Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 6 (1925-12).djvu/129

 teen of its leading citizens paying with their lives, one after another, in agony and crime and torment, at the behest of a little hunchback whose physical body is shut up for life in state's prison—and nothing can be done to stop the fiend. A powerful story, this. And you who like tales of vampires and werewolves, you who have been thrilled by The Sea Thing in this issue, will await eagerly Robert E. Howard's terrific werewolf tale Wolfshead, for in this tale Mr. Howard writes of werewolves from a viewpoint never before used in literature.

Ghost tales will play an important part in keeping unique among magazines. Our recent appeal to our readers for vivid ghost thrillers is bearing rich fruit.

Tales of insects and small animals raised to gigantic size by removal of their growth limitations, as in Paul S. Powers' tale, The Jungle Monsters (coming soon), rightfully belong in the class of "highly imaginative tales," although several of our readers criticized us for giving the October cover design to a humorous weird tale of this type (The Wicked Flea, by J. U. Giesy).

Perhaps no stories have found such unfailing popularity with you, the readers, as the devil-tales we have printed, as witness the popularity of Lucifer, Whispering Tunnels, Devil Manor, The Stranger From Kurdistan, and The Eternal Conflict. This latter story, Nictzin Dyalhis' tale of cosmic spaces, of Lucifer and the Shining One, easily led all other stories in the October issue in reader popularity.

E. Hoffmann Price, author of The Stranger From Kurdistan, writes of Mr. Dyalhis' story: "The Eternal Conflict was a most pleasing glimpse of the occult; I enjoyed it immensely, though I did resent the treatment accorded to Lucifer. As for The Fading Ghost, it is surely one of the oddest and most quaint conceptions imaginable, truly bizarre. But enough; suffice it to say that I enjoyed thoroughly the October issue's debauch of weirdness."

Mr. Price has built another tale around Lucifer, and "the stranger from Kurdistan" makes his appearance again in The Word of Santiago, which will be published soon.

Harry Reade, of Easton, Pennsylvania, writes to The Eyrie: " gets better with every issue. It is the only fiction magazine, of many that I have read, that I haven't tired of after reading copies of one or two issues. The Eternal Conflict, by Nictzin Dyalhis, wins my vote for the best story in this issue. Give us more stories by the same author. His When the Green Star Waned, in last April's issue, was one of the best and oddest stories published in old friend W. T. since I have been a victim of 'Weird-Talcitis'."

Those of you who read Alanson Skinner's story of Indian witchcraft, Bad Medicine, in the October issue, will be saddened to learn of the author's tragic death in an automobile accident near Tokio, North Dakota, on August 17. The car skidded on a slippery road and crashed over an embankment. A moment later, the Rev. Amos Oneroad, a Sioux Indian, dazed and bruised, crawled from the wreck, calling a name, listening for an answer. Then he struggled manfully, but in vain, to lift the mass of steel and release his dearest friend, who lay pinioned and silent beneath it. At length help was found, the car was raised, but it was too late. Alanson Skinner was dead—Alanson Skinner, sympathetic and appreciative friend of the Indian race, learned student of ancient America, prolific author of scientific works on Indian subjects, lecturer, fiction writer, poet. Gone forever was that wonderful memory, that