by Louis C. Smith
I promise to write an article about that Great High God among fantasy
authors, M. P. Shiel; much of the best science-fantasy, from a literary
standpoint, has been written by him. Anyway, when you read "The Purple
Cloud," "Dr. Krasinski's Secret," "This Above All," or any of the other
two score novels penned by him, such little matters as scientific
accuracy never enter your head (which does not by any means imply that
his science is not correct to the N'th degree). A hypnotist with words
is M. P. Shiel.
And he is--and has been--almost as much a Heaven-born genius as some of
the characters he weaves through the pages of his novels. He is fluent
with a half-dozen languages, is literally a master of all sciences,
writes in a blinding, complicated style no one else on Earth could
imitate--much less create!--and has written as many books as Haggard,
Burroughs, and a few others combined. At 12 he wrote a novel; at 13,
printed a newspaper; and at 15, wrote novels for serialization in large
public papers.
* * * * *
Lester Anderson, fantastiac extra-ordinary of Hayward, California, is
fortunate enough to count himself a very good friend and correspondent
of the lexicographical (hah!) Clark Ashton Smith.
Speaking of whom: Smith and H. P. Lovecraft are great friends, by
correspondence. Lovecraft refers to C.A.S. as "My good old friend and
correspondent, Klarkash-Ton, Hierophant of Atlantis and High-Priest of
Tsathoggua."
* * * * *
Again Bram Stoker! His latest to chance my way is "The Jewel of Seven
Stars." With every reading of this English weird-tale master, I am
seized in profound melancholia, despairing the fact that he did not
live another twenty years, to pen another score novels. Not content
with being a master of superb plot (involved plot too!) Stoker went to
exquisite pains to instill that ultra-weird and chilling sense of the
unreal so characteristic of his work.
In "Jewel of the Seven Stars," he spins a yarn of Egyptian queens who
wield a strange and powerful influence over the lives of present-day
people; of mummified cats walking again and striking in the dark,
vampire-like; of hypnotic spells and influences; of developments
so utterly mystifying and gripping, the reader cannot put the book
down after once opening it. And Bram Stoker's novels are not the
abbreviated two-hundred page book so much in evidence today; they are
voluminous; though not, I might mention, as "infinite" as "Anthony
Adverse."
* * * * *
Here is something--not strictly fantasy, but certainly of interest to
all who make fantasy a hobby--which I have deemed worthy of passing
on: about twenty years ago there lived in Honolulu, in the much-sung
Hawaiian Islands, a man, W. D. Westervelt by name, who spent all his
spare time in the collecting of legends and myths about volcanoes.
Perhaps the best result of his efforts was a little book called
"Legends of Hawaiian Volcanoes," small but crammed to the fly-leaves
with fascinating historical, scientific, and mythological data. Others
had the titles of "Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods," "Legends of Old
Honolulu," "Legends of Maui," etc. No, not true fantasy, but they
read like first-rate weird stories. Incidentally, this is a field for
stories practically untouched; tales built around Hawaiian and other
old native legends have been scarce.
* * * * *
Once, in those dear dead days when I first awakened to the call of
fantasy, I was seized with some strange outbreak of energy; and
typed two copies of Edmond Hamilton's first tale, "The Monster God
of Mamurth." The copies are still on had. Not faultless typing, but
readable. If anyone has not read this great little story by Hamilton,
I'll gladly send a copy to the first two fans writing me.
* * * * *