The Fantasy Fan, January 1934<br />The Fans' Own Magazine by Various (reading diary TXT) 📖

"The 13th Murder," refers to Amazing Stories and Weird Tales as "detective and mystery fiction"—and they ring Saturn!

That the story, "Warriors of Space," featured in the first issue of Science Wonder Stories, was a sequel to "The World in the Balance," in an old Argosy.

That Hugo Gernsback conducted a contest in Science & Invention to obtain a name for his projected magazine—named Amazing Stories after the winner was announced.

That P. Schuyler Miller had a B.S. and an M.S. degree before he was 21.

MY SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION

by Forrest J. Ackerman

Part Five

More for my own satisfaction than anything else, is the second part of this last division of my collection; "stills." These are scenes from a score of fantasy pictures ranging in size from 5" × to 11" × 14", and in subjects from prehistoric monsters of 10,000,000 years ago to exploring interplanetary parties of the future. There are many scenes from "Metropolis" of the vast, shining electricity, of the inside furnishings of the buildings, of the costumes of the people of that time; and there are pictures of the machinery to run the city, the underground world, the robotrix, the televisors. From "King Kong" I have 9 stills: a brontosaurus, an allosaur about to eat a man, Kong on exhibition in New York, in the jungle with the girl, smashing in a building, atop the Empire State, etc.

Secured from 'Frankenstein' are pictures of the monster, and his making in the laboratory. "Just Imagine" offers scenes of heaven-scraped New York in 1980, of the rocket for Mars, of the nifty little earthplanes. I have seven interesting pictures from "The Most Dangerous Game." Laboratories and the death ray of "The Mask of Fu-Manchu" are included. From Wells' "Island of Lost Souls" there are photos of the evoluted animals of a hundred thousand years hence; ape-men, the panther-woman, wolf-creatures, etc. "High Treason" offers numerous stills: television, the European city, war in 1940, a dance hall of seven years ahead, the English Channel sub-sea express, a broadcasted trial, and more. "The Mummy" is shown returning to life, prehistoric monsters from "The Mystery of Life" are present. Machinery, experiments, scientists—all from the stf-detective tale, "Doctor X." I also have several stills from "By Rocket to the Moon," such as those showing the model rocket and its trip—also pictures of Mars, Saturn, the end of the world, and an ethership from "Our Heavenly Bodies" a scene from "The Lost World," "The Stellar Express," and many others.

[In part six, next month, Mr. Ackerman concludes his interesting article.]

HOW TO COLLECT FANTASY FICTION

by Julius Schwartz

Part Five—Conclusion

Fantasy booklets have appeared at lesser intervals. Amazing Stories put out Landell Bartlet's "Vanguard of Venus" in 1928. Gernsback has put out 18 science fiction booklets, of which only the last six are now in print. He likewise issued a reprint of Garret Smith's "Between Worlds". Mimeographed booklets were put out by Carl Swanson (Edmond Hamilton's "The Metal Giants", a reprint) and by the Fantasy Fiction Publications ("Guests of the Earth" by Hugh Langley). The Arra Printers have put out A. Merritt's "Thru the Dragon Glass," "The Cavemen of Venus," "The Price of Peace," and Dr. Keller's "Wolf Hollow Bubbles."

This article wouldn't be complete without mention of the hard-covered fantasies. It's a hopeless task to try and muster even a tenth of all the fantasy books. The best way to go about it, however, is to "haunt" the second-hand book stores and scrutinize any book whose title sounds promising or inviting.

There's one tantalizing feature connected with the collection of fantastic fiction: your collection will Never be complete! But this misfortune has one commendable merit. The collector's interest in Fantasy fiction will never wane.

The End

SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE

Part Four

by H. P. Lovecraft

(copyright 1927, by W. Paul Cook)

II The Dawn of the Horror Tale

As may naturally be expected of a form so closely connected with primal emotion, the horror tale is as old as human thought and speech themselves.

Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races, and is crystalized in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. It was, indeed, a prominent feature of the elaborate ceremonial magic, with its rituals for the evocation of demons and spectres which flourished from prehistoric times, and which reached its highest development in Egypt and the Semetic nations. Fragments like the Book of Enoch and the Claviculae of Solomon well illustrate the power of the weird over the ancient Eastern mind, and upon such things were based enduring systems and traditions, whose echoes extend obscurely even to the present time. Touches of this transcendental fear are seen in classic literature and there is evidence of its still greater emphasis in a balled literature which paralleled the classic stream, but vanished for lack of a written medium. The Middle Ages, steeped in fanciful darkness, gave it an enormous impulse toward expression; and East and West alike were busy preserving and amplifying the dark heritage, both of random folklore and of academically formulated magic and cabalism, which had descended to them. Witch, werewolf, vampire, and ghoul brooded ominously on the lips of bard and grandam, and needed but little encouragement to take the final step across the boundary that divides the chanted tale or song from the formal literary composition. In the Orient, the weird tale tended to assume a gorgeous colouring and sprightliness which almost transmuted it into sheer phantasy. In the West, where the mystical Teuton had cone down from his black Boreal forests and the Celt remembered strange sacrifices in Druidic groves, it assumed a terrible intensity and convincing seriousness of atmosphere which doubled the force of its half-told, half-hinted horrors.

Much of the power of Western horror-lore was undoubtedly due to the hidden but often suspected presence of a hideous cult of nocturnal worshipers whose strange customs—descended from pre-Aryan and pre-agricultural times when a squat race of Mongoloids roved over Europe with their flocks and herds—were rooted in the most revolting fertility-rites of immemorial antiquity. This secret religion, stealthily handed down amongst peasants for thousands of years despite the outward reign of the Druidic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian faiths in the regions involved, was marked by wild "Witches' Sabbaths" in lonely woods and atop distant hills on Walpurgis Night and Hallowe'en, the traditional breeding-seasons of the goats and sheep and cattle; and became the source of vast riches of sorcery legend, besides provoking extensive witchcraft prosecutions of which the Salem affair forms the chief American example. Akin to it in essence, and perhaps connected with it in fact, was the frightful secret system of inverted theology or Satan-worship which produced such horrors as the famous "Black Mass"; whilst operating toward the same end we may note the activities of those whose aims were somewhat more scientific or philosophical—the astrologers, cabbalists, and alchemists of the Albertus Magnus or Raymond Lully type, with whom such rude ages invariably abound. The prevalence and depth of the medieval horror-spirit in Europe, intensified by the dark despair which waves of pestilence brought, may be fairly gauged by the grotesque carvings slyly introduced into much of the finest later Gothic ecclesiastical work of the time; the demoniac gargoyles of Notre Dame and Mont St. Michel being among the most famous specimens. And throughout the period, it must be remembered, there existed amongst educated and uneducated alike, a most unquestioning faith in every form of the supernatural; from the gentlest of Christian doctrines to the most monstrous morbidities of witchcraft and black magic. It was from no empty background that the Renaissance magicians and alchemists—Nostradamus, Trithemius, Dr. John Dee, Robert Fludd, and the like—were born.

In this fertile soil were nourished types and characters of somber myth and legend which persist in weird literature to this day, more or less disguised or altered by modern technique. Many of then were taken from the earliest oral sources, and form part of mankind's permanent heritage. The shade which appears and demands the burial of its bones, the demon lover who comes to bear away his still living bride, the death-fiend or psychopomp riding the night-wind, the man-wolf, the sealed chamber, the deathless sorcerer—all those may be found in that curious body of mediaeval lore which the late Mr. Baring-Gould so effectively assembled in book form. Wherever the mystic Northern blood was strongest, the atmosphere of the popular tales became most intense; for in the Latin races there is a touch of basic rationality which denies to even their strangest superstitions many of the overtones of glamour so characteristic of our own forest-born and ice-fostered whisperings.

(continued next month)

The Sacred Bird

Annals of the Jinns—4

by R. H. Barlow

There appeared one day in the market-place of Ulathia a most peculiar fowl which fell exhausted from the skies. Its plumage was of brilliant hue, and despite its confusion, a wise and knowing look was seen within the orange eyes. After resting a moment, it fluttered about the square, entering the various shops in a proprietary manner and finally settled in that of a sweetmeat dealer. Soon all the tradesfolk hurried across the cobble-stones to see this gaudy visitor and to feed it many tid-bits. Not in the least bothered by its admiring audience, it permitted its head to be scratched and petted as it ate.

In time, the news spread through the thatched houses to the ears of the Imperial Council, all of which laid down their pens and came in a body to view it. It was discovered by them greedily eating a preserved orange-rind, a meal varied by occasional pecks at a nut. Having already devoured odds and ends of all sorts, it was no longer hungry, and even as they panted in, it fell asleep. When the crowd drew aside to admit the rotund Council, it complained loudly.

"Gwarn arf 'n chase y'self!" commanded the half-awake bird. "Gwarn arf," it repeated, fluttering its wings and adjusting for a nice nap. It then uttered a rasping incoherency and dozed off placidly. The people drew back whispering excitedly. "A demon!" averred one. This brought a chorus of dissention among the others. "An angel…. Just a trick…. Who ever heard of a bird talking?… A magician in disguise…. What has happened?… Still thy tongue, neighbor…."

… The head of the Council, a gray-beard notoriously superstitious, cleared his threat and a silence fell over all present. "My friends," he gurgled happily, "My dear friends and fellow citizens! This is an occasion of undoubted significance in the annals of our fair city, equalled only by that of, as you doubtless will realize, early in the reign of—rather; to continue; In other words, my dear friends," he began over, unable to sustain the sentence any longer, "To make it clear to all concerned, this is, I believe, and no one, I hope, would contradict me, I have occasion to think—" Here his voice lowered to a whisper and ended in a triumphant shout, "A Messenger sent to guide us!" He leered cheerfully at the mob. "Therefore, let us convey it in state to the City Hall to rule us as it sees fit!"

Which was forthwith done amid much celebration, and the chattering of the escaped parrot from that day guided the fortunes of the city of Ulathia, interpreted by the Ruler and his Council as they desired.