To a fan of Weird Tales Anthony M. Rud is the guy who kicked it all off. He wrote the lead story “Ooze” in the very first issue in March 1923. The R. R. Epperly cover shows a man and a woman fighting an octopus-like creature in orange tones. Rud would pen eight stories for “The Unique Magazine” including “The Witch-Baiter”, “The Endocrine Monster” and “The Place of the Hairy Death” but only one other story by this author stands out. That was “A Square of Canvas” from the second issue (April 1923). It was reprinted in 1951. He may also have contributed “The Forty Jars” as Ray McGillivray (April 1923).
So to my Weird Tales-oriented mind, Rud was just another author of a handful of tales who came and went. Kind of silly and forgettable. But the truth is so much more interesting because Anthony Melville Rud (1893-1942) was much more important to the history of the Pulps and to Weird Tales. He was a writer but also acted as associate editor of West (1926), then editor of Adventure magazine from October 1927 to February 1930 and later of Detective Story Magazine. He wrote prolifically in the detective and adventure magazines appearing in Action Stories, Argosy, Black Mask, Blue Book, Popular Western, Short Stories, Thrilling Wonder and many others. He was a professional Pulpster, not just a once-a-year horror tale writer.
And yet… he is still best remembered for “Ooze”. Or is he? Marvin Kaye and John Gregory Betancourt did not include the story in The Best of Weird Tales 1923. Kay wrote in the afterword:
I do not admire Anthony M. Rud’s twice-reprinted first Weird Tales contribution, “Ooze,” but was impressed with his second story, “A Square of Canvas,” a savage tale of madness that ran in the April issue and was reprinted in September 1951, as well as in Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors, edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg and Martin H. Greenberg (Bonanza Books, 1988).
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I disagreed with Marvin, whose anthologies I collect.
Terence E. Hanley at Tellers of Weird Tales said:
He helped get Weird Tales off on the right foot with his very serviceable and frequently reprinted story “Ooze.” (It may also have been an influence on H.P. Lovecraft, though I don’t have any direct evidence for that.)
The plot of “Ooze” has a non-fiction writer telling us about Lee and Peggy Cranmer, newly weds. The father, John Corliss Cranmer, is a rich scientist. Cranmer Sr. has a wall built around his home in the swamp, offering the builders a thousand dollars for silence or death by pistol if it is not accepted. The narrator slowly unwinds the secret behind that wall with the help of a Cajun named Rori. He finally uncovers the disappearance of Lee and Peggy (and the dog). Cranmer Sr. has created a giant amoeba that is large enough to consume people. The Cranmers were eaten by accident, driving the father to desperate measures. In the end, the scientist, who everyone thinks is insane, builds the wall to trap the creature.
This tale that Kaye professes no liking for and Hanley called “very serviceable” strikes me as a well-constructed monster mystery. Rud shows considerable depth in applying the layers of the story so that he hints at, logically supports his monstrous creature and finally reveals it. Others who attempt this in later stories in Weird Tales do so with much less finesse. (Look at Otis Adelbert Kline’s “The Malignant Entity” (May-June-July 1924) for example.)
“Ooze” sets a pattern that very much reminds me of Edmond Hamilton, who wrote stories with scientists having to deal with other mad scientists in a least a dozen tales like “Evolution Island”. Jack Williamson‘s debut in WT was “The Wand of Doom” (October 1932) and follows a similar structure in a swamp setting, even having a derelict to help the protagonist out. H. P. Lovecraft may have been inspired by Rud, certainly creating enough ooze-like monsters with shoggoths and the Dunwich Horror.
I look at that list: Hamilton, Williamson and Lovecraft and realize that at least two of these writers are consider “Science Fiction” writers. HPL was too in his way. Rud’s “Ooze” is a SF story as well as a horror story, in a manner that Lovecraft certainly approved of. And ultimately, my impression of Rud has changed. I guess I mistakenly wrote him off as one of those early Weird Tales writers who simply don’t matter because we got Lovecraft, Howard, Smith, etc. to replace them later. As it turns out “Ooze” is worth a read and a little consideration as an important progenitor to the Science Fiction/Horror legacy that followed.
NB: One of the next stories Rud published after “Ooze” was “The Flusher” in Adventure, June 20, 1923. It too is set in the swamps of the Cajuns. Unlike “Ooze”, it is a light-hearted tale of a dog named Rabbit. Rud could use the same setting for two entirely different kinds of stories.
