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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• 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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3S3
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, t
hat 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,
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The Eyes of the Mummy
By Robert Bloch
►TptHAT young writing marvel, Robert -*- Bloch, has never written a stranger or more thrilling story than this. It is a story of Egypt, a gripping tale of flaming weird jewels in the eye-sockets of a withered mummy, an eery narrative that will hold your breathless interest to the end.
^TTIhis story rises to a climax so un-■*■ usual, so weird and fascinating as to make it unique in literature. This unforgettable tale will be published complete
in the April issue of
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without' warning. From happiness we are
switched to misery and back again almost without knowing how it all happened. The trouble with striving constantly for this kind of atmosphere is that it defeats its own purpose. You are plunged into gloom with the story's first paragraph and are mentally prepared for anything that may happen. When 1 bought a volume of Poe's works some years ago, I naturally waded through those dealing in horror first. 'Waded' is the mot juste. By the time I had read three of them, I was so saturated with their atmosphere that they had lost all value as shockers. I have never finished the volume and I never will. (This is sacrilege but I can't help it.) People are constantly borrowing my books—sometimes they return them—but I have never had any one of them borrow the volume of Poe although it still retains its attractive red-and-black cover. I don't believe people like that kind of Htcratute. They like horror, mystery, even cruelty; but they like it dished up palatably. You can consign this to the editorial waste-basket if you like, but it is my sincere conviction that more stories of the Seabury Quirm type would sell more copies of WT."
Concise Comments
T. O. Mabbott writes from New York City: "My votes this month are for Roads, which has the truth of a legend about it, though curiously enough for Seabury Quinn, it struck me as deserving a cut or two to make the thing a little more compact; second: Valley of Boms —simple and wholly credible while being read, and, third, Toean AUtjan, where I wished for a stronger suggestion the tiger was sometimes a man, too."
James Whiting Saunders writes from Alexandria, Virginia: "In the January issue the best story is Ethan Brand. It is an almost timeless allegory, of course. Thank you for printing an American classic."
Paul L. McCleave writes from St. Petersburg, Florida: "The Sea-Witch was truly the 'tops' in the December Weed Tales. Nictzin Dyalhis (how'd he ever get that name, anyway ?) must have a thorough knowledge of the old Norse mythology."
Seymour Kapetansky writes from Detroit: "LOvecraft's Hypnos is one of the late master's obscure-weird pieces. A grand fictional yarn. I think that the reprint should contain
a Lovecraft as often as possible, and ditto the early Robert E. Howards. These men were the best weird writers; their work should appear often. That will be their best
memorial."
Harold F. Keating writes from Quincy, Massachusetts: "The Black Stone Statue by Mary Counselman is gorgeous. Most of her stories are excellent; but this was the best yet."
Howard Brenton MacDonald writes from Yonkers, New York: "The Sea-Witch was an exceptionally fine story. I am glad to see some author making use of the vast treasury of Norse mythology. Let's have more."
H. W. Marian writes from Union City, Tennessee: "In the December number Virgil Finlay is superb. Words fail me, and I can only attempt to express my appreciation for this new feature. These first two I have already framed and they occupy a position of honor in my room."
Andrew Galet writes from New York City: "I now have a double incentive for buying WT, but, please have Virgil Finlay's full-page drawing inside the back cover of your magazine. Not only will his illustrations be more fully appreciated but one could always tear the cover off and have the drawings framed."
Orin S. McFarland writes from Washington D. C: "I've read your magazine for the last six years and know there is nothing like it. Keep up the good work. There are a few stories that don't quite click, but so few diat all the good ones outshine, by far, any defect that your magazine may otherwise possess."
Flo M. Post writes from Guthrie, Oklahoma: "Tales of robots with human minds are just gibberish—and not weird gibberish eirher—whether they inhabit Mars, Venus, the Moon, or an Atlantis."
The Most Popular Story
Readers, it will help us to keep this magazine just as you like it to be, if you will let us know which stories you like best, and also which ones you dislike. In the January issue, as shown by your votes and letters, Seabury Qulnn's strange tale about Santa Claus easily won first place. Vennette Herron's story about the were-tiger came next
W.T.—8
COMING NEXT MONTH
AT THE core of the strange garden, where a circular space was still vacant amid the /% crowding growths, Adompha came to a mound of loamy, fresh-dug earth. Beside jC - it, wholly nude, and pale and supine as if in death, there lay the odalisque Thulo-neah. Near her, various knives and other implements, together with vials of liquid balsams and viscid gums that Dwerulas used in his grafting, had been emptied upon the ground from a leathern bag. A plant known as the dedatm, with a bulbous, pulpy, whitish-green bole from whose center rose and radiated several leafless reptilian boughs, dripped upon Thulo-neah's bosom an occasional drop of yellowish-red ichor from incisions made in its smooth bark.
Behind the loamy mound, Dwerulas rose to view with the suddenness of a demon emerging from his subterrene lair. In his hands he held the spade with which he had just finished digging a deep and grave-like hole. Beside the regal stature and girth of Adompha. he seemed no more than a wizened dwarf. His aspect bore all the marks of immense age, as if dusty centuries had sered his flesh and sucked the blood from his veins. His eyes glowed in the bottom of pit-like orbits; his features were black and sunken as those of a long-dead corpse; his body was gnarled as some millennial desert cedar. He stooped incessantly, so that his lank, knotty arms hung almost to the ground. Adompha marveled at the strength of those arms; marveled that Dwerulas could have wielded the heavy shovel so expeditiously, could have carried to the garden on his ba
ck the burden of those victims whose members he had utilized in his experiments. The king had never demeaned himself to assist at such labors; but, after indicating from time to time the people whose disappearance would in no wise displease him, had done nothing more than watch and supervise the baroque gardening.
"Is she dead?" Adompha questioned, eyeing the luxurious limbs and body of Thuloneah wichout emotion.
"Nay," said Dwerulas, in a voice harsh as a rusty coffin-hinge, "but I have administered to her the drowsy and overpowering juice-cf the dedatm. Her heart beats impalpably, her blood flows with the sluggishness of that mingled ichor. She will not reawaken . . . saw-as a part of the garden's life, sharing its obscure sentience. I wait now your further instructions. What portion . . . or portions?"
Weird Tales volume 31 number 03 Page 18