Hal Kertan Wells (1899-1979) was a Pulpster who wrote largely for the Mystery and Shudder Pulp magazines along with Detective, Western and Sports stories. (He was also a journalist.) With titles like “Black Pool for Hell Maidens” and “When the Black Fiend Fed” it is pretty obvious he wrote for the Pulps. Some of his work made it into Science Fiction and regular Horror magazines as well. His first sale was to Weird Tales (followed by a Western and a Detective story). Wells sold to harry Bates at Astounding during the Clayton Astounding run. He sold one story to F. Orlin Tremaine then waited until the magazine became Thrilling Wonder in 1936. A John W. Campbell writer he wasn’t! He left the field with “Give a Man a Chair He Can Lick” (Fantastic Universe, November 1954).
“The Brass Key” (Weird Tales, February 1929) has Chinese merchant Foo Chang kidnap the man, Bull Partlow, who injured Foo’s son, making him an idiot for life. Partlow is given two hours to find the brass key that will allow him to escape. If he fails the room will be filled with poisonous spiders. Will Bull survive?
“The Daughter of Isis” (Weird Tales, February 1930) gives a first person account of a mysterious, ghost-like woman who comes for the narrator as his girl Alice wonders what is going on. Zanthores was a woman of Egypt three thousand years ago and she has had many lovers since. Can Alice save him from Zanthores’ clutches?
“The Gate to Xoran” (Astounding, January 1931) has Blair Gordon see his girl kidnapped. His following her abductors exposes Arlok, the robot man from Xoran who is preparing for an invasion of Earth! Can Blair save his girl and the Earth?
“When the Moon Turned Green” (Astounding, May 1931) has a mysterious green ray that puts everyone to sleep. Fortunately, Bruce Dixon is working on radioactive materials and stays awake. The Alpha Centaurians are invading and Bruce and his girl have to fight the insect-mammal hybrids the invaders have unleashed.
“Devil Crystals of Arret” (Astounding, September 1931) has Professor Marlowe and his assistant, Larry Powell, about to enter an another dimension when Marlowe’s niece, Joan, passes into the other realm. First having to fix the machine, Larry goes in search of Joan. he is grabbed by the Rat-Men of Arret who plan to sacrifice him and Joan to the Devil Crystals!
“The Ordeal of Wooden-Face” (Weird Tales, January 1932) is a short tale that has a crooked agent named Borger embezzles from ivory hunter Wooden-Face Jones. Jones gives the culprit a choice right out of The Princess Bride, two cups, one filled with cyanide. Who will drink the poison?
In “Zehru of Xollar” (Astounding, February 1932) Robert Blake and his girl, Helen Lawson, along with a gangster named Mapes, are abducted and taken to a distant planet. Blake kills two of the jailers, leaving his with another prisoner, Zehru. The alien plans to transfer his mind into Blake then return to earth to become ruler. How can Robert survive when the bad guy has a disintegrator tube?
“The Cavern of the Shining Ones” (Astounding, November 1932) has Don Foster, down-and-out victim of the Great Depression joining a weird expedition out of desperation. Layroh, an odd-looking fellow, leads the men into the Mojave Desert. Later when layroh opens the mountain and shows them an amazing lab filled with wondrous machines, he reveals himself for a giant slug. His people were the ones to destroyed Atlantis and now he wants to revive his sleeping kin. Don and the others are slug-chow for the sleepers!
“The Flame Worms of Yokku” (Amazing Stories, March 1933) has Larson and Wheeler bound for Uranus when their Martian pilot, a drug-using psycho, hijacks them for a trip to a mythical dark star. Once upon a planet in the system, the pilot leaves the ship, taking the keys. The Earthmen follow, avoiding the killer fauna, until the Martian gets eaten by a Flame Worm. Larson and Wheeler retrieve the key and go home.
“The Purple Brain” (Astounding, December 1933) has Neil Andrews and John Kincaid encountering a cougar with a weird jelly-creature attached to its head. The men become captives of the alien, who is named Yaagir. It is a scout for an invasion force. Neil manages to kill the invader but not before it sets off a nuclear bomb, destroying its base.
In February’s issue of Weird Tales Hal K. Wells of Athens, Ohio, writes: “I can’t help tossing a wreath of laurel to you for having acquired C. L. Moore. He is most startling discovery in the weird field since Lovecraft’s first work. If ever a ‘writer’s writer’ existed, Moore is one. He succeeds in describing the indescribable… The Black God’s Kiss was in every respect the finest weird story I have ever read.”
Like many others who praised Moore’s Jirel of Joiry story, Wells was not aware that C. L. Moore was a woman. Five years later she would marry Henry Kuttner and the pair would become the collaborative Lewis Padgett, Laurence O’Donnell and other fine SF pseudonyms.
“Man-Jewels For Xothar” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1936) has worm monsters descending to Earth in amber bubbles. Bob Kellar and several prisoners learn that the invaders want to give all humans a crystalized death.
“Moon of Mad Atavisim” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1939) has Blair Kent on the moon of Titan, where the Martian Laor Zak has his eye on Ruth Morton. Not only that but he has used a device to devolve Ruth’s brother into an ape-thing. Can Kent save Isaac Morton and get the Earthlings home?
It should come as no surprise that Wells would combine two of his commercial genres, Science Fiction and Sports in “Dimension-Hazard” (Super Science Stories, November 1940). Henry Duncan is golfing when he is launched into the fourth dimension. There he meets strange giant folk and teaches them the game of golf. All would be fine except for the giant spiders! Wells would do this again in “Ants in His Planets” (Thrilling Sports, Summer 1951) when a boxer falls for an astrologer.
“The White Brood” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, November 1940) starts with Dorene Arlan, Girl Planeteer, Queen of the Tel-Audio Screen, bucking the law that has quarantined Io. The moon contains a horror so terrible that no one may go there. When she goes to the moon’s surface it is up to Captain Barton Reed to save her from Io’s white brood of worms.
For the first time, Wells got to explain where the idea for his novelet came from in “The Story Behind the Story”. It is interesting that the editors compare the story to the famous Gerry Carlyle series by Arthur K. Barnes that began in Thrilling Wonder in 1936.
“Blood on the Sun” (Startling Stories, May 1942) was Hal’s big novel, taking pride of place in Startling Stories. What can it mean when the forces of Hell try to take over the galaxy? The ancient Brain-Destroyers of Mars want human bodies for their own evil purposes. Can newspaperman, Val X. Barnes get the story out to the unbelieving masses and save his girl, Amber Starr, from a fate worse than death? Only an alliance of planets can save the human race.
“Give a Man a Chair He Can Lick” (Fantastic Universe, November 1954) features Mr. Adkins, a quaking milksop of a man. When his landlady gets a bargain on furniture, including a talking chair, it becomes the duel of his life.
Wells wrote no more SF after 1954. In fact, this story was probably the last thing he published. The majority of his Pulp writing ended in the 1940s, even before the Pulps died out. He lived until December 12, 1979.
