The Moon Pool & The Metal Monster: Science Fantasy Novels

Dr. Goodwin #1-2

by A. Merritt

"The Moon Pool" deals with an advanced race which has developed within the Earth's core. Eventually their most intelligent members create an offspring. This created entity encompasses both great good and great evil, but it slowly turns away from its creators and towards evil. The entity is called either the Dweller or the Shining One. "The Metal Monster" – Dr. Goodwin is on a botanical expedition in the Himalayas. There he meets Dick Drake, the son of one of his old science acquaintances. They are witnesses of a strange aurora-like effect, but seemingly a deliberate one. As they go out to investigate, they meet Goodwin's old friends Martin and Ruth Ventnor, brother and sister scientists. The group is saved from death in the mountains by a magnificent woman they get to know as Norhala. They are led to a hidden valley occupied by what they name "The Metal Monster", a strange metal city occupied by the metal animate Things Norhala commands. This city is governed by what they call the Metal Emperor, assisted by the Keeper of the Cones.

Genres: Science Fiction

318 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 13, 2018

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

[Sharon Healy-Yang · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable entry into the civilization-at-the-center-of-the-earth genre. The narrator encounters a fellow scientist/adventurer aged beyond his years and hears this fellow's tale of a dreaded creature of lights that rises on the moon's light and absorbs the souls of any humans its tendrils of coruscating lights entangle-including his wife. Having risen periodically from the depths of a ruined ancient city in the South Seas, "The Dweller of the Pool" tracks the narrator's friend along the moon's beams to seize him before the very eyes of the main character on a ship at sea. Before you can say "C'thullu" (if you can say C'thullu), our main character is shipping out to that island, picking up along the way a downed Irish/American (dual citizenship of sorts) RAF flyer and a Norse seaman whose wife and child had been absorbed by the thing. Joined by a pesky Russian scientist/Communist revolutionary on the island, the four manage to journey to the center, or close to it, of the earth, where they confront lost civilizations, ancient dwellers of the earth and stars, exotic flora and fauna, "The Shining One," and some babes. These babes also have brains as well as bodies. Anyway, Merritt manages a ripping good adventure with some nifty humor along the way and, unfortunately, some florid verbiage that would put a smile on H.P. Lovecraft's face (according to the book's cover, it did!). Yes, Merritt does use the word "cyclopean" a lot.