I did a series of Sword & Sorcery tales that people might not have encountered. I got to thinking there are some pretty good horror stories you may have missed too.
“The Strange Story of Major Weir” by J. E. Muddock
J. E. Muddock was an English journalist who turned to the writing of mystery stories featuring a detective called Dick Donovan. Later he used the name as a pseudonym, beating Ellery Queen by over thirty years. His horror fiction is less remembered than his 300 mysteries, some appearing in The Strand between Sherlock Holmes stories. His horror stories appeared in two books: Stories, Weird and Wonderful (tales taken from folklore) and Tales of Terror (a collection of his own inventions), both published in 1899, one under his real name and the other Dick Donovan. (It would be interesting to know which sold better?) His novel The Sunless City (1905) tells of voyagers to a world under a lake. The main character’s nickname, Flin Flon, was adopted for a town in Manitoba, Canada when a vein of copper was discovered by a lake there.
Based on a real person, “The Strange Story of Major Weir” tells about a Scottish fiend, a Major Weir and his sister, Grizel. After the two are hung and burned for witchcraft, their ghosts frequent their old home with wild and frightening parties. Muddock describes the horrific visions with a gruesome joy. “…And sometimes, when a belated traveller, nervously wending his way homeward, passed the haunted alley, he has been suddenly almost turned to stone with horror by observing a headless, coal-black horse, of gigantic proportions, with blood and fire streaming from its neck, issue forth, ridden by the grinning spectre of Major Weir, though, in a few moments, horse and rider would suddenly vanish in a whirlwind of blue flame…”
“The Red Brain” by Donald Wandrei
“The Red Brain” first appeared in Weird Tales, October 1927. The plot is simple because not much action happens in the story. The universe is filling up with dust and planets and star systems are being destroyed one by one. Only the giant brains of Antares remain, hiding behind a force field, trying to discover a way to defeat the inevitable end of the universe. The brains grow super-brains to help them all try to find that salvation. The great brain is about to admit defeat when the red brain of the title, a quickly made organism that has changed color by error, says it has the solution. All the other brains are telepathically awaiting the answer when the Red Brain begins to shoot out hatred and mental poison, spinning and killing every other around it. “The hope of the universe had lain with the Red Brain. And the Red Brain was mad.”
S. T. Joshi says of “The Red Brain” in a book headlined by that story, The Red Brain – Great Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (2017): “Wandrei’s story, although not without the flaws inherent in its composition by a teenager, is nonetheless a spectacular example of the cosmicism that is at the heart of Lovecraft’s own work.” I agree the story does a great job of spinning the cosmic vision of a universe filling up with dust. This is horror on the Lovecraft scale. The ending could even had Lovecraftian italics: And the Red Brain was mad. Ultimately, the story doesn’t work for me. And I think it a bit of stretch to call it a Cthulhu Mythos story. Cosmic horror, sure. Mythos?
“The Green Parrot” by Joseph Payne Brennan
Joseph Payne Brennan (1918-1990) would become one of the preeminent horror short story writers of the 1960s and 70s along with Basil Copper and Ramsey Campbell. Brennan’s first ghost story appeared in Weird Tales in 1952. He would publish four stories with WT including the classic “Slime”.
But let’s be honest, Brennan came to late to the party. By 1952, Weird Tales was winding down a slow trail to death (along with all the other Pulps). Dorothy McIlwraith was doing what she could but the magazine was not the powerhouse of the 1930s, not even the so-so magazine of the 1940s. The last years of the 1950s produced few new (and good) writers. Richard Matheson published “Wet Straw” in 1954 but he was already establishing himself in the Science Fiction magazines. Some of the old hands like August Derleth, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Harold Lawlor, Emil Petaja and Paul Ernst still provided stories but not their best.
Joseph Payne Brennan made his debut with “The Green Parrot” (Weird Tales, July 1952). It is a pretty standard ghost story but a good indicator of his potential. A writer who is staying in a small town for quiet and work, goes on a drive to relax. He ends up on a remote road where a green parrot flies in front of him. The bird is followed by an old woman in a bonnet. The narrator goes after the parrot and becomes lost. He struggles out of the thick brush and drives back to his hotel in a huff. There he tells the others at his table about the experience. Their astonished faces tell him there is more here. It turns out many people have seen the bird and woman, who died over a hundred years. The original Miss Meecham had sent a rescue party into the woods to retrieve the parrot just before a snowstorm. Several men and boys (and the woman herself) died after getting lost in the woods. Her appearance always predicts a coming snowstorm. The narrator goes to bed, sleeps without difficulty but wakes in the morning to half a foot of snow.
This type of ghost story is very old. It wasn’t even new when J. Sheridan Le Fanu used to write them. That being said, Brennan writes it well, with economy, a must for a good ghost story. Though not a brilliant innovation, he sets himself upon the course of a ghost story writer. Late to the party, he still gets a bit of cake.
Just as an aside, Brennan was lucky enough to get an illustration by Lee Brown Coye, a personal favorite. His psychotic cartoony style is not to everyone’s taste but I like it. Why did Dorothy McIlwraith (or the paste up person) decide to cut it into pieces? I’d like to find the original uncut image.
“My Name is Death” by Charles Birkin
“My Name Is Death” or “Terror on Tobit” by Charles Birkin first appeared in the anthology Terrors (1933) and Birkin used the pseudonym Charles Lloyd. This makes it one of his oldest stories though it is hard to tell because there isn’t tons of information. No matter, because Birkin in always a good read.
The introduction to The Smell of Evil (the 2013 edition) John Llewellyn Proberts says:
Dennis Wheatley is often cited as the man responsible for encouraging Birkin to take up his pen again, and it may well be that we have Wheatley to thank for the wealth of Birkin fiction we have available today.
I am glad Wheatley did. Though Wheatley has not always dated well, Birkin’s horror fiction doesn’t date. yes, the story is set in a world that is pre-WWII, it doesn’t matter. There was one reference I had to look up, the girls referred to themselves as couple of “Mary Roses”, but the terrors don’t care. The plot is simple and gradual. Two young women, feelings their freedom on holiday, convince a local man to row them out to a remote island called Tobit. The people of the Scilly Islands (off Cornwall) claim that Tobit belongs to the sea and every year it takes a sacrifice. People who go there disappear. So, of course, our two cigarette-smoking, brash little chicks want to spend the night there. I won’t spoil the fun, only saw Birkin doesn’t over-reveal. He gives you just enough of a suggestion to make it work.
I will be reading and re-reading more Birkin. Again as Probert says of Birkin’s work “some of the bleakest, most well-written, deliciously nasty horror stories”. Birkin suggests but he never suggests nice things. He works in the best Jamesian tradition. He’s not writing these stories to make you feel all is right in the world. Quite the opposite. I used to have the old paperbacks with the stupid covers. Now in e-format he is just as good
Quintana Roo by Gary Brandner
Quintana Roo, or Tribe of the Dead as it was republished in 1984, is a jungle adventure by Horror writer Gary Brandner. Brandner is most famous for his The Howling series. This should not scare off Jungle fans who don’t like Horror. This novel is first and foremost an adventure story with a small zombie element. By comparison, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is by far more of a Horror piece. Like that film, Brandner has set his story in the 1930s, just before WWII.
The cast of characters include our hero, John Hooker, an ex-soldier of fortune turned tour guide. He is probably too good to be true but Brandner grounds him enough you don’t complain. He likes to drink and all the usual hard-boiled habits. With him is Alita, the Mexican girl who is beautiful and knows the Maya. Their employer is Connie Braithwaite, a beautiful blond millionairess looking for her husband. She doesn’t try to sell Hooker on the idea she is in love with her husband, only wants to get control of his business empire without waiting seven years. Again, Brandner rounds out her character so we can sympathize with her.
The mission is to go to Quintana Roo (where Braithwaite’s plane crashed), a part of the Yucatan that is mostly held by savage Mayan tribesmen. She needs proof of his death or to bring him home. Also missing is Hooker’s good buddy, Buzz Kaplan, Braithwaite’s bodyguard. To make things interesting, there are human juggernauts in Veracruz trying dissuade Hooker from going. These are the zombie-like killers called the muerateros. After several chapters around Veracruz, the expedition takes off with Hooker’s German pilot friend.
In the jungle Hooker has to deal with poisonous snakes, jaguars, ticks, and evil hirelings who try to kill him. All this is before the party finds the crashed plane, hidden under a year’s growth, and Buzz Kaplan, who has lost a foot in the plane crash. He can’t tell Connie Braithwaite what has happened to her husband. That explanation comes later when the Mayans capture them and take them to Itzal, a secret city hidden in the jungle. There they are surrounded by spearmen, zombies and the king of the Maya, the only man who can speak English, Holchacan. Holchcan was educated in Ivy League schools but could not break past prejudice in the civilized world, rising no higher than shipping clerk. He wanted to become a doctor. His medical interests are turned to other things, like making men into the living dead by performing surgery on their brains (explaining away any supernatural elements).
Conclusion
There are great stories and novels out there that don’t get a lot of press, so you have to keep digging. Used bookstore, libraries and of course, my favorite online, Archive.org.
