so to make a long story short, the new vicar open the tomb to plunder it’s contents and afterwards “hilarity ensues”.  I have the impression that Mr. Derleth took a little bit more time to write this one.

·         The Hound by Fritz Leiber

During his career, the late Fritz Leiber wrote some of the most original horror stories ever published. I think his greatest concept was that modern metropolises and their collective psychic energies would create their own horrors and demons to replace those of the middle ages. “Smoke Ghost” “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”and “Our Lady of Darkness” are probably his most famous examples using this theme. Leiber’s Chicago in this story is a dark, dreary, lonely and filthy place filled with annoymity and despair. A young man in a dead end job at a department store becomes haunted and pursued by the titular “Hound” and slowly starts to lose his mind. At first you suspect that the events are playing out entirely in his imagination. We slowly learn though that others around him are starting to notice the hound or at least traces of its existence. And being a “Fritz Leiber” story, these folks, sensing that something is terribly wrong,  they begin to distance themselves from him instead of offering him emotional support. The ending is pretty unusual in that the young man eventual learns that flight and resistance are futile, that there is no escape! He does though gain an allie/witness to his suffering and horror which even though he might be doomed does lessen his burden in that he isn’t alone with the horror anymore. Fritz Leiber was one of America’s greatest writers of weird tales even though he is mostly famous for his Science Fiction and Fantasy stories/novels. I have to say though that the combined atmosphere of doom, insanity, isolation and depression is so strong that I can’t honestly call the story enjoyable. It is definitely not an easy read. What I can say though, is that it is brilliantly written and disturbing as all hell.  

·         The House of the Nightmare by Edward Lucas White

Mr. White’s “House of Nightmare” is one of my all time favourite horror/ghost stories. It’s so good that is was included in “The Century’s Best Horror Stories” published by “Cemetery Dance Press” and edited/selected by “John Pelan”. “The House of nightmare” was chosen as the entry for 1906. You didn’t misread that, “Nineteen-Oh-Six”! You can’t imagine when reading this story that it was actually published 107 years ago. This is one of those stories that shows that atmosphere can be everything. A motorist has an accident while coming down from some mountains. They aren’t named but something makes me think that they must be the Ozarks.  He goes looking for help and ends up spending the night in what seems to be a dilapidated farm house on the very edge of the woods. His host is a strange young boy with a hair lip who seems to be living all alone. During the night the narrator is visited in a vivid nightmare by what appears to be a monstrous hog which attempts to crush and devour him. Upon waking up he finds that the young boy is no where to be found. Giving up his search he walks to the next town to find a garage that can repair his auto. He tells of his stay at the abandoned farm where he learns of the house’s terribly past. This is a fantastic story. Even though you figure out pretty quickly what is going on, the atmosphere and descriptions are so incredibly that it’ll be a very long time before you forget the story! I dearly love this one.

·         The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling

A British officer desecrates a shrine in India and gets a curse put on him by a beggar/holy man. The guy has it coming since he broke a golden rule which is as valid today as it was in past centuries. This rule was even pounded into our heads during my time in the Army.  And it’s simply five little words.

“Don’t F##K with the Locals”!

This is a fun little tale that lets off some of the tension built up by the previous two stories.

·         The Squaw • (1893) by Bram Stoker

Stoker’s „The Squaw“, even with its completely non-PC title, holds a special place in my heart. I first came across it in an adaptation that appeared in an old issue of “Creepy” when I was a kid. The “Reed Crandall” art was deliciously appealing in it’s goriness. The other reason that it’s so special to me is that it takes place in Nuremberg and I’ve live here in Nuremberg as a civilian for the past 22 years and I was stationed here for 4 years during the 1980s with the “2nd ACR”.

A Brtish tourist accidentally kills a kitten while visiting the “Kaiserburg” in Nuremberg with friends. Later they are visiting the town’s famous medieval dungeon with its preserved torture chamber. Our tourist, having not learned his lesson, goofs around by posing inside of Nuremberg’s infamous “IronMaiden”. This is then the moment where momma cat makes her move. Being a British story I guess that you could simply say that this is all “bloody good fun”.

·         Metzengerstein • (1832) by Edgar Allan Poe

„Metzengerstein“is a Poe story that I never read before. I’m always surprised to rediscover how many of his stories hold up so well when compared to modern writing styles. A young spoiled count whose family has been feuding for centuries with their neighbours enjoys a great moment of “schadenfreude” when said neighbours stables burn down and the families head dies in the fire. A short time later the young count’s grooms find a stray horse carrying the markings of the neighbouring family. The neighbours deny all knowledge of this steed and the young man decides to keep it. He does notice that the horse bears a striking resemblance to one that is portrayed being ridden by an ancestor of the neighbour’s in a tapestry celebrating a military victory of his ancestors over the ancestors of his neighbours. It also happens that during this battle the ancestor was killed while riding the horse. Now here’s where the story falls apart for me. On the very same day that the live horse is found, the other horse vanishes from the tapestry.  The young counts only response to this mystery is to have the chamber contain the tapestry walled off. Of course the young man becomes obsessed with his new steed even though it never ceases trying to throw him. His obsession becomes so great that he gives up all contact with the outside world to spend all his time riding about his estate on this horse. Of course it all ends tragically. Except for the odd logic, this is a very good story that holds up after all these years. Good for you Mr. Poe!

·         The Tortoise-Shell Cat by Greye La Spina

Miss La Spina’s “Tortoise-Shell Cat” is an extremely entertaining tale of theft, love, loyalty, voodoo and a Were-Cat taking place as a preparatory school for wealthy young women down in Louisiana during the 1920s. This could have made a great supernatural “Nancy Drew” mystery if it wasn’t for the covert and casual racism that plays a major role in the attitudes of the characters good and bad in the story. It’s sadly that kind of racism that’s completely taken for granted and seems to be assumed that it’s the natural state of things. It’s not easy, but if you can accept it as a period piece and read it with a huge grain of salt, you will find it to be an interesting and suspenseful story. The racism isn’t mean spirited, it’s just some outmoded assumptions on relationships between the races that by today’s standards verge on pure idiocy. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.

·         The Wendigo • (1910) by Algernon Blackwood

“The Wendigo”, by Algernon Blackwood, ends this anthology on such a high note that if it had been placed first in the contents every story that came afterwards would have paled greatly in comparison regardless of how truly good they were.

Mr. Blackwood lived a very active and interesting life. He spent much time in the wilds of Canada and it shows here. His experience in the Canadian wilderness adds a depth of atmosphere and authenticity that is rarely seen in horror stories. This story had such a huge influence on H. P. Lovecraft that that it has been more or less officaly added to the “Cthulhu Mthos”. The “Wendigo” is a Native American demon/spirit/demon/elemental that is said to posses it’s victims and turn them into berserker cannibals. Blackwood’s “Wendigo” is not quite as gory as this, but it still makes for one hell o a frightening tales. A group of hunters and their guide are lured by their greed for a “big kill” ever deeper into the Canadian wilderness where they fall prey to the never shown, but ever present “Wendigo”. This is truly one of the finest horror stories ever written. This is another fine example of showing that what is not shown can be more terrifying that what is shown. Even though we never see the “Wendigo” it is still one of the greatest monsters ever portrayed on the printed page. It’s available to read on line. So if you consider yourself a genuine horror/weird tales fan and have never read this story then do it now or shame on you!

 "The Wendigo" at Project Gutenberg

“Beware the Bests” is one of the better anthologies that I’ve read lately. It has a strongly focused theme and consists of very strong stories where even the weakest ones exceptional stories. It’s well worth getting if you can find an affordable cop some where.

That’s it for this time.

Thanks for stopping by.

Doug

Masters of Terror Vol.I: William Hope Hodgson

Masters of Terror Volume 1

William Hope Hodgson

Corgi Books 1977

                                                                      My copy.

Contents:  

• 7 • Introduction: William Hope Hodgson: His Life and Work (Masters of Terror 1) • (1977) • essay by Peter Tremayne
• 15 • The Voice in the Night • (1907) • shortstory by William Hope Hodgson
• 30 • A Tropical Horror • (1905) • shortstory by William Hope Hodgson
• 41 • The Mystery of the Derelict • [Sargasso Sea] • (1907) • shortstory by William Hope Hodgson
• 55 • The Terror of the Water-Tank • (1907) • shortstory by William Hope Hodgson
• 72 • The Finding of the Graiken • [Sargasso Sea] • (1913) • novelette by William Hope Hodgson
• 96 • The Stone Ship • (1914) • novelette by William Hope Hodgson
• 128 • The Derelict • (1912) • novelette by William Hope Hodgson                          

William Hope Hodgson has, from the very beginning, been one of my favourite writers of the weird. When you read through this slim, quasi “best of” collection you’ll see how much influence he had on H. P. Lovecraft. It’s not fair to Mr. Hodgson, but many of his short stories could easily be described as “proto-Lovecraftian”.

Mr. Hodgson was not only an excellent writer of short horror stories; he was also a very successful novelist.  His most famous novels of horror and the fantastic were “The House on the Borderland”, “TheBoats of the “Glen Carrig”” and “The Night Land”. He also penned a series of stories about the supernatural investigator “Carnacki the Ghost Finder”. All of these stories and novels are in the public domain and are available on-line to read. They are also all still in print and available at Amazon! So do yourself a huge favour and look up some of these stories and novels. They are fun, readable and have held up amazingly well when you realize that this was all written before 1914!

Mr. Hodgson sadly died at a fairly young age when he found himself at the receiving end of a German Artillery shell in France during WWI. So we will never know how many more novels and stories he had in him still.

 Mr. Hodgson didn’t bother with mundane or traditional horrors such as Ghosts, Demons or other such supernatural horrors that are so common in Edwardian horror stories. Nope, Mr. Hodgson’s horrors are tentacled, slimy and squamous. Just the way Mr. Lovecraft liked ’em! The horrors in these stories may be unnatural, but never supernatural. They are all physical, if not terrifying and disgusting, tenants in our world. If Mr. Hodgson is famous for anything it would be more or less single handedly inventing the popular concept of the “Sargasso Sea”. That huge continent sized mass of sea weed floating out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A huge seething mass that has trapped sailing ships through out all of history. That it also happens to be the home of numberless shapeless and slimy horrors that defy description just makes it that much more enjoyable.

Every story, except one, in this collection deals with these maritime horrors. If you find a copy heed my advice and space them out. They are all wonderful tales, but the plotting and setting lend them a sameness that blends them all together if you attempt to read them all, like I did, in one sitting.

Mr. Hodgson spent many years at sea when he was very young. And it’s this maritime experience that lends a strong sense of authenticity to his stories set at sea. I think he did take a few liberties though when describing the ship’s crewmen. In these stories they all come across as good, decent and brave men.  From what I’ve read of his own life , it seems that this is not actually the case as far as Mr. Hodgson’s experiences went.

I’m not going to go into to describing these stories this time. They have to be read to be believed. And lucky for you, they are all available online!

The collection opens up with Mr. Hodgson’s most famous story, “A Voice in the Night”. This is one of the first horror stories I ever read. I can vividly remember taking home a copy of “More Tales to Tremble By” from the library at “Johnny Clem Elementary School” back around 1970. The story, although bloodless, scared me out of a year’s growth and managed to give me a lif long fear/hatred of moldy things. I reread it last week and even though I’m 51 years old now, it still managed to be deliciously creepy! You’ll have to trust me on this. The story is so good that it was even filmed in Japan as “Matango, Fungus of Terror” aka “Attack of the Mushroom People”. You can find a few clips of this film on “Youtube”.

Here’s a typical passage describing one of Hodgson’s horrors….

 "But he never finished, for a tremendous hoarse scream cut off his words. They hove themselves round and looked. I could see without turning. The man who had run from us was standing in the waist of the ship, about a fathom from the starboard bulwarks. He was swaying from side to side, and screaming, in a dreadful fashion. He appeared to be trying to lift his feet, and the light from his swaying lantern showed an almost incredible sight. All about him the mould was in active movement. His feet had sunk out of sight. The stuff appeared to be lapping at his legs and abruptly his bare flesh showed. The hideous stuff had rent his trouser-leg away as if it were paper. He gave out a simply sickening scream, and, with a vast effort, wrenched one leg free. It was partly destroyed. The next instant he pitched face downward, and the stuff heaped itself upon him, as if it were actually alive, with a dreadful, severe life. It was simply infernal. The man had gone from sight. Where he had fallen was now a writhing, elongated mound, in constant and horrible increase, as the mould appeared to move towards it in strange ripples from all sides.“

Now, did that wet your appetitie? If it did, then search out these stories online or at your bookstore or library. I can honestly say that these are some of the finest stories of this sort that the genre has ever seen. And they are of course, of special interest to any serious fan of H.P. Lovecraft.

Well that it for this week.

Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Doug