Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, August 1942

Not many Western pulps had Halloween covers, at least that I've been able to find, and I think I've used all of them in past years. So this year I'm just going to fall back on an old favorite, Norman Saunders, with this cover for WESTERN SHORT STORIES. "All-Star Stories", it says, and based on the authors inside, that's a pretty solid claim. In this issue, you'll find stories by D.B. Newton, Dean Owen, H.A. DeRosso, Tom W. Blackburn, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), James P. Olsen, Hapsburg Liebe, Ralph Berard (Victor White), James C. Lynch, and Raymond W. Porter. Those are all prolific, well-regarded pulpsters.

Forgotten Novelettes: Three Weird Menace Stories by Arthur Leo Zagat

I've posted before for Halloween about Weird Menace yarns by one of my favorites, Arthur Leo Zagat. This year we have a Zagat triple feature, so to speak, in which we look at three excellent examples of the Weird Menace genre.

You might think that a story entitled "Satan Calls the Strike" would be about baseball, but you'd be wrong. This tale from the October 1937 issue of DIME MYSTERY, the leading Weird Menace pulp, centers around a small town in Massachusetts where the only real industry is the local silk mill. Ah, so it's about a workers' strike at the mill. No, no at all, although the mill does figure heavily in the plot. Instead, three sinister figures show up in town: a blind man with the mark of a red right hand on his face, who can strike others blind with only a gesture; a starving infant who causes food to go bad wherever he goes; and a beautiful woman who sucks the life from the living. Naturally, their arrival wreaks havoc in the town, and it's up to a two-fisted young lawyer to battle these apparently supernatural menaces and discover what's really going on. Zagat pours on the horror until you have to wonder how he's ever going to get any logical, reasonable explanations out of all this, and when he finally does, my impulse was to say, "Oh, come on! You expect me to believe that?" The thing of it is, the writing is really excellent in this story, with some of it coming off almost as a mainstream tale of Americana in this small town, that I wound up forgiving the ludicrous elements of the plot. This isn't the best Zagat story I've read so far, but it's right up there close to the top.

"Ghouls Ride the Highways" is from the November 1935 issue of HORROR STORIES, and it's one of the fastest-paced, most suspenseful tales you're ever likely to run across. You might not think a story set mostly on a bus would fit that description, but Zagat makes it work. The protagonist is a newly married young woman who's trying to deliver a drug to a sinister doctor that will save her new husband from a mysterious disease. When she dozes off while riding the bus, though, she wakes up to a violent nightmare that involves dangerous mountain roads and a crazed driver. Then, when she finally reaches her destination, things get worse. One of the things I love about these stories are the goofy explanations for all the supposedly supernatural goings-on, and in this story, the so-called logical summing-up is more over-the-top than ever. Plus the story has an unexpected twist at the end of the sort you don't often encounter in Weird Menace yarns.

Sandhogs, construction workers who build tunnels, usually under rivers, appear now and then as the protagonists in pulp stories, and that's the case in "Lilith--Deep Lady of Death", from the March/April 1939 issue of TERROR TALES. The engineer who designed the tunnel in this yarn, along with his girlfriend, are the protagonists in the tale of a sinister beauty who shows up deep underground to lure workers to their deaths. This is another very swift story, taking place in one short evening, and as such there's no let-up in the action and horror as Zagat keeps things rocketing along to a climax with the potential to turn apocalyptic.

All three of these stories are quite entertaining, and they just reinforce my feeling that Zagat is my favorite Weird Menace writer. I've never read any of his science fiction or mysteries, and I really need to get around to that.

Classic Horror Stories: The Dunwich Horror - H.P. Lovecraft

I know when I'm beaten. After reading "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and now this story, I have to take hat in hand and humbly say that yes, yes, I am an H.P. Lovecraft fan. I have been won over.

"The Dunwich Horror", which appeared originally in the April 1929 issue of WEIRD TALES, takes place around a farming community in Massachusetts, in an area where the hills have ancient stone circles atop them and some of the folks who live thereabouts have strange habits, like the Whately family, especially young Wilbur Whately, who is born and grows up in the course of this story but grows up to be something other than human . . . and that's just the beginning of the weird, potentially cataclysmic things that happen.

Once again, Lovecraft injects some dialogue and action into this yarn to go along with the all the richly detailed creepy stuff. The climax is downright thrilling. Not only that, but there are also a few unexpected (at least by me) touches of humor in this story. Granted, the lines are more droll than they are laugh-out-loud funny, but still, I'll give Lovecraft credit for making me smile.

I know I said I might continue with this series after Halloween, but I believe I've changed my mind. Honestly, as much as I've enjoyed the tales, I'm about Cthulhu-ed out. I'm sure I'll return to the series, and to other horror stories, in the future, and right now I'm planning to make a whole month of it again for Halloween next year. I'll have one more horror-related post tomorrow (not Lovecraft or Cthulhu), and after that I plan to go back to reading Westerns and mysteries for a while.  

Classic Adventure/Horror Stories: The Fire of Asshurbanipal - Robert E. Howard

Now this is a yarn! One of my favorite Robert E. Howard stories, and one of my favorite WEIRD TALES covers, with art by the great J. Allen St. John. This story is considered part of the Cthulhu Mythos, and rightly so, but for most of its length it's a classic adventure tale with one of Howard's two-fisted American adventurers in the Middle East, Steve Clarney, who, along with his Afghan sidekick Yar Ali, ventures into the desert to find a lost city where a fantastic, mysterious gem known as the Fire of Asshurbanipal rests in the skeletal hand of a long-dead emperor. Along the way they have to battle Bedouin bandits and an Arab outlaw and slave-trader.

Well, even if you've never read this story (and I'll bet most of you have, some multiple times like me), you can guess that Steve and Yar Ali will find what they're looking for, and more besides, and it's that more that ties this yarn in with Cthulhu and his outfit. If I have one quibble with the story, it's that our heroes act more like Lovecraft protagonists in the end, rather Howard protagonists, but I can accept that in exchange for all the great stuff along the way. I reread this in the Del Rey edition THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD and thought it held up just fine. 

Overlooked Movies: Big Ass Spider! (2013)

 

When I first saw the title of this movie, I though, “Nah, this has to got to be a joke. There’s not really a movie called BIG ASS SPIDER!” Well, as it turns out, there is, and also to my surprise, it turned out to be a pretty entertaining little film. What better movie to feature for an Overlooked Movies post the week of Halloween than a good old-fashioned Creature Feature?

BIG ASS SPIDER! is a throwback of sorts to movies like THEM!, right down to the exclamation point in the title and scenes involving the sewers along the Los Angeles River, as well as involvement by the military and a scientist who thinks he knows how to destroy the giant spider of the title. It’s actually an exterminator and his security guard sidekick who hold the key to defeating the creature, though.

This is an odd movie. For the most part, it takes a rather tongue-in-cheek approach, has some funny lines, and clearly the filmmakers have a lot of affection for the sort of movie they’re making fun of. But it’s also a little too violent and gory to work completely as a comedy. It might have been more successful if they had gone one way or the other. As it is, though, the hybrid approach works pretty well. Greg Grunberg, a top-notch character actor who has been in a ton of movies and TV shows, gets to play the lead for a change and does a fine job as the gutsy, determined exterminator. Lombardo Boyar is pretty funny as his sidekick. Ray Wise, not playing a smarmy bad guy for a change, is the officer in charge of the military effort to kill the rampaging giant spider. The acting is pretty good all around, and so are the special effects. I’m not sure why I never even heard of this movie until now, but I enjoyed watching it.

Dracula's Ghost - Charles R. Rutledge

DRACULA'S GHOST is a worthy sequel to DRACULA'S REVENGE, the first book in this excellent series by Charles R. Rutledge. Once again, police detective Jennifer Grail and occult detective Carter Decamp team up to tackle an eldritch menace, as well as Romanian gangsters. This short novel is a very effective combination of horror fiction and police procedural. I especially like the way that Grail keeps discovering so-called fictional monsters have a basis in reality. Rutledge does an excellent job of balancing these elements. I've really enjoyed the first two books in this series and look forward to seeing where Rutledge goes with it from here. Highly recommended.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super Science Stories, May 1940

This is the second issue of Popular Publications' science fiction pulp, edited by Frederik Pohl. The cover is by an artist I'm not familiar with, Gabriel Mayorga. It seems a little too busy to me, but it's eye-catching, no doubt about that. And the line-up of authors inside is an all-star one: Robert A. Heinlein (writing as Lyle Monroe), Manly Wade Wellman (writing as Gabriel Barclay), James Blish, Raymond Z. Gallun, L. Sprague de Camp, Donald A. Wollheim, Ray Cummings, P. Schuyler Miller, Cyril Kornbluth (writing as S.D. Gottesman), and Willy Ley. Granted, some, if not all, of those stories were probably rejects from ASTOUNDING, but still, that's a pretty impressive group. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Golden West Magazine, April 1937

This issue is from Ace's short-lived attempt to publish a Western romance pulp. Not a bad cover, in my opinion. I don't know who the artist is. Most of the inside is taken up by a full-length novel by Johnston McCulley, "The Colt Cavalier", backed up by short stories by Lawrence A. Keating and Eric Thane. I don't know if McCulley's story was ever reprinted as a book, but it seems like it would have been a good candidate for a paperback edition.

Forgotten Books: Carnival Girl - Max Gareth (Stuart James)

“Max Gareth” was actually Stuart James, the author of FRISCO FLAT, which I posted about a couple of months ago. CARNIVAL GIRL may be his first novel. It was published in 1960 by Chariot Books, and a more mysterious publisher you’re unlikely to find. There’s no address in the book, not even a city, and just a simple book number on the spine. Chariot Books, whoever they were, published more than a hundred books in the early Sixties, but the only author names I recognize are Arthur Adlon and John Burton Thompson, both of whom wrote for several other softcore sleaze publishers. It must have been a pretty low-budget operation.

But that doesn’t mean the books they published were all bad. CARNIVAL GIRL is actually a well-written coming-of-age story for the most part, albeit a very violent and lurid one at times. The protagonist is a beautiful 18-year-old girl named Norma who runs away from home in New Jersey due to an abusive stepfather and winds up having to hitchhike across the country. She doesn’t have a real destination, just a desire to head west. She winds up getting a ride with a trucker who seems decent at first but winds up raping her, taking her virginity. Then she encounters a traveling carnival and finds a home there, befriending several of the performers and getting a job dancing (stripping, actually) in one of their shows. A romantic triangle soon develops between Norma, the drummer who provides music for the show she’s part of, and a young motorcycle daredevil who’s also part of the carnival.

In general, I like carny novels. Fredric Brown’s MADBALL is excellent. CARNIVAL GIRL isn’t at that level, but James spins a fast-moving, compelling tale that has a literate, well-written style and lots of interesting carnival background. The characters and plot are standard, early Sixties sleaze/soap opera. There’s a crime/noir element farther along, but it never really fits into that category as many of the other softcore novels from that era do. For what it is, it’s a very readable, entertaining yarn. Clearly, Stuart James was a natural storyteller. I have several more of his books and plan to read them soon.

Classic Horror Stories: The Space Eaters - Frank Belknap Long

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.)