Seabury Quinn (1889–1969)

A wonderful little novella written for Weird Tales in 1938, which re-imagines the origins of Santa Claus. After Claus - a Viking gladiator in the Roman games - rescues Mary, Joseph and their baby from Herod's soldiers. a voice thanks him, gives him eternal life in service of His Lord and sets him down a path across history until he finally discovers his now familiar destiny as the patron Saint of children.

Mixing the old style prose of a classic fable, with elements of sword and sorcery and show more historical fiction, this is a short, but fun little novella. Starting from brutal beginnings and ending with on the note of joy and hope you'd expect from such a tale, Claus' journey is one worthy of any classic hero and makes this the perfect little story to read during the season. show less

“’Purty, purty!’ cried the idiot as he ran hands trembling with delight along the terrified kitten’s sleek back. His voice was high and thin and childish. Somehow it was horrifying, that weak treble coming from the monstrous bulk. ‘Purty, purty pussy!’”

—Candid Camera by Seabury Quinn

A regular contributor to “Weird Tales”, Seabury Quinn was an inevitability for my stumbling feet. I didn’t, however, plan on reading these stories to my wife. They were perfect in their show more unrelenting dedication to adventure, exoticism and the macabre; much like the usual fare of that American Gothic publication in which he’d been published. They were imperfect for their pervasive employment of racism (chiefly Asian stereotypes) and sexism (meant to be endearing, I believe)—to be expected, of course (just look at the magazine covers). It’s easy to condemn with time and distance from the sterile ramparts of a progressive society that makes egalitarianism a goal. It’s also easy to see how that ideology had once been so palatable given that America is heading into a new era of Gothic recidivism and counterfeit reality. You know, as if the constitution had been some barely legible palimpsest on the backs of menus and half-finished crossword puzzles. Those curvy blades in those fantastic magazine covers were largely useless, mostly ritual. Those curvaceous women largely unrealistic, mostly masturbatory invention.

So, I’m torn when I read this kind of fiction. The wife and I enjoyed the tales. The suspense and atmosphere. The exotic locales and larger-than-life characters. And I can’t deny that this kind of fiction has an influence on my own narrative. But a lot of it comes in the form of opening a door to what the genre usually closes; giving a microphone to the voices normally gagged and tossed in a darkened corner; putting a real working blade in a real woman’s fist and letting her have bloody revenge—without the help of a male counterpart. Or maybe I’m just being overly sensitive. But I can’t help wince when watching, say, Boris Karloff as Mr. Wong or Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu, even while getting a perverse thrill from the campy performances among outlandish backdrops. Maybe being overly sensitive is the right pitch—the raw nerve poking through the meat. Maybe any form of joy that comes at the expense of another culture should make one uncomfortable—no matter how fun following that gory yarn may be.

And seriously, dude—a bowtie? What a strange nexus of influences that time in America must’ve been. I guess we’ll find out. God, I hate bowties, though.

“So, like all modern philosophers, I thought much, drank much, and smoked much over the problem—and arrived nowhere.”

—The Stone Image by Seabury Quinn show less

En la tradición de los detectives de lo oculto, tenemos al doctor francés Jules de Grandin, el personaje creado por Seabury Quinn. Las aventuras de De Grandin tienen un punto en común con las del famoso Sherlock Holmes: donde este tiene a su fiel compañero, el doctor Watson, como narrador, aquel tiene al también doctor Trowbridge. Pero aquí terminan las comparaciones, ya el personaje de Quinn se aleja del personaje de Doyle tanto en el físico como en las aventuras que le suceden, que show more son más de estilo pulp.

‘La novia del Diablo’, la única novela que escribió Quinn dedicada a De Grandin, no tiene mucho que ver con el terror, pese a lo que pueda indicar su título. Es más bien una fantasía detectivesca y macabra de aventuras. La historia comienza con el rapto de Alice cuando está a punto de casarse, siendo De Grandin y Trowbridge testigos del hecho. Las investigaciones y la búsqueda de la joven Alice no se harán esperar. Adoradores del diablo, hombres-leopardo africanos, sectas satánicas, misas negras, sacrificios humanos, etc., como si de una película antigua de la Hammer se tratase, no dan respiro al lector. El ritmo es frenético y muy visual, sin profundizar en las descripciones psicológicas de los protagonistas, y Quinn no escatima a la hora de describir escenas atroces.

No nos engañemos, ‘La novia del Diablo’ no es alta literatura, y tampoco lo pretende. Es hija de su tiempo, y el original fue publicado en seis entregas a lo largo de 1932 en la revista Weird Tales. Es una novela de aventuras para pasar el rato, que no es poco. show less

This volume is one of a series of collected Jules de Grandin stories drawn from the body of ninety-three originally published in the pulp era pages of Weird Tales. As usual, they are "detective" stories ranging a gamut of mundane to magical menaces. The French sleuth himself is reliably amusing, giving vent to various exclamations in his characteristic idiom. "Pains of a dyspeptic bullfrog, I am greatly annoyed, me!" (59)

Two of these six stories feature villainy involving the Burmese worship show more of the goddess Kali: "The Gods of East and West" and "Stealthy Death." The one completely non-supernatural tale is "The House of Golden Masks," concerning an international human trafficking operation abducting young women from New Jersey. Grudge-bearing spirits of the deceased feature in both "The Poltergeist" and "The Jest of Warburg Tantavul." The latter story is notable for de Grandin's entirely non-judgmental attitude toward incest.

There are also two tales in which de Grandin brings in consultants for their esoteric expertise and powers. "The Gods of East and West" features the "full-blooded Dakotah" Doctor John Wolf, and a Muslim thaumaturge Doctor Hussein Obeyid comes to the aid of Dr. Jules in "A Gamble in Souls." This second helper is so vividly drawn that I suspected author Seabury Quinn must have used him in other stories as well, but editor Robert Weinberg in his afterword says that it is disappointingly not so.

Quinn's stories were frequently featured on the covers of Weird Tales, inevitably with illustrations of their climactic moments. "The Gods of East and West" supplied the cover for January 1928, depicting the scene on p. 37 of this book. June 1929 showed "The House of Golden Masks" with the action on p. 92. The others in this book did not make it to cover art. show less