I was surprised when I started reading this story from the July 1928 issue of WEIRD TALES to discover that the protagonists are none other than Frank Belknap Long (who wrote it) and his buddy H.P. Lovecraft (here just called Howard) their own selves. It starts with them discussing horror fiction and Howard complaining that he can’t really achieve the effect he’s going for with his stories, because the real depths of true horror can’t be described, only suggested.
Then one of Frank’s neighbors shows up at the door, walking around with a hole
bored in his head that ought to have killed him, and tells them about a strange
encounter he just had in some nearby woods. And just like that, hellity-blip,
as Robert Leslie Bellem would say, we’re off on a wild adventure as the two
writers battle cosmic monsters from outer space.
Having Long and Lovecraft starring in this story gives it something of a goofy,
contemporary feel, as if it might have been written today. I don’t know of any
other pulp stories in which the author appears so openly as a character. And
yet it has some really creepy moments, too, and the menace it presents is
certainly Lovecraftian. An odd mix, to be sure, but Long makes it work. I
really enjoyed “The Space Eaters”. (The entire issue, including a story by
August Derleth and poems by Robert E. Howard and Donald Wandrei, is available to read on-line.)
4 comments:
I recall when I read this how odd it seemed. Long (known as “Belknapus”) to Lovecraft wrote some good stuff but this was my favorite. Recall seeing a photo of the 2 of them with poet Hart Crane taken during Lovecraft’s Brooklyn days. Long looking very scholarly with his pipe.
I have Long's bio of Lovecraft and will get around to reading it sooner or later.
It does get pretty goofy at times. There’s a point where the two characters are running from the invisible brain-eating entities, ‘Frank’ does something dumb and ‘Howard’ hysterically yells at him, ‘What did you THAT for!’ and it cracks me up — reminds me of Laurel and Hardy or Gilligan and The Skipper.
- b.t.
I much prefer SPACE-EATERS to the feted HOUNDS OF TINDALOS; to me the former is the closest Long ever got to the sort of eerie horror Blackwood accomplished in THE WILLOWS and Lovecraft in COLOUR OUT OF SPACE.
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