"The Thrill Book", 1 October 1919 (magazine, free): Table of contents

I've never read this magazine before, but Murray Leinster published here - so it probably is not out of place.

ToC labels some of the fiction as "storiette". I wonder if that means flash fiction?

Table of contents.

1. [novelette] H Bedford-Jones' "Mr Shen of Shensi".
2. [novelette] Harry Golden's "A Step & a Half".
3. [serial - 2/4] Rupert Hughes' "The Gift-Wife".
4. [serial - 4/5] Francis Stevens' "The Head of Cereberus".
5. [ss] Ray W Hinds' "Recoiling Sparks".
6. [ss] Ada Louvie Evans' "Between Two Worlds".
7. [ss] Roy Leslie's "An Eccentric".
8. [ss] Anthony T Lorenz's "Ghosts of Chaacmol".
9. [ss] Will H Greenfied's "The Mouse & the Cheese".
10. [ss] Newton A Fuessle's "A Perfect Melody".
11. [ss] Mary Carolyn Davies' "Words That Came Alive".
12. [ss] Everett McNeill's "At the Hands of the Master".
13. [ss] Mordaunt Hall's "The Escape".
14. [storiette] Harold de Polo's "Violets?".
15. [storiette] Ted Robbins' "Crimson Flowers".
16. [storiette] Pearl Bragg's "The Song from the Dead".

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol III No 1".
Download scans as a cbr file. [via pulpmaniacal@pulpscans]
Caution: Downloaded rar needs to be renamed cbr.

Caution: Scan quality is quite bad, though readable.
Related: Old "pulps".

H P Lovecraft's "Dagon" (short story, free): A man discovers a still thriving ancient undersea civilization!

I found this story when trying to figure of what "Dagon" means after reading a story on Dagon by Henry Kuttner.

There is a very interesting thing about this story: the enormous amount of content it packs in few words. It's just the size of two flash fiction pieces, but covers a wide-ranging plot.

Story summary.

Narrator, now near madness from nightmares, is telling us how he got those nightmares.

A member of the crew of a ship that was overpowered by a "German sea-raider", he escaped in a small boat while a "naval prisoner" at sea. One fine morning he wakes up expecting to be drifting at sea to find that he's no longer adrift: "to discover myself half sucked into a slimy expanse of hellish black mire which extended about me in monotonous undulations as far as I could see, and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away."

He will eventually theorize that "Through some unprecedented volcanic upheaval, a portion of the ocean floor must have been thrown to the surface, exposing regions which for innumerable millions of years had lain hidden under unfathomable watery depths."

Main story is of his adventure there - during a hike to find ocean where rescue lay, he'll see one of the sea men praying at their ancient temple, & get scared. So scared that he doesn't remember how he ended up in his boat adrift again at sea & picked up by an "American ship".

Notes.

1. According to Wikipedia, this story is inspired by Irvin S Cobb's "Fishhead" (download), & Edgar Rice Burroughs' "At the Earth's Core"; & quotes other sources that Lovecraft's own "The Call of Cthulhu" is "an exhaustive reworking of 'Dagon'".
   
   Same article also notes that '"Dagon" is often not counted as one of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories, but it is the first of Lovecraft's stories to introduce a Cthulhu Mythos element — the sea deity Dagon itself.
   
   Note: I've now read "Fishhead", & at least I cannot see any connection with this story. I've now also read "The Call of Cthulhu" now, & at least its later parts are corresponding parts of "Dagon" reworked.
   

Fact sheet.

First published: The Vagrant, #11 (November 1919).
Download full text from DagonByte.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H P Lovecraft; fiction from 1910s.

Abraham Merritt's "The Moon Pool" (novelette, lost civilization, free)

While it didn't really work for me, there are well known sources that appear to hold a high opinion of this story:

1. Jim Baen's Universe, #16 (December 2008), includes it in its Classic section.
2. It's included in one of the Hartwell/Cramer anthologies (I think).
3. God in Eric Frank Russell's "Hobbyist" is too similar to the "dweller" in this story.
4. Strange affliction that is spreading through the countryside in Kono Tensei's "Hikari" affects people in ways somewhat similar to the way the branded (by "dweller") human's affected skin behaves in this story.

Story summary.

Dr David Throckmartin led an expedition to the "island of Ponape in the Carolines" somewhere in the Pacific. The island is part of a chain. Chain has ancient ruins considered haunted by "great spirits—ani—who were particularly powerful when the moon was at the full". Locals avoid the ruins - even more so during the nights of full moon. Expedition included David's wife Edith, his assistant Dr Charles Stanton, & "a Swedish woman, Thora Helversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin’s nurse in babyhood".

Their adventure will lead to discovery of an ancient elder race "that blossomed ages before the seeds of Egypt were sown". All four members of the expedition will be lost.

Fact sheet.

First published: All-Story Weekly, 22 July 1919. (I've a feeling this magazine was one of the many names of Argosy during its long life, or at least related to it in some way. But am not sure.)
Rating: B.
Download full text from Gaslight.
Note: This post is based on a reading the version of the story that appeared in Jim Baen's Universe, #16 (December 2008), but this Gaslight version appears to be the same. There is a 6-times longer novel version at Project Gutenberg. G W Thomas has more to say on the history of this story & its novelization.

Murray Leinster's "Evidence" (short story, non-genre, free): Cars during early twentieth century

While there is nothing sf about this story, it has a curios value in ways similar to Arthur Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God".

Clarke's story gives us glimpses into early days of digital computing where even minor software tweaks require hardware changes.

Leinster's story gives us a peek into the early days of automobiles. Set in Texas, US, & may be modern for its times. Cars have appeared on the roads, but

1. they're still owned by minority; majority travels on horses.
2. automatic ignition has began to appear, but is a luxury. Most people still need a good amount of ceremony with the crank & spark-plugs to start the car.
3. have 2-speed gears! There is a scene where a horse is tied behind the car, & car is traveling reasonably fast on its second gear, & horse can still comfortably keep up!
4. roads not quite meant for cars! This story appears to be set in a rural area; may be urban roads would be better.

We also get a glimpse into a law enforcement, justice delivery system, & attitudes towards banking that are now difficult to identify with. I'm not sure of its accuracy, but there was an air of authenticity about it.

Main story is mundane, but readable. "Ol'" Abe Martin has been murdered for money. Everyone has already concluded Harry Temple is the culprit, & he's being tried for murder. Good-hearted Jimmy Calton will enter uninvited for defense, help identify real culprit, & save Harry. Story is narrated by a friend of Jimmy who is a witness to the trial.

Fact sheet.

First published: All-Story Weekly, 12 July 1919.
Download full text from PulpGen.
Rating: B
Related: All stories of Murray Leinster.

Murray Leinster's "The Runaway Skyscraper" (novelette, time travel, free): Adventure thousands of years ago in the current location of New York City

While not among the most entertaining stories, this might be among the earliest of the kind where a physical structure mysteriously appears at a place it doesn't belong. A more entertaining modern variant, but with a wilder plot, is Adam Troy-Castro's "Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's".

Native Americans might find parts of the story offensive.

Story summary.

As an after-effect of an earthquake, the ground shifted under an office building called the "Metropolitan Tower" in New York along the "Fourth Dimension" (time) - sinking the building down thousands of years in time! No other building is affected, & this building is transported generally unharmed to the ancient wilderness where New York City now stands.

As a coincidence, the building will appear next to a village of native Americans. Small parts of the story deal with interactions of building dwellers with those of this village.

It's mostly about adventure in this time - primarily finding food for some 2000 men & woman in the building by city dwellers who don't know how to get food from nature. Plus a background romance between the hero Arthur Chamberlain & his secretary Estelle Woodward.

Arthur, a civil engineer, will figure out what happened, will provide leadership to the stranded lot, & will eventually get the building back to its own time by adding soap to a natural water reservoir below the building!

This story talks of extreme abundance of "wood-pigeons" in the country-side of this era; they will be food for time travelers during their early days. This abundance also figures in another Leinster story - "Sidewise in Time".

I found it curious that electric supply to the building was not affected by travel. Where was the building drawing power from?

Fact sheet.

First published: Argosy magazine, 22 February 1919 issue.
Rating: B
Download full text.
Related: All stories of Murray Leinster.