Weird Tales volume 31 number 03 (22 page)

Overrated

Richard Kraft, of Allenhurst, New Jersey, writes: "To my mind the most overrated story you have ever published was Quest of the Starstone. It was simply a cheap thriller and did not compare with Paul Ernst's Dread Summons or Rex Ernest's The Inn. In the December issue Edmond Hamilton again writes a winner: Child of Atlantis. Hamilton is the best in the business and I enjoy his work immensely. The Sea-Witch was terrible —I can't see what Weird Tales readers will find in it, as it was slow and tiresome, nothing like that swell story of Mary Counsel-man's in that issue, The Black Stone Statue."

Virgil Finlay's Drawings

Doctor Karl K. Webber writes from Flora, Illinois: "This is the first time I have written you, although I have been an avid reader of Weird Tales for about six years. In the December 1937 issue, The Sea-Witch is 'tops,' with Flames of Vengeance a close second, and Child of Atlantis hot on the lat-ter's heels. One thing must be kept in your publication and that is Virgil Finlay's drawing. I'm a little bit of an artist myself and I recognize a masterful touch when I see it. No one can approach his subtle mastery of pen and ink. Orchids to Virgil!"

A Million Congratulations

Julius Hopkins writes ftom Washington, D. C: "Roads is one of the most high-class stories that WT has ever printed. Throughout, the language is elevating, and not the usual, pulpy kind prevalent in a great many tales written today. I truly believe that any magazine would have been glad to have this story between its covers. WT should be mighty proud to have been privileged to

print it. A million congratulations to you, Mr. Quinn, for a really outstanding story."

Norse Mythology

M. W. Schauffler, of Larchmont, New York, writes: "The Howard and Quinn stories have been what I have bought the magazine for, and I have been buying it for eight years. One other thing which makes your magazine a pleasure is that almost always the mythology and other background data are accurate. So please speak to Nictzin Dyalhis, if you don't mind, and ask him to check a litde more carefully. I don't know when I have liked a story better than The Sea-Witch. But the moment when his Witch and his hero both agreed that Ran was a god, not a goddess, wrecked the illusion of factuality for me to the end of the story. And there were two other minor slips: No viking was ever named Gudrun any more than he was named Eliza, and for the same reason—it is a woman's name. Neither was Comnenus ever spelled with two n's—though that's a small matter. As for the viking's refrain to the rowing-song, he probably knows more than I do about that—I am not an authority on Norse legends. But I have a feeling that it isn't entirely, or at least typically, a sea refrain."

Quinn's Masterpiece

Bernard Austin Dwyer writes from West Shokan, New York: "My first choice of stories in die January issue is Roads by Sea-bury Quinn. This is truly Quinn's masterpiece; I have never seen anything even remotely so good by him. In my opinion, it far overtops even The Phantom farmhouse. Apart from the story itself, which is delightful and wonderful—the fetching together of such ordinarily widely separated elements as Chtist's crucifixion, a blond heroic warrior from the North, a harlot from the house of Magdalene, the Eastern and Western dynasties, and the Middle Ages, the little carved sleighs, the dwarf faery, smiths of the mountains, and the legend of Santa Claus—the style itself is very beautiful. I love especially the last few paragraphs with their flavor of the iron and heroic North, the Valhalla-like feast; how Klaus laid aside his arms, and the final piercing and beautiful paragraph. But I love everything—the story and the style, from beginning to end. . . . This story will go down as one of the very best, by any

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author, ever to be published in Weird Tales. It is a masterpiece, fit to rank with Howard's Kings of the Night or Lovecraft's Whisperer in Darkness. I fec-l impelled to thank Mr. Quinn heartily for giving me the opportunity to read so satisfactory, wonderfully imaginative and beautiful a story. That style is something to dream about. Next, I will mention a very short poem— Lost Dream, dedicated to our departed master Lovecrafr, by Emil Petaja. May I express my appreciation of how that little poem coincides with one's impressions of the works of Lovecraft ? 'One fumbles in his scarlet cloak; I see his slender fingers move—he turns a key ..." a silver key, of course. Congratulations to Mr. Petaja for his splendid little poem. May we hope for more? My next favorite story is Toean Aiatja/i, by Vennecte Herron—a very good story, well tied together, and beautiful style. It is exquisitely written. I don't know when I have read a more entertaining story, written in better style. In fact, I like the style quite as well as that of Roads, only that it is of course shorter. I am acute sure that I should not care to court that lady. I like The Witch's Mark, and The Hairy Ones Shall Dance. In the latter, it is already rather obvious that the wolfish materialization came from Doctor Zoberg— vide his thick, sinewy wrists! It is right entertaining. Let me, too, commend most warmly The Inn, in a recent issue. Splendid atmosphere."

Compliment and Complaint

Wilfred Wright writes from Toronto: "During the last fifteen years that I have been a consistent reader of WT I have only written twice to the Eyrie, submitting my comments. But your January issue compels me to write for the rhird time, to express a complimenr and a complaint. First the compliment. Roads, by Seabury Quinn, stands out as the most beautiful piece of fantasy ever published in any magazine. From early in the story the outcome was obvious, yet at no time did it detract from the beauty or interest of the compelling and reverent treatment of a sacred theme. Mr. Quinn is indeed to be congratulated upon his ability, and I wish to extend to him my personal thanks for enriching my Christmas by his magnificent story. Now for the complaint— or perhaps I should say 'question.' The story Toean AUijan by Venoette Herron—while I

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The Cream of Weird Fiction

• Weird Tales prints the best weird fiction in the world today. The high literary quality of its stories is evidenced by the comparatively large number of stories from Weird Tales that have been reprinted or awarded honorable mention in annual best fiction anthologies. You are assured of reading the best when you read Weird Talis, The Unique Magazine.

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appreciate it as a very splendid weird tale, it should have been entered as a reprint, as I read the same story in the magazine section of the Toronto Star Weekly three or four months ago. With the exception of the reprint story, I always had the impression chat all stories published in Weird Tales were original, and I would like to be informed regarding the editorial policy in this matter. As for my voting for the best stories in the current issue, it is on this occasion impossible, for with all appreciation for the other tales in this issue, Seabury Quinn's Roads defies comparison." [Toean Matjan was sold to us as a new story which had seen publication in England only. We did not know that it had been printed in Canada. Like many other publications, Weird Tales occasionally buys outstanding stories that have already been printed in the British Isles, but we do not knowingly use stories that have been published in North America.— The Editor.]

Brickbats J. Vernon Shea, Jr., writes from Pittsburgh: "I wish Seabury Quinn hadn't written Roads, for that tale for children has no place in WT. It made me squirm. Of the stories in the January issue, I prefer Toean Maij an, a beautifully written version of a familiar theme. Miss Herron is a highly promising newcomer. Edmond Hamilton had a novel idea in The House of Living Music, but ruined it by his formula handling. The Witch's Mark marks considerable of an advancement for Dorothy Quick, but I for one am pretry fed-up with witch-women, especially when they go through their all-too-familiar routines. I wish you would caution your authors against topical subjects as applied to weird tales. They have not the immediacy the authors imagine them to have, but intrude unpleasantly in a non-realistic field. Thus, the attempted lynching in The Hairy Ones Shall Dance, which seems to be taken from the motion picture Fury, seemed wildly incongruous in WT. Don't misunderstand me: I am very fond of realism in a realistic story, but hardly consider much realism fitting for WT."

A New Reader

Margaret H. Gray writes from Steuben-ville, Ohio: "Greetings from a comparatively new member of your circle of Weird Tales readers, I have been reading your

magazine for only one short year, much to my chagrin. I have just completed the January edition, and I say that there are entirely too many days to wait until February. The Witch's Mark was by far the best in this issue. Perhaps I am prejudiced, as I am brim-fid of Irish and Scottish folklore, but the translating of Deidre and Shamus into modern life, is in my eyes, a masterpiece. Some more stories just like it, please, Dorothy Quick! (By the way, i& she Irish?) Virgil Finlay's illustrations are still 'splendiferous* (that's my own invention!) and M. Brun-dage's cover picture is grand. Toean Matjan, by Vennette Herron, rates second in my list. I love stories like this. May we have some more, if you please? I am collecting all of those illustration passages from poetry so that I can frame them. Couldn't you make them in color? I think I have asked too many questions already. Good luck, WT, and may the sun never set on your splendid magazine."

A Posing Tiger

Michael Liene writes from Hazleton, Pennsylvania: "Toean Matjan, by Vennerce Herron, was a strange little tale, beautifully written. The tiger in the illustration looks suspiciously like the one used to advertise IJsterine mouth wash, or some such. Or did this tiger take up posing for advertisements, in the spare time he had, aside from jealously guarding our heroine of the story? Were it not for Quinn's beautifully told story. Roads, I would have given Toean Matjan first place in the January issue—the story, I mean, not the tiger. . . . Gans T. Field's The Hairy Ones Shall Dance serial has started out quite thriilingly. It leaves the reader all prepared for startling events, which will either make or ruin the story. But if the first installment is any indication of shudders, I just took my racoon coat out of storage."

He Wants a Sequel

Alvin V. Pershing writes from Anderson, Indiana: "Would it be proper to ask for a sequel to The Sea-Witch? That story was a tremendous knock-out, amazing and weird. It was one of the best stories I have ever read. Virgil's black-and-white frontispiece was a real addition to the magazine."

Quinn and Howard

J. Mackay Tait writes from Bridgetown,

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Nova Scoria: "In my humble opinion, the most thoroughly enjoyable stories that appear in WT are those by such writers as Seabury Quinn and Robert E. Howard (how 1 miss that boy!), in which there is a little humanity, a little humor, a little happiness. Poe's works are abnormal, the product (admittedly so) of a diseased mind. They aren't true to life. They are literary lunacy, analogous in art to the works of Dali, or in sculpture to those of Epstein. There is never any situation, no matter how desperate, in which all hope and humor are entirely absent. I served four years with the Canadian infantry during the war . . , and although we lived in terror a great deal of rhe time— particularly I—I never once found myself in a position where it was all fear and horror. In this month's WT there is a story by Nictzin Dyalhis, The Sea-Witch, that I believe to be one of the best ever to appear in our magazine. And my opinion is not influenced by the really splendid cover design by Virgil Finlay—a vast improvement over some of the misproportioned females who have displayed their impossible charms on covers of the past, even if the girl has misplaced her navel. The story deals with the occult, it has horror, it has suspense; but it also has love, tenderness, humor (not funni-ness), and a delightfully unexpected happy ending. . , . Another criticism (I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb) I have to make of a great many of your stories, although not only of the Poe style, is directed at the obviously labored attempts at maintaining an atmosphere of gloom and impending evil diroughout the narrative. Why should this be necessary? Because a man walking along a lonely country road in a rainstorm is to encounter, half a mile farther on, a grisly werewolf is no reason, that I can see, for the limbs of the trees to appear like skeleton arms reaching out for him, or for the raindrops to fall with the sound of hissing snakes bent upon his destruction, or for the wind to howl at him with the voices of a thousand haunted spirits. Unless he is mentally abnormal, neurotic or a confirmed and industrious disciple of Bacchus, a country road would be a country road and nothing more. It may be the tradition to write weird stories in that way, but it is illogical nevertheless. Horror rarely sets the stage before descending upon us. I wish it did! When it strikes, it strikes suddenly,