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Weird Tales December 1936
- GenresFantasy
Paperback
First published December 1, 1936
14 people want to read
About the author
Robert E. Howard
3,001 books2,652 followersRobert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. Howard wrote "over three-hundred stories and seven-hundred poems of raw power and unbridled emotion" and is especially noted for his memorable depictions of "a sombre universe of swashbuckling adventure and darkling horror."
He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.
—Wikipedia
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.
—Wikipedia
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 5, 2025
Howard apparently wrote “The Fire of Asshurbanipal” for some market other than WEIRD TALES, because there’s an earlier draft of the story that lacks the supernatural ending of the one printed in the December 1936 issue. Not one of his best with or without the dark magic.
Best in issue has to be Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark,” another protracted in-joke among the faithful, this one killing off a pseudonymous Robert Bloch as payback for Block killing him in “The Shambler from the Stars.” Despite the cliquish humor, it’s also a good story, setting its horrors in the old Italian quarter of Providence and creating a real sense of menace to all things sane and worldly.
There’s not a bad story in the issue really, but nothing else excellent either. John Russell Fearn (aka Vargo Statten) makes one of his appearances with “Portrait of a Murderer.” Granville S. Hoss contributes his last work to WT, ending an undistinguished string that stretches back to the earliest years of the magazine.
Robert Bloch’s “Mother of Serpents” attempts an exotic locale with its Haiti setting but Bloch doesn’t convey the same sense of xenophobic dread that Arthur Burke or Henry S Whitehead achieved in their island horrors. There’s a lengthy collaboration between Otis Adelbert Kline and E Hoffman Price – “The Cyclops of Xoatl” – that barely escapes self-parody, pure pulp but reasonably amusing.
Other contents include Henry Kuttner’s “It Walks By Night,” which bears some resemblance to “The Graveyard Rats,” with its setting in an underground zombie afterlife. Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Theater Upstairs” is a strange story of viewers in a theater watching an imaginary movie populated by ghosts, including a talking Valentino. Derleth and Schorer’s “The Woman at Loon Point” is okay, but the illustration by Finlay is stranger and better.
Semi-regular contributor Amelia Reynolds Long’s “The Album” is passable but minor. Finally, the reprint is Balzac’s “A Passion in the Desert,” which I thought was excellent but not especially weird.
Best in issue has to be Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark,” another protracted in-joke among the faithful, this one killing off a pseudonymous Robert Bloch as payback for Block killing him in “The Shambler from the Stars.” Despite the cliquish humor, it’s also a good story, setting its horrors in the old Italian quarter of Providence and creating a real sense of menace to all things sane and worldly.
There’s not a bad story in the issue really, but nothing else excellent either. John Russell Fearn (aka Vargo Statten) makes one of his appearances with “Portrait of a Murderer.” Granville S. Hoss contributes his last work to WT, ending an undistinguished string that stretches back to the earliest years of the magazine.
Robert Bloch’s “Mother of Serpents” attempts an exotic locale with its Haiti setting but Bloch doesn’t convey the same sense of xenophobic dread that Arthur Burke or Henry S Whitehead achieved in their island horrors. There’s a lengthy collaboration between Otis Adelbert Kline and E Hoffman Price – “The Cyclops of Xoatl” – that barely escapes self-parody, pure pulp but reasonably amusing.
Other contents include Henry Kuttner’s “It Walks By Night,” which bears some resemblance to “The Graveyard Rats,” with its setting in an underground zombie afterlife. Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Theater Upstairs” is a strange story of viewers in a theater watching an imaginary movie populated by ghosts, including a talking Valentino. Derleth and Schorer’s “The Woman at Loon Point” is okay, but the illustration by Finlay is stranger and better.
Semi-regular contributor Amelia Reynolds Long’s “The Album” is passable but minor. Finally, the reprint is Balzac’s “A Passion in the Desert,” which I thought was excellent but not especially weird.
Displaying 1 of 1 review