Fantastic Novels
In January 1949 25 cents could nab you a reprinted novel by purple-prose master Abraham Merritt (1884-1943). A. Merritt was a popular pulp fiction writer -- a kind of sub-par Edgar Rice Burroughs. Here's the cover of the Jan. '49 Fantastic Novels magazine with its reprint of Merritt's 1927 novella Seven Footprints to Satan.
To be honest, I haven't gotten through all of "Seven Footprints to Satan," though I love its language and vocabulary. (Also, the lurid etchings are pretty cool.) It's full of gloriously convoluted expository monologues:
"Talk straight Kirkham, " he warned coldly. "Your implication was that Satan manipulated the tell-tale from the Black Throne. With his hidden hands. If so, he has the cunning to do it in a way that Barker, going over the other mechanism, would never suspect. You know that. Talk straight, I tell you!"
The moral: When dealing with Satan, beware his "hidden hands".
In the back of this issue if "Fantasic Novels" is a short essay called "Ponape: The Real Moon Pool." This title only makes sense if you are aware of A. Merritt's 1919 novel "The Moon Pool." The novel is set in the far-flung island of Ponape (now Pohnpei) where a "moon gate" to a monstrous netherworld appears in the ruins of Nan Madol. Here's a plot summary from Wikipedia. (Apparently, according to Wikipedia anyway, Merritt's novel has influenced the creators of the TV show Lost.)
Here's the essay:
Merritt wrote his novel based on his imagination and National Geographic magazine. If you get over his condescension and the bare characterizations, The Moon Pool isn't a bad description of Pohnpei. Having lived there for eleven years, I can only say that there's no way you'd get me to Nan Madol in the middle of the night of a full moon -- so I couldn't tell you for sure if there is a Moon Gate there or not.
Links:
Nan Madol, with links, at Pohnpei Heaven
The entire text of "The Moon Pool"
More covers from "Fantastic Novels"
You must check out the gorrilla in the photo from the silent movie version of "Seven Footprints to Satan."