Weird Tales v24n02 August 1934 by Farnsworth Wright

Weird Tales v24n02 August 1934 Reviews

• 
  F. William Davis

  This review is for C.L. Moore's 'Dust of Gods.'
  
  "Yarol the Venusian" is drinking whiskey with Northwest in a Martian saloon. Low on funds they are privately deliberating over which stupid idea should be their next escapade when a stranger at another table overhears and chirps in. Such a classic trope now but for all I know it first appeared here, 90 odd years ago. Probably not.
  
  Anyway, our stranger whispers legends of ancient Gods that long ago abandoned all interaction with mortals and then offers the down-and-out pair a gig they can't refuse. Mostly because they REALLY need some cash.
  
  This Northwest adventure is more adventurous than the previous episodes with our pair travelling out to explore the uber-ancient remnants of what was once Mars' most holy city. A lot like an Indianna Jones adventure.
  
  "Great Pharol—dust upon a throne."
  
  It's not as terrifying as some of the early entries, unless you consider standing in the presence of a God to be frightful, but it is definitely a quick and enjoyable, weird tale. As in at least one of the earlier adventures, Moore uses the mystery of impenetrable blackness to induce a sense of fear, but also that light too bright for human eyes often associated with ideas of holiness is here employed to beguile the reader.
  
  Oh, I don't want to give it up but you're expecting Northwest to survive anyway, so I'll just say that the potential horror is essentially avoided by a simple change of heart.
• 
  Bill Wallace

  Brundage's cover for "The Devil in Iron" isn't one of her best. The snake has anatomical problems in addition to the barbarian hacking at it. The story isn't one of Howard's best either. It's hard not to think he was feeling the pressure of his success and turning more to formula than to his rich imagination.
  
  No surprise that the best story in the issue is C.L. Moore's "Dust of Gods." Her brand of space adventure is so at home in WT that it practically needs its own genre. Part two of Arlton Eadie's "The Trail of the Cloven Hoof" is good but sustaining the strength over multiple chapters will be a challenge. I used to like Mary Elizabeth Counselman's work. I read her story here -- "The Three Marked Pennies" -- years ago in one of the Robert Lowndes mags and thought it was clever, but it strikes me as ridiculously contrived now. Best I recall, she hits her stride in the 40s so maybe later work will be better. The rest of the issue is just average -- Frank Belknap Long, Paul Ernst, Francis Flagg, and a poem by Clark Ashton Smith. From the perspective of a modern reader, the poetry in WT seems like an odd artifact of an even older time, but occasionally the verse is pretty good.
• 
  Forked Radish

  Rating and review for “The Beast Helper” by Frank Belknap Long: “Scientific humanist” sounds pretty fascistic to me, as does the Darwinian fabulism.