Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/124

508 writes obi stories as he used to do? West Indies, Haiti, voodooism, witchcraft—nobody can match his flawless literary style and tingling terms. Arlton Eadie: The teller of ghost stones, par excellence. Howard: Howard the great, the incomparable, the master. Howard, whose tales were breathless sagas snatched vibrant with life from the mouths of the scalds of old. Howard, who lifted his characters out of the dust and decay of times long forgotten, breathed eager, lusting, laughing, fighting life into them, clapped swords in their fists, and sent them tramping the witch-haunted, battle-strewn roads; men, every one, revelling in life and its joys, wine, women and the mad exhilaration of combat. Howard is dead. Solomon Kane, King Kull, Conan the Barbarian who set a crown upon his black head and defied all this world and the next to deprive him of it. Three real literary achievements, three who will live now that he is gone and the hand writes no more Revive Conan? Never, never, never! No, the sagas are finished. There was a hint of finality about Howard's last Conan story, Red Nails; a knitting-up of loose strands, a rounding-off as if he somehow knew he was completing a task. In that story I thought Conan found at last his mate, his long-sought-for companion. Together they left that evil place; together (but only in our imaginations) let them travel on towards whatever lies ahead. Let each true lover of the great barbarian dream his own tales of battle, love and brooding witchcraft. Any other course savors of sacrilege. Read and read again what has been written, but let no other man try and wield that pen or gird on that sword. Bury them with him. He will sleep the quieter. And Lovecraft; Let the men who knew and loved him as a friend pen his obituary. I, who only knew him through his matchless pen, bid farewell to an artist who knew how to play upon man's sense of fear as Kreisler plays upon his violin. Those long, brooding, almost somnolent opening paragraphs of his, almost devoid of conversation—somehow, Lovecraft's pen seemed to falter when he attempted to put his words into a personal mouth—impersonality was his keynote. With a sense of nightmare, barely glimpsed, the reader's eye fled from paragraph to paragraph, almost chased or driven, until the grotesque climax was attained, the spell broken, the pursuit lifted, leaving him weakened yet strangely exhilarated. Fear, like fire, is cleansing. Whitehead, Eadie, Howard, Lovecraft. Each in his own field such an undisputed master that the loss seems unbearable. Each, of course, has his disciples. Robert Bloch, for instance, seems a fit proselyte of Lovecraft, who, with experience, may yet equal his master, but no disciple can fill the place of his teacher in the mind and heart of any who knew that teacher's genius. I'm afraid this letter has spun itself out to an immoderate length. I can only plead my faithful service of years as an excuse and draw it to a conclusion As to your authors, I have already spoken of Robert Bloch. His tales are real gems and should get even better as he gains experience. Good old Seabury Quinn, almost the last of the old brigade, wrote a real winner, The Globe of Memories I believe it was called. Jack Williamson usually shows perfect taste, but his last was downright pitiable. I never thought to read such a hodgepodge of vile villainy and putty make-up, 'orrible plotting and dastardly scheming in your magazine. That stuff does not belong in the aristocratic. Repeat not the offense. The Last Pharaoh reads well, is exceedingly and fluently written and promises a fine climax. And who is this Clifford Ball? His Duar the Accursed was a neat piece of craftsmanship, and should develop into a first-class series."

Donald A. Wollheim, of New York City, writes: "May I offer congratulations on your August issue which is a first-rate job? Lovecraft's yarn was one I had never read before; Kuttner's was a superb little fable; Frank Owen is a true master in his own right; The Last Pharaoh is thoroughly intriguing and worth while. Wellman's Necronomiconic is a honey. But it won't end Necronomicon tales. I, for one, want to see the Necro grow bigger and bigger. It was one of the factors contributing to the making of WT's vivid and unique personality."

Joseph Allen Ryan, of Cambridge, Maryland, writes: "Wellman's short, The Terrible Parchment, was especially interesting to me; for I believe I was on hand when the idea for the tale was born. Otto Binder, Julius Schwartz, Mort Weisinger and I (as usual, I was the small frog in the big