Pre-Tolkien #2: The Tale of the Red Dwarf…

… who writes with his tail.

The second short I read for the challenge comes from the hallowed pages of Fantastic Adventures, May 1947. There’s a copy on archive.org if you get the urge to read it for yourself.

This one is written by Richard S. Shaver, who was prolific in the pulp era, but I had never really noticed his name. And on the cover and the title art the credit of authorship is claimed to be “The Red Dwarf Himself, as told to Richard S. Shaver.” This odd attribution really caught my curiosity after I started to read, as the first two sections of the story are devoted to telling the reader that there is absolutely no truth whatsoever contained in the story. This struck me as a really bizarre way to kick off a story, so I googled him.

Richard S. Shaver apparently wrote a few stories for Amazing Stories about an evil subterranean society. Furthermore claimed these stories were in essence, true, and he had firsthand knowledge of this cadre of depraved reprobates. His editor and publisher, Ray Palmer also maintained the inherent truth of these stories. And people flipped out like people do and fought over whether or not the underground people actually existed. Palmer called this “The Shaver Mystery” and continued to promote it even after the pulps lost popularity. Shaver himself and his wife occasionally published the “Shaver Mystery Magazine.”

I swear, every time I learn about a pulp author’s life, I feel a little sad that I was born too late to meet him.

Okay, on to the story.

This one steps a little closer to what most people consider fantasy these days, although there still are no swords or predestined orphans. Just a boy who wants a girl who wants that boy to go get her some wisdom. He goes on a myth-inspired journey to the Red Dwarf to fetch himself some of that sweet, sweet wisdom. Needless to say, things do not go as planned for our poor hero.

The tone is quite light, and the author keeps his tongue firmly in cheek. There’s not a lot of furious action going on, but it’s a fun read just the same. It’s on the longish side, about 25k words, but I’m counting it as a short just the same. As to the lack of breathless fight scenes, well, I’m certain Robert E. Howard won’t let me down when I read the third story for the challenge.

A major theme running through the story is the difference between education and wisdom, musing finand then the true nature of wisdom. All this makes the story sound a bit more cerebral and thinky than it really is.

To finish up, here’s a random quote, taken completely out of context. The hero is talking about a goddess named Diana, whom he met briefly: “Why, she was of a very large construction, and a very fine one, too. If she had been a certain house, one would say it was made of brick.”

Of course, when I read this, I couldn’t get it out of my head that Diana was a brick house, she was mighty mighty, just letting it all hang out. Yes, I know the Commodores didn’t sing that until way after 1947, so it wasn’t an author-intentioned joke. It doesn’t matter. I still thought it was funny.