Occult Detective Magazine Mythos Special #1 (magazine review).
The editors of ‘Occult Detective Magazine’ usually steer clear of Lovecraftian themes because there are already plenty of venues for such fiction but decided to indulge themselves with a couple of’specials’, the first of which is here. It also includes tales related to Robert W. Chambers’ ‘King in Yellow’ sequence, and why not? This is what you get.
Language changes over time. If you read old fiction such as ‘Before the Golden Age’ edited by Isaac Asimov, you will find the word ‘queer’ used often to refer to odd fellows or events. Author James Bennett uses it this way in ‘The Facts Concerning the First Annual Arkham Parade’, which is set in 1951. Our hero, Jack Elwood, is a homosexual in a relationship with an African-American named Quentin. He frequently mentions getting Quentin ‘on the horn, which was old slang for a telephone call. Anyway, Walter Olmstead, Jack’s old roommate at Miskatonic University, went missing after he organized the first parade of the title, a gay pride march about twenty years before society was ready for it. Jack investigates and gets mixed up with several strange folks from Arkham and Innsmouth. The adventure is solidly Lovecraftian and frequently amusing, using protagonists, as co-editor Dave Brzeski says in his introduction to the volume, ‘you would certainly not find in HPL’. There’s a fine illustration by Bob Freeman, too.
The ‘Dead Media’ in the second story by Nick Mamatas are 78-rpm records, reel-to-reel recorders, cassette tapes, and so on. All the recordings at Miskatonic University are now in mp3 format, but student Lenore is working on one relating to Shub Nigguruth and thinks something has been lost in the many translations. She recruits old tech expert Walt to her cause, and they investigate. Most of the yarn is set in the modern Facebook area, but there’s a startling turn. Very good.
‘Looking for Joey Shoggoth’ by Pete Rawlik mixes the style of 1950s hard-boiled detective fiction with a future setting and a Lovecraftian Mythos background. It starts like a Chandler novel, with client Lora Melisande hiring PI Noone to find her missing brother, a veteran of the Martian Wars. No one goes to Club Vulthoom, a bar where such soldiers often hang out, and, from there, the trail takes him to places no version of Phil Marlowe ever went before. Clever, well-written, and positively steeped in lore, it’s blessed with a fetching illustration by Adam Benet Shaw.
While I have some familiarity with Lovecraft, I’ve never read ‘The King in Yellow’ by Robert W. Chambers, which made ‘The Play’s The Thing’ by Denise Dumars hard to get. Janette Glembotski is a curmudgeonly old ex-librarian who’s pursuing her dream of running an antique shop and writing a novel. She employs Kirsten, a drama student, to refurbish old furniture. Kirsten’s school is putting on ‘The King in Yellow’ this year, or is it? Reading the original masterpiece will take time, but scanning the Wikipedia page about ‘The King in Yellow’ is somewhat enlightening.
Back to Lovecraft territory with ‘The Eldridge Collection’ by Will Murray. Oriel Malbone is seeking to acquire a complete collection of the paintings by Esau Eldridge, which depict the Old Ones of the Mythos. A complete set may bestow great power on the possessor. Government operatives in the Cryptic Events Evaluation Section are determined to stop him no matter the cost, and the cost is pretty high. Colorful characters meet frightful fates in this complicated and entertaining ripping yarn. It’s enhanced with a fine illustration of the spooky tarot reader by Russell Smeaton.
There’s a bit of name-dropping in ‘Mr. Nousel’s Mirror’ by Michael Keyton, not of modern celebrities but of old scientists. Mister Martin James goes into a small shop down a side street near Newport Castle in search of the Alchemical Lenses, John Dee’s last and greatest secret. Mister William Nousel is selling them and has other things, too. This story will remind you of some others when you get to the end, but it’s rich, well-rounded, logical, and inevitable—a near-perfect example of its type.
I enjoy watching 1950s ‘B’ movie genre classics on the Talking Pictures channel, and ‘Fallout’ by DJ Tyrer could be adapted to make one, so I liked it. Not long after World War II, the British are testing atomic bombs in Australia, but something odd is happening, and project head Professor Bresslaw has gone missing. Agent Harms is sent to investigate and ends up in a remote camp with a beautiful blonde scientist, a crusty old professor, a suspiciously smart Indian who worked with Oppenheimer, and a boorish security guard. I imagined it in black and white. Smashing stuff.
‘Dreamlands Detective’ by Cardinal Cox is a neat, well-crafted poem about a private eye in the Dreamlands of the Lovecraft Mythos. Worth reading, but not easy to describe.
‘Exile in Extremis’ by Paula D. Ashe is a fantastic piece of work, an epistolary tale in very modern language featuring an exchange between the editor of reviledmag.com and a mysterious female called Elle, who supplies him stories. The background mythos is from ‘The King in Yellow’ and it’s all a bit too ghastly for my taste, but it is brilliantly done.
Carnacki is perhaps the original occult detective. The tales are told as several gentlemen meet in a club, and the hero informs them of his latest adventure. In ‘Carnacki: The Watcher at the Gate’ by William Meikle, he’s been rescuing foolish scientists in Kent who found a free energy source by opening a portal to another universe. Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain, to quote Schiller. That’s a small part of the story, which is not at all Asimovian. There’s lots of surging energy and special effects, so it would make a spectacular television episode if anybody still made anthology series like ‘Tales From The Dark Side’ or ‘The Twilight Zone’.
‘The Perilous Peregrination’ by Tim Mendees is a horror story with a humorous tone, a bit like Jeeves and Wooster. Investigator Eugene Angove and his loyal valet Hampton are aboard the Flying Scotsman in the 1930s, traveling from an archaeological dig up north to London. A powerful artifact is on board that must be escorted safely to the British Museum. There’s a colorful cast and several murders. It was an amusing romp and a nice change of atmosphere.
Captain Ashworth narrates ‘The Squirming Script’ by I.A. Watson and takes a page of ‘random scrawls and doodles’ to his academic friend A.H. Whitstable. It belonged to Professor Aldwyn Enderlidge, an anthropologist who had died suddenly in London after a two-year expedition among the indigenous tribes of Polynesia, funded by the Miskatonic Institute of Massachusetts. A solid tale in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Indeed, one of the pleasures of ‘Occult Detective Magazine’ is the old-style Victorian/Edwardian prose used by many writers. Characters call each other sir, madam, mister, and mrs. and are excruciatingly polite. But there was a dark side to that era in the prostitution and forbidden sexual practices, which Bob Freeman tackles in ‘Mourn, Not the Sleepless Children’. Lord Grandstaff’s castle is besieged by a malignant fog and some strange, wailing spirit. Luckily, Aleister Crowley is there to help! It is a gothic bit of Mythos with some seriously black notes, but it is very well done.
Most of these stories have been published before and are well worth reprinting. Overall, Occult Detective Mythos Special #1 is a fine addition to the genre. Enjoy.
Eamonn Murphy
February 2024
(pub: Cathaven Press, 2023. 223 page paperback/magazine. Price: £ 9.95 (UK), $12.02 (US). ISBN: 978-1-91602-127-3. Kindle: Price: £ 45.95 (UK), $ 6.02 (US). ASIN: B0CGL1LSX5)
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