Weird Tales, Sep '37: Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth

Back in March of 2022, we read some stories from a 1941 book that some people consider the first ever science fiction anthology.  One of those stories was Manly Wade Wellman's "School for the Unspeakable," which first appeared in a 1937 issue of Weird Tales.  Let's crack open that September '37 issue of the magazine of the bizarre and unusual, as it includes three more pieces of fiction from people we are interested in here at MPorcius Fiction Log, Weird Tales regulars Edmond Hamilton, Clark Ashton Smith, and August Derleth.  Hamilton's contribution is the first part of a three-part serial, which we'll read next time; today let's focus on the stories by Californian Smith and Wisconian Derleth.   

But first--weird poetry!  This issue of Weird Tales has lots of verse in it by some of the greatest writers to ever appear in the pages of the No. 1 Magazine of Strange and Unusual Stories.  There's Robert E. Howard's 14-line poem about a guy who has a nightmare in which he is killed by a giant animate statue, "The Dream and the Shadow."  Henry Kuttner contributes "H. P. L.," sixteen lines about the dreams only a few men can ever experience, dreams of strange alien worlds.  And from Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself, the seven-page "tale in rime" "Psychopompus," which is about a creepy medieval nobleman--apparently a werewolf--and his creepy wife--a witch who can change into a serpent--and the gruesome end they meet when they seek to work their evil on a Christian couple who are good at swinging an axe.  God helps those who can chop the head off a monster themselves!

Of these poems, the Kuttner is the hardest to get, as it is just a bunch of vague images and mythological references.  Howard's is better, as it tells a little story, and the images are better, too.  Lovecraft's is the least ambitious poetically, and the easiest to read--as its subtitle suggests, it is just a horror story in simple rhyming verse.  "Psychopompus" is actually a pretty effective horror tale, and I recommend it to all fans of the weird, even those who have little interest in poetry. 

"The Death of Ilalotha" by Clark Ashton Smith

"The Death of Ilalotha" is set in the decadent court of Queen Xantlicha, where days-long drunken sex orgies are the norm.  Queen Xantlicha murdered her husband and since has taken a series of lovers; these lovers also end up murdered when the Queen tires of them.  Her current lover, the nobleman Thulos, returns from a week away at his estate to find one of the wild parties winding down after three days.  This shindig was held to commemorate the death of the Queen's lady-in-waiting, Ilalotha--the deceased lies in the middle of the site of the festivities.  Ilalotha was one of notorious womanizer Thulos' favorite lovers before he took up with the Queen, and seeing her lying there dead reminds him of one of his and Ilalotha's little sex games--she would pretend to be asleep or dead while he made love to her.

Is Thulos hallucinating, or has he just heard Ilalotha's voice, requesting that he meet her at midnight in her tomb?  Could it be that via infernal sorceries she has faked her death--or that she might in fact be one of the undead?  The Queen, burning with jealousy, sees Thulos leaning over the corpse of Ilalotha, and requests that the nobleman meet her at midnight in the garden.  

Which rendezvous will Thulos keep?  Of our three cruel, selfish, and passionate characters, which if any will live to see the morning?  

Thumbs up for this great little story of murder, sex and sorcery.  Smith offers not only a solid eerie suspense plot but striking images, effective metaphors, and generally skillful wordsmithery.  

One of Smith's tales of the far future continent of Zothique, "The Death of Ilalotha" can be found in many languages in a stack of Smith collections as well as horror and science fiction anthologies.  

"McGovern's Obsession" by August Derleth  

Derleth has laid some clunkers on us over the years of this blog's existence, but here we have a successful little piece I can sincerely recommend.

One of these middle-class British guys who has a manservant and spends time at a club, name of McGovern, moves into a new house; it is a comfortable place, but has a strange, disturbing, atmosphere.  One day Mac is doing some mundane paperwork and his hand suddenly writes out, automatically, indifferent to his will, a long passage in a woman's handwriting, a sort of fragment of a wife's account of a disastrous marriage full of adultery and abuse.  

Some investigations and another episode of automatic writing follow.  Big revelations as the story draws to a close include Mac's arm seizing a hammer and bashing a hole in the wall to reveal a gruesome clue, and in the climax Mac's arm is again possessed by the abused wife as he fights the abusive husband, her spirit pursuing justice and revenge.

Much better than Derleth's average; "McGovern's Obsession" is not nearly as well-written as Smith's "The Death of Ilalotha," but the style doesn't get in the way of the plot or waste your time (remember how Derleth hamstrung himself with unnecessary scenes and plot complications in "The Wind from the River"?--he doesn't commit those blunders this time, thank the Elder Gods), and that plot is actually pretty good.  Finding yourself writing something in someone else's voice, totally unbidden, is a pretty cool horror story idea.  So, kudos to Derleth.

"McGovern's Obsession" would be reprinted in a few Derleth collections and a 1970 French anthology.

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One very good and one quite good story today, both with a little something something for you sex fetishists and gorehounds out there.  Let's hope when we read Hamilton's contribution to this issue next time we find it lives up to the standard set by Smith and Derleth!