The Maze of the Enchanter (55 page)

The story was first submitted to
Strange Tales.
Harry Bates apologized to CAS, writing “It happened that Mr. Clayton got to your story, ‘The Ice Demon,’ before I did, and the no he hung on it was sufficiently emphatic to render useless my reading it after him. Therefore I have to let it go back, without even some specific criticism or objection.”
²
Smith complained to Derleth that Clayton’s “ideas of the disgusting must indeed be peculiar.”
³
Wright also rejected the story upon first submission, which HPL called “a calamity, for we need a few tales in which the weirdness takes other than stock forms.”
⁴
Wright accepted the story upon resubmission, after Smith revised the ending;
⁵
unfortunately, there are no copies of the original version still extant, unless one such is held in a private collection. “The Ice Demon” appeared in the April 1933 issue of
Weird Tales.
The current text is based upon a carbon copy of the final revised version among Smith’s papers at the John Hay Library.

1.
BB
item 1.

2. Harry Bates, letter to CAS, September 16, 1932 (ms, JHL).

3. CAS, letter to AWD, September 28, 1932 (
SL
191).

4. HPL, letter to CAS, postmarked August 27, 1932 (ms, private collection).

5. CAS, letter to AWD, October 27, 1932 (ms, SHSW).

The Isle of the Torturers

Completed on July 31, 1932, CAS called this story “a sort of companion to ‘The Empire of the Necromancers’.”
¹
He described it to August Derleth as “a strange mixture of eeriness, grotesquery, bright color, cruelty, and stark human tragedy,” and added “I think it is the best of the summer’s crop....”
²
Lovecraft expressed the hope that Wright would take the story “in spite of the realistic details which might raise doubts in his milk-&-water judgment. It is full of magnificent atmosphere, & has a truly Dunsanian glamour & convincingness.”
³

Smith received sixty dollars for the story when it was published in the March 1933 issue of
WT
.
⁴
It was also reprinted by Christine Campbell Thomson for inclusion in
Keep on the Light,
which was part of the famous
Not at Night!
series of anthologies, making it the second of his stories to appear between boards. The present text is from a typescript presented to Genevieve K. Sully, and from a carbon copy in the CAS papers at Brown University.

1. CAS, letter to Lester Anderson, July 29, 1932 (ms, private collection).

2. CAS, letter to AWD, August 2, 1932 (ms, SHSW).

3. HPL, letter to CAS postmarked July 26, 1932 (ms, JHL).

4. Popular Fiction Publishing Company, letter to CAS, April 21, 1933 (ms, JHL).

The Dimension of Chance

T
he beginning of August 1932 saw Smith begin “a new scientific tale” that described “a universe in which the electrons did not form any regular patterns of behavior, and in which, therefore, the action of all natural forces was subject to no other law than that of chance. In such a world a plum-tree might bear avacadoes or grape-fruit—or both! The law of gravity might work in one place or at one time—and be non-effective at others—etc., etc.—a dizzy idea, n’est ce pas?”
¹

As in the case of “An Adventure in Futurity,” the idea for the story originated in a suggestion by
Wonder Stories
editor David Lasser, which caused H. P. Lovecraft to observe that Lasser and Gernsback were probably “brighter & more sensible in many ways than the philistines controlling Astounding & the technologists in charge of Amazing! Really, there is little doubt but that Wonder is the most generally interesting of the scientifiction magazines.”
²
Lasser accepted “The Dimension of Chance” on August 25, 1932, but with reservations: he observed that “I would rather have had a little less description, if necessary, and more conflict with the residents of the dimension.”
³

Smith did not think much of the story, noting that it “was probably better as a satire than anything else.” After the story was accepted by Lasser, Smith thought of changes that would improve it and sent in some new pages, but they arrived too late.
⁴
As Steve Behrends has previously noted, those changes survive in the carbon copy of the story surviving at Brown University among Smith’s papers.
⁵
They are incorporated into the present text. Attorney Ione Weber eventually collected sixty-five dollars for Smith for this story.
⁶
   

“The Dimension of Chance” was first published in
Wonder Stories’
November 1932 issue, and remained uncollected until it was posthumously included in
OD.

1. CAS, letter to Genevieve K. Sully, August 4, 1932 (ms, private collection).

2. HPL, letter to CAS, postmarked August 27, 1932 (ms, Northern Illinois University).

3. David Lasser, letter to CAS, August 25, 1932 (ms, JHL).

4. CAS, letter to AWD, November 15, 1932 (ms, SHSW).

5. Steve Behrends, “Unpublished Revisions to ‘The Dimension of Chance’ by Clark Ashton Smith,”
Dark Eidolon
no. 2 (June 1989): 33.

6. Mike Ashley, “The Perils of Wonder: Clark Ashton Smith’s Experiences with
Wonder Stories.”
Dark Eidolon
no. 2 (June 1989): 2-8.

The Dweller in the Gulf

S
mith’s next story probably provided him with more headaches than the rest of his stories combined. He originally intended to call it “The Eidolon of the Blind.” He called it “a sort of running mate for ‘The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,’” and like its predecessor it suffered greatly from editorial tampering. Smith described the story as “equally monstrous and cruel.”
¹
(He was particularly proud of its “magnificent Dantesque ending.”) Wright rejected it for
Weird Tales
“on the plea that it was too horrific for his select circle of Babbits [sic] and Polyannas.”
²
The story then went to Harry Bates before it finally landed at
Wonder Stories
, but not before Lasser and Gernsback required the addition of a “semi-scientific explanation” that he supplied through the addition of a new character.
³
No mention was made that the horror element was objectionable.   

When Smith saw its appearance in the March 1933 issue, he waxed apoplectic:  

My triply unfortunate tale, “The Dweller in the Gulf,” is printed in the current
Wonder Stories
under the title of “Dweller in Martian Depths,” and has been utterly ruined by a crude attempt on the part of someone—presumably the office-boy—to rewrite the ending. Apart from this, paragraph after paragraph of imaginative description and atmosphere has been hewn bodily from the story. I have written to tell the editor what I thought of such Hunnish barbarity, and have also told him that I do not care to have my work printed at all unless it can appear verbatim or have the desired alterations made by my own hand. It shows what fine literature means to the Gernsback crew of hog-butchers.
⁴

Gernsback had already demonstrated a tendency to change Smith’s titles, but he had generally allowed Smith himself to make any required revisions. CAS wrote that “The chief reason that I’ve had anything to do with them is that Gernsback has had the perspicacity to print some of my more out-of-the-way stuff which no one else would touch.”
⁵
Even Lovecraft paid Gernsback a left-handed compliment, albeit in a tasteless manner of the sort that makes his present-day admirers cringe: “It’s odd, but in spite of that damn’d kike’s financial remissness & sharp dealings, I really think he offers a better & more vital range of scientifiction than either of his two competitors. He is not quite so rigid, in his demand for the commonplace & the stereotyped.”
⁶
Smith now revised drastically his opinion of Gernsback and of
Wonder Stories:

It’s hard to understand the botching of “The Dweller in the Gulf,” except on the theory that Gernsback or one of the editors thought that the horror needed toning down. But I hadn’t understood that the horror element was objectionable: the only criticism they made of the tale in its original form was, that it “lacked scientific motivation.” I am utterly disgusted with that outfit. Gernsback’s present policy strikes me as being suicidal. Science fiction requires abundant descriptive matter to put it over at all—and most of the tales I have sent in recently have been objected to as containing a surplus of descriptive matter, adjectives, etc. Oh, hell.... And the bastards owe me about six hundred dollars anyway. They might at least have the decency to print my stuff straight.
⁷

Some of Gernsback’s motivation for altering the story might be inferred from remarks Lasser had made concerning what they regarded as Smith’s “over-reliance” on atmosphere. Lasser had sent Smith a letter dated August 11, 1932—about the time he was writing “Dweller”—that warned Smith that
Wonder Stories
was “not interested in weird tales” or any “bizarre scientific themes,” which of course was Smith’s forte; instead he should concentrate on “originality of plot, drama, conflict, situation, environment, character.”
⁸
Lasser apologized to Smith on February 15, 1933 and insisted that the changes were made at Gernsback’s “special request,”
⁹
but the damage was already done: “Gernsback must be loco [...] Lasser apologized profusely in reply to the verbal drubbing that I gave him—but that hardly mends matters. I judge that the idiotic alterations have cooked the story pretty well with readers who might otherwise have admired it.”
¹⁰

Smith didn’t realize just how right he was. Forrest J. Ackerman wrote a letter to the fan magazine
Fantasy Fan
attacking the story. Ackerman stated that he “could not find one redeeming feature about the story” and called for the ink in Smith’s pen to “dry up.”
¹¹
He even went so far as to write Smith a personal letter asking that he not submit such stories to
WS.
(Ackerman would later approach Smith about publishing a collection of his science fiction stories, includung this tale, and would include “The Dweller in the Gulf” in an anthology that he published in Spain.
¹²
)

Smith was to have received fifty dollars for “The Dweller in the Gulf.” By the time of the “Boiling Point” controversy, Gernsback already owed Smith $741, which according to Mike Ashley was probably the most money he owed to any writer. Ashley observes that “though the payments would obviously have been beneficial, they were not critical.”
¹³
. They soon became critical when Smith’s elderly mother scalded her foot in October 1933, throwing “another monkey wrench into my literary programme.”
¹⁴

The domestic duties that his mother performed now fell to CAS, along with the task of providing nursing care, so he was no longer producing stories with the same regularity as before. It became imperative that Smith collect what he was due, so he hired a New York attorney, Ione Weber, to pursue collection of the debt. Smith was surprised when payments were forthcoming despite Gernsback’s having dissolved
Wonder Stories’
old publisher, Stellar Publishing, which Ashley notes would have limited Smith’s claim.
¹⁶
Miss Weber reported to Smith that “it is getting even more difficult to collect from Gernsback. However, you are the one getting paid. I have not had a check for any other author for months and months.”
¹⁵
Since Smith was not submitting stories, Ashley concludes that Gernsback held him in high enough regard that he was attempting to lure him back. This might be the reason why Gernsback himself wrote to Smith the next year to invite him to serve as an “incorporator” and Honorary Member of the Science Fiction League that he was sponsoring; Smith was listed as a Director of the League in the May 1934 issue of
Wonder Stories
.

1. CAS, letter to DAW, September 1, 1932 (ms, MHS).

2. CAS, letter to AWD, September 1, 1932 (
SL
190).

3. CAS, letter to AWD, November 24, 1932 (
SL
197). See Appendix 4.

4. CAS, letter to AWD, February 9, 1933 (
SL
201).

5. CAS, letter to DAW, November 10, 1932 (
SL
196).

6. HPL, letter to CAS, April 4, 1932 (AHT 32.83).

7. CAS, letter to AWD, February 19, 1933 (ms, SHSW).

8. David Lasser, letter to CAS, August 11, 1932 (ms, JHL).

9. David Lasser, letter to CAS, February 15, 1933 (ms, JHL).

10. CAS, letter to AWD, March 1, 1933 (ms, SHSW).

11. Forrest J. Ackerman, letter to “The Boiling Point,”
Fantasy Fan
1, no. 1(September 1933): 6; rpt. In
The Boiling Point
by Clark Ashton Smith et al (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, April 1985): [1].

12. See Ackerman’s letter to CAS, July 1, 1947 (ms, JHL); also Forrest J. Ackerman, ed.,
Los mejores historias de horror
(Barcelona: Editorial Bruguera, 1969).

13. Mike Ashley, “The Perils of Wonder: Clark Ashton Smith’s Experiences with
Wonder Stories.” Dark Eidolon
no. 2 (June 1989): 7.