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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 7, Summer 1945
Page 150
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150 FANTASY COMMENTATOR Apostle of the Outside William Sloane and Howard Phillips Lovecraft: a Curious Affinity by Matthew H. Onderdonk The right of William Mulligan Sloane III to a niche in fantasy's hall of fame seems secure, although it rests on the publication of only two novels: To Walk the Night (1937) and The Edge of Running Water (1939). Both books are works of considerable artistry and power, though the first is by far the best known and the most popular among devotees of weird literature. We must wonder always with keen regret why Sloane apparently abandoned this form of writing after such a magnificent beginning. He was eminently successful in initiating a fresh variant in the realm of the imaginative, and his work is of particular interest to those steeped in the peculiar lore of the great H. P. Lovecraft. There is a strange, characteristic atmosphere enveloping these stories which keen observers recognize as containing flashes and definite adumbrations of the cosmic viewpoint of Lovecraft---an attitude so transmuted and so reintegrated, however, as to constitute a new and most intriguing byway off the beaten path of ordinary fantastic fiction. II To those who read with more than casual attention it at once became evident that Sloane---like Lovecraft---was obsessed with the concept of a menace to mankind and its world from shadowy and terrifying entities of a space-time outside our normal, known universe. With Lovecraft, this horrible idea finally developed into a pantheon of supernormal gods (the Cthulhu Mythos) which attempted to personify the forces ruling all space and time in a manner not too unpalatable to minds with a modern scientific background. Sloane never went this far: he was content to deal with super-intelligences from an alien cosmos in his first effort; in his second, he strongly intimated that tremendous dark forces lurked in nearby dimensions beyond a barrier---apparently insuperable, but in reality vulnerable to the efforts of a keen, fearless scientific brain. All of these entities were never personified beyond the extent that (in To Walk the Night) the body of the idiot girl, Luella Jamison, served as a temporary receptacle for the intelligence from outer space which we know as Selena. This was merely the familiar phenomenon of possession because we recall that when the mind---Selena---decided to return to its own people we were left with the dumb, hollow shell of the unfortunate Luella---devoid of all the dazzling attractions and cosmic knowledge which it had exhibited during Selena's residence. One of Sloane's favorite conceptions appears to be that of a psychic force somewhat akin to electrical energy. Selena could create fire, could control or even kill human beings through its use. When this force was inadvertently amplified to a colossal degree by mingling with the mind power of thousands of football fans in an adjacent stadium---all concentrated on one single thought: the next play---it achieved catastrophic proportions and literally incinerated the body of unhappy professor Le Normand, toward whom Selena's original, merely controlling thought had been directed. Le Normand, the great astrophysicist, knew too much. His equations---culminating a lifetime of research far beyond Einstein's original concepts---were almost completed. Then he would know who Selena really was and where she came from and how she arrived on this planet. The secrets of her mighty race
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150 FANTASY COMMENTATOR Apostle of the Outside William Sloane and Howard Phillips Lovecraft: a Curious Affinity by Matthew H. Onderdonk The right of William Mulligan Sloane III to a niche in fantasy's hall of fame seems secure, although it rests on the publication of only two novels: To Walk the Night (1937) and The Edge of Running Water (1939). Both books are works of considerable artistry and power, though the first is by far the best known and the most popular among devotees of weird literature. We must wonder always with keen regret why Sloane apparently abandoned this form of writing after such a magnificent beginning. He was eminently successful in initiating a fresh variant in the realm of the imaginative, and his work is of particular interest to those steeped in the peculiar lore of the great H. P. Lovecraft. There is a strange, characteristic atmosphere enveloping these stories which keen observers recognize as containing flashes and definite adumbrations of the cosmic viewpoint of Lovecraft---an attitude so transmuted and so reintegrated, however, as to constitute a new and most intriguing byway off the beaten path of ordinary fantastic fiction. II To those who read with more than casual attention it at once became evident that Sloane---like Lovecraft---was obsessed with the concept of a menace to mankind and its world from shadowy and terrifying entities of a space-time outside our normal, known universe. With Lovecraft, this horrible idea finally developed into a pantheon of supernormal gods (the Cthulhu Mythos) which attempted to personify the forces ruling all space and time in a manner not too unpalatable to minds with a modern scientific background. Sloane never went this far: he was content to deal with super-intelligences from an alien cosmos in his first effort; in his second, he strongly intimated that tremendous dark forces lurked in nearby dimensions beyond a barrier---apparently insuperable, but in reality vulnerable to the efforts of a keen, fearless scientific brain. All of these entities were never personified beyond the extent that (in To Walk the Night) the body of the idiot girl, Luella Jamison, served as a temporary receptacle for the intelligence from outer space which we know as Selena. This was merely the familiar phenomenon of possession because we recall that when the mind---Selena---decided to return to its own people we were left with the dumb, hollow shell of the unfortunate Luella---devoid of all the dazzling attractions and cosmic knowledge which it had exhibited during Selena's residence. One of Sloane's favorite conceptions appears to be that of a psychic force somewhat akin to electrical energy. Selena could create fire, could control or even kill human beings through its use. When this force was inadvertently amplified to a colossal degree by mingling with the mind power of thousands of football fans in an adjacent stadium---all concentrated on one single thought: the next play---it achieved catastrophic proportions and literally incinerated the body of unhappy professor Le Normand, toward whom Selena's original, merely controlling thought had been directed. Le Normand, the great astrophysicist, knew too much. His equations---culminating a lifetime of research far beyond Einstein's original concepts---were almost completed. Then he would know who Selena really was and where she came from and how she arrived on this planet. The secrets of her mighty race
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