This week is the 100th Anniversary of the publication of maybe my favorite pulp-era fantasy novel, A. Merritt’s Moon Pool, and I’m not alone: the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, said that the Moon Pool was his favorite fantasy novel and A. Merritt his favorite novelist.
So many stories from this era are borderline unreadable, but Moon Pool is intensely readable and modern. Ghostly, weird, it blurred the line between horror, science fiction, fantasy, and lost race stories at a time when these genre categories were much more porous and fluid than they are now. There was no scifi yet in the fixed form we’d know, certainly no fantasy, no horror - just an amorphous kind of story called “weird fiction.” It made me want to look into the real-life setting of the story, the weird, mysterious Nan Madol ruins on the Melanesian island of Pohnape.
Nictzin Dyalhis is the most fascinating and mysterious of all the Weird Tales writers. He wrote 16 works and nothing else, and very little of his biography is known even to dedicated researchers. Though they were able to confirm one detail: Nictzin Dyalhis is his real name. He is of Welsh origin, and his first name comes from the fact his father was obsessed with Aztec culture.
The Sea Witch is his best known story, and despite the name and the horror trappings and atmosphere, it actually is a romance novel with a happy ending. It’s basically his attempt to rewrite H. Rider Haggard’s She so that Horace Holly and She get together.
Hugh B. Cave’s “Murgunstrumm” is easily one of the all-time best of the pulp-era vampire horror yarns. The reason Hugh B. Cave was so incredible was that his stories have the surreal ambience of a waking nightmare. His best story is either Murgunstrumm or the Cult of the White Ape. Unlike other horror writers of his milieu like Clark Ashton Smith (who was fascinated by unique settings and prehuman history) or C.L. Moore (who was more about transplanting horror to space) or Lovecraft (who had a view of the universe that only an internet posting agoraphobe shut in could come up with, which is why I suspect he’s still popular now), Hugh B. Cave was more about classic horror elements, like zombies, voodoo, vampires, wolfmen, mad scientists. He wrote about evil jungle islands and ghost ships.
Hugh B. Cave was also one of the only pulp horror writers to have a notable sex drive, his stories always had shapely women.
He’s also one of the only two pulp writers who’s life actually coincided with mine and I met before he passed on (the other was Jack Williamson). By the time of his death, he was a regional Caribbean and Florida Keys writer. Incidentally, I’ve often argued that was the trajectory for weird fiction writers: they transition into being regional authors. For instance, just before his death, Robert E. Howard ditched Conan and horror and was becoming mostly a Texas regional author.
My one encounter with Hugh B. Cave, then in his 90s and super-alert, was so weird I hesitate to even share it. He was giving a lecture for aspiring writers and midway through discussing how to get an audience’s attention he went on a “weird uncle at Thanksgiving” jag about how psychology was entirely a con-game for suckers and wasn’t real science at all. I managed to actually sit down with Hugh B. Cave’s biographer a few years ago at a pulp gathering to ask what she made of all this - was he a scientologist? Why was he so hostile to psychology and to my shock, she was just as baffled as I was about that outburst and said that the only explanation she can think of was that he had some lingering scars from his divorce.
I had initially planned on skipping The Surprise Party and just sticking to the paranormal-themed Fear Street books for reading, but I changed my mind. I’m gonna read them, even if it won’t be in order. I thought The Surprise Party was really good. It was certainly would have made for a better launch to the series than The New Girl had been. I would consider it more of a crime thriller than a horror story, but it kept me engaged and guessing right up until the end. There was a large cast of characters, but Stine did a good job at making them feel distinct and believable. I appreciated the complexity and layering of the plot, as well as the themes of guilt and trauma. The ultimate villain had a clear and disturbing motive, which is often not the case with these books. All of this made some of the more convoluted parts forgivable. There were definitely a few moments where certain characters made choices that did not add up, even after the big mystery was resolved. I also liked how the early books in this series had lots of character crossover. Even though I hated The New Girl, I liked the sense of all these isolated mysteries happening around one another. The books definitely didn’t maintain too much of this beyond the early entries. All of this is to say that The Surprise Party surprised me. I enjoyed reading it, and I thought it was one of the better Fear Street books I’ve read.
Score: 4
For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my blog.
The Midnight Club marks the first time I’ve cried while reading a Christopher Pike book. I was expecting it to be sad based on the premise, but I didn’t expect to be so moved by it. It reminded me of the best parts of Road to Nowhere. The whole concept of Rotterham House seemed a bit fantastical, but not in a bad way. It was fantastical in a way that elevated the story and fit the underlying spiritual themes. I am sure similar places exist, but I don’t think they’re in castles by the sea where dying teenagers live apart from their families. I’m hardly familiar enough with hospice care for young people to know one way or the other, but I don’t think it matters in the context of this story. Ilonka was a strong central character in a cast of strong characters. I appreciated the journey she was on. The spiritual elements of the book had a similar ring to what Pike espoused in Remember Me 2, but this time they were far more subtle. Where the latter was sanctimonious and preachy, The Midnight Club felt understated and inviting. The stories that the kids told each other at their midnight meetings by the fireplace spoke to the various ways each of them was confronting death. Pike has a reputation for writing some pretty twisted shit, and I honestly love that about his books. That’s why I was genuinely surprised by the sweet moments in this one. I bumped this up on my list because of the coming Mike Flanagan adaptation, and I’m glad that I did. I’m excited to see what one of my favorite directors does with one of my now-favorite author’s books.
The Stepsister was a twisted one. I figured out the big plot twist about a third of the way in, but I still enjoyed seeing it unravel. I think part of that is just me getting better at Stine’s particular use of misdirection in these books. Regardless, this was a solid psychological horror story. Emily was made to feel like she was losing her mind piece by piece. Looking back after finishing the book, this was probably the most unsettling bit of the whole book. There’s also a lot of high school drama and some believable (but also frustrating) clueless parenting. Even when I didn’t like the characters, they were all (mostly) very believable. I had a few issues with how the actual ending unfolded, but overall this was one of the better Fear Street books. I’m very curious to see how this will be brought back as a sequel.
Score: 4
For a deeper dive filled with memes, snark, and spoilers, you can read it on my blog:
old horror movie posters but make it batman part 3 this one is based off of sci-fi horror movie The Bride of Frankenstein from 1935, but with Nora and Victor Fries!
