Category Archives: Weird Tales

A Look at Weird Tales #361

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Weird Tales #361
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Before we get started, I’d like to thank Doug Draa for the review copy.  Doug, who blogs at Uncle Doug’s Bunker of Vintage Horror Paperbacks, is a new contributing editor at Weird Tales, and we wish him a successful run in that capacity. 

Weird Tales has adopted the policy of giving each issue a theme.  The previous issue was Cthulhu Returns, and according to the ad in the present issue, the next issue’s theme is the Undead.  There are rumors of a sword and sorcery issue in the works as well.  In addition to having stories around a specific theme, each issue will also have unthemed stories.  As you can see from the cover, the present issue has the theme of Fairy Tales.

Fairy Tales as a theme is pretty broad.  That can encompass retellings or deconstructions of established fairy tales, new stories which read like fairy tales in they way they are structured and/or the themes they address, and stories in which (often contemporary) characters interact with the realm of fairy.  All of those and more are included here.

I also need to say a few words about personal taste.  One of the things I try to do, although I’m not sure how successful I am, is to distinguish between what I consider flaws in a work I’m reviewing and what simply isn’t to my taste.  There’s quite a bit of fiction in this issue, and I’ll try to distinguish between what doesn’t work for me and what I think isn’t very good by more objective standards.  I have to admit that I’ve never cared much for the elves/fairies/fae in the modern world type of story (unless the author has the last name of de Lint).  I prefer my fairy tale oriented fiction to be either variations on established tales or stories with fairy tale sensibilities, like the Beagle story herein.  I especially like them if they are dark, have a strong element of horror, and/or don’t always end happily.  Think the Datlow/Windling original anthologies from the 90s, and you’ll have a good idea of where my tastes run. 

By far the standout of the issue is the lead tale by Peter S. Beagle, “The Queen Who Could Not Walk”, in which a queen learns the meaning of sacrifice and forgiveness along with a lesson about love.  This one clearly falls into the new fairy tale category, like so much of Beagle’s work does.  In the last decade, give or take a few years, Beagle has been one of the top practitioners of the short story form in the field.  This story is an excellent example of why that is.

Tanith Lee follows Beagle with a twist on an old fairy tale with “Magpied”  Close scrutiny of the title should give you a clue as to which tale she’s dealing with.  Many of the old fairy tales are fairly short, and this one was no exception.  The story she works with is one of my favorites, and Lee does an excellent job with it.

One of the longer stories is “Fae for a Day” by Teel James Glenn.  It’s a modern-human-encounters-the-fae-in-a-bar-and-proceeds-to-have-adventures kind of story.  This one was well written, and people who like this subgenre will probably like it.  I’ve seen the cop wounded in the line of duty, discharged from the force, and crawls into a bottle scenario enough that I had a hard time warming to this one.  It didn’t help that much of the attempted humor fell flat for me, such as referring to Titania as Titty.  Still, there’s a good audience out there for this type of thing, and I’m sure a number of readers will like it.  As for me, while I wasn’t crazy about it, I didn’t think it was the worst story of the lot, either.

“I am Moonflower” by Nicole Cushing and “Blind Alley” by Morgan Llewellyn are both short.  Of the two, I think I prefer the Cushing, which concerns the life of bees and flowers.  That may not sound appealing, but I liked the ending.  Llewellyn’s tale describes how the world will end.

The next story was “Suri and Sirin” by Court Merrigan.  It’s a story within a story, in which a father tells a tale to his children on a Christmas eve.  It’s a variation of a folk tale from Thailand, and as such had a different rhythm to it from the European folk tales I’m more familiar with.  Even though the twist at the end was no great surprise, it was a nice, sweet story, and I liked it.

J. R. Restrick’s “The Flowers of Tir-na-nOg” takes us into Dunsany territory.  A young man wanders through the lands of the fae hoping to find the girl who jilted him.  It’s a bittersweet story reminiscent of an earlier era and provided a good contrast to most of the other stories.

The one story I absolutely hated was Caitlin Campbell’s “The Miracles of La Guardia Airport (Delta Terminal).”  In this one a guardian angel seduces a man so that she won’t be promoted to a more important assignment.  I found it distasteful on more than one level.

“A Gnomish Gift” by Alex Shvartsman is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view.  While this one was neither dark nor horrifying, I really liked the way Shvartsman’s interpretation of the story placed a positive spin on things.

Jane Yolen gives us “Enough” insight into a sect of Judaism that is both educational and entertaining.

Lauren Liebowitz provides a sequel to Rumpelstiltskin with “Gold” that is completely incompatible with the interpretation in “A Gnomish Gift”.  This maintains the tragic air of the original and carries it one step further.  Short, sharp, and to the point. 

We’re back to longer works with “The Brown Man of Glen Gardens” by Frank Aversa.  A biologist revisits his childhood home and discovers something about one of the homeless people he feared as a kid.  This one didn’t end up the way I expected it to.

The next group in the Fairy Tale section were pretty short.  I liked Mark Bilgrey’s “The King’s Enemies” and found it to be a good example of a new fairy tale, although the ending was a little weak.  “The Crimson Cloak” by Zach Shephard had some good ideas, but the twist wasn’t very surprising.  Dick Baldwin’s “The Lute Player and the Mask” had a nice punch, although you could see it coming as well.  “Payment”  by Alfred J. Vickers III was flash fiction, dealing with a fairy tale we’d seen in an earlier story.

“Out of Time” by Manny Fishberg closes out the fairy tale section.  It’s a longer story, and offers a chilling twist on what a mother would do for her dying daughter.  It was one of the stronger stories in the issue.

There were two nonthemed selections.  Both were disappointing.  “As Fleas” by John Koons is a preachy little vignette that hits you over the head with the message.  Coming in a what would probably be considered short story length is “Black Poppy” by David W. Amendola.  Set in the 1920s or thereabouts, it concerns a brilliant professor of history who gets his hands on some dried and ground black poppy and tries to recreate a series of experiments described in one of his grimoires.  Of course he comes to a bad end.  Although competently written, there was nothing here that we haven’t seen multiple times before and certainly nothing original.  The most interesting character to me was the shop keeper who procured the poppy for the professor.

Additional features included some mini-interviews about fairy tales with Ramsey Campbell, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Elizabeth Bear, and Orrin Grey, full interviews with Tessa Farmer and J. David Spurlock (this one concerning Margaret Brundage), and poetry by Carole Bugge`, Jill Bauman, Andrew J. Wilson, and Arinn Dembo.  I enjoyed the poetry, but because the poems were all short, I won’t comment on them individually.  There was an editorial, a book review column, a look at how the cover design for this issue evolved (a feature that should be kept), and a brief history of the magazine by Darrell Schweitzer that probably won’t appeal to fans of Ann Vandermeer.  Many of the stories were illustrated, by a variety of artists.  The only complaint I had about the illustrations was I couldn’t resize the font on my ereader without it freezing up when I came to an illustration, forcing me to read on a backlit screen.

So how do I rate this issue of Weird Tales overall?  It’s certainly worth reading, even if I did find aspects of it disappointing.  I expect Peter Beagle’s story to be included in some of next year’s Year’s Best anthologies.  The nonfiction and poetry are good and should be kept, but they aren’t why most people read the magazine.  With that in mind, please indulge me the liberty to make a few comments in general.

Weird Tales # 360

First, I preferred the previous issue to this one.  A large part of that is a matter of personal taste.  Not all of the fairy tale treatments were my cup of tea, although there was only one I completely disliked.  I also thought a couple of them stretched the definition of fairy tale a bit, but that’s a minor quibble.  I realize that any fiction publication has to appeal to a broad base of readers, and as a consequence needs to have a diverse selection of fiction.  I consider an editor to have done his/her job if that’s the case regardless of how many stories I personally like.  For the most part I think that’s the case here.

However, I hope the high number of short-shorts and flash fiction is a function of the fairy tale theme rather than an indication of the direction Weird Tales is going.  This many in one place, they start to feel gimicky.  I thought most of the stronger stories were the longer ones.

Second, while I like the idea of each issue having a theme as well as containing unthemed stories, it’s a pretty tricky tightrope act to pull off.  On the one side, a particular theme may cause someone to buy the magazine who wouldn’t otherwise.  On the other, the editor risks alienating some potential readers if the theme isn’t to their tastes, especially if this is the case for more than one issue.  This is where a strong selection of unthemed stories comes in, to provide that balance.  I don’t think this issue succeeds in the balance.  There were only two items in the unthemed section, and really, only one of them was an actual story with things like characters.  In my opinion, for what little it’s worth, the number of stories that relate to the theme and those that don’t should be about equal.  That way if a particular theme doesn’t appeal to some readers, they will still feel they are getting their money’s worth.  The same for those who are drawn to a particular theme but aren’t fond of some of the unthemed tales. 

I think the fantasy field needs a publication like Weird Tales. The magazine has always defined itself as the place where fiction that couldn’t find a home anywhere else could be published.  Some people have accused it of straying from that to publish the type of fiction it published during its heydey while ignoring some of the more innovative work being done now.  I submit that while there is some truth in accusation, there aren’t many major markets carrying on the tradition begun in the classic issues of Weird Tales.  There’s room for stories in the vein of Lovecraft, Howard, Smith, and Quinn, and there’s room for new and innovative weird fiction as well.  The key, as I said earlier, is balance.

I haven’t agreed with every decision Marvin Kaye has made since taking the editorial reigns, but I still support the magazine.  I want it to survive and prosper and thrive.  To that end, I will speak up when I think it isn’t up to the level it should be.  As I will when I think it is. This issue falls in the middle.  By and large, I think the magazine is heading in the right direction with its theme approach.  Hopefully the business side of things will improve to the point that we’ll be able to read it more often.

Weird Tales Update: Issue # 361 ToC Posted

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I don’t normally do two posts in one day, but I just learned that Weird Tales has posted the table of contents for the next (as yet unpublished) issue, # 361.  The cover has also been posted, as seen at left.

Authors include Peter S. Beagle, Jane Yolen, and Tanith Lee along with a number of lesser known names.  The theme is fairy tales, and the three headliners are among the top authors in this subgenre.  If the other stories are of comparable quality, it will probably be a great issue.  Even if the other stories don’t come close to Beagle, Yolen, and Lee, it could still be a better-than-most-stuff-out-there issue.  Those three are some of the best writers working today, and it’s really not fair to newer writers to compare them to B, Y, & L.

There’s no release date yet, only that individual copies will be available soon.  I truly hope so, but given some of the recent developments at the magazine, I’m not going to hold my breath. I’ll refrain from further comment at this time since I said my piece in the previous post on WT.  Look for a review when I get a copy of the issue.

Further Thoughts on Marvin Kaye and Weird Tales, Plus Some Suggestions

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Last fall I wrote a detailed review about the first issue of the latest version of Weird Tales.  One of the commenters, Chap O’Keefe, said he had sold a pair of stories that were scheduled to come out in subsequent issues.

Since then, there’s been little news about when those issues would appear.  At least until last Monday (June 24).  Mr. O’Keefe updated the status of his submissions in a follow-up comment.  I’m reproducing it in its entirety: 

Since the above was written, including my comments, much has changed at the new WT.My own latest shock came in an email from Marvin Kaye earlier this month in which he welshed on his acceptance of the two stories he was going to run in his magazine. Once upon a time you could count on an editor’s word, and his written word was as good as a handshake. The whole sorry tale is told in full in the introduction to my new Amazon Kindle eBook Witchery: A Duo of Weird Tales You might like to run the guts of it as a post in your new blog — a salutary warning to all who rely on gatekeeper publishers! In fact, it gives my small ebook a third, very weird tale. Story is “excellent” but editor and co-publisher Kaye must put it aside so he can re-open his “submission portal” to other, unseen stories … Huh? Has the man lost lost it?

And here’s a follow up comment with more information:

 I understand this situation affects several more writers, too. Kaye said, “I regret to inform you that the publisher of Weird Tales has decided to pass on quite a few stories, yours included. This is a measure to reduce our huge fiction inventory.” Kaye owns the rights to the Weird Tales magazine title and is co-publisher, so there is little we can do about what, as you say, is a pretty unheard-of thing to do, except WARN OTHERS. Kaye has offered no fee, just a promise that “If you have not sold your submission elsewhere, try us again in 9 months. If we have room at that time, it will be an automatic sale.” Note the “ifs”; note what his previous promises were worth.

I bought and read Witchery.  I reviewed it at Amazing Stories, since the traffic is higher there.  I found both stories to be quite enjoyable and recommend the book.  It’s only $0.99, so it’s a steal.  The introduction alone is worth that.  If you’re interested in Weird Tales, you should read the introduction.

My purpose here isn’t to repeat the review, but to discuss some of the implications of what’s happened.  I’m not privy to Mr. Kaye’s counsel, and in fact have never met the man.  I’ve always enjoyed the anthologies he’s edited along with the first issue of the new Weird Tales.  My overall opinion of his taking the reigns of the magazine was that This Is A Good Thing.

Now I’m of a different opinion.  Frankly, I can’t begin to imagine what’s going through the man’s mind.  Why on Earth would he reject stories, perfectly good stories that he’d already accepted, just to reopen to submissions?  If he’s the editor can’t he open the slush pile when he’s good and ready?

Of course, if you recall, Kaye announced that excerpts of the novel Saving the Pearls would be appearing in the first issue he edited.  This is a book that many people in the sff community believed to be racist.  Publisher John Harlacher eventually (and belatedly) nixed that idea.  (Events summarized here.)  Maybe Harlacher is the one insisting on reopening for submissions?  I don’t know, but at this point it’s a possibility I’d consider until I learn otherwise.  None of which helps Mr. O’Keefe or any of the other authors who have received these letters.

I’ve seen reports that the magazine is foundering, at least in part because it has lost newsstand distribution.  I don’t see why that should be a problem.  There are a number of magazines that seem to be doing quite well that don’t have newsstand distribution or even print editions.  They run on some version of a model of electronic subscription and free stories online.  Perhaps you’ve heard of some of them.  They include but aren’t limited to:  Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex, Nightmare, Clarkesworld, and Galaxy’s Edge.

So here are my suggestions.  Mr. Harlacher can take it for what he thinks it’s worth, assuming he ever sees this.  First, change your business model.  Adopt the basic model of the magazines listed in the previous paragraph.  Forget about newsstand distribution.  The print format genre fiction magazines such as Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, EQMM, and AHMM saw their circulations drop for years until they began to produce electronic versions.  Since then things seem to have improved.  Magazines such as Realms of Fantasy have tried to make a go of it as print periodicals and are no longer with us.  Learn from these publications, both print and electronic, what works and what doesn’t.

Replace Marvin Kaye.  As much as I enjoyed his anthologies for the SFBC, and as much as it gives me no joy to write this, Kaye seems to have gone around the bend as an editor.  Find someone who will find new and exciting weird fiction while respecting the history of the publication, avoiding unnecessary controversy, or poor editorial decisions.  Kaye’s selection as editor was too divisive, and his decisions since then have only made things worse.  Someone who can restore faith in the publication needs to be the editor.  (Good luck finding this person.)  Ann Vandermeer brought new readers to the magazine while alienating many of the long-term fans.  I think at least for the near future, the publication should have a mix of fiction that is broader than anything Kaye or Vandermeer published.  Ideally, if WT published 4-6 stories a month or 2-3 every 2 weeks, there should be plenty of variety to please a majority of readers in both camps.  Not all, but a majority.

Those are my thoughts on how improve the magazine and get it back on its feet, as well as restoring its reputation.  I realize not everyone will agree with them.  That’s fine.  I’m making these suggestions in the interest of initiating a dialogue.

I’d like to thank the person who linked to my review in the Wikipedia article on Weird Tales. 

Blogging Conan: The Scarlet Citadel

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It’s been quite a while since I wrote a post on Conan.  All I can say, “Where did the time go?”

Anyway, there are times when you just need to get back to basics.  This weekend has been one of them.

The Frazetta art for “The Scarlet Citadel”, shown at right and originally appearing on the cover of Conan the Usurper, has always been one of my favorites.  Perhaps it’s because I don’t like snakes.  If that were me chained up, I probably be a blubbering mass of jelly.  Anyway, even though it isn’t exactly faithful to Howard’s description, it’s still a masterpiece. 

“The Scarlet Citadel” was the third Conan story published in Weird Tales, following “The Phoenix on the Sword” and “The Tower of the Elephant“, although “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” and “The God in the Bowl” were probably written before Howard wrote “The Scarlet Citadel”.  (Links are to my posts about those stories.)

This story takes place during Conan’s reign as King of Aquilonia.  It opens with him taking 5,000 of his knights and riding to the aid of King Amalrus of Ophir against Strabonus, King of Koth.  With them, and actually the one in charge, is the sorcerer Tsotha-lanti.  It’s a trap, and all of Conan’s men are killed.  Conan is captured and offered his life if he will abdicate.

If you’ve read any of the Conan stories, you should know what his answer is.  As a result, he’s chained in a dungeon in total darkness to wait for the giant snake in the above picture to have him for a snack.

I’m assuming most of the people reading this are familiar with the story, but there are probably one or two of you who either haven’t read it or haven’t read it recently, so I’ll not give much in the way of spoilers. 

It had been a few years since I last read “The Scarlet Citadel” before I reread it the other day, and the images that had most stayed with me were the opening scene and the sequence of Conan and the snake.  It was fun to refresh my memory of this tale.

Howard by this time was becoming comfortable with the character.  His identity is well established.  Howard’s prose is top notch.  There’s a portion of the story in which Howard relates the events in Aquilonia after the population learn (falsely) that Conan is dead.  Howard summarizes the series of events beautifully, painting in broad strokes the usurpation of Conan’s throne by Tsotha-lani’s pawn and giving details about the resistance of certain individuals, such as the student Athemides speaking out and having to flee the city.  This is some of Howard’s better writing, although probably not his absolute best.  It’s certainly better than the passages in “A Witch Shall be Born“, in which the soldier Valerius relates events to his lover Ivga.

Yet, as much as I enjoyed this story, I can’t help feel that Howard was never really comfortable with Conan as a king.  While he’s still king, he spends most of the story trying to regain his throne.  Most of the story that’s told from Conan’s point of view consists of his capture and adventures in the dungeon, plus the concluding portion of the final fight at the end.  We never really see him in any kingly role.  And even though he’s portrayed more like a ruler in “The Phoenix on the Sword” and The Hour of the Dragon, I can’t shake the impression that Howard is at his most comfortable with the character when he’s not a king.  Even in The Hour of the Dragon, Conan spends much of his time traveling in order to regain his throne and even reminisces about when he was a wanderer. I know the Conan stories I’ve enjoyed the most have been those in which Conan answered to no one, even if there was a woman he was protecting.

Much of this one after Conan manages to escape consists of summaries and skips over some of the details.  If filled in, those details would turn this particular adventure into a short novel.  I don’t know if Howard didn’t feel as though he could write some of the details effectively or if he didn’t think he could sell Farnsworth Wright a story of that length about this relatively new character.  Certainly on the surface the basic concept of Conan having to fight against an invading army here bears a strong resemblance to the basic plot of The Hour of the Dragon.  Perhaps Howard felt more comfortable a few years later when he wrote Dragon, or if the character was by then popular enough to sustain a serial of that length.  Of course, by the time he wrote The Hour of the Dragon, Hester’s health was in a steep decline, and he probably needed the money a novel would bring more than he did when he wrote “The Scarlet Citadel”. 

“The Scarlet Citadel” is well worth the read.  The action is broken up into two main parts, the first being Conan’s capture and subsequent escape, and the second relates what happens in Aquilonia while he’s gone and how he gets his throne back.  It’s not one of the longer Conan stories, and it’s readily available in a number of collections.

Happy Birthday, Henry Kuttner

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Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

Henry Kuttner was born this day, April 7, in 1915.  He passed away far too young in 1958.

Kuttner got his start in Weird Tales, his first story being “The Graveyard Rats”, a grisly little piece.  Other stories for WT followed, and soon he was branching out into science fiction and the shudder pulps.  Legend has it that he started using pseudonyms after writing stories that appeared in the first two issues of Marvel Science Stories, stories that almost got the magazine shut down for pornography.  Supposedly no editor would buy stories with Kuttner’s byline for a while.  Mike Resnick reports in his introduction to Girls for the Slime God (in which the above mentioned stories are reprinted) that in a late 1940s poll of sf readers, two of Kuttner’s pen names came in higher than his real name.  Those pen names were Lawrence O’Donnell and Lewis Padgett.  Not surprising since his best regarded stories are under those names.

Kuttner’s best work was done in collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore.  The story is that Kuttner wrote her a fan letter, not realizing that “C. L.” stood for “Catherine Lucille.”

Kuttner wrote in a wide variety of genres, including sword and sorcery.  His tales of Elak of Atlantis (reviewed here, here, here, and here) as well as his two stories of Prince Raynor (reviewed here and here) helped fill the gap left by Robert E. Howard’s death.

It was in science fiction that he made his reputation.  Stories such “Mimsy Were the Borogoves”, “The Proud Robot”,  “The Twonky”, “When the Bough Breaks”, the Baldly stories (collected in Mutant), the Hogben stories, and countless others have remained popular and readable to this day, showing only a few signs of not aging well.  His story “What You Need” was filmed as an original series Twilight Zone episode.  Kuttner wrote a lot of what at the time was considered novel length work in the pulps, much of it still unreprinted.  A few years ago I managed to get most of the pulps containing these stories, and over the next year or two I hope to make time to read and report on them.  It’s also been long enough since I read some of them, that I need to refresh my memory.

There’s a lot of great Kuttner material that either hasn’t been reprinted or has been reprinted in such obscure places that it doesn’t matter.  For example, “We Kill People” from Astounding‘s March 1946 issue is every bit as good as the stories that are the most well-known.

Kuttner’s work was marked by a dry, cynical sense of humor and a pessimistic outlook on life, and the stories often ended on a note of horror.  As the 1940s turned to the 1950s, the Kuttner quit writing so much for the pulps.  Part of this was burn-out, part of this was Kuttner was finally getting his college degree and then a master’s.  He authored several mystery novels during this period.  He passed away from a heart attack.

I first encountered Kuttner on a hot, humid afternoon the summer before I entered high school.  I was taking a break and pulled out the SFBC edition of The Best of Henry Kuttner, which had arrived in the mail a few days earlier.  Although I don’t recall why I purchased it, I suspect it was because Ray Bradbury, who was something of a protege of Kuttner’s for a while, wrote the introduction.  The first story was “Mimsy Were the Borogoves”.  My mind was blown.  My life would never be the same.

Of all the science fiction and fantasy authors I’ve ever read, Kuttner is still my favorite.  I thank God frequently that Stephen Haffner has reprinted so much of his early work.  (I just wish he’d done it before I spent all that money tracking down those pulps.)

Kuttner (along with his wife C. L. Moore) is one of the few authors who has his/her own shelf in my library.  (The others are Ray Bradbury, Leigh Brackett and her husband Edmond Hamilton, and Robert E. Howard, who books take up two shelves.  Charles Beaumont would have his own shelf if he had written more books before he died.)

Much of Kuttner’s early work is clunky, but if you read his stories in chronological order, you can see him maturing.  He was a writer who wasn’t afraid to stretch himself, to take chances and do something different.  Just read “Happy Ending” as an example.  The story is told in reverse, Ending, Middle, Beginning, and it works.

If you’ve not read Kuttner, you should.  A large of number Big Names (Mariam Zimmer Bradley, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick) list him among their influences. Find out why.

Happy Birthday, Hank.

Blogging Northwest Smith: Dust of Gods

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“Dust of Gods”  was the fourth Northwest Smith story, and it was the last of the series published in 1934.  The picture on the left accompanied the story in its original publication in Weird Tales.  I scanned it from the only reproduction I’m aware of, the anthology Weird Tales:  32 Unearthed Terrors (Dziemianowicz, Weinberg, and Greenberg, ed., Bonanza Books, 1988).  The book was printed on paper not much higher grade than the original pulp, and it’s yellowed with lines of text bleeding through from the other side of the page.  But at least you can get a feel for what it would have been like to read the story in its original appearance.  (What, you didn’t think I could actually afford copies of Weird Tales from the 30s, did you?)

Anyway, this installment in the series is a departure from the earlier tales.  For one thing, Smith is not off by himself getting into trouble.  His partner Yarol the Venusian is with him.  In other words, Smith has company when he gets into trouble.

Secondly, there isn’t any exotic feminine menace in this one, and there certainly isn’t any of the sexual imagery that we saw in “Shambleau“, “Black Thirst“, or “Scarlet Dream“. While there isn’t any sexual content or theme, there is still an exotic menace. But compared to the earlier ones, it’s not that great of a menace.

The menace this time is more of a science fictional nature.  The previous stories were science fantasy.  “Dust of Gods” is essentially science fiction, although not of the hard science, nuts and bolts variety.

The story opens with Smith and Yarol in a bar on Mars, drinking and commiserating about their lack of funds.  They notice some men acting strangely at a nearby table.  Smith and Yarol are contemplating approaching the men when another man at an adjacent table stops them.  He tells the duo that the men worked for him but failed to complete a task, recovering something very ancient in a lost Martian city.  He convinces Smith and Yarol to try and succeed where the others have failed.

What he tells them is that at one time, before man arose on Earth, there was a fifth planet from the Sun where now there are only asteroids.  This planet was ruled by three gods, all long gone, and two of them forgotten by most members of the races currently inhabiting the solar system.  The third is still remember, and goes by the name Pharol.  In fact Yarol had used his name as an oath minutes before the man approach him and Smith.

These gods came from another realm, and ruled until catastrophe befell the fifth planet.  All that’s left of Pharol is dust, and it’s this dust the man wants Smith and Yarol to retrieve for him.  In need of cash, they sign on.

The two end up in an ancient Martian city near the North Pole of the planet.  Deep beneath the city, after avoiding a trap, they find a chamber filled with a strange glowing light that flows like water.  In the center of the chamber is a huge throne built for three occupants.  And in one of the seats there is a pile of dust.  Yarol climbs up to gather the dust while Smith waits below, thinking while he watches the light pour out of the chamber.  He concludes the guy who has hired them is up to no good, and if he gets his hands on the dust, there’s no telling what kind of damage he could do or if there would be any way to stop him.  They decide to leave the dust.  Just to be safe, they destroy it with their blasters.

And that’s pretty much all that happens in the story.  It’s very much a departure from the earlier tales.  The setting is a pretty standard science fiction setting for the time in which “Dust of Gods” was written.  The concept of gathering literal dust of a god is an original idea, and not one I’ve seen much done with outside of this story.

But this story lacks the power and impact of the earlier ones.  Maybe it’s the lack of suggestive or outright sexual imagery.  Maybe Moore was having an off day when she wrote the story.  (Okay, a series of off days since she almost certainly didn’t write this one in one day.  Or maybe she did.  That would explain a lot.)  It almost reads as though Moore had tired of the character, but with another 10 installments to come in the series, that’s hardly likely.  Moore’s prose is still as rich and evocative as ever, but it seems like there’s less she wants to evoke.  The menace isn’t particularly threatening, and all Smith and Yarol really have to do is think for a bit.  While they do encounter some danger, it’s not really of the soul-shattering kind in the previous stories.

Whatever the reason, I found “Dust of Gods” to be the weakest story in the series to date, even though it’s not a bad story.  That sounds harsh, but it’s really not saying much.  Moore on a bad day was better than almost every writer of her time on a good day, with a few exceptions such as Howard.  She’s certainly better than many of the writers working today, even the acclaimed ones.

There are 10 more stories to go, and I’ll look at another one soon.

Blogging Northwest Smith: Scarlet Dream

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“Scarlet Dream”
C. L. Moore

This post contains content of an adult nature and is not suitable for younger readers.  You have been warned.

“Scarlet Dream” is the third Northwest Smith story.  In terms of sexually charged imagery, it’s the most explicit of the ones so far, hence the warning above.  (My discussions of “Shambleau” and “Black Thirst” can be found here andhere.)  There will be spoilers, as well.  You’ve been doubly warned.

When the story opens, Smith is wandering through the Lakkmanda Market on Mars.  The name has a decidedly Leigh Brackett feel to it.  “Scarlet Dream” was published in 1934, predating Brackett’s Mars by a few years, but still I can’t help wondering if Brackett was influenced a bit by the name.

Smith spies a shawl with an intricate pattern consisting of a scarlet thread woven in a blue and green background.  The Martian vendor displaying tells Smith the thing gives him a headache, and he sells it to Smith for a good price.

After he returns to his quarters, Smith tries to trace the pattern on the shawl, gives up, covers himself with it, and goes to sleep.  Sometime in the night he begins dreaming that he’s walking up a mist enshrouded stair.  He soon loses sight of the bottom.

Eventually he is nearly run over by a young girl with long orange hair, wearing a short shift, and covered in blood.  She babbles something about some type of monster killing her sister.  Smith manages to calm her enough to carry her to the top of the stairs.  Once there he takes her into a side room, sets her on a stone bench, and gets a little more explanation from her.

The girl, who is never named, tells Smith that he’s dreaming but that he’s entered a dream world that can only be exited by death or by a fate worse than dying.  Most of Smith’s questions are answered along the lines of “We find it best not to think/ask/do that.”  This includes trying to leave or learn new things.  Indeed, it’s only when Smith eventually decides to leave that the monster shows up and attacks him.  But that comes later.

One of the things she tells him is that no one has ever gone down the stairs he came up.  She only went down the stairs in a panic.  Why Smith doesn’t at some point try to retrace his steps is never explained.  But if he did, then there would be no story.

Smith and the girl are in giant temple, and she leads him outside to a lake and a small shrine containing two cots, two blankets, and a few clothes.  It’s completely open to the air, but since the temperature never changes, that’s not a problem.

The trees seem to bend towards them, and the grass certainly does.  Smith eventually learns that if a person stands barefoot in the grass for long, it will begin sucking blood through the feet.  The trees are implied to be flesh eating.

Smith sits with the girl beside the lake, drifts off, and comes to as night is falling.  Moore implies that at this point Smith engages the girl in sex.  Regular sex between them is implied, with the word “kiss” and its variations being a euphemism for more than a kiss.  In spite of the raciness of the covers Farnsworth Wright selected for Weird Tales, the contents tended to be squeaky clean.  One of Robert E. Howard’s early Conan stories was rejected because Wright felt Conan took too many liberties with a young lady.  (My opinion of that can be found here.)

Where Moore engages in some serious sexual imagery is when the girl shows Smith the only source of food.  She takes him to a hall in the temple in which there are people “eating”.  That there are other people present is mentioned more than once, but this is the only time we see them.  Smith has no interaction with them.  In fact, they’re only mentioned in a few sentences, basically as backdrop.

The way people eat is they kneel before spigots in the wall, spigots that curve upwards.  What they drink from the spigots is blood, with the hint that it contains some addictive substance.  Once Smith realizes what he’s drinking, he’s repulsed but finds himself returning the next day.  Moore goes into details describing how pleasant and yet repulsive feeding is, dwelling on the taste.

Now I don’t know what mental picture you get, but what comes to my mind now is the same thing that came to mind when I was 15.  Fellatio, although I had not encountered that word at the time.  It’s hard to escape that image.  The posture of kneeling, along with Moore deliberately stating that the spigots curve upward from the wall, leave little room for any other conclusion.  What I have to wonder is what Wright thought about this imagery, or if he even noticed it.  I doubt we’ll ever know.  Smith comes to enjoy the feeding more than the girl, although he never completely overcomes his revulsion of it.

Smith eventually spies mountains through the surrounding mist, attempts to leave, is attacked by the monster, and drives it off with his blaster.  It’s at this point that the girl tells Smith she would rather lose him to the fate worse than death than through death at the hand of the monster.  She helps him get home, although he doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.

Smith awakens to find his partner Yarol and a doctor leaning over him.  Smith has been in a coma for a week.  Seems Smith can’t be left alone to wander about on Mars without getting into trouble.  Yarol gave the shawl away while Smith was out.  The pattern was giving him a headache.

This is the third Northwest Smith story, and other than “Shambleau”, it’s the one that has stuck out the most in my mind since I first read the series nearly 30 years ago.  Again, I’m struck by how graphic the sexual imagery is in these stories.  If my parents had known what I was reading….

Moore seems to have a theme of vampirism going as well.  In the first story, the vampire fed on life essence, in the second beauty, and now the grass actually drinks blood.

I’m going to continue this series.  The post on “Black Thirst” is in the top 10 most viewed posts I’ve done.  Stay tuned.  There’s more to come.  Or should that be Moore to come?

C. L. Moore Turns 102

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Catherine Lucille Moore was born on this day in 1911.  She was one of the greatest fantasy and science fiction authors to work in the field.  That’s the oldest picture of her I could find.  I saw a photo of her when I was in college that was (I think) taken shortly before her death.  She was sitting on the steps of a back porch, and the photo was shot from what I would consider an intermediate distance.  If anyone is familiar with the picture and knows where I can get a copy, I would appreciate your letting me know.

I wrote a tribute last year and a belated tribute the  year before, so I wanted to do something different this year.  So after giving some basic facts, I’ll tell you what I have in mind.

First, the facts.  Moore was working in an Indiana bank when she published her first story.  The legend is that she wrote on a company typewriter after hours while working late.  Legend also has it that Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright was so impressed by it that he closed the offices for the rest of the day.  I don’t  know for sure if either event actually happened that way, but if they didn’t, they should have.  Moore went on to write some quite successful science fiction on her own before marrying fellow science fiction writer Henry Kuttner, probably my all time favorite author for at least three days of every week.  After Kuttner died in 1958, Moore left the field.  She remarried, and again legend has it, her new husband didn’t want her writing science fiction.  Also again, I don’t know if that’s true.  By this time she was writing for television, which paid considerably better.

She left quite a legacy, both on her own and with her husband.  I’m going to take a closer look at that legacy this year.  Again both her individual legacy and the one she shares with Kuttner.  I’ve got a lot on my plate, and I can see I’ll need something to act as a sanity check.

For quite some time now I’ve been intending to take a closer look at her two signature series, Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith.  Jirel was one of the first, if not the very first, sword and sorcery heroine who could swing a blade as well as any man.  Northwest Smith was been called the prototype for Han Solo.  I’ll deal with that in an upcoming post.

I’ve decided to start with the Northwest Smith stories (although I will cover the Jirel tales as well).  They’re set in outer space, but they have strong fantasy elements, so I’m going to post the essays about them here rather than on Futures Past and Present.  I intend to post the first one in the next day or so.  Stick around.  It’s been nearly 30 years since I read most of them, but images from some of the stories are still clear in my mind.  They left quite a mark on a very impressionable young teenager.  We’ll see how well they hold up to middle aged scrutiny.