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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947
Page 45
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DREAM QUEST 45 even long enough to be called a story; it amounts to about a page, all told. In addition to this mass is one poem and a couple of departments, 96 pages in all -- the smallest fantasy mag now appearing. The lead "long novelette" -- although it doesn't cop the cover -- is another Lovecraft imitation by the guy who writes under the name of C. Hall Thompson. You may remember "Spawn of the Green Abyss," in the November 1946 issue; this particular one is called "The Will of Claude Ashur." Miskatonic U. and Arkham of good old H. P. L. fame are mentioned, but they don't attain the prominence they did in the old master's writings. The evil village in this tale is called Inneswich -- that one gave us a laugh. If he was going to mention Miskatonic and Arkham anyway, why didn't he at least be consistent, and go ahead and call it Innsmouth or Dunwich, or else invent a new name? Maybe he couldn't think of an original one, and objected to using the HPL inventions because Inneswich didn't resemble in evil properties, location, etc. the two Lovecraft villages from which its name was compounded. The will mentioned in the title isn't a last will and testament, as might be supposed. It is the other kind of will -- will power. Claude Ashur is the brother of the narrator; since birth he has exercised a strange compelling control over others, hence the "will". He is also a dark and mysterious person -- his studies of witchcraft and demonology are so deep and horrible that he is expelled from Miskatonic! And that is getting pretty bad. There is no point in recounting the rest of the plot here, except that the evil guy eventually makes his "will" so strong that through the aid of incantations he is able to take over his brother's body, leaving his brother with his puny will in his ((Claude's)) leprosy-ridden body in the insane asylum. Altogether an admirable guy to have for a brother, eh? The yarn isn't notable. We wonder who C. Hall Thompson is -- maybe Derleth. Anyway, whoever he is, he's no HPL -- not in any sense. Not even in subject matter -- a love interest is introduced into this saga, which as any Lovecraftian knows would have been the last thing the master would ever have done. However, in one point Thompson excels Lovecraft -- the ability to describe utterly loathsome objects in minute detail. We wonder if he didn't have a leper there before him as he wrote the last two pages -- they describe a leper in the last stages of decay, after 20 years of steady rotting, and they came about as close to turning this reviewer's stomach as has any weird tale read in the last few years -- and we have read plenty, we assure you. Actually, we can't see the point in introducing this sort of thing -- it adds nothing to effect or quality, for plenty of writers have achieved effect without resort to gruesome descriptions by detail. Wouldn't be surprised if the more weak-stomached of Weird's readers leave the fold after this one. Ugh!....and aside from that criticism, the careful buildup that characterized HPL's writing is absend here almost entirely. He relies upon the "leprosy" revelation to make a climax, which is bad. After all said and done, we're forced to the conclusion that there'll never be another Lovecraft, and that is all there is to that. We wish that the imitators -------------------------- GOLDEN GATE IN '48!
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DREAM QUEST 45 even long enough to be called a story; it amounts to about a page, all told. In addition to this mass is one poem and a couple of departments, 96 pages in all -- the smallest fantasy mag now appearing. The lead "long novelette" -- although it doesn't cop the cover -- is another Lovecraft imitation by the guy who writes under the name of C. Hall Thompson. You may remember "Spawn of the Green Abyss," in the November 1946 issue; this particular one is called "The Will of Claude Ashur." Miskatonic U. and Arkham of good old H. P. L. fame are mentioned, but they don't attain the prominence they did in the old master's writings. The evil village in this tale is called Inneswich -- that one gave us a laugh. If he was going to mention Miskatonic and Arkham anyway, why didn't he at least be consistent, and go ahead and call it Innsmouth or Dunwich, or else invent a new name? Maybe he couldn't think of an original one, and objected to using the HPL inventions because Inneswich didn't resemble in evil properties, location, etc. the two Lovecraft villages from which its name was compounded. The will mentioned in the title isn't a last will and testament, as might be supposed. It is the other kind of will -- will power. Claude Ashur is the brother of the narrator; since birth he has exercised a strange compelling control over others, hence the "will". He is also a dark and mysterious person -- his studies of witchcraft and demonology are so deep and horrible that he is expelled from Miskatonic! And that is getting pretty bad. There is no point in recounting the rest of the plot here, except that the evil guy eventually makes his "will" so strong that through the aid of incantations he is able to take over his brother's body, leaving his brother with his puny will in his ((Claude's)) leprosy-ridden body in the insane asylum. Altogether an admirable guy to have for a brother, eh? The yarn isn't notable. We wonder who C. Hall Thompson is -- maybe Derleth. Anyway, whoever he is, he's no HPL -- not in any sense. Not even in subject matter -- a love interest is introduced into this saga, which as any Lovecraftian knows would have been the last thing the master would ever have done. However, in one point Thompson excels Lovecraft -- the ability to describe utterly loathsome objects in minute detail. We wonder if he didn't have a leper there before him as he wrote the last two pages -- they describe a leper in the last stages of decay, after 20 years of steady rotting, and they came about as close to turning this reviewer's stomach as has any weird tale read in the last few years -- and we have read plenty, we assure you. Actually, we can't see the point in introducing this sort of thing -- it adds nothing to effect or quality, for plenty of writers have achieved effect without resort to gruesome descriptions by detail. Wouldn't be surprised if the more weak-stomached of Weird's readers leave the fold after this one. Ugh!....and aside from that criticism, the careful buildup that characterized HPL's writing is absend here almost entirely. He relies upon the "leprosy" revelation to make a climax, which is bad. After all said and done, we're forced to the conclusion that there'll never be another Lovecraft, and that is all there is to that. We wish that the imitators -------------------------- GOLDEN GATE IN '48!
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