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August Derleth Pages / Supernatural Horror: Authors and Themes |
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SOMEBODY
POINTED EARTH:
1 INTRODUCTION August Derleth is not best remembered for being a writer of science fiction. When compared with the quantity of macabre, mystery, and regional fiction that he wrote, his output of science fiction was minimal. During an active publishing career as a professional that lasted from 1926 until his death in 1971, Derleth’s activities in the science fiction field mainly occurred in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Despite this being but a small part of his total output, Derleth’s work in science fiction is worth examining, and so that is what I set out to do here. It will also survey his work as an editor, and publisher, of science fiction.
2 DERLETH’S INVOLVEMENT WITH SCIENCE FICTION August Derleth's involvement with science fiction began when he was in his adolescence. He was a reader and early contributor to the magazine Weird Tales, founded in 1923. (His first story there, and first published work, was the macabre "Bat's Belfry" in the May 1926 issue.) During its first ten years or so, Weird Tales published much science fiction, especially the Interstellar Patrol stories of Edmond Hamilton (between 1929 and 1934). Although the magazine soon came to concentrate on weird, macabre, and fantasy fiction, Weird Tales did also publish such science fiction as could be found the specialist genre magazines of the time. As a reader of, and contributor to, many fiction magazines in several genres, Derleth would certainly have encountered these. In one of his valuable and entertaining volumes of the history of science fiction fandom All Our Yesterdays, Harry Warner states that Derleth was a reader of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories (founded in 1926). (1) During this period, Derleth wrote a great deal of fiction for Weird Tales and other macabre and mystery magazines, as well as beginning what would soon become his Sac Prairie Saga. But he concentrated on these, and actually wrote almost nothing that could really be described as science fiction, until the early 1950's. (The main exception to this was in Derleth's codification and use of H P Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu Mythos' background. During his lifetime, the fiction of H P Lovecraft (1890-1937) had moved from an essentially fantastic framework for his creations, to one in which his 'gods' were merely very powerful alien beings and concepts, that interacted with people on this planet unfortunate to encounter them. This was science-fictional enough to warrant publication in some science fiction magazines, although the bulk of Lovecraft's work still appeared in Weird Tales (2). Derleth used Lovecraft's fictional background for much of his own work, as well as in collaborations with fellow Sauk City inhabitant Mark Schorer (1908-77), and the 'posthumous collaborations' with Lovecraft himself. These stories are essentially science fiction, but are told within a gothic and macabre framework, in which incantations, talismans, and dreams play a part. As such, these stories will not be dealt with here (3).)
3 DERLETH’S SCIENCE FICTION STORIES The bulk of August Derleth's science fiction proper is to be found in the collection Harrigan's File (1975). Indeed, this book claims to contain 'all the science fiction Derleth ever wrote and prepared for publication' (4). However, this is not quite the case, and a small number of other stories will be considered below. In almost every case, Derleth's science fiction stories were first published in magazines. Each of the five issues of Orbit Science Fiction (1953-54) contained a Harrigan story, as did several other, mainly short-lived, magazines of that time. The early 1950's was a time of great expansion of the science fiction magazine field in the United States. It is not too difficult to imagine that Derleth took advantage of this by seeking, or being offered, the opportunities to publish in these growing markets (5). The stories collected in Harrigan's File all follow the same basic formula. The veteran newspaper reporter Tex Harrigan finds himself reminded about a strange or odd person that he has encountered during his career. Then, usually over several drinks, he proceeds to recount his memory. The people that he has come into contact with usually turn out to have invented some sort of scientific device, or harnessed a theory, or claim to have had an unusual experience. In the Harrigan stories, Derleth covered a very wide range of science-fictional ideas. It was as if Derleth had compiled a list, and set himself the task of taking as many commonplace science fiction themes as he could, and then writing a story around each one. For example, there are contacts with aliens -- “McIlvaine's Star”, (If, July 1952); "The Man Who Rode the Saucer", (Far Boundaries, as by Kenyon Holmes). New mechanical devices are involved in "Mark VII" (Orbit Science Fiction, September-October 1954), "The Maugham Obsession" (Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, June-July 1953), and "The Mechanical House" (Orbit Science Fiction, July-August 1954) -- this last offering a humorous glimpse of a tragic situation envisaged in Ray Bradbury's classic mood-story "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1950). Time travel appears in “The Penfield Misadventure (Orbit Science Fiction, November-December 1954) and "A Traveller in Time" (Orbit Science Fiction, No 2, 1954). "An Eye For History" echoes Robert A. Heinlein's "Life-Line" (Astounding Science Fiction August 1939) and T L Sherred's "E For Effort" (Astounding Science Fiction May 1947) in its use of a device built in order to see the past and future, with dire consequences. Derleth uses science fiction to indulge in some mild satire in "The Detective and the Senator" (The Saint Detective Magazine August-September 1953) in which a Joe McCarthy character gets his just desserts! "Protoplasma" uses the monster-out-of-control
theme. There is further satire in "The Remarkable
Dingdong" (Spaceway April 1954) in which the editor
of a science fiction magazine always seems to know the latest
scientific developments -- before anyone else. This must
have been inspired by the editor of Astounding Science Fiction,
John W Campbell, whose publication of These and the other Tex Harrigan stories are science fiction only be virtue of the scientific (or pseudo-scientific) trappings used in them. Derleth's use of standard science fiction themes was not one that added anything to the body of literature that had already been published. Derleth gives no details as to the workings of his creations: they are simply there as gadgets, or props for the story that Derleth wishes to tell. In several stories Derleth shows his misunderstanding of such basic knowledge as the composition and size of stars, galaxies, and nebulae (6). This also, of course, reflects badly on the editors who published Derleth's work, without correcting his mistakes, thus reinforcing the criticism that science fiction literature is often badly-written and ignorant of real science. In the Tex Harrigan stories, as in most of his work, Derleth’s main concern is with people, situations, and places. He wished to show how 'odd' and 'queer' people live and react in certain situations. For example, in his early Steve Grendon stories, such as those collected in Place of Hawks (1935), Derleth deals with afflicted people confronting problems caused by knowledge of some mental or medical condition, as observed and narrated by the grandson of a Sac Prairie doctor. The village and rural background is also integral. In the same way, Derleth used that language and conventions of science fiction to tell stories about unusual and vulnerable people, and the situations that they found themselves in. Five other stories, eventually collected in Dwellers in Darkness (1976) can also be classified as science fiction. They have much the same characteristics as the Tex Harrigan stories. An alien incursion on Earth is the theme of "The Island Out of Space" (Amazing Stories June 1950.) "The Song of the Pewee" (The Arkham Sampler Autumn 1949) deals with a young nonconformist in a regimented future where conformity is the rule. "The Place of Desolation" (Weird Tales March 1952) has the narrator seeing visions of other times and dimensions from a house, in a way that recalls William Hope Hodgson's novel The House on the Borderland (1908), itself published in an omnibus edition by Derleth in 1946. "Memoir for Lucas Payne" (Strange Stories August 1939) has the narrator meet the character Payne, who has invented a device that can make himself shrink, and stop him from growing old. "Open, Sesame!" (The Arkham Sampler Winter 1949) has a professor unwittingly opening a way for the alien invasion of Earth. Science fiction also appeared in Derleth’s long-running series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, the Solar Pons stories. There are two Pons stories, collected in an appendix to The Solar Pons Omnibus (1982), that can be described as fantastic, in a science-fictional sense. Both originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and were collaborations with science fiction writer Mack Reynolds (1917-83). "The Adventure of the Snitch in Time" (July 1953) concerns Pons' meeting with a client from the year 2565, and a parallel universe in which Pons is only fiction! In "The Adventure of the Ball of Nostradamus" (June 1955), Pons takes action against a man who is murdering children whom he knows will cause worldwide problems when they grow up.
4 DERLETH’S EDITING AND PUBLISHING OF SCIENCE FICTION Derleth was also heavily involved in the editing and publishing of science fiction. He began with the publication of much of H P Lovecraft's work, including his science fiction, in The Outsider and Others in 1939. To do this he founded, with Donald Wandrei (1908-87), the publishing company Arkham House, which still exists today. Although Arkham House concentrated on weird and macabre fiction, it did publish science fiction in collections of stories by Wandrei and Clark Ashton Smith (7). In 1946 Derleth published A E van Vogt's novel of mutant telepaths Slan (originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction September-December 1940). Several science fiction short stories also appeared in The Arkham Sampler, Derleth's own magazine which ran for eight issues during 1948 and 1949. Derleth's main contribution to science fiction publishing lies in his anthologies. He was a pioneer anthologist. His earliest anthologies, Sleep No More (1944) and Who Knocks? (1946) contained mainly macabre fiction, but were contemporary with the first science fiction anthologies, such as Phil Stong's The Other Worlds (1941) and Adventures in Time and Space (1946), edited by Raymond J Healy and J Francis McComas. Between 1948 and 1954, Derleth edited nine science fiction anthologies, from Strange Ports of Call to Portals of Tomorrow (8). These were generally well-chosen anthologies, with stories emphasising the human element over the scientific. The stories tended to dwell on the effects of future developments rather than on the developments themselves. Most volumes contained reprints by well-known as well as lesser-known authors. Some volumes contained original work, and occasionally stories by Derleth himself, under a pseudonym. As well as simply presenting a collection of stories, several of the anthologies were edited with objectives in mind. Beyond Time and Space (1950) was intended to show the development of science fiction, from Plato to Ray Bradbury. The Outer Reaches (1951) gives the opportunity for a group of writers to select their favourite among their own stories, and to explain their choice. Portals of Tomorrow (1954) was intended to be the first in a series of 'Best of the Year' anthologies -- a concept that was briefly used by E F Bleiler and T E Dikty from 1949, and only really developed by Judith Merril and others from 1956. At present, there are several annual "best of..." anthologies published, providing a valuable and convenient overview of the science and horror fiction published during any one particular year. Derleth's qualities as an anthologist were not always appreciated by those more heavily involved in science fiction than Derleth himself was. Damon Knight, in his essential collection of criticism and reviews In Search of Wonder uses the contents of the all-original Time to Come (1954) to question Derleth's judgement when it came to selecting stories that made sense as modern science fiction. It underlined Derleth's apparent general lack of concern with, and understanding of science, except its use in passing, to make or illuminate some aspect of a human character or situation (9).
5 CONCLUSION August Derleth's best work, whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, is concerned with people and their surroundings, their interrelationship, and Derleth's observations of these. His Sac Prairie Saga work, which chronicles in detail the history of his part of Wisconsin and its people, is the greatest example of this. In his best work Derleth explores people's motivations, and reactions to forces, whether self- caused, or beyond their control. Derleth's science fiction also does this, although on a far less exalted level. His concern is to illuminate something of the oddball people he perceived as needing to have their stories told. In the Tex Harrigan stories and his other science fiction, Derleth uses the framework provided by the genre, together with his natural humour and occasionally rather laboured satire, to achieve this same result. One of Derleth's literary mentors, H P Lovecraft, wrote of Derleth's lack of feeling for the awesome and chill vastness of the universe (10). Derleth was not affected by this perception in the way that Lovecraft was, and many of the best writers of science fiction have been and are. (This accounts for the fact that Derleth's own 'Lovecraftian' fiction is so weak in comparison with Lovecraft's). Derleth related everything solidly to this world, and preferably his own small corner of it, and the sort of people that he knew. Derleth's use of the idea of the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm is of relevance here, as in his regional work. The passing of time, and change, aided and abetted by science and scientific development, was abhorrent to Derleth. Since science fiction very often deals with these issues, by avoiding them Derleth's work could never be of more than minor importance. And in any case, in fiction the uncanny and macabre was his first love. In his poem "The Planetary Arc-Light", I find Derleth connecting the mundane world of Sac Prairie with the boundless outside world, which is that of science fiction: The
important thing was that he noticed it out there Derleth connects the two objects, the planet Venus and the streetlight, and all but leaves it at that. For Derleth, when it came down to it, the inner world of the human mind and its situations and challenges was more fascinating and important than the outer world of space and time. In his science fiction this shows.
NOTES 1. Warner, All Our Yesterdays, Chicago 1969, p.15 2. "The Colour Out of Space" was published in Amazing Stories Sept. 1927; "At the Mountains of Madness" was serialized in Astounding Stories February- March 1936; "The Shadow Out of Time" appeared in the June 1936 Astounding Stories. 3. See my The Horrors Out of Wisconsin: August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos Fiction, Haddenham, England, 1986 4. From the dustjacket. 5. See Irwin Strauss, Index to the SF Magazines, 1951-1965, and Mike Ashley, The History of the Science Fiction Magazine 1946-1955 6. As in "McIlvaine's Star", "An Eye For History", and "The Island Out of Space" 7. For example, Smith's Out of Space and Time (1942) and Wandrei's The Eye and the Finger (1944) 8. See the Bibliography below for a list of the science fiction anthologies. 9. Knight, In Search of Wonder, Chicago 1967, pp.129-130 10. For example, in Selected Letters III, p.196 11. Collected Poems (1967), p.205
BIBLIOGRAPHY Wilson, Alison M. August Derleth: a Bibliography contains synopses of all Derleth's science fiction stories and anthologies. The anthologies themselves have appeared in both the US and UK, in a variety of hardcover and paperback editions. Derleth’s own 100 Books by August Derleth (1962) contains full details of the anthologies.
The science fiction anthologies are: Strange Ports of Call 1948 The Other Side of the Moon 1949 Beyond Time and Space 1950 Far Boundaries 1951 The Outer Reaches 1951 Beachheads in Space 1952 Worlds of Tomorrow 1953 Time to Come 1954 Portals of Tomorrow 1954
A slightly different version of this article first appeared in Return to Derleth: Selected Essays Volume Two, edited by James P Roberts (White Hawk Press 1995). Copyright (c) 2001 John Howard |
