The Colour Out of Space

The September 1927 edition of Amazing Stories (illustrations by J.M. De Aragon) featured H.P. Lovecraft's short story “The Colour Out of Space”. The author had finished writing his short novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward earlier that year and immediately began this cosmic horror tale which would become one of his most popular works. The story has been adapted to film in 1965's Die, Monster, Die!, 1987's The Curse, and the 2019 film Color Out of Space.  

Like many stories of this era, particularly Lovecraft, the narrator is unnamed. He's a curious surveyor from Boston assigned to the frightful area of Arkham, the fictional Massachusetts city that appears in numerous Lovecraft works. It is in this rural stretch of American countryside that the narrator becomes obsessed with bizarre events that plagued the region over 50 years ago. 

According to a local named Ammi Pierce, a shunned resident deemed crazy by the townspeople, a meteorite crashed onto a farming tract owned by Nahum Gardner. This meteorite possessed strange property values – weird color (or colorless), substance, texture, and the perplexing ability to simply vanish into nothingness. Awestruck scientists can't derive any type of theory on the structural makeup 

Over the following months the Gardners themselves experience a dark metamorphosis. Ammi describes these events in horrifying detail. Beginning with the crops themselves, this isolated farming family experiences a type of blight that affects their supply and animals. The well water becomes contaminated, which seems to affect Nahum's son Zenas, a youngster that seemingly disappears into the well. Nahum's wife transforms into a monstrosity and is kept locked in the family attic. The same thing happens with Nahum's son Thaddeus. After Ammi meets with the family (and presumably mercy-kills Nahum's wife) he is met with a stark warning from Nahum describing the affects of the meteorite and the color being responsible for draining the life of the farm and surrounding community. The story concludes with Ammi and other men returning to the farm to learn of the Gardners' fate.  

No one can tell a more vividly haunting story than Lovecraft. His ability to inject so much sorrow and dismal illustration into his prose is simply remarkable. The attic scenes in particular, culminating in Nahum's broken and fragmented cadence, are permeated with a unique atmosphere that's equally chilling and delightful. It is this final evidence that showcases the ultimate fate for this unfortunate farming family. Without warning, unfairly, their little rural retreat is shattered by an alien invasion that defies explanation or description. It is the lack of color, the colorless attribute, that I feel is the most chilling element to the story. 

The concept of innocence corrupted by an unknown invasion is elementary, yet speaks volumes on the American spirit. Whether it is rain, fire, tornado, hurricane, economic weakness, or in this case a space invader, the vulnerability of the working class farmer is clearly evident. I think Lovecraft, in his own way, speaks to the heart and soul of the farmer and how the balance beam between profit and utter failure is a difficult act. 

The critical praise of this story, “The Colour Out of Space”, isn't just simple hyperbole - Lovecraft was on top of his game and this darkly delicious tale is a testament to his writing prowess. Highly recommended reading. 

The Stranger from Kurdistan

E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988) was a fictioneer of the pulps, a staple of the Weird Tales pioneers alongside Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. He contributed to genres like science-fiction, horror, crime-fiction, and fantasy. His story “The Stranger from Kurdistan” was an early Weird Tales entry that found publication in the magazine's July 1925 issue.

Deep in Europe sits the Tower of Semaxii, a structure that is described as having a height that could caress the very stars. Yet, as towering as the monolith is, there's an equally robust underground chamber that hosts a devilishly routine ceremony. It is here that the narrator watches from afar, advising readers that within this tower of darkness is a gathering of 77 fools that are paying tribute to their lord and master. 

Within a few paragraphs, this shadowy narrator, cloaked in a cape, approaches the base of the tower and quickly passes through the gatekeeper using a blunt command. Inside, the narrator descends seemingly thousands of steps to arrive at his destination, a black mass celebration complete with blasphemous rites. It is here that the narrator asks about the ceremony and shockingly learns that a priest is leading the proceedings. Equally stunning is the display of Jesus Christ and a cross with the assumption that a type of communion will take place.

Shortly, as the communion takes place, 77 men begin to squirm on the ground while howling and moaning with a demonic frenzy. This is when the narrator steps forth and is quickly interrogated by the Devil worshipers. He declares he is equally Ahriman, Melek Taus, Lucifer, and Satan. He then points to the cross and the caricature of Christ and declares him a worthy adversary. Yet, the men deny Satan's claims. He then creates elemental fire, a red blinding flame that enshrouds his appearance. He cries out that he disowns and denies all of them.

Later, Satan is alone at the ruins of the Tower of Semaxii, a monolith he has destroyed off page. Here he says:

“Nazarene, on that day wherein I challenged you to meet me with weapons and on ground of your own choosing to do battle for the empery of the world, I was foolish and knew not whereof I spoke. You they crucified; me they would have torn in pieces, their lord and master; both of us they have denied. I wonder whose  folly is the greater, yours in seeking to redeem mankind or mine in striving to make it my own.”

Price's story is rather basic – the Devil himself meeting his admirers and failing to achieve their trust. As a short story, it maintains a plot-centric flow that doesn't require any character development. In fact, there are  really no characters other than the narrator who proves to be the Prince of Hell. However, it offers a unique dialogue and perspective from the Devil. 

He admits that Jesus is a challenge with his underhanded eulogy. But the most surprising is the Devil's acceptance that humanity would have him torn asunder. He admits that both the son of God and one as free falling as himself have both been denied. The story has the Devil humbled and emotionally subdued. He's less of the mythological two-horned pitch-fork variety and more of a philosopher pondering acceptance and value. 

Price's story preaches a type of sentiment that even Lovecraft  himself was moved by. He was quoted as describing Price's story as “powerful”. As one can imagine, many readers found the work to be blasphemous. With this type of commentary on religion and its worshipers...the audience take will vary. 

You can read this story outside of Weird Tales in the DAW anthology Devil Worshipers (1990), 100 Wild Little Weird Tales (1994), The Devils & Demons Megapack (2015), and E. Hoffman Price's Fables of Ismeddin Megapack (2016).

Holy Judd

A one time editor of Collier's magazine, Henry La Cossitt (1899-1962) also served as a deck hand on a ship and worked as a radio commentator and newspaper correspondent. As a magazine writer, his first published story was “Silent Eyes” in the September 1927 issue of Everybody's. He became a staple in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and Adventure. My first experience with the writer is his prison-break story “Holy Judd”, which was published in the May 1st issue of Adventure in 1933.

La Cossitt's story's features a protagonist named Jim Judd. He is a former District Attorney that is now serving a five year stint in prison. As the story begins, Judd is now in his third year of the sentence and is considered a model prisoner. His record shows he is a trusted inmate that has a bit more freedom than others. He can leave the prison on short errands for the warden and the people in town know him well. When columnists and prison crusaders stop by the facility for inspection and interviews, the prison board typically places Judd front and center as the proverbial model citizen of the clank. 

A special place in the prison is reserved for bad behavior. It's a little knoll in the middle of the prison grounds that is connected by a twenty-five foot tunnel leading to a small concrete box with eight heavy iron doors. This type of penalty box hosts prisoners that have journeyed off the rails and need a break from the population. It consists of insufferable heat, a claustrophobic atmosphere, and one meal a day served with a small cup of water. It's the last place any prisoner wants to remain confined. Yet one day, Judd punches a gardener for no reason. It was as if he wanted to be sent to the box that day. 

As I alluded to earlier, La Cossitt's story is of the prison-break variety. But, what's remarkable about the plot is that Judd is nearing prison release with a clean record and the aptitude to continue on in some variety as a “reformed” man. Why would he purposely risk all of that to condemn himself to such Hellish conditions complete with an attempted escape blemish on his record? 

Thankfully, La Cossitt's story contains an interesting backstory on how Judd found himself in prison - a bogus bribery charge and set-up from his former law partner. Now, his former partner is close to becoming elected Governor and Judd wants to stop it. There's an elaborate set-up to free himself from the prison, capture a fellow inmate, and a quick home invasion angle. 

La Cossitt has a fantastic knack of building character backstories while still maintaining a brisk pace to keep it purposely plot-driven. “Holy Judd” is an enjoyable read. To my knowledge the story has never been reprinted, but you can read it below courtesy of Archive.org.

Paperback Warrior Primer - Norman Daniels

Norman Daniels (Norman Arthur Danberg, 1905-1995) was a prolific author that experienced tremendous success in the pulp market before creating a second career writing numerous paperback originals, novelizations, and television tie-ins in a variety of genres. He used a multitude of pseudonyms and even collaborated with his wife Dorothy, a sensational paperback writer that specialized in gothic-romance titles. I presented the author's life and literary work on a podcast episode HERE, but wanted to provide a text on this workaholic writer that has seemingly vanished from the reader radar.

Here's a Paperback Warrior Primer on Norman Daniels. 

Norman Arthur Danberg was born in 1905 in Connecticut. He attended both Columbia and Northwestern University. Daniels' first published story was "The Death House Murder", which appeared in Detective-Dragnet magazine in 1932. That same year he saw his stories in magazines like The Shadow Detective Monthly, All-Detective Magazine and Gangster Stories. The December 1933 issue of Thrilling Detective featured a story called “Cold Steel”. This was an important moment for Daniels because it secured a relationship with the pulp powerhouse Standard, which was owned by Ned Pines. They produced a ton of titles in the 30s and 40s and competed with the equally productive publisher Street & Smith. 

Daniels was asked by Standard to pen stories starring their pulp hero The Phantom Detective. From my research it shows that he wrote over 30 installments of the series. After a little bit of a downward curve in pulp sales, the publisher began to think of new ways to gain readers. The idea was to create new heroes. Norman Daniels came up with the idea of The Black Bat character and placed him in Black Book Detective magazine in July 1939. I have a review for the first Black Bat story HERE.

Daniels not only created The Black Bat, he also had a hand in writing, and if not outright creating, a slew of other titles like Dan Fowler G-Man, The Crimson Mask, The Eagle, The Candid Camera Kid, Captain Danger, The Masked Rider, Range Riders as well as also writing for the rival Street and Smith publisher with their pulps like The Avenger, Crime Busters, Doc Savage, The Feds and the popular The Shadow Magazine. 

The author's Masked Detective character debuted in Masked Detective in 1940. It ran for 12 total issues with a 13th story appearing in Thrilling Mystery. Daniels wrote the first few issues of the series before handing the project off to the other work-horse authors of that era like Sam Merwin Jr. and W.T. Ballard. I reviewed the first appearance of the character HERE.

The author proved to be extremely busy in the 1940s writing shorts for the likes of Romantic Range, Army-Navy Flying Stories, Popular Detective, G-Men Detective, Sky Fighters, Clues Detective Stories, Crack Detective Stories, Thrilling Detective, and Exciting Navy Stories.

The birth of the paperback in the 1950s would be a welcome mat for Daniels to increase his productivity. Using a variety of pseudonyms, Daniels went to work on creating a number of full-length novels that appeared in paperback format. While he was writing for this new format, he continued to write shorts for the magazines and pulps like Western Romance and Mystery Detective. But his paperback output really flourished at this time.

Under the pseudonym of Mark Reed he wrote sleazy books for publishers like Falcon and Rainbow. Books like Street of Dark Desires, The Nude Stranger, Sins of the Flesh, House of 1000 Desires. As David Wade, Daniels wrote at least six books - Come Night, Come Desire, Raise the Devil, She Walks by Night, Bedroom with a View, Only Human and Walk the Evil Street (review HERE). Under the name Norma Dunn he wrote Lida Lynn, Shack Girl, The Twist and Another Man in your Life. Under his real name of Norman Daniels, he produced novels like Mistress on a Deathbed, Sweet Savage and Bedroom in Hell.

While writing a lot of 1950s paperbacks, Daniels also wrote television scripts. According to IMDB, Daniels penned scripts for shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Sugarfoot, Colt. 45, Zane Grey Theater, Ford Theater and General Electric Theater among others. In the 1960s, Daniels incorporated television novelizations and tie-ins into his repertoire with books based on shows like Arrest and Trial, Sam Benedict, The Smith Family, Chase, The Detectives, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Avengers, etc.

Also in the 1960s, Daniels created an eight-book spy series called The Man from A.P.E. starring a secret agent named John Keith. That series ran from 1964-1971. I read and reviewed the debut HERE. Daniels also wrote a two book series of spy novels starring a CIA agent named Bruce Baron. These were The Baron of Hong Kong from 1967 and Baron's Mission to Peking from 1968. He also wrote a stand-alone spy novel called Spy Hunt in 1960 (reviewed HERE). 

He wrote for a number of other publishers in the 1960s including several WW2 novels like Moments of Glory, Battalion, and Strike Force (aka Killer Tank, reviewed HERE). 

Daniels also wrote another short series starring a California police chief named Kelly Carvel. These books were The Rape of a Town in 1970 followed by One Angry Man in 1971 and concluding with License to Kill in 1972. I reviewed the series debut HERE.

Daniels also submerged himself into the marketable medical thriller and hospital trend. He authored titles like The Surgeon, Savage Heart, Jennifer James RN, Stanton Bishop MD and The Tarnished Scalpel.

In the 1970s, Norman Daniels began delving into the gothics genre. Daniels wrote many of them under the name Angela Gray. Some title names were The Ashes of Falconwyk, Ravenswood Hall, Watcher in the Dark and The Warlock's Daughter. He also wrote them under the name Suzanne Somers. These had titles like Mists of Mourning, Until Death, The House on Thunder Hill and House of Eve. He also used the name Cynthia Kavanaugh to pen gothic romances like The Deception and Bride of Lenore. He also wrote at least one under the name Geraldine Thayer, a novel titled The Dark Rider.  Daniels even wrote some gothic-romance novels under his wife's name to leverage her market value and name.

Norman Daniels was very prolific because he knew the paperback trends and pop-culture. He wrote what was popular at the time and hinged much of his success on what was selling at the cinema. If spy films were popular then he wrote espionage thrillers. Once the gothic market took off he was quick to jump into that concept. When WW2 and high-adventure became a trend, Daniels was quick to place his efforts in that niche. 

Norman Daniels died in Camarillo California in 1995. Much of his literary work, journals, notes and manuscripts were donated to Bowling Green University where they remain available for anyone wishing to browse the author's work. His wife Dorothy, who sold over 10 million copies and wrote over 150 novels, passed away in 2001.

Bulldog #01 - Ten Fathoms Deep

I've recently re-discovered the literary work of Arthur Catherall. He's quickly becoming my destination for instant gratification. His books, marketed for young adults, have adventure ingredients that aren't a far cry from a Fawcett Gold Medal or Ace paperback from the mid 20th century. Catherall authored a number of stand-alone adventures and mysteries, but he created a number of successful series titles as well. I covered one of these titles, the Fighting Four, and enjoyed the tense atmosphere and brisk pace of the WW2 high-adventures. Looking to repeat my enjoyable reading experience I opened up the series debut of Catherall's Bulldog series. 

In Ten Fathoms Deep, readers are introduced to 17-year old Jack Frodsham. After finishing school, Jack arrives in Singapore to meet with his father, Captain Frodsham. The Captain has enjoyed a successful salvaging and freighting career with his tugboat, Bulldog. Based out of the Lion City of Singapore, Frodsham has made his living in the warm rolling waters of the South China Seas. Now, his dreams of Jack joining the family business have become a reality. 

In the first chapter, Jack's father meets with a man who was purportedly dead. The man, “Husky” Hudson, explains to the Frodshams that he was a mate on the freight ship Tenasserim under the command of Captain Miller. However, the ship was mysteriously attacked and sunk. Hudson was ruled dead by drowning, but he managed to escape the attack. He advises the Frodshams that a criminal enterprise that owned the ship sunk it for insurance money. Captain Miller, who died in the attack, was left posthumously scrutinized under a false public statement that the Tenasserium perished due to the Captain's poor navigation of the the reef. Hudson wants to bring honor to Captain Miller's widow and has a plan in place.

Shortly after meeting with Hudson, Jack's father is nearly killed in a stabbing. Now hospitalized, he asks that Jack meet with Hudson to go over the plan and to take control of the Tugboat for all future jobs. His mate will be Hudson and they are joined with a small group of Malays led by Ahmat. Together, the crew will man the Tugboat to a secret place where Hudson knows that the Tenasserium is lying intact in just ten fathoms of water. If they can successfully retrieve the vessel they can prove that it wasn't the Captain's negligence or a reef miscalculation that led to the sinking. But, as the salvage operation commences, the crew are plagued by two rival tugboats and a crew of cutthroat criminals doing the bidding of a mysterious mastermind. 

Ten Fathoms Deep is an amazing book. First, forget the young-adult stigma that may be associated with Catherall and this series. The book reads like a nautical adventure penned by someone like A.S. Fleischman. In fact, the nautical fiction written by the likes of John Blackburn, Conrad Dawn, Arthur D. Howden Smith, and James Gribben certainly would welcome the Tugboat crew. While there isn't any romance, which is par for the course for a good nautical romp, there's plenty of tense adventure and intrigue that saturate the book under Catherall's excellent prose. 

The book, right at 200 pages, is brimming over with a frantic pace as the Tugboat races against the clock to salvage their target before they are obliterated by rival ships. There's a panic-stricken moment of horror when the Tugboat is nearly bombed and Jack must penetrate a pitch black ocean bottom without a guide. There's shipwrecks, island adventure, sunken treasure, some shady characters, fisticuffs, an aerial romp, and some gun-play. But what really sets this book apart is the amount of contractual intrigue. What I mean by that is that Jack and Hudson must navigate some of the details of the Tenasserium's original logs, their competition with a rival salvage gang, and the swerve of an existing job to take on the Tenasserium retrieval. There's also numerous hotheaded propositions made that force Jack into some really tight spots.

With the level of adventure and exciting locale, Ten Fathoms Deep gets my highest recommendation. This is a must-read and you can get your copy HERE.

Additionally, there were at least eleven of the series installments published between 1954 through 1968. The books were published by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. in England and Criterion Books in the U.S.

The Day the Machines Stopped

Christopher Anvil was the pen name of Harry Christopher Crosby, Jr. (1925 – 2009). Born in Norwich, Connecticut, he served as a U.S. military pilot before launching a career as a prolific science-fiction writer under the Anvil pseudonym. The Day the Machines Stopped from 1964 was his first novel.

The novel begins with two laboratory workers, Brian and Carl, fighting over the same girl in an office love triangle. A newscast on the radio in the background is discussing an ambitious cryogenics project happening in Afghanistan conducted by Soviet scientists. A defector among the scientists is warning the media that these experiments could cause a worldwide failure of all electrical products.

And then poof! The lights go out at the lab. Brian and Carl are dispatched by their boss to see how far the outage stretches and return with a full report of that the men find. In 1964, losing access to your transistor radio was like an internet outage today.

Once outside, Brian and Carl see the extent of the outage. As the book’s cover betrays, everything is out of order — cars, clocks, flashlights, phones — all dead. The laws of nature surely have changed. Human hysteria and lawlessness follow.

The author spends a lot of time (too much, in fact) rationalizing the science behind this science fiction. There are explanations of electron gas that carries a current and hydrometer testing. Most of this can be easily glazed over, so the reader can get to the evolving anarchy.

The journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland has been done a million times in survivalist literature - although this is a fairly early entry in the genre. You have your wandering nomads and warlords turning to analog weapons to gather power. Pretty standard stuff - all very readable.

The Day the Machines Stopped is a decent entry in the post-apocalyptic genre. It’s been done better elsewhere but this short and entertaining paperback is probably worth your time if you have it in your library. Just don’t spend a fortune chasing it down. Get it affordable HERE. 

Conversations - The Book Graveyard

Eric collaborates with Nick from The Book Graveyard channel to review the 1971 gothic paperback The Shadow Guest. They also explore the gothic paperback scene of the 1960s–80s, focusing on its mix of supernatural and mystery elements. The discussion is available as a podcast you can stream below and as a video on The Book Graveyard channel HERE. I encourage you to watch the video version to see book covers and our physical interaction discussing this great novel. 

Listen to "Conversations - The Book Graveyard" on Spreaker.