If you missed the last one…
1934 was the last year of the big serials, before most of the SF/F is replaced by short stories and novellas. Only A. Merritt’s Creep, Shadow! was a major novel. It was reprinted several times. Ralph Milne Farley had the obscure SF piece called The Immortals,Theodore Roscoe a novel about voodoo called A Grave Must Be Deep and the final appearance of Semi-Dual in The Ledger of Life. Familiar writers like Murray Leinster, R. F. Starzl and Ray Cummings produce strong material though none of it is startlingly original or new. There is the occasional gem like Gordon MacCreagh’s “Zimwi Crater”.
“Brigands of the Unseen” by Ray Cummings (January 27, 1934) has strange figures pulled through a veil of electricity to attack the United States. Cummings works hard to make it spooky but Science lies behind it. Ray has used the word “Brigands” more famously in Brigands of the Moon.
“The Radiant Enemies” by R. F. Starzl (February 10, 1934) was another SF piece that was reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, November 1939. An asteroid is rich in radium deposits but they are guarded by beings that burn with radioactivity.
“Death on Seadrome Three” by Eustace L. Adams (February 17, 1934)
“War of the Purple Gas” by Murray Leinster (February 24-March 3, 1934) in two parts, is a future war story. The cover suggests Yellow Peril elements, which Argosy certainly used in other series like Peter the Brazen. Asia attacks America. The bombing of Pearl Harbor is five years away. Leinster has New York destroyed on the Atlantic side, not an attack in the Pacific.
Jungle Girl by H. Bedford-Jones (March 10-31, 1934) in three parts, is a Siamese jungle piece not by Edgar Rice Burroughs but the master of adventure writers, the Canadian-born, H. Bedford-Jones. (ERB had Jungle Girl in Blue Book back in 1931, also set in Asia. That novel would inspire a serial and then the Bob Powell comic book character.) The story features airplane flying in the jungle and has two jungle girls, the daughter of explorer Hugh Cabot and the native Lana. Which will Frank Adams pick?
“The Octopus of Hongkong” by Loring Brent (March 31, 1934), is a Peter the Brazen story.
“The Witch of Silverwood” by William Merriam Rouse (March 24, 1934) is another Adirondack tale set in New York state rather than Quebec.
“The Prophet of Death” by Allan Vaughan Elston (May 5, 1934) is from an author better remembered for his Westerns. This is one of three Weird Mystery stories he wrote.
Forbidden Mountain by J. Allan Dunn (May 12-26, 1934) in four parts, is an adventure by a man who wrote The Treasure of Atlantis. He also appeared in John w. Campbell’s Unknown with “On the Knees of the Gods”.
“The Terror” by Eustace L. Adams (June 2-16, 1934), in three parts.
The Ledger of Life by J. U. Giesy & Junius B. Smith (June 30-July 31, 1934) in four parts, was the last Semi-Dual tale to appear though it was not the last written. For some reason the editors at Argosy hung onto this one till the end.
“Flood” by Ray Cummings (July 28-August 11, 1934) in three parts, is Cummings’ last big tale for Argosy. It did not receive a paperback version. Rising tides lead the hero to a city under the ocean and a plot to flood the world above. John Wyndham would use a less flamboyant version of this idea for The Kraken Wakes (1953).
“Zimwi Crater” by Gordon MacCreagh (August 11, 1934) is probably my favorite MacCreagh story because it has a real monster in it. Gordon MacCreagh wrote hundreds of African stories and novellas. Unlike many Pulpsters he had been to Africa. As a young man he ran away after he thought he had killed a man. Later he joined an expedition to find the Ark of the Covenant. He eventually settled in Florida.
“Kingdom of the Lost” by Loring Brent (August 25-September 22, 1934) in five parts, is a Peter the Brazen story.
Creep, Shadow! by A. Merritt (September 8-October 20, 1934) in seven parts, was a sort-of sequel to Burn, Witch, Burn! though the two books have little to do with each other besides magic. Alan Caranac becomes involved with a doctor and his daughter who practice black magic. The daughter, the Demoiselle Dahut d”Ys de Keradel, admits she caused a friend of Alan’s to commit suicide using a shadow. Caranac will face the shadows and delve into ancient history to win against these terrible foes. You can see an influence by Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow (1895) in this book. The novel was reprinted twice, first in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, August 1942 and then in A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine, December 1949.
“That Son-of-Gun Columbo” by Theodore Roscoe (September 22, 1934) has Dr. Upchurch lead an expedition in Haiti to find the Santa Maria of Columbus fame. In Roscoe style, the ghosts prove to be less than real.
“Earth-Mars Voyage 20” by Ray Cummings (October 20, 1934) is a murder mystery of the future. A rocket ship, Stardust, traveling between the planets is the scene for a series of strange killings. Cummings has written the SF version of a murder mystery on a cruise liner.
“The Witch Doctor” by William Merriam Rouse (November 10, 1934) sounds like it has at least the suggestion of magic.
The Immortals by Ralph Milne Farley (November 17-December 22, 1934) in six parts, received a hard cover version by Popular Publications Inc. It didn’t get a paperback though, which explains why you have never heard of it. By this time, Farley probably wanted to write anything except more Radio Planet. A scientist discovers a new element, Stratium, before being drawn into an intrigue by a foreign power to steal an elixir of immortality and destroy the United States. (There was a bit of that going on in Argosy!)
A Grave Must Be Deep! by Theodore Roscoe (December 1, 1934-January 5, 1935) in six parts, was the first of four novels Roscoe did for Argosy. They are little remembered today. Most SF fans would recognize the author as a Mystery writer if at all. This novel is typical of voodoo tales, set on an island where the locals revolt and the dead are resurrected using ancient black magic.
“The Rollers” by Murray Leinster (December 29, 1934) serves up natural disasters controlled by scientists. Add in some sharks and you have a popular movie series starring Ian Ziering.
Conclusion
Argosy may have been finding it harder to secure future Science Fiction novels and stories by 1934. There were now more editors seeking off-trail material than ever before: Amazing Stories (T. O’Conor Sloane), Wonder Stories (Hugo Gernsback), Astounding Stories (F. Orlin Tremaine), and Weird Tales (Farsworth Wright). Argosy paid better than most but since they were not all-Science Fiction they used less material than a monthly like Amazing Stories. Many of the writers found in Argosy, Leinster, Cummings, Starzl, Farley even Merritt, appeared in these other magazines as well. Some new SF writers like Edmond Hamilton never appeared in the Munsey magazines.
Next time 1935 and the Otis Adelbert Kline’s final jungle book!
Mr Thomas what an excellent article.