In our last episode, in which I read Ted Sturgeon's "The Professor's Teddy Bear," I marveled at all the big names in the March 1948, 25th Anniversary, issue of Weird Tales, so I decided today to read stories by four of those big names, Edmond Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch and Clark Ashton Smith. (I read all of these stories in the scan of the issue at the internet archive.)
Manhattanite scientist Graham is depressed. The skyscrapers and crowds of the big city depress him. His expectation that another cataclysmic war could break out at any minute depresses him. The fact that his wife died eight years ago and he is all alone depresses him. So when he invents a machine which can project a ray that throws your mind out of this universe and into an alternate time line, maybe one where your wife is still alive and the world doesn't seem to be on the brink of war over Berlin, he jumps at the chance to visit those other possible worlds.
"The mind, you know, isn't material. It's a web of electric force, an electric pattern that inhabits the brain but that can be torn away from the brain by the right force."Graham activates the machine and his consciousness is hurled from one time line to another; in each he rides as a passenger inside the brain of alternate versions of himself residing in alternate 1948 New Yorks. In one the Renaissance never occurred and in 1948 there is still feudalism and people still wear mail and fight with swords. In another Europeans and Asians never developed civilization, and the effete Mayans and the totalitarian militarist Aztecs are the highest cultures. In a third, dinosaurs evolved into an intelligent species and reptile men who have built a high tech civilization have made primitive humans their slaves. All three of these alternate Earths groan under tyranny and are wracked by war, and every alternate Graham is on the losing side of these conflicts!
Back in our Earth in his own body Graham sees the light: life isn't easy for anybody and you have to learn to take the bad with the good and do the best you can in the circumstances in which you find yourself.
Anybody who has followed my blog here knows I am a big fan of Hamilton's, but I have to classify "The Might-Have-Been" as a weaker effort, even though I agree with the Stoic wisdom it is trying to sell Weird Tales readers. Instead of a single strong horror or adventure narrative we get three mediocre little tales of action and terror that individually fail to generate tension (our Graham is just a spectator in these capers) or present a cathartic resolution (the alternate Grahams are not very successful in their aims.) The Graham of our world does grow and change, and the best part of the story is the angsty beginning in which Graham broods about "the gaunt skyscrapers that seemed to huddle together under the somber winter night" and "the hordes of weary, pathetic, eager faces hurrying homeward in the cold and windy dusk..." but those parts of the story are a minority of the page count.
Merely acceptable. My opinion, that this is lesser Hamilton, seems to be the consensus one, as "The Might-Have-Been" has not been reprinted anyplace.
 |
| One of the many volumes in which "The October Game" appears; I actually own one of these, having paid 10¢ for it at a library sale |
Bradbury has written more than his share of sappy and sentimental stories, and wholesome stories which tell you to be nice to immigrants and don't be a racist, and fantasy stories with likable Adams family weirdos. But "The October Game" is a masterpiece of hardcore, no-holds-barred, realistic psychological and gore horror. I read it years ago in some book or other and reread it in the scan of the March 1948 issue of Weird Tales for this blog post, and both times was thrilled by its macabre perfection--the broken-marriage-as-seen-from-the-inside beginning of the story is compelling, and the gruesome ending is mesmerizing and disturbing, even heartrending.
It is Halloween! Mich Wilder has been unhappy for years. During the springs and summers he can escape his misery for a little while, taking long walks, but the bitterly cold winters are so horrible he cannot take another. Why is Mich so miserable? He had wanted a son with his own dark looks, and forced his wife Louise, who was afraid of getting pregnant, scared of the risk of death associated with childbirth, into producing a child. Instead of a dark boy, Louise gave birth to a girl as blonde and fair as Louise herself is! That was eight years ago, eight long years of a loveless marriage. Today Mich is going to end it. Abandoning his wife and her blonde brat will not inflict enough pain on Louise. Shooting Louise down with a pistol will not inflict enough pain on Louise. To achieve his revenge, to inflict maximum pain on Louise, Mich comes up with a scheme so creative, so cruel, it shocked me the first time I read it and still managed to make me shiver in anticipation and groan at the terrible revelation this time out.
Excellent--five out of five dismembered children!
 |
| The first book to feature "Catnip" |
In November, December and January, I read a bunch of 1950s and 1960s stories by Robert Bloch; let's check in with Bloch and see what he contributed to this 25th anniversary issue of Weird Tales. "Catnip" was included in 1977's The Best of Robert Bloch and 2000's The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, so it must be good, right?
Ronnie Shires is a 14-year-old bully who smokes cigarettes and wants to be class president. We witness him physically abuse a nerd and treat with utter contempt a girl who has a crush on him--that negging strategy we hear about must work because this chick does Ronnie's homework for him and canvasses for him among the other girls in his class--it looks like he will win election tomorrow!
To show how tough he is to some other boys, Ronnie bothers the black cat that lives with the reclusive old woman whom kids think is a witch. Things escalate after the old bag yells at him and one evening he contemptuously throws a cigarette at her ramshackle old house and accidentally burns it to the ground while she is inside, killing her. But the cat survives the conflagration, and, on the day of the class election, the feline chases Ronnie around town, keeping him from attending school so he can't be there for the election. The story ends with a Bloch pun that has been foreshadowed multiple times throughout the story when the cat (apparently now inhabited by the witch's soul) jumps on Ronnie's face and tears out his tongue.
This story is just OK. For one thing, puns undermine the tension I really want to see in a horror story. And then there is the issue of our revolting protagonist. When I wrote about Anthony Boucher's "They Bite," I noted that many horror stories have an unlikable protagonist, a bad person whose misdeeds lead them into contact with an even worse person or entity who destroys them. This literary strategy turns what is ostensibly a horror story into a sort of morality tale in which, instead of (or in addition to) being horrified at the fate of the protagonist, we feel that justice has been served, that, in mysterious ways, the balance of the universe has been set to rights. The man in "They Bite" was threatening our society's liberal institutions, and so when a mummy kills him, we are not so much horrified as relieved that the status quo has been preserved, even if by some outre means. Similarly, readers of "Catnip" want to see Ronnie, who is a real piece of shit, lose the class election and suffer some sort of punishment for his cheating and bullying, his trespassing and manslaughter, and the witch's black cat foils Ronnie's electoral ambitions and metes out the punishment.
"They Bite" and "Catnip," while they have horror elements, are wish fulfillment fantasies in which supernatural agents help solve our problems for us. They assure us that the universe is a sensible place where the evil are punished and their plans thwarted. This is in contrast to Lovecraft stories in which the universe is shown to be totally inexplicable and absolutely callous, or Bradbury's "The October Game" in which an evil and/or insane person succeeds in murdering and torturing many innocent people. To me, those are real horror stories, stories which, allegorically or realistically, explore the horror of our lives.
"The Master of the Crabs" by Clark Ashton Smith
 |
| The Abominations of Yondo (1960) was the first book to include "The Master of the Crabs" |
The wizard Sarcand, whose father was a sorcerer and whose mother was a black cannibal, has discovered the fabled chart of Omvor the pirate! This will guide him to the hiding place of the unique spellbooks and magical devices looted by Omvor hundreds of years ago! But another wizard, Mior Lumivox, was able to look at the chart over Sarcand's shoulder by casting his ka out of his body by means of drinking the juice of the purple dedaim! So when Sarcand sets out for the location of the treasure, the Island of Crabs, Mior Lumivox is right behind him!
Our narrator for this sword and sorcery caper is Mior Lumivox's apprentice, Manthar. Mior Lumivox and Manthar sail after Sarcand, and on the island find him already in possession of the treasure. Who will live and who will suffer a horrendous death as these two wizards battle for the invaluable artifacts secreted on the Island of Crabs?
This is a fun tale about ruthless amoral wizards with plenty of cool magic and gruesome bloodshed. However, seeing as the villain is a biracial cannibal with his teeth filed into points, I wouldn't advise you recommend it to anybody who has influence over your employment status. "The Master of the Crabs" just ain't woke!
**********
I'm still enjoying these old horror pieces--more 1940s Weird Tales in our next episode!
No comments:
Post a Comment