Terrors (55 page)
When I was eleven years old I came across a paperback anthology called
The Avon Ghost Reader
. Its cover painting as much as its title attracted me. Even after sixty years I recall that wonderful mélange of Gothic themes: a haunted mansion, a grave marker, a clutching, claw-like hand, a bat flitting across the face of the moon.
I truly enjoyed every story in the book, most of all a frightening
tale called “The Dunwich Horror,” by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. In all the years since then, in all the novels and short stories I have written, Lovecraft has been one of my major influences and sources of inspiration. Certainly he is a presence in many if not all the stories in
Terrors
.
The first three stories in this book are deeply connected. “The Crimson Wizard” is undeniably autobiographical;
any reader who recognizes a very young Richard Lupoff in Arlie Felton is not at all deceived. And if the young, very sick Arlie Felton had lived to fulfill his childhood ambition, “The Crimson Wizard and the Jewels of Lemuria” and “The Golden Saint Meets the Scorpion Queen” are just such divertissements as he would have written for the pulp magazines he loved.
“The Whisperers” is one of the older
stories in this book. The
Millbrook Hi-Life
office is based on the high school newspaper office where I cut my journalistic teeth long ago, and the music scene reflects the cultural milieu in San Francisco as I experienced it in the early 1970s. When this story was first published my friend Tom Whitmore complained that I had placed the toll gates at the wrong end of the Golden
Gate Bridge. He
was absolutely right. In reprinting the story in
Terrors
I was tempted to correct the error, but instead decided to retain it in the interests of historical inaccuracy.
“At Vega’s Taquería” has tragic overtones. It’s based on a real Mexican restaurant in Oakland, California. Bartender Rudy Valdez is based on Rudy Rubalcava who formerly tended bar in that establishment. Rudy was a gentle, friendly,
generous person. He catered equally to off-duty cops from the police headquarters — courthouse — city jail just across the street, and the constant stream of freshly released hookers who came in for a late night or early morning pick-me-up. I wrote the story as a surprise gift for Rudy, but he was brutally and senselessly murdered before it ever saw print.
As I mentioned, “The Dunwich Horror”
was the first Lovecraft story I ever encountered. It had a profound influence on me when I read it the first time. I had smuggled my copy of
The Avon Ghost Reader
into church on a Sunday morning, hidden it inside my hymnal, and read Lovecraft’s tale with delectable shudders while the preacher roared warnings of hellfire. Many years later I reread the story and was again impressed with its powerful
resonance. “The Doom that Came to Dunwich” is my own little Dunwich tale.
Lovecraft himself is the protagonist of “The Horror South of Red Hook.” It was one of a series of parodies that I wrote using the byline of “Ova Hamlet.” The Olde Gentleman is sometimes regarded as a dour and unsmiling New Englander, but when I researched my novel about him and interviewed surviving members of his circle,
they insisted that he had a dry sense of humor and a real appreciation of parody. I like to think that he would have got a chuckle out of this story.
We know that Howard Lovecraft was fond of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and I have shared his enthusiasm since I was a small child and my older brother took me with him (under protest and at our parents’ insistence) to a screening of the Basil Rathbone
– Nigel Bruce
Hound of the Baskervilles
. The movie scared the daylights out of me, but I loved it anyway, and was delighted when anthologist John Pelan invited me to concoct a story in which the Great Detective encounters Lovecraftian Eldritch Horror. I must confess that the villainy in my story is based more on the “Magickal” cult founded by Aleister Crowley than it is on the Cthulhu Mythos.
Still, “The Adventure of the Voorish Sign” works pretty well, I think, and many readers have expressed their approval of the effort.
Mike Ashley, one of my favorite editors, invited me to write a “new” Jules Verne adventure for a volume he was editing. This gave me a chance to develop an intriguing alternate history and led to “The Secret of the Sahara.” I’ve concocted a number of alternate histories
now taking as branch-points a failed assassination attempt on Julius Caesar, a pre-emptive strike by Theodore Roosevelt to head off the First World War and the Soviet Revolution, and now the one in my “Verne” story. These are always great fun for the author, and if that person does a good job, they should be equally enjoyable for the reader.
The tradition of South Seas adventure stories stretches
back at least to Joseph Conrad — if not farther. Everyone from W. Somerset Maugham to Carl Jacobi to the underrated and unjustly forgotten John Russell has contributed to this very special genre, but Seamus “Splash” Shanahan, hero of “Treasure of the Red Robe Men,” was created in the image a Lance O’Casey, a comic book figure whose adventures I enjoyed so very long ago. The Red Robe Men, however,
were quite real. If you’d like to learn more about them, an Internet search or a visit to your local library should prove most rewarding. Regarding my story, a special note of thanks is due to James Lowder.
“The Devil’s Hop Yard” and “Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley” both return to Lovecraft’s demon-haunted New England landscape, although I should mention that the San Diego setting
and the cult headquartered in that city are both rooted in reality.
“Lights! Camera!! Shub-Niggurath!!!” has a convoluted history. Originally written for
Rigel Science Fiction
, a fine magazine (now regrettably defunct) once edited by the talented Eric Vinicoff, it appeared instead in much altered and expanded form as my novel
The Forever City
. Robert M. Price later anthologized the original version,
which is also the version found in
Terrors
.
“The Turret” was written for Scott David Aniolowski’s anthology
Made in Goatswood
, a celebration of the Lovecraftian writer Ramsey Campbell. It takes place in the Severn Valley, a place I have never visited but would someday love to see. I hope I have not unduly maligned the upstanding citizens of that part of England. I think it’s unseemly when authors
praise their own works, but I hope you will forgive me if I quote the highly regarded mystery writer Jane Langton’s comments on “The Turret.” She called it “splendid, wild, wonderful, zany, absolutely crazy.”
“The Heyworth Fragment” is another story from early in my career. I was working as an industrial filmmaker when I wrote it. Ejler Jakobsson tried to buy it for
Galaxy
magazine, but he drove
me nuts with demands for revisions. Every time I produced a version that I thought he would accept he would tell me how much he loved the story — now more than ever — but that it needed still more changes. Finally I gave up on
Galaxy
. Ted White, then editing
Amazing Stories
, rescued the story from oblivion.
“Streamliner” was written at the request of Jim Harmon, one of my oldest and dearest friends
in the literary community. Jim is a world authority on classic radio shows. He edits a series of anthologies rooted in their special universe, called
It’s that Time Again
. Fellow fans of 1940s and 50s audio drama will surely recognize the two Men in Black who feature in this story.
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Buck Rogers (as by Addison E. Steele)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1978)
The Man on Beta (1979)
Twin Planet
Circumpolar! (1984)
Countersolar! (1987)
Sun’s End
Sun’s End (1976)
Galaxy’s End (1988)
Philip José Farmer’s The Dungeon
Philip José Farmer’s The Dungeon #1: The Black Tower (1988)
Philip José Farmer’s The Dungeon #6: The Final Battle (1990)
Hobart
Lindsay and Marvia Plum
The Comic Book Killer (1988)
The Classic Car Killer (1992)
The Bessie Blue Killer (1994)
The Sepia Siren Killer (1994)
The Cover Girl Killer (1995)
The Silver Chariot Killer (1996)
The Radio Red Killer (1997)
One Murder at a Time (2001)
The Emerald Cat (2010)
Chase and Delacroix
Quintet: The Cases of Chase and Delacroix (2008)
The Laddie in the Lake (2008)
Other Novels
The Case of the Doctor who Had No Business, or The Adventure of the Second Anonymous Narrator (1966)
One Million Centuries (1981)
Sacred Locomotive Files (1971)
Into the Aether (1974)
The Triune Man (1976)
Fool’s Hill (1978) (aka The Crack in the Sky)
Sandworld (1976)
Lisa Kane: A Novel of Werewolves (2011) (aka Lisa Kane: A Novel of the Supernatural)
Sword of the Demon (1977)
Space War Blues (1978)
The Return of Skull-Face (1977)
The Digital Watch of Philip K. Dick (1986)
Lovecraft’s Book (1985)
The Forever City (1987)
Marblehead: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft (2009)
Non-Fiction
Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure (1975)
Barsoom: Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Martian Vision (1976)
Writer at Large (1998)
The Crimson Wizard – First published in
Strange Tales
, volume 4 number l, 2003, edited by Robert M. Price
The Crimson Wizard and the Jewels of Lemuria – First appeared in
All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories
, 2004, edited by David Moles & Jay lake
The Golden Saint Meets the Scorpion Queen – First publication in
Terrors
, 2005
The Whisperers – First appeared in
Fantastic Stories
, February 1977, edited by Ted White
At Vega’s Taquería – First appeared in
Amazing Stories
, September 1990, edited by Patrick Lucien Price; also
Claremont Tales
, 2001
The Doom that Came to Dunwich – First published in
Before…12:01…and After
, 1996; also
Return to Lovecraft Country
, edited by Scott David Aniolowski, 1997
The Horror South of Red Hook – First published in
Fantastic Stories
, February
1972, edited by Ted White; also
The Ova Hamlet Papers
, 1979
The Adventure of the Voorish Sign – First published in
Shadows Over Baker Street
, 2003, edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan
The Secret of the Sahara – First published in
The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne
Adventures, 2005, edited by Mike Ashley and Eric Brown
Treasure of the Red Robe Men – First publication in
Terrors
, 2005
The Devil’s Hop Yard – First published in
Chrysalis
2, 1978, edited by Roy Torgeson; also
The Dunwich Cycle
, 1995, edited by Robert M. Price; also
Claremont Tales II
, 2002
Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley – First published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, March 1982, edited by Edward L. Ferman; also
The Hastur Cycle
, 1993, edited by Robert M. Price; also
Claremont Tales
, 2001
Lights! Camera!! Shub-Niggurath!!! – First published in
The New Lovecraft Circle
, 1996, edited by Robert M. Price
The Turret – First published in
Made in Goatswood
, 1996, edited by Scott David Aniolowski; also
Claremont Tales II
, 2002
The Heyworth Fragment – First published in
Amazing Stories
, January 1972, edited by Ted White; also
Claremont Tales II
, 2002
Streamliner – First publication
in Terrors, 2005; also in
It’s That Time Again
3, 2005, edited by Jim Harmon
Richard A Lupoff (1935 - )
Richard Allen Lupoff was born in New York in 1935. In common with many of his contemporaries, he entered science fiction as a fan – indeed, his fanzine
Xero
featured a stellar list of contributors including James Blish, Lin Carter, Avram Davidson, L. Sprague de Camp, Harlan Ellison and Frederik Pohl, and won a Hugo Award for best amateur publication. He is the author
of some two dozen novels and over one hundred short stories across the fields of SF, mystery, humour, and satire, as well as a great deal of genre-related non-fiction. He has edited numerous SF and Fantasy anthologies and is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
For more information see
http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lupoff_richard_a
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Richard A. Lupoff 2005
All rights reserved.
The right of Richard A. Lupoff to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.