The Black Wheel

by A. Merritt, Hannes Bok, John U. Sturdevant (Introduction)

On an innocent Caribbean cruise, a clipper ship is struck by a hurricane. After three days of drifting with a dead radio transmitter, the survivors spot an island and anchor in a lush lagoon. They soon discover a pirate ship half-buried in the sand -- and begin an ill-advised attempt to unlock its secrets. That's when the nightmare begins. The first seven chapters were penned by Merritt, the most popular genre writer of his era, and the remaining twenty chapters completed by Bok following Merritt's death.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Pulp

296 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Abraham Grace Merritt, wrote under the name of A. Merritt, born in New Jersey moved as a child to Philadelphia, Pa. in 1894, began studying law and than switched to journalism. Later a very popular writer starting in 1919 of the teens, twenties and thirties, horror and fantasy genres. King of the purple prose, most famous The Moon Pool, a south seas lost island civilization, hidden underground and The Ship of Ishtar, an Arabian Nights type fable, and six other novels and short stories collections (he had written at first, just for fun). Nobody could do that variety better, sold millions of books in his career. The bright man, became editor of the most successful magazine during the Depression, The American Weekly , with a fabulous $100,000 in salary. A great traveler, in search of unusual items he collected. His private library of 5,000 volumes had many of the occult macabre kind. Yet this talented author is now largely been forgotten.

Reviews

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything about the physical copy I got of this book annoys me. The pages from the first edition are scanned and shrunk to save in printing costs and there are basically two pages printed on one page. This makes the lettering quite small and not so inviting to read. There are also ink blots, missing letters, discoloring of letters and sometimes the text from one original page seems copied and pasted a little bit crooked. The paper is so thin, you have to be careful not to tear it when you’re flipping through the pages. Worst of all though are the margins. The margins are so narrow, you’re pretty much forced to bend a book’s spine back on itself just to see the text that’s been shoved into the gutter of the book. And because the paper is so thin, you’re basically destroying your book as you read it. This book is like one of those self-destructing messages from Mission Impossible. The only difference is that you have to destroy this book first, before you can actually read it properly.


I’m not going to judge this book by the incredibly annoying packaging it came in though, but rather by the content. So, on to the actual review.


A young doctor goes on a cruise ship. But the ship gets caught by a hurricane. The ship gets marooned on an island that has a pirate ship half-buried in the sand. And it’s seemingly haunted by the spirits that died on it.


This is a novel started by Abraham Merritt and finished by Hannes Bok, after Merritt’s death. Merritt’s part is only seven chapters long and it mostly just lays the groundwork for the story to come. We’re introduced to the characters, the ship gets caught by a hurricane, they find the pirate ship and they notice the black wheel starts turning on its own as if its haunted. It’s nothing specifically remarkable, just a very solid and good start to a proper pirate ghost horror story.


Hannes Bok’s part however is something else entirely. To be fair, Bok did a really good job of emulating Merritt’s writing style. While it’s not particularly noticeable when Bok takes over in terms of the actual prose, it’s very noticeable when it comes to the plot. The main problem I have with Bok’s part is the lack of focus. By the end of Merritt’s part it’s clear where the story’s going. In Bok’s part, it’s going all over the place. Once the characters find the mummies on board of the pirate ship, there’s a bit of info dumping with a quick history lesson. Some awkward words are used that can come across as a bit racist for a modern audience, which is an unfortunate sign of the times this book was written in. There’s a lot of background information about the pirate ship and its ghostly inhabitants. There’s four pages of info dumping on the symbolism of the wheel and its use in cultures and religions. Four. FOUR! If that doesn’t take you out of an atmospheric fiction story, then I don’t know what will. Overall, the road getting there is very frustrating. But once we get to the end of the story, it actually does improve a lot. Specifically when the characters get to the atoll, the story does manage to deliver one solid blow of pulpy adventure and excitement before quickly wrapping things up.


If you’re a Merritt completist like myself, just try to get a different copy than I did and don’t expect too much from this. Enjoy the first seven chapters and read the rest of the story as a whole other story by a completely different author. If you’re not a Merritt completist, take Iron Maiden’s advice: run to the hills. This is not a good book for you.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Abraham Merritt died of a heart attack on August 21, 1943, at the age of 59, the world lost one of the greatest writers of adventure fantasy of all time. He left behind a number of novels in various stages of completion, including the first quarter of "The Black Wheel." Hannes Bok, an artist and illustrator who did almost 150 covers for assorted pulp magazines, starting with the December 1939 issue of "Weird Tales," took on the formidable task of completing Merritt's story. Bok was the first artist, by the way, to win a Hugo award, and went on to pen several other novels of his own. I must say that he does a rather good job at pastiching Merritt's style; were it not for the copyright lines at the front of the book, one would never know that Merritt's writing concludes at the end of Chapter 7, and that Bok then added Chapters 8-27. He admirably copies the densely written, hyperadjectival purple prose of Merritt's early period. Unfortunately, what he fails to do is get Merritt's feel for pace and suspense. Much of this novel is overwritten, wordy and slow moving. The story is a fascinating one, but somehow Bok, despite all his $2 words and flair for language, doesn't give the tale a sense of immediacy and creeping dread. Still, the reader's interest IS engaged, for the most part, and the book's final 50 pages or so are quite thrilling.

The story concerns a young doctor, Ross Fenimore, who tells us of his adventures after he signs on for a trip on the Susan Ann. This sailing ship is owned by a millionaire lawyer who has gathered an oddball assortment of friends and crew for a Caribbean pleasure trip. A hurricane maroons the lot on a deserted isle, where the wreck of a 200-year-old ship is discovered. The ship contains the mummified remains of a white man and half a dozen Africans, and before long, their spirits are (seemingly) inhabiting the various members of the Susan Ann. I say "seemingly" only because, despite the reader's certainty that the strange occurrences have a supernatural origin, Fenimore insists on rationalizing everything away materialistically. These unwanted explanations eventually become tiresome (for this reader, anyway); like Dr. Lowell in Merritt's "Burn, Witch, Burn" and Alan Caranac in "Creep, Shadow, Creep," Fenimore refuses to accept anything that hints of the otherworldly, even when the evidence is overwhelming. The entire middle section of the book is taken up with the various characters telling of their dreams and visions, and Fenimore explaining them away.

There are some other problems that the reader will face, also. The eye color of one of the characters keeps changing from violet to blue and then back to violet. A Scottish woman on board speaks the pure Scot to the extent that a reader will need a good, UNabridged dictionary to follow her. Worse still is the inclusion of a Stepin Fetchit-like character, with all the embarrassing black stereotypes that one can imagine. I might also add that the McTeague character in the book, an Irishman with the gift of second sight, is a wee bit too much like the fey Irishman Larry O'Keefe in Merritt's first novel, "The Moon Pool," but that may be carping. Fortunately for "The Black Wheel," things really DO pick up during those final 50 pages, which include another monster storm, a lost race of albino cannibals, and the deaths of most of the book's characters (that last is NOT a spoiler; it's mentioned on page 1!). But I still feel that this book, the longest of any Merritt novel, could have been edited down by at least 50 pages. There is one seemingly endless section, for example, in which Bok needlessly gives us what seems to be every bit of historical and cultural lore regarding the mystical uses of wheels and circles, from the Egyptians to the Druids to the Buddhists, all of which, despite its interest, will probably make most readers want to scream "get on with it!" Still, "The Black Wheel" IS an interesting read, and certainly a must for all Merritt completists.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book only partially written by the pulp horrormeister Abraham Merritt (1884-1943). It was finished by Hannes Bok (1914-1964), after Merritt's death. It was published in 1947. Bok is better known as an artist and illustrator and, while he captured Merritt's purple prose style, I think the story suffers when Bok took it over. The pacing slowed down and the growing feeling of suspense is lost.
There is definitely a good story in there--a doctor goes on a Caribbean pleasure cruise which turns into a hellish nightmare. The ship gets caught in a hurricane and the survivors are marooned on a deserted island. There they discover the wreck of an old pirate ship--and that the spirits of the dead inhabit the island. A good pirate horror story--but way too slow until the end.
I give it 3/5 stars as it's not awful, especially for horror fans. It just should've been at least 50 pages shorter.

[Alexey Burshtein · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want a brilliant, fast-paced novel by Abraham Merritt, then don’t bother to open this book. It’s plain boring. The main clash between the natural and supernatural appears to exist only in the main protagonist’s head, all other characters accept it perfectly and stick to what they see, not to what they were used to believe. Actually, the antagonists adapt to the changing world much better, and honestly I miss them much more than the protagonists. The plot revolves around a 2-century old treasure which, of course, is lost at the end. The action progresses as slow as a snail with movement disabilities. I wouldn’t recommend this book even as a door stopper. Totally useless waste of time. Avoid it at all costs. Better go and read the “Seven footprints to Satan” once again.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beauty is the messenger of the gods. It snares the senses in awe and wonder while importing its wisdom to the captive heart.

I tend to avoid this genre of book: books finished by someone other than the author after the author dies. In this case, the book was finished by Hannes Bok, who had done illustrations for some of the era’s greatest books, magazines, and fanzines, from Weird Tales to Futuria to Arkham House dust jackets. He claimed to have had his love for fantasy/science fiction kindled by Merritt’s The Moon Pool.

The Black Wheel distills much of what made Merritt a great writer, especially his treatment of the interactions between individuals in strange and incomprehensible environments. What makes this book extra special in that regard is that the incomprehensible environment is entirely unbelievable, in its literal sense as something which can be not believed. Horror is filled with stories wherein the protagonists disbelieve the supernatural long past being provided with incontrovertible proof that the supernatural exists. These are moderns, or at least moderns for the thirties or very early forties when Merritt’s work on this book likely completed. There are psychological explanations for everything, right through to the end of the book.

The editing in the final third of the book is atrocious, with duplicated phrases, sentences which while understandable have ends that do not match the start, and phrases that are completely incomprehensible.

An example of duplicated text:

…and in Gaelic the equivalent in Gaelic the equivalent to right and wrong…

And a sentence half-edited:

I could see what the promise of treasure had gone to Her Ladyship’s mercenary head.

The phrase “tying the linx-bird” may be some long-lost idiom, or more likely the misspelling of some long-lost idiom.

The worst errors are from several pages of apparently irrelevant exposition on the symbology of the wheel that could probably have been condensed to a few paragraphs.

[Barbara Gordon · Rating 1 out of 5]

A somewhat promising start, though heavy on the had-I-but-known and thuddingly foreboding, slumps rapidly (the only rapid event in the story) into pages of irrelevant info-dumps and pointless bickering between unpleasant characters.

Our narrator (not the hero, not even a protagonist, just a narrator) is a smug and high-handed doctor in need of a rest cure, who signs on as ship's doctor for a voyage so doomed it makes Gilligan's Island look unpredictable.
Actually, Gilligan's Island with Foreboding Organ Music would be pretty close to The Black Wheel. You have a Balding Captain (possessed by his cursed ancestor), a Smug Doctor (our narrator), an Ingenue (the Captain's daughter), a Flighty Society Lady (possessed by a murdered African priestess), a Comic Irishman (possessed by a long-dead Serious Irishman), and so on.
Somewhere in here, particularly in the backstory of the ghosts and their unfinished mission, could be a good story, and the black wheel, a ship's wheel carved with the hands of those who held it, is a compelling image. Unfortunately, both Merritt and his post-mortem collaborator preferred to waste pages on the spite and arguments of the Three-Hour Tour characters (including FOUR PAGES of monologue on the symbolism of wheels and circles) instead.
I could call racism on that, given that the boring characters are white Europeans, and the ghosts are black Africans, but more likely it was just bad writing.

I'd suggest reading William Hope Hodgson's books instead.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good pulp horror story by this forgotten writer. Recommended

[Knight Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I'm glad I read the reviews here before I got very far, as it helped to know when to skip sections. I skipped the 4+ pages of wheel lore, and also when the [very annoying] narrator went into his long-winded "explanations" for everything that was going on. Like other reviewers have stated, I'd have preferred the supernatural goings-on to be what they were, instead of trying to reason them away!
The story itself was interesting which is why I kept reading. The writing style was annoying. Too many similes--just about every line of description included at least one, and it got tedious.
There wasn't a single likable character in the overly-long list of characters. Character development was weak. Passages were confusing as so many names were thrown around, I kept forgetting who I was reading about, and since the characters were so vaguely developed, it was easy to confuse them.
The romance between the narrator (Fenimore) and Pen was ridiculous. How the heck could they be so in love? There was little to nothing about their budding romance, and the ending [spoiler ahead] where he laments his lost love and says life isn't worth living, blah blah, was just plain overkill, IMO.[end spoiler].
Overall it was a tedious read; one wonders how it would've gone if Merritt had finished it. I'll keep the book in my library though as it seems to be somewhat rare (?). And I do have a few of his others I have yet to read, so I'll keep it with them.

[Fantasy Literature · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars from Sandy: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...