Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/132

Rh Several of our readers write that they want back issues of 1923. We can not supply them. If any of you have any 1923 issues prior to October, and wish to sell them, please list the issues you have and the price you want, and let us know. We will put you in touch with the readers who want to buy these back issues.

Seabury Quinn writes from Brooklyn: "The August issue of W. T. is GREAT. I've read it all through, and think the best story in the book is The Oldest Story in the World, by Murray Leinster. That tale is equal to Kipling's stories of the elder vintage—the ones on which his reputation really rests. It's a wow. The style is abso-gosh-lutely perfect as a vehicle for the plot, and the author has squeezed the last drop of suspense and horror out of it." And Frank Belknap Long, Jr., writes from New York: "The Oldest Story in the World is a stylistic gem. I read it three times, and I am convinced that it would have done credit to the Kipling of 1890. That is a real short-story."

E. L. Middleton, of Los Angeles, in a letter to The Eyrie gives a searching analysis of the stories in : "The kind I like best are those which are frankly supernatural, with no attempt at a rational explanation. For this, perhaps Whispering Tunnels in last February's issue is my favorite of those published in since it started. This story had ghosts and demons and was not spoiled by a natural explanation. However, for thrills and interest, The House of Dust in last November's issue was among the best of those stories which had a rational explanation. Of those stories dealing with scientific creations of life, The Malignant Entity in the Anniversary Number is supreme. For absolute unusualness and oddness, When the Green Star Waned, in last April's issue, is perhaps the best. For creepy thrills, and for its kind, The Ghost Guard, in March, 1923, was unsurpassed. If you keep publishing just about the kind of stories you have since the beginning without any radical departure from this program, I think you will be about right.

"Tales of werewolves are always acceptable. Tales of conflicts with evil spirits, as in Whispering Tunnels, are good. Among the most fascinating kind are those of conflicts with evil and malignant forms of vegetation, such as that of The Abysmal Horror (January, 1924), and of any force which might destroy the world, such as The Moon Terror of the May, 1923, issue. Give plenty of stories of the fourth dimension, and those on the order of Penelope (May, 1923); also of horror stories of skeletons, such as The Closed Room (November, 1923).

"Of the more recent stories in, The Fireplace in last January's issue is very good. Give us more tales where a ghost sits and talks calmly to a live person, in a definite locale, as in this tale. Publish more about Atlantis. A very excellent Atlantis story was The Lure of Atlantis (April, 1925).

"I make a plea for 'a few old-fashioned ghost stories'. Also, I wonder why it is that most of the time a natural explanation is strived at. I think this is more often a demerit, rather than a merit, in a weird story. Invaders From the Dark and Whispering Tunnels gained by being supernatural, and for me would have been spoiled by any other kind of treatment. Again, very often in ghost stories which are out-and-out ghost stories without a natural explanation, so much is left 'hanging in the air.' For instance, The Statement of Randolph Carter (February, 1925). In this story the man went into a tomb and something got him. Maybe it was burglars, or werewolves or