“Wolves of Darkness” was published in Strange Tales, probably the most successful of the rivals of Weird Tales, in January 1932. As you can see, it got the cover.
I read the story years ago, when I was either in high school or an undergraduate. I was expecting it to be an early version of Williamson’s novel Darker Than You Think. It’s not. While both deal with lycanthropy, they are very different stories. I remember I enjoyed the story and that it wasn’t anything like what I was expecting. Other than that, I didn’t recall any of the plot when I sat down to reread the story the other day.
The first two things I mentioned above, I enjoyed it and it wasn’t what I was expecting, were still true. While lycanthropy is a theme, this horror tale is more grounded in science fiction than the supernatural.
Clovis McLauren, a medical student studying in New York, receives a telegram from his father asking him to come to the ranch in the Texas Panhandle. His father is a physicist conducting some type of experiments on the ranch that involve light. When he arrives at the closest town, Hebron, he hears wolves howling. He can’t shake the feeling that there’s something human about the howling.
He isn’t wrong. The man at the train station tells Clovis that for the last week or so, wolves have been killing humans. This is not normal behavior, because the people taken weren’t out alone on the prairie but in their yards.
The telegram Clovis received from his father said he felt his life was in danger. Clovis manages to convince someone to take him to the ranch that night rather than waiting for morning. It will prove to be a fatal mistake. They’re attacked by wolves, and the other man is killed. Bullets don’t seem to hurt the animals. Running with them is a beautiful girl wearing only a thin silk shift. She is Stella, the daughter of the man assisting Clovis’s father. Yes, the trope of the scientist’s beautiful daughter was alive and well in 1932.
Only Stella, like everyone else alive at the ranch, has been possessed by some entity. Dr. McLauren’s experiments opened a doorway to another dimension, and something evil has come through.
“Wolves of Darkness” was published a little over a year before Golden Blood. It’s should come as no big surprise that the latter is the more mature, more polished work. The prose in “Wolves of Darkness” is more purple in places than that of Golden Blood. That’s not to say “Wolves of Darkness” isn’t worth reading. It is. It’s fun and fast-paced, with lot of reversals of fortune for Clovis.
The story is a blend of fantasy and science fiction, with the scientific references current for the time it was written. In fact, Williamson seems to go to great lengths to make the experiments Dr. McLauren performs seem realistic and logical. This is one of the story’s strengths. It’s also an indication of the age of the story. Some of the science appears to be slightly dated if examined closely. This is more due to the technology of the time rather than the basics of the science. But it’s clear from reading the tale that it is from a period in which the line separately science fiction and fantasy was much more blurred.
Williamson lived in the Texas Panhandle in his younger days, and you can see the influence in this work. Clovis is a town just inside the New Mexico state line. It’s only a few miles from Portales, where Williamson would spend the bulk of his life as a member of the faculty at Eastern New Mexcio State. There’s also a Hebron in Texas, or at least there used to be. It has long since been swallowed up by the larger suburbs north of Dallas. I used to drive through it from time to time when I lived in that area.
“Wolves of Darkness” is a fun story, with plenty of action and excitement. It’s available in an electronic format as well as print, so check it out.
It’s a wild story and crazy blend of horror and pseudo-science. Very atmospheric.
I, too, had it confused with DARKER THAN YOU THINK for a long while.
You don’t see that type of blending much anymore. Which is kind of a shame, because when it’s done well, it can be really good.
I know a lot about Weird Tales and some things about Unknown, but I don’t know much about Strange Stories and other fantasy magazines of the time period. I wonder how many of the stories were worth reading.
Quite a few from what little I’ve seen, although the magazine didn’t last very long. Harry Bates was the editor, and his goal was to outsell Weird Tales. Unfortunately, the Depression forced the publisher to shut down. Hugh B. Cave wrote several vampire stories for the magazine. The anthology RIVALS OF WEIRD TALES included “Wolves of Darkness”, which is where I first read it.
I’ll have to keep my eye out for Rivals.
There seem to be plenty of copies available.
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=&tn=Rivals+of+Weird+Tales&kn=&isbn=
Enabler! (This has been on my list a while, too)
Like you haven’t been an enabler yourself.
There were both STRANGE TALES and STRANGE STORIES among other attempted rivals to WEIRD TALES.
Neither lasted long though each published stories considered classics.
You & Keith touched on STRANGE TALES. STRANGE STORIES published Kuttner’s “Prince Raynor” sword-&-sorcery stories. I don’t know off the top-of-my-head what else they published that might have survived as classic.
All original 7 issues of STRANGE TALES+ were facsimile published by Griasol, if you ever wanted to grab one and see what the context of a story was. I’ve been fairly lucky catching a couple of issues inexpensively here and there at comic book store sales.
(+ = Wildside Press & Robert M. Price revived the magazine for 3 more issues in the early 2000s)
Here’s a link to an online archive that has copies of a few issues of Strange Stories. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to have any copies of Strange Tales. They do have plenty of copies of Weird Tales, though.
https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?and%5B%5D=strange+stories&sin=
Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, I mentioned RIVALS OF WEIRD TALES earlier. The longest section in the anthology consists of stories from STRANGE STORIES. There are only three from STRANGE TALES. I do know that two of Hugh B. Cave’s stories, “Murgunstrum” and “Stragella” made the cover of STRANGE TALES. I don’t know if those stories count as classics, but they have been reprinted. Howard, Derleth, Whitehead, and Clark Ashton Smith all were published there as well. STRANGE TALES paid better than WEIRD TALES, so who knows what might have happened if the Depression hadn’t killed ST.
You can see the covers and contents of all the issues of Strange Tales here:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?25148
and Strange Stories here:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?26290
Ah. I didn’t know ISFDB had those listings. Very cool!
They were listed under “Magazines” in the pull down menu on the search bar.
Also, because Matthew wondered how other stories in the magazine were …
Here’s my review of a complete issue;
http://paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2015/10/recent-read-strange-tales-jan-1932.html
Thanks!
Thank you.
For such an early effort, this really is an excellent little tale. Quite Lovecraftian–or Merrittesque, take your pick–with good action. Lovecraft praised Williamson’s early work, BTW.
That last sentence does not surprise me. Williamson deserves to be better remembered.
For the record, I first read the story in GREAT TALES OF CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION (hardcover) edited by Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg.
Take a look at the table-of-contents in this eBay acution.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/GREAT-TALES-OF-CLASSIC-SCIENCE-FICTION-8-Short-Novels-Hardcover-in-Jacket/162910767854?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D44040%26meid%3D9f62b7cc82f8490185b0d12fe173599c%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D10%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D273009479134%26itm%3D162910767854&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850
All the stories were far more science-fiction/horror blending than science fiction.
“Who Goes There?,” “Wolves of Darkness,” “The Shadow Out of Time,” etc.
Man, now I want to re-read the book!
That’s a great lineup. I’ve got copies of all the stories, or I would buy the book.