Weird Tales, Dec' '37: Counselman, Hamilton, and D Wandrei

Let's check out the December 1937 issue of beloved and influential speculative fiction magazine Weird Tales.  We've already read the story by Robert Bloch in this number of the magazine of the bizarre and unusual, "Fane of the Black Pharoah," but there are still stories by our pal Edmond Hamilton and cofounder of Arkham House Donald Wandrei to read.  Two stories seems a little light for a blog post, so let's read a story by an author new to us, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, a woman whose work was well-received by Weird Tales readers--her story "Three Marked Pennies" was the reader favorite from the August 1934 issue.  I do this with some trepidation because the wikipedia page on Counselman suggests her horror stories were meant to be funny instead of actually scary, but we'll give her a chance anyway.

"The Black Stone Statue" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman 

This is one of those stories in which the meat of the tale lies beneath layers of frame story.  The text of "The Black Stone Statue" comes to us in the form of a letter from an artist to the staff of a Boston art museum.  If you have ever met any artists, you will not be surprised to hear that the letter starts off with a lot of histrionic blather about being unappreciated, living in poverty, and contemplating suicide.  This guy even has what the kids call "imposter syndrome!"  Then the artist, a sculptor, tells the story of how he met an explorer in a New York flop house; the explorer then takes over the role of narrator.  

In a Brazilian jungle the explorer discovered an alien monster, a blob like a foot across, the touch of which turns anything to black stone.  Counselman describes the explorer's adventures in the jungle and return to America with the monster, and then the sculptor takes back the narrative, and we learn the crimes he has committed in pursuit of fame, the guilt he suffers, and his plans to destroy himself.

"The Black Stone Statue" is well-written and I like the plot, and if it is meant to be funny, the humor is subtle enough to not ruin the horror/adventure aspects of the tale.  Thumbs up!  Counselman has dozens of stories listed at isfdb; maybe I should read more of her work.

Donald Wollheim in 1952 reprinted "The Black Stone Statue" in his Avon Science Fiction Reader, and in 1964 it was included in the Counselman collection Half in Shadow.  In our own 21st century "The Black Stone Statue" has been included in anthologies of weird stories by women.

"Child of Atlantis" by Edmond Hamilton 

David and Christa Russell are newlyweds, on their honeymoon voyage aboard their yacht out of Bermuda.  As if by magic, the treacherous rocky coast of a forested island suddenly appears before them and they are shipwrecked!  The lovebirds are separated, and David meets a bunch of men who tell him that the island is rendered invisible by the immortal "Master" who inhabits the clifftop castle in the center of the island, and they and several score other castaways eke out a parlous existence in a makeshift village.  Periodically, the Master's hypnotic power draws a man into the castle, never to be seen again.  Also, any woman cast ashore on the cursed island becomes the property of the man strong enough to keep her!

David has to fight the "simian Irishman" Red O'Reilly, a gun runner, for Christa; beating O'Reilly earns David the redhead's respect.  David rallies the castaways and leads abortive efforts to escape the island and then to assault the castle, and he and Christa end up in the Master's throne room, where we learn what we already knew from the story's title and illustration--the Master is a robot built by the people of lost Atlantis thousands of years ago.  This renegade AI destroyed the civilization of its creators, but is no match for David--as the arrogant droid expires it sets in motion the sinking of its island, and David, Christa and a few castaways barely escape.

An entertaining little caper.  According to isfdb, "Child of Atlantis" would have to wait until 2021 to see print again, when the people at DMR books put out their Hamilton collection, The Avenger from Atlantis.

"Uneasy Lie the Drowned" by Donald Wandrei

This tale has reappeared in 1965 and 1997 Wandrei collections, as well as the 1997 anthology 100 Fiendish Little Frightmares.

"Uneasy Lie the Drowned" is a short piece, just four pages, consisting of well-rendered descriptions of the weather, the water, and an animated corpse that rises from a lake to attack a man in a canoe.  Morse was fated to fight to the death with LeRoy, but LeRoy died in an accident, drowning in a lake, before they even met.  But when Morse, alone in a canoe, paddles over LeRoy's final resting place, destiny asserts itself and as a storm breaks over the Minnesota lake, LeRoy and Morse have their fated deadly meeting.  

A good little horror story; I like it.  

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Three fun stories full of uncanny beings, violence, and death, each worth the time of the horror fan.

Stay tuned for more Weird Tales here at MPorcius Fiction Log, and, until then, keep away from the water!