Pulp Fantasy Library: The Sorcerer's Jewel

Nowadays, Robert Bloch is best known for his authorship of the 1959 novel, Psycho, memorably made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock the following year. However, Bloch had a long and successful career as a writer of pulp stories, starting "The Feast in the Abbey," which appeared in the January 1935 of Weird Tales. Much of his earliest work is strongly influenced by that of H.P. Lovecraft, whom he considered his mentor and friend. Though the two writers never met, they began a correspondence in 1933 that would last until HPL's death in 1937, when Bloch was only 20 years old.

A great deal of Bloch's Lovecraftian stories could, in charity, be called pastiches. Like August Derleth, whom Bloch did meet (largely because they lived only about 100 miles apart), Bloch's juvenile writings include lots of unnecessary allusions and references to Lovecraft's various alien gods and entities. Bloch was particularly fond of Nyarlathotep, writing several stories that feature the Crawling Chaos or his mortal agents. Flawed though they are, many of these stories nevertheless feature intriguing concepts and situations that provide glimpses into the writer Bloch would one day become.

One Bloch's better early stories in my opinion is "The Sorcerer's Jewel," which first appeared in the February 1939 issue of Strange Stories (which also featured another tale by Bloch, "The Curse of the House," in the same issue). To some degree, that's because the story is only tangentially connected to the Cthulhu Mythos and that gives Bloch some space to develop his own ideas more fully. And while those ideas certainly owe a debt to Lovecraft, notably the short story, "From Beyond," Bloch makes them him own.

The story begins memorably.

By rights, I should not be telling this story. David is the one to tell it, but then, David is dead. Or is he?

That's the thought that haunts me, the dreadful possibility that in some way David Niles is still alive-in some unnatural, unimaginable way alive. That is why I shall tell the story; unburden myself of the onerous weight which is slowly crushing my mind.

David Niles, we soon learn, was a photographer, as well as the roommate of the unnamed narrator. We also learn that Niles was

a devotee of the William Mortensen school of photography. Mortensen, of course, is the leading exponent of fantasy in photography; his studies of monstrosities and grotesques are widely known. Niles believed that in fantasy, photography most closely approximated true art. The idea of picturing the abstract fascinated him; the thought that a modern camera could photograph dream worlds and blend fancy with reality seemed intriguing.

This devotion on the part of Niles is why he had chosen the narrator as his roommate: he was a student of metaphysics and the occult and could serve as his "technical advisor" as he quested discover "the soul of fantasy" through photography. Initially, Niles attempts to do this through the use of "photographic makeup" on "models whose features lent themselves to the application of gargoylian disguises." Later, he tries his hand at models crafted from clay and placed in elaborate papier-mâché sets. Both approaches disappoint him.

"I've been on the wrong track," he declared. "If I photograph things as they are, that's all I'm going to get. I build a clay set, and by Heaven, when I photograph it, all I can get is a picture of that clay set – a flat, two-dimensional thing at that. I take a portrait of a man in makeup and my result is a photo of a man in makeup. I can't hope to catch something with the camera that isn't there. The answer is – change the camera. Let the instrument do the work."

Niles then opts for another approach: the use of new camera lenses, some of which he ground himself, hoping that he might be able to see something different through their use. With time, his efforts begin to pay off, producing "startling" results.

"Splendid," he gloated. "It all seems to tie in with the accepted scientific theories, too. Know what I mean? The Einsteinian notions of coexistence; the space-time continuum ideas."

"The Fourth Dimension?" I echoed.

"Exactly. New worlds all around us-within us. Worlds we never dream of exist simultaneously with our own; right here in this spot there are other existences. Other furniture, other people, perhaps. And other physical laws. New forms, new color."

"That sounds metaphysical to me, rather than scientific," I observed. "You're speaking of the Astral Plane-the continuous linkage of existence."

Being "a skeptic, a materialist, and, above all, a scientist," Niles is quite dismissive of the narrator's occult notions, calling them "the psychological lies of dementia praecox victims." This raises the narrator's hackles. He launches first into a discussion of "crystal-gazing," the means by which "men have peered into the depths of precious stones, gazed through polished, specially cut and ground glasses, and seen new worlds." He even attempts to back up his claims by reference to the laws of optics, stating that "the phenomenon of sight has very little to do with either actual perception or the true laws of light."

The narrator offers to prove his point to Niles by visiting his friend, Isaac Voorden who has "some Egyptian crystals" once used seers for divination purposes. He proposes to then have Niles gaze into the crystals himself, where he might see things "you and your scientific ideas won't so readily explain." Unexpectedly, Niles agrees to this proposition. 

The next day, the narrator visits his Voorden's antiques shop, where he had also collected "statuettes, talismans, fetishes and other paraphernalia of wizardry." After explaining what he wanted and why, Voorden admit that he had a stone that "should prove eminently suitable."

The Star of Sechmet. Very ancient, but not costly. Stolen from the crown of the Lioness-headed Goddess during a Roman invasion of Egypt. It was carried to Rome and placed in the vestal girdle of the High-Priestess of Diana. The barbarians took it, cut the jewel into a round stone. The black centuries swallowed it.

"But it is known that Axenos the Elder bathed it in the red, yellow and blue flames, and sought to employ it as a Philosopher's Stone. With it he was reputed to have seen beyond the Veil and commanded the Gnomes, the Sylphs, the Salamanders, and the Undines. It formed part of the collection of Gilles De Rais, and he was said to have visioned within its depths the concept of Homonculus. It disappeared again, but a monograph I have mentions it as forming part of the secret collection of the Count St. Germain during his ritual services in Paris. I bought it in Amsterdam from a Russian priest whose eyes had been burned out by little gray brother Rasputin. He claimed to have divinated with it and foretold –"

I broke in again at this point. "You will cut the stone so that it may be used as a photographic lens, then," I repeated. "And when shall I have it?"

The Star of Sechmet is "the Sorcerer's Jewel" of the title and, unsurprisingly, it works every bit as well as the narrator had hoped and indeed more so – as David Niles soon finds out at the cost of his sanity and his life. 

Since I've included a link to the entire text of the story, I won't say any more about its plot. I doubt anyone familiar with this type of horror tale will be surprised by anything that occurs, but I think Bloch presents it in a compelling and enjoyable way. As I have written many times before in this space, originality is often overvalued, especially when compared to execution. I've reached the point in my life where I am rarely impressed by mere novelty and care far more about the skill with which a familiar story or concept is employed. By that criterion, "The Sorcerer's Jewel" is well worth a read. 

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Shuttered Room

After last week's review of The Fungi from Yuggoth, I found myself thinking about poor old August Derleth and the vitriol he's received over the years from admirers of H.P. Lovecraft. On many levels, I completely understand the venom directed at him. His vision of what he termed "the Cthulhu Mythos" stands in stark contrast to HPL's understanding of his own work. While Lovecraft espoused a cosmicism verging on the nihilistic, Derleth offered instead a more conventional (and pulp fiction-inspired) good versus evil philosophy, one in which brave men of erudition, armed with all manner of occult armament, go toe to toe with the alien forces of the Mythos and win. To purists, this is an unforgivable sin.

I find it difficult to disagree with the purists, simply on the level of basic reading comprehension. Derleth does not seem to have understood Lovecraft or his worldview – or, if he did, he chose to set aside that understanding, substituting in its place something he felt more suited to turning the Mythos into a money-making operation. That Derleth spent decades asserting the sole right of his publishing venture, Arkham House, to control of Lovecraft's copyrights and legacy only adds more fuel to the anti-Derlethian fire that continues to rage to this day.

Yet, for all that, I find it difficult to condemn him for the role he played in warping the popular understanding of H.P. Lovecraft and his works. As I have argued elsewhere, his pulp-inflected version of the Cthulhu Mythos deviates wildly from Lovecraft's original, almost to the point of becoming a parody of it, but, without it, I don't think, for example Call of Cthulhu would have been possible, let alone most other pop culture examples of so-called "cosmic horror." I don't think this can be reasonably disputed, though I am sure there are purists who would be willing to give up Call of Cthulhu or Hellboy or Quake in exchange for a world free from Derleth's abhorrent misinterpretations of Grandpa Theobald's unwavering cosmicism.

I am not one of them, which is why I still retain some fondness for some of Derleth's Mythos fiction, including his many "posthumous collaborations," like "The Shuttered Room," which first appeared in a 1959 anthology of the same name. The story concerns the return of Abner Whateley to his hometown of Dunwich after years away "at the Sorbonne, in Cairo, in London." Abner, we learn, was different from the other Whateleys in that, from early childhood, he wanted to get as far away from the lands of his ancestors as possible. He feared "the wild, lonely country" of his birth and his "grim old Grandfather Whateley in his ancient house attached to the mill along the Miskatonic." Only family business could bring him back.

And nothing was stranger than that Abner Whateley should come back from his cosmopolitan way of life to heed his grandfather's adjurations for property which was scarcely worth the time and trouble it would take to dispose of it. He reflected ruefully that such relatives as still lived in or near Dunwich might well resent his return in their curious inward growing and isolated rustication which had kept of the Whateleys in this immediate region, particularly since the shocking events which had overtaken the country branch of the family on Sentinel Hill.

If this set-up seems all too familiar, it's because it is. Leaving aside Derleth's lifelong obsession with "The Dunwich Horror," the HPL story that provided him with the foundation stones for his interpretation of the Mythos, the set-up of "The Shuttered Room" is one we've some many times before in Lovecraft's stories – and Derleth's imitations of them. From "The Festival" and "The Call of Cthulhu" to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and many others, a recurring plot element of Lovecraft's work is the return of a protagonist to the home of his ancestors or relations that leads to unexpected (and frequently unwelcome) revelations about the world and himself. I can't really fault Derleth for making use of it here, since he was only following in the footsteps of his friend and mentor. Nevertheless, its use does make it clear that "The Shuttered Room" is yet another pastiche rather than something more original.

Abner his inherited his grandfather's old home upon his death. Once he arrives there, he finds an envelope, inside of which is a letter written in "spidery script" that explains why his grandfather, Luther, had insisted he come back to Dunwich after so many years away.

Grandson:

When you read this, I will be some months dead. Perhaps more, unless they find you sooner than I believe they will. I have left you a sum of money – all I have and die possessed of – which is in the bank at Arkham under your name now. I do this not alone because you are my one and only grandson but because among all the Whateleys – we are an accursed clan, my boy – you have gone forth into the world and gathered to yourself learning sufficient to permit you to look upon all things with an inquiring mind ridden neither by the superstition of ignorance nor the superstition of science. You will undersrand my meaning.

It is my wish that at least the mill section of this house be destroyed. Let it be taken apart, board by board. If anything in it lives, I adjure you, solemnly to kill it. No matter how small it may be. No matter what form it may have, for it seem to you human it will beguile you and endanger your life and God knows how many others. 

Heed me in this.

The letter reminds Abner of how, when he was a boy, his "enigmatic, self-righteous" grandfather had reacted strongly at the mention of his mother's sister.

The old man had looked at him out of eyes that were basilisk and answered, "Boy, we do not speak of Sarah here."

Aunt Sarey had offended the old man in some dreadful way – dreadful, at least, to that firm disciplinarian – for from that time beyond even Abner Whateley's memory, his aunt had only been the name of a woman, who was his mother's older sister, and who was locked in the big room over the mill and kept forever invisible within those walls, behind the shutters nailed to her windows. It had been forbidden both Abner and his mother even to linger before the door of that shuttered room, though on one occasion Abner had crept up to the door and put his ear against it to listen to the snuffling and whimpering sounds that went on inside, as from some large person, and Aunt Sarey, he had decided must be as large as a circus fat lady, for she devoured so much, judging by the great platters of food – chiefly meat, which she must have prepared herself, since so much of it was raw – carried to the room twice daily by old Luther Whateley himself, for there were no servants in that house, and had not been since the time Abner's mother had married, after Aunt Sarey had come back, strange and mazed, from a visit to distant kin in Innsmouth.

 And there it is! One of the reasons I chose to write about "The Shuttered Room" is because it's a great example of one of Derleth's great flaws: his fanboyish desire to find a way to connect the disparate parts of Lovecraft's works into a unified whole. Hence, in this story, he finds a way to link "The Dunwich Horror" to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" – in addition to extensive borrowings, references, and allusions to many, many HPL stories and ideas. "The Shuttered Room" is thus a showcase of Derleth's almost adolescent adoration of Lovecraft.

And yet, for all of that, it's not a terrible story. Indeed, it's cleverer than one might imagine, since the story's revelations about Abner's grandfather, Aunt Sarey, and why the mill section of the house must be destroyed are not quite what you might expect. Indeed, Derleth almost comes close to offering an inversion of and commentary upon "The Dunwich Horror." At the very least, this isn't a simple retelling of his favorite Lovecraft tale, which sets its apart from much of his other contributions to the Mythos.

This isn't to say that "The Shuttered Room" is a great work, but it's nevertheless engaging in a predictable sort of way – the literary equivalent of "comfort food." It's also the kind of story that hits home, I think, just how much Call of Cthulhu and contemporary "Lovecraftian" media owes to Derleth. "The Shuttered Room" is not a story HPL himself could have written, but it could easily be the basis for a CoC scenario, an episode of The X-Files, or a Stuart Gordon movie. Sometimes, that's enough.

Retrospective: The Fungi from Yuggoth

I find it a great irony that, while Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu has undoubtedly played an outsized role in the increased visibility and recognition of the works of H.P. Lovecraft in popular culture, the game itself owes more to August Derleth's idiosyncratic interpretation of HPL's Mythos than it does to the views of the Old Gent himself. This is no criticism, just a statement of facts as I look back on more than four decades' worth of Call of Cthulhu adventures and campaigns, starting with Shadows of Yog-Sothoth in 1982. Except for a handful of exceptions, Chaosium's vision differs only in details from that of Derleth's lurid, melodramatic The Trail of Cthulhuhe Trail of Cthulhu, in which scholar-adventurer Laban Shrewsbury battles the forces of the Mythos (and its human toadies) across time and space.

I was reminded of this recently when I re-read Keith Herber's eight-chapter campaign, The Fungi from Yuggoth. First published in 1984, the book carries the subtitle "Desperate Adventures Against the Brotherhood." This is both a reference to its primary antagonists, the Brotherhood of the Beast, and a signal that, like Shadows of Yog-Sothoth before it, The Fungi from Yuggoth is more of a Mythos-tinged Republic serial than a subtle evocation of Lovecraft's cosmicism. I reiterate: this is no criticism. However, I feel it's important to deflate the all-too-common pretension that Call of Cthulhu has ever been a particularly faithful adaptation of the worldview of Lovecraft's tales to the roleplaying medium, as products like this one make clear.

The premise of the campaign is that, in the 18th century B.C., an Egyptian priest called Nophru-Ka – not to be confused with the dark pharaoh Nephren-Ka, who is apparently a different person altogether – uttered a cryptic prophecy that was eventually preserved in the Necronomicon. As interpreted by the madmen who founded the secret society known as the Brotherhood of the Beast, the prophecy spoke of a time when a descendant of Nophru-Ka, who would usher in a new world ruled by the beings of the Mythos. At the start of the campaign (mid-1928), the Brotherhood long ago found Nophru-Ka's descendant, Edward Chandler, whom they have been grooming for his prophesied role since he was a child. Naturally, it's up to the Investigators to prevent this.

In typical Call of Cthulhu – and cliffhanger serial – fashion, preventing the ascendancy of Edward Chandler requires the Investigators to travel across the globe, searching for clues, artifacts, and allies to aid them in their efforts. Over the course of the campaign's eight chapters, the Investigators travel from New York to places as different as Boston, Transylvania(!), Egypt, Peru, and San Francisco, with an optional stopover at the Great Library of Celaeno in the Hyades Cluster, some 150 light years away from Earth (a site invented by August Derleth in the aforementioned The Trail of Cthulhu). Along the way, they tangle with an equally diverse group of foes: gangsters, cultists, mummies, Deep One hybrids, the titular Fungi, and more. There's plenty going on in this campaign and I have no doubt whatsoever that it would be a lot of fun to play.

At the same time, The Fungi from Yuggoth, with its global conspiracy to shepherd the rise of a Mythos Antichrist, doesn't feel much like Lovecraft. There are plenty of plot elements derived from Lovecraft in its eight chapters, but they're strung together in a way that feels like more an Indiana Jones movie than something coming from the pen of HPL. As I re-read the book, I could practically hear the John Williams soundtrack and see an animated red line traveling across a globe, marking each city or location the Investigators visited in their "desperate adventures against the Brotherhood." All that's missing are the Nazis, though, since the campaign takes place in the late 1920s, that's understandable (though one of the main cultists is German).

The Fungi from Yuggoth is weapons grade Derlethium – and that's fine. As I stated at the beginning of this post, nearly every Call of Cthulhu adventure ever published, including the deservedly praised Masks of Nyarlathotep, is, at base, a pastiche of Derleth's pastiches of Lovecraft. Many of these products, including The Fungi from Yuggoth, are very well done. As roleplaying game scenarios, they're some of the best things the hobby has ever produced and I do not hesitate to recommend them. I have enjoyed Call of Cthulhu since its original release in 1981 and hope to one day get the chance to enjoy it again. 

In all those years, however, I don't believe I've ever played an adventure or a campaign that offered more than the occasional genuinely Lovecraftian moment. The rest of my experiences were of pulp adventure with a Mythos twist. That's probably for the best. I'm not sure that an "authentic" experience of Lovecraft's nihilistic cosmicism would be a lot of fun to play out at the table. Ultimately, that's probably why nearly everything Chaosium has ever published for Call of Cthulhu unintentionally looks to Derleth for its inspiration: it's just more fun. 

The Unspeakable

I've never been very fond of Deities & Demigods, though, being a TSR fanboy, I nevertheless dutifully purchased it. In my youth, the DDG sat on my bookshelf largely untouched, which is why my copy of it looks practically pristine to this day, in stark contrast to my copies of the Players Handbook, the Dungeon Masters Guide, and – especially – the Monster Manual. 

Even so, I'd occasionally flip through its pages and read random sections to see what little bits of esoterica I might find. I strongly remember the first time I noticed the following statement at the end of James Ward's preface:

Special thanks are also given to Chaosium, Inc. for permission to use the material found in the Cthulhu Mythos and the Melnibonean Mythos.

This baffled me, since there are no references to either the creations of Lovecraft or Moorcock in Deities & Demigods. What could this possibly mean? Sometime later, I learned from one of the older gamers whom I knew that there'd been some sort of "legal dispute" between TSR and Chaosium, resulting in the removal of chapters on the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi from the DDG. As you might imagine, this revelation filled me with excitement, though it wouldn't be until I was in college that I'd ever set my eyes on these expurgated chapters.

Thanks to a very kind friend, I now own a copy of the original printing of Deities & Demigods, which has probably seen more reading than my original one, largely because of the two chapters TSR removed. I suspect I've spent more time reading the Cthulhu Mythos chapter than the Melnibonean Mythos chapter and a big reason why is its downright funky art by Erol Otus. 

All of the art in this chapter is awesome, but the piece that really sticks with me is this one:

Supposedly, this depicts Hastur the Unspeakable, who is little more than a name in Lovecraft's works but was a favorite of August Derleth, who decided that Hastur was Cthulhu's "half-brother," whatever that means. The DDG entry describes Hastur as having "a scaled, elongated body, a lizard's head and maw, and taloned lizard claws. It also has 200 tentacles projecting from its body ..." I have no idea where this description comes from, since not even Derleth bothered to describe his favorite Great Old One as far as I can recall.

Regardless, there's no question it's a very striking image. I particularly like the juxtaposition of a fairly ordinary looking medieval castle with this bizarre monstrosity. I've sometimes thought it might be interesting to referee a medieval Call of Cthulhu campaign, perhaps taking inspiration from Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne series, but I've never pursued the matter seriously. If I ever do, you can be sure I'll take inspiration from this piece by Erol Otus.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Insects from Shaggai

The real appeal of many of the stories I discuss in this series isn't so much their plots or characters as their ideas. This isn't to suggest that pulp fantasy tales necessarily lack interesting plots or compelling characters. Rather, it's to emphasize that their greatest value, particularly from the perspective of roleplaying games, often lies in the author's imaginative conceptions of strange lands, weird magic, or terrifying monsters. One need not look very far into the contents of Dungeons & Dragons, for example, to find examples of ideas inspired by – if not outright stolen from – the works of fantasy and science fiction authors popular during the younger days of Dave Arneson or Gary Gygax. 

The early horror stories of Ramsey Campbell demonstrate my point quite effectively, I think. Like his fellow Brit, Michael Moorcock, Campbell began writing fiction at a very young age. His first professional sale was to Arkham House in 1962, when he was only 16 years old. This early success encouraged him to submit several more stories. Arkham House's editor, August Derleth, initially rejected them on the grounds their New England settings didn't ring true, since Campbell, a native of Liverpool, had never visited the region. Instead, he encouraged the young Campbell to rework the stories by setting them in England, leading to his development of the Severn Valley and its fictional city of Brichester. The result was the 1964 anthology, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants.

Among the best stories included in The Inhabitant of the Lake is "The Insects from Shaggai." Campbell later explained that the tale

is based on [an] entry in the Commonplace Book, or rather on my misreading of it. Lovecraft wrote "Insects or some other entities from space attack and penetrate a man's head & cause him to remember alien and exotic things – possible displacement of personality," a superb idea I rushed at so hastily that I failed to notice he hadn't meant giant insects at all ... Of all my stories, this is probably the pulpiest. As such, it has some energy, I think, but I wish I'd left the note alone until I was equipped to do it justice.

This is a very fair and indeed self-aware assessment of "The Insects from Shaggai." Campbell recognizes that its central idea, one he borrowed from Lovecraft's Commonplace Book – his notebook of story germs – is a strong one. He also recognizes that, at his young age, he wasn't quite up to the task of fleshing it out into a fully satisfying story. Yet, for all that, I still think it a story worth reading, if only for that central idea, which has stuck with me all these years and which likely served as the inspiration for at least one of my own creations.

The story itself is told from the perspective of a writer of fantasy, Ronald Shea, who "feel[s] bound to write down some explanation for [his] friends," since he "must not be alive after sunset," as his "continued existence might endanger the whole human race." This is another variation on a tried-and-true Lovecraftian formula: a narrator who wishes to explain his actions and why they were necessary to safeguard mankind, no matter how insane they might sound. When one considers that this is the work of a very young author who was attempting to imitate his literary idol, I think it's a forgivable set-up. 

While drinking at a hotel bar in Brichester, Shea is approached by a middle-aged teacher who promises to tell him "all the Severn Valley legends which might form plots of future stories." The teacher speaks of a meteorite that fell in Goatswood sometimes in the 17th century. The meteorite soon attracted the attention of the local folk, including one who discovered a metal cone "made of a grey mineral that didn't reflect, and more than thirty feet high." The cone had a "circular trapdoor on one side" and "carved reliefs" on the other. When he got near the cone, he heard "a sort of dry rustling inside," as well as "a shape crawling out of the darkness inside the trapdoor."

Shea is unimpressed with the legend's vagueness and Campbell uses this as an opportunity to mock the conventions of many Lovecraftian pastiches.

"Too vague – horrors that are too horrible for description, eh? More likely whoever thought this up didn't have the imagination to describe them when the time came."

It's a solid jab at the worst of HPL's imitators – and, honestly, some of the worst of HPL's own stories – that I can't help but think that Campbell was using it at least in part to cover for the flaws in "The Insects from Shaggai." In any case, Shea is nevertheless interested enough in the legend, vague though it is, that he seeks out more details and then sets out to look for the supposed location of the metal cone. 

Shea succeeds in finding the cone in a clearing within Goatswood – something he had not expected, given the vagueness of the legend. Equally unexpected was the fear he felt upon seeing it and hearing the "faint dry rustling sound which came from somewhere in the clearing." Not long thereafter, the circular trapdoor opened and

a shape appeared, flapping above the ground on leathery wings. The thing which flew whirring toward me was followed by a train of others, wings slapping the air at incredible speed. Even though they flew so fast, I could, with the augmented perception of terror, make out many more details than I wished. Those huge lidless eyes which stared in hate at me, the jointed tendrils which seemed to twist from the head in cosmic rhythms, the ten legs, covered with black shining tentacles and folded into the pallid underbelly, and the semi-circular ridged wings covered with triangular scales – all this cannot convey the soul-ripping horror of the shape which darted at me. I saw the three mouths of the thing move moistly, and then it was upon me.

The insect-creature flew straight into Shea's head but he "felt no impact" and, when he turned to look behind him, there was no sign of it. Yet, "the whole landscape seemed to ripple and melt, as if the lenses of [his] eyes had twisted in agonizing distortion." He then realizes that the thing "had entered [his] body and was crawling around in [his] brain." It's here that the story truly becomes interesting – or at least grapples toward being so. 

With the insect-creature somehow ensconced like a parasite within his mind, Shea experiences strange perceptions and equally strange thoughts. The young Campbell then attempts to convey the twisting, phantasmagoric experience of Shea's being a host to an Insect from Shaggai and, while the end result doesn't quite succeed, I appreciate his effort nonetheless. What the reader gets echoes the experiences of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee in Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time," as his mind travels through time in bodies other than his own. It's a potent idea and should be at once wondrous and terrifying – if it weren't for the fact that Campbell uses this as an opportunity to regale the reader with a needlessly lengthy exposition of the history of the Insects, the home planet, their worship of Azathoth, and many other details. The elaborate exposition undoubtedly pleased August Derleth, whose own Lovecraftian pastiches luxuriated in similar catalogs of otherworldly places and entities, but it does little to improve the story.

And that's a great shame. As I said at the beginning, some pulp fantasies are best appreciated for their ideas than for their plots or characters and "The Insects of Shaggai" is a prime example of this. I absolutely adore the idea of psychic parasites that employ human beings as their vehicles on Earth. Likewise, the bizarre sensations and knowledge that come with playing host to these entities is worthy of exploration, since it's a splendid way to convey the cosmicism of Lovecraft's literary vision. Unfortunately, Campbell is quite right in judging that "The Insects from Shaggai" falls quite short of the mark. Yet, for all that, it's still of genuine interest to readers for whom ideas are paramount.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Demon of the Flower

In previous posts about the stories of Clark Ashton Smith, I've sometimes mentioned contemporary criticisms of them. The claim that Smith's fiction often consists of prose poetry is a common one, followed closely by the suggestion that his tales often lack action. That was certainly August Derleth's assessment of "The Demon of the Flower" when he read a draft of it before CAS sent it to Strange Tales. He felt certain that Harry Bates, editor of the magazine, would reject it for this very reason. As it turned out, Derleth was partly mistaken. Bates initially accepted the story for publication. only to be overruled by his publisher, William Clayton. The story met the same fate when Smith submitted it to Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales. 

Eventually, "The Demon of the Flower" found favor with F. Orlin Tremaine of Astounding Stories, who published it in the December 1933 issue (note the Blue Eagle of the National Recovery Administration on the left side of the cover). While there's some truth to Derleth's assertion that the story lacks action, its central idea is powerfully evocative – so powerful that it more than compensates. In my opinion, this is true of much of Smith's oeuvre and it's the reason why I consider his yarns every bit as inspirational as those of more celebrated pulp fantasists like Howard or Lovecraft.

"The Demon of the Flower" takes place on another world, a planet called Lophai, whose plants and flowers were utterly unlike those of Earth.

Many were small and furtive, and crept viper-wise on the ground. Others were tall as pythons, rearing superbly in hieratic postures to the jeweled light. Some grew with single or dual stems that burgeoned forth into hydra heads, and some were frilled and festooned with leaves that suggested the wings of flying lizards, the pennants of faery lances, the phylacteries of a strange sacerdotalism. Some appeared to bear the scarlet wattles of dragons; others were tongued as if with black flames or the colored vapors that issue with weird writhings from out barbaric censers; and others still were armed with fleshy nets or tendrils, or with huge blossoms like bucklers perforated in battle. And all were equipped with venomous darts and fangs, all were alive, restless, and sentient.

Of all these sentient plants, the most important was the "supreme and terrible flower known as the Voorqual, in which a tutelary demon, more ancient than the twin suns, was believed to have made its immortal avatar." The Voorqual grew atop the summit of a step-pyramid in the equatorial city of Lospar, where also dwelled King Lunithi. Lunithi also served as the leader of a priesthood that served the nourishment of the Voorqual. 

This nourishment consisted first of "a compost in which the dust of royal mummies formed an essential ingredient," but it also consisted of the lifeblood of one of its priesthood, chosen each year at the summer solstice by the demon within the ancient and monstrous plant. This year, the Voorqual had chosen the priestess Nala as the sacrifice, a young woman who was to be wed to King Lunithi in a month's time. Needless to say, Lunithi was none too pleased by this turn of events and impiously begins to ponder how he "could cheat the demon of its ghastly tribute."

Amid such reflections, Lunithi remembered an old myth about the existence of a neutral and independent being known as the Occlith: a demon coeval with the Voorqual, and allied neither to man nor the flower creatures. This being was said to dwell beyond the desert of Aphom, in the otherwise unpeopled mountains of white stone above the habitat of the ophidian blossoms. In latter days no man had seen the Occlith, for the journey through Ayhom was not lightly to be undertaken. But this entity was supposed to be immortal; and it kept apart and alone, meditating upon all things but interfering never with their processes. However, it was said to have given, in earlier times, valuable advice to a certain king who had gone forth from Lospar to its lair among the white crags.

In his grief and desperation, Lunithi resolved to seek the Occlith and question it anent the possibility of slaying the Voorqual. If, by any mortal means, the demon could be destroyed, he would remove from Lophai the long-established tyranny whose shadow fell upon all things from the sable pyramid.

When the king at last comes upon the Occlith, which looked like " a high cruciform pillar of blue mineral," he prostrated himself before it and asked its counsel concerning the Voorqual. 

"It is possible," said the Occlith, "to slay the plant known as the Voorqual, in which an elder demon has its habitation. Though the flower has attained millennial age, it is not necessarily immortal: for all things have their proper term of existence and decay; and nothing has been created without its corresponding agency of death... I do not advise you to slay the plant... but I can furnish you with the information which you desire. In the mountain chasm through which you came to seek me, there flows a hueless spring of mineral poison, deadly to all the ophidian plant-life of this world..."

The Occlith went on, and told Lunithi the method by which the poison should be prepared and administered. The chill, toneless, tinkling voice concluded:

"I have answered your question. If there is anything more that you wish to learn, it would be well to ask me now."

Lunithi dared not ask any further question, but instead set off to find the poison of which the Occlith had spoken and then to return to Lospar to save his betrothed. This being a Clark Ashton Smith story, I do not think it will surprise anyone to learn that things do not go quite as the priest-king had planned.\

"The Demon of the Flower" is a short and no-nonsense story that nevertheless presents its fanciful, almost fairytale-like narrative, in lovely, hypnotic language. It's one of those stories that almost demands to be read aloud. More importantly, its central idea – a world where sentient plants ruled "and all other life existed by their sufferance" is a potent and frankly creepy one, all the more so when one reads the details of the annual choosing the Voorqual's sacrifice. It's well worth a read if you have twenty or thirty minutes to spare.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Shadow over Innsmouth

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been simultaneously reading (or, rather, re-reading) S.T. Joshi's magisterial, two-volume biography of the Old Gent, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft and Michel Houellebecq's brief but oddly compelling H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life. While the two authors don't agree about much where Lovecraft is concerned, they both regard the novella, The Shadow over Innsmouth, as very close to the pinnacle of HPL's literary output. 

There are multiple historical ironies to this assessment, starting with the fact that Lovecraft himself didn't think much of the story. In a 1931 letter to August Derleth, he claimed it "has all the defects I deplore" and that, as a result, he didn't intend to offer it for publication "for it would stand no chance of acceptance." In this, Lovecraft was at least partly correct. When Derleth surreptitiously sent a copy of Innsmouth to Weird Tales – something he had done before – editor Farnsworth Wright did indeed reject it, largely on the grounds that it was "too long to run complete in one part." 

Later, a correspondent of Lovecraft, William L. Crawford, had founded a small press through which he hoped to publish the works of some of the best writers of Weird Tales, including HPL. Crawford was very interested in The Shadow over Innsmouth, because it had not yet appeared in print anywhere else. Were he to publish it himself, it would be quite the literary coup, or so Crawford hoped. Though the book appeared in 1936 – the only book bearing Lovecraft's byline to appear while he was still alive – it sold poorly and Crawford ultimately withdrew from his grandiose publishing plans for nearly a decade afterwards.

Nevertheless, The Shadow over Innsmouth remains one of Lovecraft's most well known and celebrated works and justifiably so. The novella tells the story of an unnamed narrator who had decided to celebrate his coming of age by taking a tour of New England for "sightseeing, antiquarian, and genealogical" purposes. His ultimate destination is Arkham "whence [his] mother's family derived." However, because he cannot afford to take a train directly to Arkham, he elects instead to take a bus to Innsmouth, a town to the north and one previously unknown to him.

While waiting for the bus to arrive, the narrator learns a little of the history of Innsmouth and its people. Prior to the middle of 19th century, Innsmouth had been a thriving seaport. Then, an epidemic of mysterious origin killed half of its inhabitants and it entered into decline. Now, the main business that thrives is the Marsh refinery, run by "Old Man Marsh," grandson of Captain Obed Marsh, who had traveled extensively in the Pacific and married "some kind of foreigner – they say a South Sea islander." Innsmouth also boasts some fishermen as well, who ply their trade near the Devil's Reef off the coast.

The narrator also learns that outsiders avoid not just Innsmouth itself but its inhabitants on account of their strange appearance.

There certainly is a strange kind of streak in the Innsmouth folks today – I don't know how to explain it, but it sort of makes you crawl … Some of 'em have queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, stary eyes that never seem to shut, and their skin ain't quite right. Rough and scabby, and the sides of their necks are all shrivelled and creased up. Get bald, too, very young. The older fellows looks the worst – fact is, I don't believe I've ever seen a very old chap of that kind. Guess they must die of looking in the glass! Animals hate 'em – they used to have lots of horse trouble before autos came in.

Despite this, the narrator takes the bus to Innsmouth and begins exploring the seaside town. He soon discovers it to be a place in the process of slow decay, its buildings poorly maintained and dilapidated and its people, most of whom match the description cited above, appearing even more degenerate to his eyes. Worse, the local eye him with suspicion and he begins to think it might be best if he were to leave Innsmouth sooner rather than later. 

It's at this point that he stumbles upon Zadok Allen, who was "ninety-six years old and touched in the head." Allen, he had been told by one of the few friendly people he'd met in Innsmouth, was a useful font of information about the place and its history and "was unable to resist any offer of his favorite poison; and once drunk would furnish the most astonishing fragments of whispered reminiscence." And so he does. Plied with liquor, Allen tells the narrator about Captain Obed Marsh and his dealings with the Kanak islanders.

"Wal, Sir, Obed he larnt that they's things on this arth as most folks never heerd about – an' wouldn't believe ef they did hear. It seems these Kanakys was sacrificin' heaps o' their young men an' maidens to some kind o' god-things that lived under the sea, an' gettin' all kinds o' favours in return. They met the things in the little islet with queer ruins, an' it seems them awful picters o' frog-fish monsters was supposed to be picters o' these things. Mebbe they was the kind o' critters as got all the mermaid stories started. They had all kinds o' cities on the sea-bottom, an' this island was heaved up from thar.

These are the Deep Ones, one of Lovecraft's most famous creations and, according to Allen, Captain Marsh had made a deal with them. He would provide them with a steady supply of human sacrifices and they would provide him – and Innsmouth – with an equally study supply of fish and gold dredged up from the sea. In addition, by mating with them, the people of Innsmouth would slowly acquire the characteristics of the Deep Ones and "wouldn't never die," in Allen's words. To this, he adds

"Git aout o' here! Git aout o' here! They seen us – git aout fer your life! Dun't wait fer nothin' – they know naow – Run fer it – quick – aout o' this taown –"

Though the narrator is not wholly convinced by Allen's hysterical warning, he is nevertheless unnerved by what he has heard. He resolves to leave Innsmouth as soon as possible, just as he had planned before meeting the drunken old man. It's then that the final act of the novella begins, as the narrator comes to understand just how much Allen had told him is true – and how immediately relevant it is to his recent desire to travel to New England and see the places from which his mother's family came …

The Shadow over Innsmouth is indeed one of Lovecraft's greatest works, just as Innsmouth itself is one of his most frightfully realized locales. The aura of decay and decline is palpable. More than that, the story, though ostensibly focused solely on the experiences of the unnamed narrator, expertly conveys the connection between the mundane and the cosmic. What the narrator learns over the course of the novella is extremely personal and yer that knowledge has larger implications that are, in my opinion, among the most chilling in all of Lovecraft's works. The Shadow over Innsmouth is a masterpiece; anyone with even the slightest interest in HPL should take the time to read it, if they haven't already done so – and those who already have should consider doing so again.

The Pulp Fantasy Library: The Scroll of Thoth

Richard L. Tierney has long associations with the writings and ideas of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, having penned scholarly articles about these authors as well as fiction derived from their works. Unsurprisingly, Tierney's own fiction is suffused with the sensibilities of both. One such story is "The Scroll of Thoth," first published in the pages of Swords Against Darkness #2 in 1977. It's another installment in Tierney's saga of Simon of Gitta, better known to history as Simon Magus, the sorcerer who challenges St. Peter in Acts of the Apostles. 

In Tierney's telling, Simon is a Samaritan ex-gladiator turned magician who travels across the 1st century Roman Empire, fighting the entities of the Cthulhu Mythos. Of course, Tierney's revisionism isn't limited to Simon himself. His portrayal of the Cthulhu Mythos is tinged with Gnosticism: the Demiurge is none other than the blind idiot god, Azathoth, for example. Whether one likes this approach or not, there's no question that it's a bold one. More than that, it's a terrific set-up for a Howardian tale of historical fantasy.

"The Scroll of Thoth" takes place at the start of A.D. 41, during the reign of the emperor Gaius Caligula. As it opens, the emperor is overseeing the torture and execution of a prisoner. Upon the prisoner's death, Gaius orders his Egyptian physician to read an invocation from the Book of Thoth intended to restore the deceased man to life once more. The ritual seems to work at first, but the risen corpse quickly collapses into a heap and does not stir again. It's worth noting that, in an aside, Tierney notes that the Book of Thoth was written in "the forgotten language of dark, sorcery-riddled Stygia, the fabled land which had flourished before even nighted Egypt – a revelation that the Thoth of its title is not the Egyptian deity but rather Conan's old adversary, Thoth-Amon (a revelation similar to one found in a previous story of Simon of Gitta, "The Ring of Set.")

Soon after, we learn the reason for Caligula's actions. He boasts to the commander of his Praetorian guardsmen, Cassius Chaerea:

"… never forget, though you are a commander of men, that I am a commander of gods and demons! What you have seen this day is but the birth of my power over all things. Long have I labored to achieve what you have just seen – the conquest of death! Long have a I garnered the occult wisdom of antique Khem and Mesopotamia, and many are the experiments I have performed in this very chamber – and now, at last, as you have seen with your own eyes, I have banished Death himself, if only for a moment, from the lifeless clay. Soon I shall learn to banish him utterly – and then I shall live forever!" He surveyed the room with burning exultant eyes, as though expecting a challenge. No one spoke.

"Forever!" he shouted. "Do you hear me? I'll live forever!"

I have two comments here. First, take a moment to relish the pulpy goodness of the passage above. If ever there was a historical character worthy of being portrayed as a power-mad pulp fantasy villain, it's Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. What makes the above passage so enjoyable is the way it plays with the popular understanding of the third Roman emperor and his claims to divinity. I find it delightfully over the top. Second, for the historically minded, the name of Cassius Chaerea should be well known and a tip-off as to where the narrative of "The Scroll of Thoth" might go. 

We soon learn that the Egyptian physician whom Caligula has employed is named Menophar and that the slave he brought with him to attend the emperor is none other than Simon of Gitta in disguise. Together, they discuss the mad emperor's plan to acquire eternal life "and in the end rule all gods as well as all men." This he hopes to do by gaining the favor of both the Deep Ones, "who live for aeons, perhaps forever," and the Pain Lords (the Great Old Ones).

Simon shuddered slightly. He had long known of Gaius' madness, yet only now did he realize the full extent of it.

"You were right, Menophar: Whatever the cost, the Book of Thoth must not remain in the hands of this lunatic. It is the most dangerous of all sorcerous works, and in Gaius' hands it could make him the most dangerous of men."

"But you, Simon of Gitta, are perhaps the most adept of all magicians – and that is why you have been chosen for this task."

Simon scowled, and then took another sip of wine. "I am not a true magician," he said, "in that there is naught of true magic in anything I do. Yet you are right; I have learned enough to be an accomplished mummer – perhaps the best."

"And a fighter! Your service in the arena may stand you in better stead than ever your 'mummery', as you choose to call it. You have seen the situation here; consider what must next be done. I think you realize, Simon of Gitta, that the fate of all men may rest on the success or failure of this venture."

"The Scroll of Thoth" is quite short – fifteen pages – and to the point, but it's got some terrific ideas and memorable scenes. It's fun, fast-moving historical fantasy filled with Lovecraftian-tinged Gnosticism and sword-and-sorcery action worthy of Robert E. Howard. I cannot speak more highly of this story, especially if you're a fan of Roman history and legend.  

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Pit of Wings

Ramsey Campbell is generally called a horror writer, because he was deeply influenced by the work of H.P. Lovecraft, whom he first read at a young age. So enamored was he of HPL's tales that he wrote his own pastiches of them as a teenager. He submitted some of them to Arkham House for publication, where they caught the attention of August Derleth. Derleth was impressed with young man's abilities but rejected his submissions, advising him to rework them into stories set in Campbell's native Britain rather than in Lovecaft's New England (if only Derleth had followed his own advice). Campbell did as directed, leading to the publication of The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants in 1964 at the age of eighteen. 

Though the bulk of his work can be called "horror," Campbell has also written a number of fantasy stories featuring the swordsman Ryre. One of these, "The Pit of Wings," appeared in the third anthology in Andrew J. Offutt's Swords Against Darkness series. The series as a whole is well regarded for its inclusion of so many excellent sword-and-sorcery tales, but volume three holds particular interest for roleplayers, as it's singled out by Gary Gygax's list of inspirational and educational reading in Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Precisely why Gygax included only the third volume of the series and not the previous two already available at the time remains a matter of debate among those with an interest in such things. 

What's not up for debate, though, is whether Campbell was as good a writer of fantasy as he was of horror. "The Pit of Wings" begins with Ryre traveling by horseback when arrives outside the port town of Gaxonoi. He sees laves, chained and obviously mistreated by their captors, hard at work along the road. 

Ryre hated slavery as only a man who has been enslaved can. Fury parched his throat. Yet he could not fight a town, or its customs, however deplorable.

He elects to ride past the town but cannot do so without a look of obvious distaste growing across his face. One of the slave-drivers notices Ryre "glare of contempt" and counsels him.

"Yes, ride on, unless you're seeking honest toil. We've a place for you, and chains to fit." His slow voice was viciously caressing as a whip. As he gazed up at Ryre, he licked his lips.

Ryre's grin was leisurely and mirthless. Though he could not battle slavery, he would enjoy responding to this challenge. He stared at the man as though peering beneath a stone. "Ridding the world of vermin? Yes, I'd call that honest."

The man's tongue flickered like a snake's. His smile twitched, as did his hand: nervous, or beckoning for reinforcements? "What kind of swordsman is it who lets his words fight for him?" he demanded harshly.

"No man fights with vermin. He crushes them." 

Despite the growing tension, a fight does not break out between Ryre and the slavers – yet. Instead, they allow him to enter Gaxonoi, where he makes his way down toward its docks. There, he enters a tavern and quickly gets the sense that something is odd about the town and its inhabitants. He later learns just what that is: a procession of cowled figures was making its way amidst the wharves.

Their robes were pale as fungus. They emerged two by two from a wide dark street at the edge of the dock. The slow pallid emergence reminded Ryre of worms dropping from a gap. There seemed to be no end to the procession; surely it would fill the wharf.

Despite its size, the procession was unnervingly silent. A distant flapping could be heard. There was violence amid the ceremony: figures struggling desperately but mutely, which seemed to hover in the air among their robed captors. Ryre distinguished that the victims were bound and gagged, and kept aloft by taut ropes held by robed men. The sight made him think of insects in a web.

 As they get closer, Ryre recognizes one of the cowled men as the slave-driver who'd taunted him earlier. This time, the swordsman is unwilling to stay his anger and a melee ensues, one that sees Ryre not only defeated but left alive so that he too could witness whatever it was that these robed figures planned to do with their captives. Needless to say, it's nothing pleasant and Ryre must find a way to free himself and possibly the others before they all die horrifically.

Like the best sword-and-sorcery yarns, "The Pit of Wings" is short and its action moves quickly. Ryre himself is not particularly memorable as a character; he's a fairly typical pulp fantasy warrior in most respects, certainly nothing special when compared to the likes of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Conan. Yet, Campbell's experience as a horror writer serves him well here, elevating the story with his command of rising suspense and hidden menace. Gaxonoi is a genuinely creepy place and the reader can feel Ryre's growing anxiety, which builds throughout the second part of the story until it reaches its unnerving climax – a compelling little story, better than most fare of its kind.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Lamp of Alhazred

August Derleth is sometimes treated with disdain by devotees of H.P. Lovecraft and I can see why that is the case. His role in relation to HPL is not dissimilar to that of L. Sprague de Camp in relation to Robert E. Howard: instrumental in popularizing the work of his predecessor while fundamentally misunderstanding it. Unlike De Camp, who not only misunderstood Howard but also, on some level, disliked him, Derleth was one of Lovecraft's biggest fans and, like many a fanboy, he attempted to find ways to twist Lovecraft's conceptions to suit his own predilections. The results, as one might expect, bordered on fan fiction and, yet, for all that, I still think there's something of value to be gleaned from his efforts, however different they clearly are from Lovectaft's own.

One of Derleth's better efforts in my opinion is "The Lamp of Alhazred," which originally appeared in the October 1957 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The short story focuses on thirty year-old Ward Phillips, who receives the titular lamp as a bequest from his grandfather, Whipple, who had died seven years earlier. The lamp, held by Whipple's lawyer until Ward "was mature enough to inherit his grandfather's 'most priceless treasure'," is a most peculiar object, unlike any he had ever seen.

The lamp of Alhazred was unusual in its appearance. It was meant for burning oil, and seemed to be of gold. It had the shape of a small oblong pot, with a handle curved up from one side, and a spout for wick and flame on the other. Many curious drawings decorated it, together with letter and pictures arranged into words in a language unfamiliar to Phillips, who draw upon his knowledge for more than one Arabian dialect, and yet knew not the language of the inscription on the lamp. Nor was it Sancrit [sic] which was inscribed upon the metal, but a language older than that – one of letters and hieroglyphs, some of which were pictographs.

Phillips is entranced by the lamp and spends much time polishing it and then filling it with oil. One night, he lights the lamp and is "mildly astonished at the warmth of its glow, the steadiness of its flame, and the quality of its light." He then sets himself to writing verse in his library. After a time, though, finds that "wherever the light fell, there, superimposed upon the books on their serried shelves, were such scenes as Phillips could not have conjured up in the wildest recesses of his imagination." These scenes depicted events far in the past, when the Earth was young, as well as far-off places like fabled Irem, the Mountains of Madness, and Kadath in the Cold Waste. 

These visions inspire Phillips, who uses them as the basis for his fictions, which find not only a ready audience but become "parts of the lore of Phillips' innermost being." 

He brought Arkham into reality, and delineated the strange high house in the mist; he wrote of the shadow over Innsmouth and the whisperer in darkness and the fungi from Yuggoth and the horror at Dunwich; and in his prose and verse the light from the lamp of Alhazred shone brightly

If it weren't already apparent, it should now be quite clear that Ward Phillips is a stand-in for Lovecraft and Derleth is telling a fanciful version of HPL's life, albeit a somewhat happier one, devoid of the indignities and deprivations that marred much of the real Lovecraft's adulthood. This becomes even clearer if you're familiar with some of Lovecraft's letters, whose contents Derleth uses to describe Ward's rambles through rural Rhode Island. Unlike Derleth's other "posthumous collaborations" with Lovecraft, these borrowings add verisimilitude and poignancy to "The Lamp of Alhazred," which, at its base, is a work of hagiography. Derleth clearly admired and loved the elder author, with whom he began a correspondence in 1926, when he was only 17 years-old. Whatever else one may say about August Derleth, he was H.P. Lovecraft's friend and supporter (many of Lovecraft's stories only received publication because Derleth surreptitiously submitted them, for example) and "The Lamp of Alhazred" is a strangely affecting tribute to the Old Gent of Providence.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Necromancy in Naat

To atone for the fact that I allowed the birthday of Clark Ashton Smith (January 13) to pass by without comment, I turn again to one of his short stories for this week's installment of Pulp Fantasy Library. "Necromancy in Naat" first appeared in the July 1936 issue of Weird Tales. If its cover illustration, by Margaret Brundage, looks familiar to you, it should, since this issue's headline story was the first part of Robert E. Howard's masterpiece, "Red Nails." The issue is also notable for featuring stories by Edmond Hamilton, C.L. Moore, August Derleth, and Manly Wade Wellman – a veritable who's who of the golden age of the pulps.

"Necromancy in Naat" owes its existence to a "benign, maleficent daemon," as Smith called his muse in a letter to fellow writer, Donald Wandrei. Prior to penning it, CAS had thought himself done with tales of Earth's last continent. Yet, what he produced rivaled Howard's "Red Nails" in the opinions of the readers of Weird Tales. The story concerns Yadar "prince of a nomad people in the half-desert region known as Zyra" who seeks to rescue

Dalili, his betrothed, whom the slave traders of Sha-Karag, swift and cunning as desert falcons, had reft from the tribal encampment with nine other maidens while Yadar and his men were hunting the black gazelles of Zyra.

Grieved and angered, Yadar swears an oath to find his beloved, "whether in slave-mart or brothel or harem, whether dead or living, whether tomorrow or after the lapse of grey years." Long-time readers of Smith will not be surprised to learn that that oath and its wording are central to the narrative and conclusion of "Necromancy in Naat." 

Yadar then sets off in the company of four of his men for "the iron gates of Sha-Karag … where women were the chief merchandise." Unfortunately, he quickly learns that Dalili has already been purchased by slavers who hoped to sell her "to some opulent king or emperor who would pay a city's ransom from the wild, rare beauty of the outland princess." Yadar is undeterred and sets off along the same route as the slavers, hoping to learn what became of Dalili. Over the course of months, he visits multiple cities, seeking the girl, before he learns that she "had been bought by the emperor of Xylac and sent to the ruler of the far southern kingdom of Yoros as a gift concluding a treaty between these realms." Upon learning this, Yadar books passage aboard a ship headed for Yoros (his men having died of a "strange fever" sometime beforehand).

The ship wrecks onto the island of Naat, called the Isle of Necromancers. Yadar barely survives and, when he comes to on the beach of the island, he beholds his rescuer, a young woman who "walked in the fashion of a somnambulist" and took him to her masters, three of Naat's fabled necromancers, chanting beside a fire.

Gaunt as starved herons they were, and great of stature, with a common likeness, as of brothers; and sharply ridged were their faces, where shadows inhabited their hollow cheeks, and their sunk eyes were visible only by red sparks reflected within them from the blaze. And their eyes, as they chanted, seemed to glare afar on the darkling sea and on things hidden by dusk and distance. 

In the light of the fire, Yadar comes to realize that the woman who had saved him was "none other than his lost love, Dalili!" Strangely, she does not react to his kisses or entreaties and Yadar turns to the trio of necromancers, who identify themselves as a father (Vacharn) and his two sons (Vokal and Uldulla), asking what they have done to her. They explain that Dalili is dead, like all their servants, her body washed up on the beaches of Naat after another shipwreck like his own. Vacharn further explains that Yadar's survival was no accident but rather the result of his sorcery and that he had in mind "a certain purpose" for the nomad prince, one he would fulfill in time. Needless to say, Yadar is none too pleased by these revelations and his attempts to come grips with them – and thwart them – propels "Necromancy in Naat" toward its gruesome conclusion. 

I like this story a great deal, despite certain similarities to a previous Zothique yarn, "The Charnel God," though that's perhaps inevitable since both tales deal with weighty matters of love, death, and the connection between the two. Compared to some of Smith's other stories, "Necromancy in Naat" is far more restrained in its vocabulary, focusing more on its theme than on verbal resplendency. Consequently, it feels rather than different than other CAS efforts and that might contribute to my fondness for it. At the same time, I readily admit that it takes some getting used to and I wouldn't blame anyone who prefers the dream-like prose poetry of his other works.

If You Meet Cthulhu, Kill Him

Miserable grump that I am, I've been opposed to the domestification of the creations of H.P. Lovecraft for a long time. I loathe plush Cthulhu toys and the other vapid wares of the Geek Industrial Complex, almost all of which undermine the very things for which they purport to have affection. But the truth is, if we're being honest, the process that led to the proliferation of such liveliest awfulness began long, long ago, with August Derleth and the invention of "the Cthulhu Mythos" itself. 

Within the actual writings of Lovecraft, there is no such thing as the Cthulhu Mythos. Whatever one thinks of HPL's skill as a writer – I personally hold him in high regard – he never mistook the content of his stories of cosmic horror for their subject. Doing just that, as nerds are prone to do, is the first step on a path that ends with Pokéthulhu and even more abominable products of diseased fancies. David E. Schultz, as quoted in S.T. Joshi's magisterial The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, notes that

… the pseudomythological elements to which Lovecraft referred were only part of the fictional background of his stories. They were never the subject of his stories, but rather part of the background against which the main action occurred. That is to say, Lovecraft did not write about Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Necronomicon, or any of the other places or creatures or books found in his stories. The subject of his stories were typically the small place that man occupies in an uncaring cosmos, and his fictional creatures were only part of the means by which he sought to demonstrate that.

Joshi himself elaborates.

I myself have come to believe that the pseudomythological elements are plot devices designed to convey the various philosophical, aesthetic, cultural, and even political themes that Lovecraft was seeking to convey in his tales. In this sense it might not be quite accurate to say that Lovecraft never wrote "about" Cthulhu and the rest; "The Call of Cthulhu" really is largely "about" Cthulhu, at least on the surface level: we are given much information (possibly unreliable) about the nature and origin of this entity, and toward the end we see a glimpse of him through the eyes of the hapless Norwegian who encountered him. It might be better to say that "The Call of Cthulhu" is not only about Cthulhu; Cthulhu serves as a symbol for the vast, unknowable cosmos in which all human history and aspirations are as nothing. (emphasis mine)

Somewhere along the line, Lovecraft fans lost the plot, assuming they ever understood it in the first place. Instead of exploring Lovecraft's ideas – which, I think, are the reason why his stories are, if anything, even more relevant today than they were almost a century ago – his admirers have decided instead to catalog and obsess over his creations. In this respect, I am sorry to say that my beloved Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game has undoubtedly played an insidious part, with its relentless codification of Lovecraftian monsters, spells, and artifacts, not to mention its essentially Derlethian ethos and style. Call of Cthulhu deserves much praise for its having introduced untold numbers of people to H.P. Lovecraft and his writings, but that introduction was, from the beginning, adulterated and misleading – little wonder then that we now live in a world of pervasive Cthulhu merchandising.

I get it: Lovecraft's vision is bleak. If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that many people, when confronted with even mildly unpleasant realities, would rather look away than confront them head-on. Lovecraft's stories advance a very unpleasant thesis and I can't blame anyone for not wanting to grapple with the possibility that it is correct. But stripped of their philosophical themes, HPL's stories are just pulp yarns with a highfalutin vocabulary, little different than those of, say, Seabury Quinn (though certainly more imaginative). By focusing on the content of Lovecraft's works rather than their subject matter, the door is opened to all sorts of hackwork – or, worse, plushies.

It's probably inevitable that any creative endeavor, if it acquires a large enough audience, eventually becomes an Ouroboros-like parody of itself rather than something vital and dynamic. Over the course of my life, I've seen this happen innumerable times and, while I've been known to rail against this state of affairs on occasion, I have, for the most part, accepted it is simply evidence of the decay that eventually touches all sublunary things. Somehow, though, I had foolishly believed that Lovecraft might be immune to this inexorable process. At the very least, I had hoped that he might simply be cast aside and forgotten rather than subjected to that worst of all fates: commodification. But as, HPL taught us, with strange aeons, not even death is safe and these are strange aeons indeed.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Maker of Gargoyles

January is upon us and so I bid farewell to Pulp Science Fiction Library (though it may return in the future). For the first installment of Pulp Fantasy Library of 2012, it seems only fitting to turn to my favorite pulp fantasist, Clark Ashton Smith, and my favorite of his recurring settings, Averoigne. This time, the story in question is "The Maker of Gargoyles," which appeared in the August 1932 issue of Weird Tales. The short story walked a difficult road to publication, having been rejected multiple times by both Weird Tales and its competitor, Strange Tales. It was only after several revisions, the most significant of which was suggested to Smith by August Derleth that it was at last accepted for publication.

As its name suggests, "The Maker of Gargoyles" is about a stone-carver named Blaise Reynard who had been commissioned by the archbishop of Vyônes to carve a pair of gargoyles for the city's new cathedral. Smith describes the circumstances of Reynard's employment, as well as the popular reaction to both his work and his person in the opening of the story:

Among the many gargoyles that frowned or leered from the roof of the new-built cathedral of Vyônes, two were pre-eminent above the rest by virtue of their fine workmanship and their supreme grotesquery. These two had been wrought by the stone-carver Blaise Reynard, a native of Vyônes, who had lately returned from a long sojourn in the cities of Provence, and had secured employment on the cathedral when the three years' task of its construction and ornamentation was well-nigh completed. In view of the wonderful artistry shown by Reynard, it was regretted by Ambrosius, the archbishop, that it had not been possible to commit the execution of all the gargoyles to this delicate and accomplished workman; but other people, with less liberal tastes than Ambrosius, were heard to express a different opinion.

This opinion, perhaps, was tinged by the personal dislike that had been generally felt toward Reynard in Vyônes even from his boyhood; and which had been revived with some virulence on his return. Whether rightly or unjustly, his very physiognomy had always marked him out for public disfavor: he was inordinately dark, with hair and beard of a preternatural bluish-black, and slanting, ill-matched eyes that gave him a sinister and cunning air. His taciturn and saturnine ways were such as a superstitious people would identify with necromantic knowledge or complicity; and there were those who covertly accused him of being in league with Satan; though the accusations were little more than vague, anonymous rumors, even to the end, through lack of veritable evidence.

However, the people who suspected Reynard of diabolic affiliations were wont for awhile to instance the two gargoyles as sufficient proof. No man, they contended, who was so inspired by the Arch-Enemy, could have carven anything so sheerly evil and malignant, could have embodied so consummately in mere stone the living lineaments of the most demoniacal of all the deadly Sins.

The two gargoyles were perched on opposite corners of a high tower of the cathedral. One was a snarling, murderous, cat-headed monster, with retracted lips revealing formidable fangs, and eyes that glared intolerable hatred from beneath ferine brows. This creature had the claws and wings of a griffin, and seemed as if it were poised in readiness to swoop down on the city of Vyônes, like a harpy on its prey. Its companion was a horned satyr, with the vans of some great bat such as might roam the nether caverns, with sharp, clenching talons, and a look of Satanically brooding lust, as if it were gloating above the helpless object of its unclean desire. Both figures were complete, even to the hindquarters, and were not mere conventional adjuncts of the roof. One would have expected them to start at any moment from the stone in which they were mortised.

Ambrosius, a lover of art, had been openly delighted with these creations, because of their high technical merit and their verisimilitude as works of sculpture. But others, including many humbler dignitaries of the Church, were more or less scandalized, and said that the workman had informed these figures with the visible likeness of his own vices, to the glory of Belial rather than of God, and had thus perpetrated a sort of blasphemy. Of course, they admitted, a certain amount of grotesquery was requisite in gargoyles; but in this case the allowable bounds had been egregiously overpassed.

As the story begins, Vyônes is being terrorized by a series of terrible murders of reputable and respectable citizens, including members of the clergy. In time, these murders are joined by a series of attacks upon the young women of the city, leading many to believe that demons are at work. This, in turn, inspires equal parts superstitious fear and blasphemous abandon in Vyônes, as some of its inhabitants look to God for salvation while others see recent events as evidence that Satan holds sway over their home.

In the midst of this tumult, Blaise Reynard spends his time in a tavern, where he lustily eyes the serving girl, Nicolette. For her part, Nicolette shows little interest in Reynard, which only inflames his passion for her:

There were few people in the tavern that evening. The girl Nicolette was serving wine to a mercer's assistant, one Raoul Coupain, a personable youth and a newcomer in the neighborhood, and she was laughing with what Reynard considered unseemly gayety at the broad jests and amorous sallies of this Raoul. Jean Villom was discussing in a low voice the latest enormities and was drinking fully as much liquor as his customers.

Glowering with jealousy at the presence of Raoul Coupain, whom he suspected of being a favored rival, Reynard seated himself in silence and stared malignly at the flirtatious couple. No one seemed to have noticed his entrance; for Villom went on talking to his cronies without pause or interruption, and Nicolette and her companion were equally oblivious. To his jealous rage, Reynard soon added the resentment of one who feels that he is being deliberately ignored. He began to pound on the table with his heavy fists, to attract attention.

Villom, who had been sitting all the while his back turned, now called out to Nicolette without even troubling to face around on his stool, telling her to serve Reynard. Giving a backward smile at Coupain, she came slowly and with open reluctance to the stone-carver's table.

She was small and buxom, with reddish-gold hair that curled luxuriantly above the short, delicious oval of her face; and she was gowned in a tight-fitting dress of apple-green that revealed the firm, seductive outlines of her hips and bosom. Her air was disdainful and a little cold, for she did not like Reynard and had taken small pains at any time to conceal her aversion. But to Reynard she was lovelier and more desirable than ever, and he felt a savage impulse to seize her in his arms and carry her bodily away from the tavern before the eyes of Raoul Coupain and her father.

I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say that the resolution of Reynard's unfulfilled desire and the horrific events in Vyônes are connected. Neither do I think the nature of connection will come as a surprise to anyone. Despite that, "The Maker of Gargoyles" is nevertheless an enjoyable tale well told. As ever, Smith is a master of prose poetry and his descriptions of both people and events are terrifically suggestive without ever lapsing into luridness. Just as important is Smith's portrait of the psychology of Reynard, for the success of the whole story depends heavily on it. Some might find it unsatisfying, but I think, in a tale as brief as this one, one can only reasonably expect a certain amount of depth. Even given that criticism, Reynard is a quite well realized character and a solid foundation on which to build this tale of obsession in a fantastical medieval France.

121

On this day in 1890, Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born. It is no exaggeration to say that contemporary fantasy and science fiction would be very different today were it not for his unique imagination. Lovecraft's influence is so pervasive, even commonplace, that it often goes unrecognized. Every time a character in a story, movie, or roleplaying game encounters a blasphemous book, a slimy, tentacled horror, or teeters on the brink of insanity due to the horrible truths he has learned, we ultimately have HPL to thank.

Of course, many of these ideas predated Lovecraft or were further popularized by his imitators. Indeed, I think it likely that the vast majority of the stories and story elements deemed "Lovecraftian" are nothing of the sort, based as they are on very superficial readings of the Old Gent's writings.This includes the Call of Cthulhu RPG, which, while a very fine game and one of my favorites, nevertheless owes an equal debt to August Derleth as it does to H.P. Lovecraft (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I'm sure some of this superficiality stems from the intellectual laziness to which we all are prone, but I think most of it has its origin in the difficulty in really coming to grips with the philosophy and worldview that underlie Lovecraft's stories. HPL is sometimes called a "nihilist" or a "pessimist," but I don't think either label is an accurate one. The alien entities Lovecraft describes are not malevolent. They may engage in activities detrimental to man, but it is not through any ill will toward him, or at least no more ill will than when man inadvertently destroys a nest of ants when building a skyscraper. Lovecraft takes no pleasure in this reality; he does not celebrate it. He is completely indifferent to it, presenting it simply as a brute fact, albeit one with far reaching implications for man's self-image.

That most of us should recoil from this fact is not surprising, as it runs counter to long-held beliefs about the place of man in the cosmos. That's why, I think, so few of the works called "Lovecraftian" nowadays really deserve the sobriquet. I can count on one hand the number of books, movies, or RPGs that really embrace a Lovecraftian worldview and, even then, that worldview is often tempered with an instinctive hope for human transcendence that, to HPL, is utterly unwarranted. It's little wonder, then, that pop culture has chosen to defang Lovecraft, reducing his conceptions to catch phrases and nerd totems rather than grappling with the worrisome possibility that he just may be right.

Speaking as someone who does not think Lovecaft is right, I nevertheless wish that more effort was made, in books, movies, and games that lay claim to his legacy, to address the questions that he raises. That's my 121st birthday wish for him: that Lovecraft might be understood on his own terms rather than through lenses and categories alien to him. It's a tall order, especially given the vapidity of the term "Lovecraftian" these days, but I think it's a worthwhile endeavor nonetheless and a fine way to honor one of the forefathers of this hobby we all share.

The Ads of Dragon: Call of Cthulhu

Though Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu was first released in 1981, for some reason, it's this ad, from issue #71 of Dragon (March 1983), that I particularly associate with its early days:

I've always found it funny that, despite both the protestations of its designer and the plaudits of its hardcore fans, Call of Cthulhu has always owed as much to August Derleth as it does to H.P. Lovecraft. You can see its powerful Derlethian influence in this advertisement, which paints Call of Cthulhu as a RPG about "brave men and women [who] stand between the world as we know it and the unutterable evil of the Old Ones." Coupled with the ad's title -- "Adventurama" -- there's an undeniable pulp vibe to the whole thing, more Indiana Jones than the cosmic nihilism that purists like to claim for the game. I've never had a problem with this myself; I doubt a "pure" Lovecraft game would be very palatable to most gamers, then or now.