1932 Weird Tales by Edmond Hamilton, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth and David H. Keller

One of my favorite weird stories is Clark Ashton Smith's "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis," which was first published in the May 1932 issue of Weird Tales.  (I expressed my love for this classic tale of exploration, terror, and possession on the red planet Mars back in 2019.)  Along with Smith's name in the table of contents of that 1932 issue of the unique magazine we see a bunch of other familiar names--why don't we check out stories by Edmond Hamilton, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth and David H. Keller that were experienced by horror fans alongside "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis"?  I'll be reading the versions of the stories that appeared in that May 1932 magazine via the scan of it available at the internet archive, though all four of the stories we are talking about today can be found in book form in one place or another. 

"The Terror Planet" by Edmond Hamilton

It took 81 years for "The Terror Planet" to appear in book form, but it finally did so in 2013 in Volume Four of Haffner Press's The Collected Edmond Hamilton.  We can surmise from this that "The Terror Planet" didn't exactly set the world on fire, but we can't let that stop us from reading it--maybe it is an overlooked gem.

For years the scientific establishment (jerks!) has been ridiculing astronomer Robert Hunt's theory that Uranus is habitable.  But in the same way that I, MPorcius, am capable not only of washing the dishes here at MPorcius headquarters, but also do the laundry and swiffer the floors, Hunt is not only a forward-thinking astronomer, but also a physicist and engineer of a revolutionary caliber.  He has figured out a way to bend and focus "the lines of radiated gravitational force" and has built the machine that can do it.  By affixing this machine to an airtight steel bell, like a diving bell, Hunt has created a vehicle with which to travel between planets.

At least that is the way he puts it.  The scientific world is full of rivalries and interpersonal strife, and there is another scientist, Harker Crail, who helped Hunt with his space-bell.  Hunt kicked Crail off the project when Crail not only wanted to make money off the device (heaven forbid!) but started making time with Hunt's slender dark-haired sister Jean!  We certainly don't want men who are distracted by a desire for money and sex working on our scientific projects now, do we?

The fourth character in this drama is our narrator, Devlin.  Hunt is planning to head to Uranus tonight and spend a few days there collecting proof that every 12-year-old comedian's favorite planet is habitable, so he wired his old university pal Devlin to come by to look after Jean while he is gone.  (Rob, why don't you let this chick run her own god-damned life for ten seconds?)  Anyway, as we readers expected, Crail shows up with a pistol to steal the space-bell and in the ensuing fracas all four of these goofs end up in the space-bell as it hurtles to Uranus.  The rushed takeoff knocks everybody unconscious, and they don't wake up until they are on the surface of Uranus! 

On Uranus they have Edgar Rice Burroughs-style adventures.  Reminding us that Hamilton loves to write about evolution, and reminding us of the planet Althar in his superior space opera The Star of Life, and reminding us a little of Burroughs's own Chessmen of Mars, Uranus is inhabited by three distinct races of humans, all descended from the same basic stock.  One group focused on the intellect above all else and have evolved into creatures with big heads and tiny impotent bodies, while another group has focused on physical development and evolved into a horde of savage quadrupeds.  A third group dedicated to balance still looks and acts like ordinary people like you and me.  Hunt, Devlin, Jean and Crail get mixed up in the endless war between the beast-man horde and the city-dwelling balanced people; the balanced men have aircraft and an effective weapons system that shoots acid, but when Crail becomes leader of the beast-men his scientific expertise is enough to give these hairy brutes a decisive advantage.  To save the balanced men, Devlin acts as ambassador to the aloof brain-men, who come to the rescue with their irresistible weaponry.  Devlin kills Crail in hand-to-hand combat, and the three surviving Earthers return to mother Terra, where we are led to believe that Devlin and Jean will get married.  

This is a routine but successful little adventure story; Hamilton is a pro at this sort of thing.  I guess maybe we should call it acceptable filler, though Hamilton does try to mix up the formula a bit by including novel propulsion systems and weapons (the brain-men hypnotize all the beast-men into committing suicide, for example) instead of just relying on the standard issue rockets and ray guns.        

"The Horror from the Mound" by Robert E. Howard

One of the many places "The Horror from the Mound" has been reprinted is in the 2005 collection People of the Dark, the third volume of Wildside Press's The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard.  In his introduction to People of the Dark, fellow Texan Joe R. Lansdale talks about how Howard's work strongly reflects the culture of the Lone Star State: "...no matter how wild the story, how bizarre the idea, or what location he claimed for it, I assure you, Howard was always writing about Texas and Texans."  Lansdale particularly points to "The Horror from the Mound," a favorite of his, as exhibiting such "hallmarks" of Howard's fiction, and of the people of Texas, as self-reliance, courage and confidence.

(Lansdale in this intro also compares Howard to Edgar Rice Burroughs and suggests that something Howard wrote that appears in the paperback collection Wolfshead inspired him to quit college and "make my own way by my wits, doing work of my choosing...."  Lansdale's is a pretty interesting little essay that fans of Howard and Lansdale should read if they have the chance.  I borrowed an electronic version of People of the Dark from a library in Ohio to which I still have electronic access even though I've lived in Maryland for like three years now.) 

Steve Brill is a cowboy who decided to take up farming, but, thanks to bad weather, his farm is a disaster and he's got money troubles.  There is an Indian burial mound on the property he is leasing, and, despite the dire warnings of Lopez, his Mexican neighbor, Brill decides to bust into the mound to see if there is anything of value in there.  Howard tells us that Texas cowboys "live by impulse," so Brill wastes no time getting to work even though the day is almost over--he starts plying his pick and shovel even though the sun is setting.  

Brill is half done digging into the tomb when it gets so dark he decides to go get a lantern.  When he gets back he finds the tomb has been opened and is empty!  No doubt his Mexican neighbor (Brill calls him a "Greaser" and a "Spig") stole the treasure while Brill wasn't looking!  All that talk of a curse was just an effort to deter Brill from getting at the treasure!  Brill heads over to Lopez's hut, and there his night of terror truly begins, the night during which Brill will learn the astonishing and horrifying truth of the mound from Lopez and be forced to fight for his life against no ordinary foe.

This is a good action-horror story, with satisfying suspense and a good, characteristically Howardian, climactic fight to the death.  We've all read and seen a billion vampire stories, but somehow this one manages to hold the reader's attention and feel fresh and exciting.  Lansdale is right to favor it; as I recall, I also concurred with his high opinion of Robert Bloch's "The Animal Fair"--it seems that Joe. R. Lansdale has good taste!     

"The Horror From the Mound" is included in four different paperback printings of Wolfshead. The Lancer editions have Frazetta covers and an introduction which strongly impressed Joe R. Lansdale that consists of text from a letter Howard wrote to H. P. Lovecraft; the Bantam edition has a Lehr cover and an essay by Robert Bloch in which Bloch compares Howard's work to the theories of Carl Jung

"The Last Magician" by David H. Keller

Weird Tales readers loved "The Last Magician;" according to Sam Moskowitz's research, it was the most popular story in the issue, receiving 26 positive notices from readers ("Vaults of Yoh-Vombis"  only received 25.)  It looks like it has never been anthologized, though, just reprinted in Keller collections produced by small presses.

The bulk of "The Last Magician" is kind of tedious, a long-winded story with poor pacing that appeals to the self-importance and persecution complex of the cognitive elite who feel superior to, resentful of, and underappreciated by, the masses of normies.  Honestly, it feels a little childish.  Fiction in general, and SF in particular, often consists of wish fulfillment fantasies, but "The Last Magician" is more obvious and less artful than most such indulgences.

A young wizard, age 30, returns to the seaside castle of his master, age 90, to tell a tale of how ungrateful the world has been to him and his fellows.  The old wizard trained a Brotherhood of twenty-one men in the ways of white magic, and they went out into the world and did wonderful things, improving the economy and everybody's life.  But envious merchants, jealous priests, and corrupt rulers conspired to capture and torture to death twenty of the white wizards and their families--only this guy managed to escape, after seeing his wife killed and having one of his hands chopped off.

The master wizard explains that it was ever thus!  He tells the tedious story of how, before the birth of Man, the world used to be ruled by colossal behemoth monsters, monsters hundreds of miles long!  When they died out they were succeeded by still huge but somewhat smaller monsters.  When they died out, beasts like cave bears, mammoths, and saber-toothed cats roamed the Earth.  The first humans came down from the trees at the same time, and had to fight an endless war with the bears and cats, spending most of their time hiding in caves from these ferocious beasts.  The bears and cats would have exterminated the human race if it had not been for the first wizards, who taught mankind how to kill the beasts!  But did mankind appreciate the invaluable service provided by the selfless smarties?  No!  All through history manipulative priests and the ignorant masses have hunted down and oppressed the smart people who give and give and never get anything in return, just abuse!  Sixty years ago a mob of witch hunters even killed the master's own wife!  Today almost no wizards survive because of this persecution.  

This ridiculous and tendentious history seems to take forever for the master wizard to relate--Keller spends a particularly large volume of ink describing how the wizards made life-sized model bears and used them to train their fellow cave men in bear anatomy so they would know the best place to jab a bear with a spear.  (Keller's story actually reminds me of The Kinks' brilliant spoof of the self importance of educators, "Education," which describes the miraculous effect of education on a cave man.)  These model bears lead to the fortuitous discovery of the principles behind the voodoo doll.

In the story's ending we see the various silly elements of the master's history come together.  You see, the country where the Brotherhood of Twenty-One were murdered lies on one of those ancient hundred-mile-long monsters, and said leviathan is not dead, it is merely resting!  The master makes a three-dimensional map of the monster out of dirt and twigs and so forth, and then, by poking and prodding it, disturbs the sleep of the behemoth, so that it shifts, causing earthquakes that destroy the corrupt politicians, the jealous priests and the stupid masses of the ungrateful country.  The master sends his pupil away to another land, and then kills the monster, totally destroying the region and himself--the master goes to heaven to be with his long dead wife.

A story to warm the heart of every nerd who has ever been called names and dreamnt of exterminating the human race in revenge.  

"The Last Magician" is ambitious, and an interesting artifact that perhaps provides insight into the psychology of Keller himself and speculative fiction fans in general, but it is not what I would call a good story.  There is something so remarkable about it, however, that I don't regret reading it...I guess I am giving "The Last Magician" an "acceptable" rating.                 

"The Bishop Sees Through" by August Derleth 

This is a trifling little story, competent but very slight, I guess written to fill space in the magazine.  It has only been reprinted once, in the 2009 collection "Who Shall I Say is Calling?" and Other Stories. 

The Bishop's chauffer is driving him down the coast road in a ferocious rainstorm to visit the Count.  Visibility is so poor the driver gets lost and stops by a Georgian house to ask directions.  The Bishop gamely goes to the door and is greeted by a butler, who warns him not to take the coast road, as it has been washed out near the Count's, and gives directions to an alternate route.

On his friend's arrival, the Count tells the Bishop he knows of no landslide.  Later, during their visit, somebody phones to warn the Count about the landslide--it seems that that butler, somehow, knew about the landslide before it happened and saved the Bishop's (and the chauffer's) life!  The Count believes in ghosts and the second sight and so on, and thinks this an example of a paranormal phenomenon, but the Bishop is a skeptic.  On the way home he has his chauffer stop at the Georgian house so he can ask the butler how he knew about the landslide earlier than anybody else, but there is no house--where it sat earlier in the evening is only a Georgian ruin!

Acceptable.

**********

The Howard story is quite good, and the Hamilton and Derleth pieces, while routine, are successful.  The Keller story has many problems, but is certainly memorable and noteworthy.  Considering that it also includes the very good "Vaults of Yoh-Vombis," you'd have to say this is a pretty good issue of Weird Tales.