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Fantasy Fan, v. 2, issue 6, whole no. 18, February 1935
Page 84
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84 THE FANTASY FAN, February, 1935 GLEANINGS by Louis C. Smith I promise to write an article about that Great High God among fantasy authors, M. P. Shiel; much of the best science-fantasy, from a literary standpoint, has been written by him. Anyway, when you read "The Purple Cloud," "Dr. Krasinski's Secret" "This Above All," or any of the other two score novels penned by him, such little matters as scientific accuracy never enter your head (which does not by any means imply that his science is not correct to the N'th degree). A hypnotist with words is M. P. Shiel. And he is--and has been--almost as much a Haven-born genius as some of the characters he weaves through the pages of his novels. He is fluent with a half dozen languages, is literally a master of all sciences, writes in a blinding, complicated style no one else on Earth could imitate-- much less create!--and has written as many books as Haggard, Burroughs, and a few others combined. At 12 he wrote a novel; at 13, printed a newspaper; and at 15, wrote novels for serialization in large public papers Lester Anderson, fantastiac extraordinary of Hayward, California, is fortunate enough to count himself a very good friend and correspondent of the lexicographical (hah!) Clark Ashton Smith. Speaking of whom: Smith and H. P. Lovecraft are great friends, by correspondence. Lovecraft refers to C.A.S as "My good old friend and correspondent, Klarkash-Ton, Heirophant of Atlantis and High-Priest of Tsathoggua." Again Bram Stoker! His latest to chance my way is "The Jewel of Seven Stars." With every reading of this English weird-tale master; I am seized in profound melancholia, despairing the fact that he did not live another twenty years, to pen another score novels. Not content with being a master of superb plot (involved plot too!) Stoker went to exquisite pains to instill that ultra-weird and chilling sens of the unreal so characteristic of his work. In "Jewel of the Seven Stars," he spins a yarn of Egyptian queens who wield a strange and powerful influence over the lives of present-day people; (continued on page 95) Supernatural Horror in Literature (continued from previous issue) and perished honourably in the Civil War. It is he who gave us "What Was It?" the first well-shaped short story of a tangible but invisible being, and the prototype of de Maupassant's "Horla;" he also who created the inimitable "Diamond Lens," in which a young microscopist falls in love with a maiden of an infinitesimal world which he has discovered in a drop of water. O'Brien's early death unboubtedly deprived us of some masterful tales of strangeness and terror, though his genius was not, properly speaking, of the same titan quality which characterized Poe and Hawthorne. (Discontinued At This Point)
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84 THE FANTASY FAN, February, 1935 GLEANINGS by Louis C. Smith I promise to write an article about that Great High God among fantasy authors, M. P. Shiel; much of the best science-fantasy, from a literary standpoint, has been written by him. Anyway, when you read "The Purple Cloud," "Dr. Krasinski's Secret" "This Above All," or any of the other two score novels penned by him, such little matters as scientific accuracy never enter your head (which does not by any means imply that his science is not correct to the N'th degree). A hypnotist with words is M. P. Shiel. And he is--and has been--almost as much a Haven-born genius as some of the characters he weaves through the pages of his novels. He is fluent with a half dozen languages, is literally a master of all sciences, writes in a blinding, complicated style no one else on Earth could imitate-- much less create!--and has written as many books as Haggard, Burroughs, and a few others combined. At 12 he wrote a novel; at 13, printed a newspaper; and at 15, wrote novels for serialization in large public papers Lester Anderson, fantastiac extraordinary of Hayward, California, is fortunate enough to count himself a very good friend and correspondent of the lexicographical (hah!) Clark Ashton Smith. Speaking of whom: Smith and H. P. Lovecraft are great friends, by correspondence. Lovecraft refers to C.A.S as "My good old friend and correspondent, Klarkash-Ton, Heirophant of Atlantis and High-Priest of Tsathoggua." Again Bram Stoker! His latest to chance my way is "The Jewel of Seven Stars." With every reading of this English weird-tale master; I am seized in profound melancholia, despairing the fact that he did not live another twenty years, to pen another score novels. Not content with being a master of superb plot (involved plot too!) Stoker went to exquisite pains to instill that ultra-weird and chilling sens of the unreal so characteristic of his work. In "Jewel of the Seven Stars," he spins a yarn of Egyptian queens who wield a strange and powerful influence over the lives of present-day people; (continued on page 95) Supernatural Horror in Literature (continued from previous issue) and perished honourably in the Civil War. It is he who gave us "What Was It?" the first well-shaped short story of a tangible but invisible being, and the prototype of de Maupassant's "Horla;" he also who created the inimitable "Diamond Lens," in which a young microscopist falls in love with a maiden of an infinitesimal world which he has discovered in a drop of water. O'Brien's early death unboubtedly deprived us of some masterful tales of strangeness and terror, though his genius was not, properly speaking, of the same titan quality which characterized Poe and Hawthorne. (Discontinued At This Point)
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