W. Elwyn Backus (1892-1979) was predominantly a Science Fiction writer for Weird Tales, his only market. People sometimes forget that Weird Tales published “Off Trail” or “pseudo-scientific fiction” before Hugo Gernsback started Amazing Stories. Edmond Hamilton, Nictzin Dyalhis, J. Schlossell, A. W. Bernal and others wrote early SF in and amongst the creepies and ghoulies. Their work is not of the high standard set by John W. Campbell after 1938 but offers a look into what was of interest to SF writers before all the big changes coming in the end of the 1930s. For fans of that elusive “pseudo-scientific” stuff, Weird Tales (along with Argosy) was the only place to find it.
“The Hall Bedroom” (Weird Tales, February 1924) is a strange Northern, at least in its explanation. Nordmann, a Scandinavian with a long scar down the side of his face, is a man suffering from the delusion of two glaring eyes that burn at him from a print of a winter scene. The psychologist narrating the story gives him advice like going off to a lumber camp to get over his illness. This works for awhile but upon his return the man is killed by a mysterious animal attack that can’t be explained. The doctor takes his diary and learns what Nordmann’s secret is.
Back during the Klondike Gold Rush, he and his partner, Emerson, struck it rich. Nordmann killed the man in a fight caused by cabin fever. He also killed his great dane named Skag, but not before the dog scarred his face. Taking all the gold, Nordmann lived a life of wandering and drinking that ended in that phantom fight in that room.
Backus has invented nothing new here: men gathered on a cold and windy night, telling stories, a phantom hound (done better by H. P. Lovecraft in the same issue!) The gold miner partner who betrays his pal is not new either, though this was more common in the comic books later. Backus tells his ghost story well enough, though perhaps a little overlong.
“The Waning of the World” (Weird Tales, November December 1925 January February 1926) was a two-part serial that takes a young man, Robert Sprague and a scientist, Professor Palmer, to Mars. They do this in a spaceship developed by Sprague’s father. On their way to Mars they discover a stowaway, a newspaper man named Taggert. He becomes one of the crew. The sphere-shaped vessel lands on a green planet cut up by canals. The explorers find human-like Martians who take them in.
Once involved with the locals, the plot takes on a dynastic struggle. Sprague and the others become embroiled in the struggles of Princess Vola and her father, Hakon, rightful king. The usurper, Kharnov, demands Vola marry him and her father sign away his rights. Civil war ensues and the Earthmen use the spaceship weapons to turn the tide. Taggert is killed in the fighting. Vola and Sprague swear their love for each other and the idea of Earthmen marrying Martian women causes a revolt. The four escape with riches back to Earth.
In “The Eyrie”, Farnsworth Wright wrote: W. Elywn Backus’ interplanetary serial, The Waning of the World, seems to have caught the fancy of our readers, many of whom have written in enthusiastic praise of it. There is something immensely stimulating to the imagination in the thought that man can sometime visit neighboring worlds, and the stories on this subject that have appeared from time to time in WEIRD TALES have all been very popular with you, the readers… He goes on to list several examples.
He also includes three letters of praise. George T. Spillman, of Providence, R. I. will suffice for us here:
I do not believe there was ever a story, in the countless tales I have devoured, that evoked such enthusiasm from me as The Waning of the World. I think, if the rest of the story lives up to installment one, that The Waning of the World may prove to be the most absorbing narrative ever printed in WEIRD TALES. Nothing could have dragged me away after the first three pages. Never before have I been interested in any story dealing with mechanical contrivances, for I have no head for such, but this story utterly fascinated me.
None of Backus’s stories after this one ever garnered such praise. Science Fiction critic, E. F. Bleiler in Science Fiction: The Early Years (1990) said of the serial: “Semi-juvenile, cliched, and with little to offer…” I guess those SF-starved readers back in 1925 have little in common with the critics of the end of the century.
“The Youth-Maker” (Weird Tales, April 1927) has Perry accept the injections of researcher Dr. Latimer to find an anti-aging serum. Perry does this because he wants to marry the pretty Alice. The aging process works then works too well as Perry sinks into infant-hood. Latimer dies in a fire and all his research is lost. Perry’s friend convinces him that the serum never worked and his age-reversing has been accomplished by psychology. (That’s some placebo!) Perry marries Alice.
“Behind the Moon” (Weird Tales, December 1929 January February 1930) has Phil Carewe and three friends steal a rocket for the Moon. The sponsor of the spaceship gets cold feet and the youngsters, Sanderson, Donald and the one woman of the team, Beryl, depart anyway. They land on the Moon and explore it wearing breathing apparatus. They are captured by the mushroom-like Lunites. The Lunites hold them for a month. The Lunites are half plant and half animal. They plan to use Beryl to reproduce their kind. The humans flee to the darkside of the Moon and find a vast jungle with dangerous giant insects that lasso their prey. They discover a fortune in diamonds. Sanderson betrays them and dies on the Moon.
This tale reminds me of the work John Wyndham (as John Beynon Harris) would write only a few years later for Hugo Gernsback. Harris would have his rockets go to Mars in Planet Plane and “The Sleepers of Mars”. Wyndham is far more convincing than Backus. Even his early work carries more conceptual punch than Backus as well.
“The Phantom Bus” (Weird Tales, September 1930) has Arthur Strite see a creepy black bus and wonder about it. He begins to dream about it. The bus smells of funeral flowers and the riders all look asleep or dead. The second time he dreams about it he finds his dead girlfriend, Doris, waiting there. The last time he dreams, the bus crashes . The next morning Strite is found in bed, crushed as if in an accident. An old retired bus is also found with a space like that of where a man was crushed to death. Predictable in an EC comic book kinda way but it also reminded me of The Night Bus in Harry Potter.
“Subterranea” (Weird Tales, November 1931) is, to my mind, Backus’s masterpiece, a novella about a land under the Egyptian pyramids. It is weird and adventurous and my kind of story. It has two Americans, Trent Allison and Hugh Ghent, who follow an Arabian guide, Ahmid, who has had a dream of a magic world below the Ghiza pyramid. Ahmid’s dream promises much gold. The vision proves true, with the three finding a staircase that descends miles below the surface. A stone elevator takes them even deeper to face a well filled with giant slugs.
After this Ahmid dies at the beak of a creature half bird-half plant. The two Americans think to turn back but go on and find a boat waiting for them. The underground people are a blue-skinned race descended from the Egyptians. They are peaceful and take the visitors to their king, Asan. The Americans are treated well as they learn all about Subterranea. In the underworld, the people value copper and gold is a worthless metal.
Allison and Ghent hear of a land of shadow that lies off from the island of Pahlno. They get permission to go beyond into the unknown, where a fleet of under-dwellers once went and never returned. Asan gives permission, sending them with Thar, the captain who found them originally. The ship is attacked by rat-men and even the automatic pistols of the Americans can not stop them from being captured. The rat-men take them to a prison island where they are forced to eat mystery meat that is probably human flesh. The evil ones are sacrificing the humans to their god, a volcano.
The men escape and climb to the top of the volcano. There they learn that the funnel is fueled by natural gas. If they only had a mile long fuse they could blow up the line of rat-men coming to get them. An explosion rocks the mountain and the Americans have to run. Thar, learning how the gas works, has chosen sacrifice himself. Allison and Ghent flee up the mountain into a rift valley that is crowned by light, an opening out into the surface world. They climb for days, only making it exhausted and starved.
Two days later they are picked up by an expedition looking for a lost city int he desert. The men recover then tell of Subterranea. Expedition after expedition tries to find the hole to the interior world but fail. Even the old entrance in the pyramid is no longer usable. The explosion of the volcano has caused a rock slide, burying the stairway. Nobody ever finds the doorway though Allison and Ghent, now having the explorer bug, disappear. I can only assume this was so Backus could writer a sequel.
Looking for possible inspiration, Backus’s tale reminds me a little of several authors including Bulwer-Lytton’s The Lost Race, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne and even H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Mound” that wouldn’t see publication for another nine years. More likely is “Imprisoned With the Pharaohs”, a ghost-written piece for Weird Tales (May-June-July 1924). To Backus’s credit, none of these dominate, making the tale his own.
Conclusion
E. F. Bleiler has nothing nice to say about W. Elwyn Backus. “Routine…Low level work with unpleasant values.” These same criticisms can be applied to much of what was published in Weird Tales but this is to forget that this material was written before the guiding hand of editors like Hugo Gernsback, F. Orlin Tremaine and John W. Campbell. The writers had freer rein but far less guidance. I think Backus’s work in the Weird genre may have been better than his SF but that genre was far better developed by 1931. Love him or hate him, the works of W. Elywn Backus are a window on a time in fantastic literature that was quickly disappearing after 1926 and the arrival of Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories and magazine SF.
