Bugs.  Lots of people hate them.  And it’s not just because they’re so damned creepy and weird looking.  No, it’s like their entire existence is alien to our nature and experience as humans.  Take for example the social conformity in the termite mound.  Consider the predatory sexual habits of the black widow spider.  Then there’s the militaristic expansionism of red army ants.  Clearly as the highest order of life on the planet, us humans would never engage in any of these practices.  Right?  Right?

Anywho, all of this is masterfully depicted in the 1971 fictional documentary (or mockumentary, if you will) The Hellstrom Chronicle.  This semi-apocalyptic thriller features Dr. Nils Hellstrom, portrayed by actor Lawrence Pressman who brilliantly straddles the line between evil genius and high school science teacher.   There’s an ecologically driven message to the film which basically says if we keep f**king up the planet, bugs are taking over.

Now, you might be saying “hey HPL, I thought you were here to talk about old paperbacks, not kooky documentaries.”  Correct!  Enter Frank Herbert.  Mr. Herbert wrote a little sci fi novel called “Dune”.  You might have heard of it.  It’s quite popular.  But a few years before “Dune” was published in 1975, Frank Herbert wrote “Hellstrom’s Hive”.  

“Hellstrom’s Hive” builds upon the mythos of Dr. Nils Hellstrom from The Hellstrom Chronicle and weaves a dark conspiratorial tale that pits a secret society of insect people plotting the overthrow of humanity against a covert government agency of ruthless power seekers.  Sooo … it pretty much just mirrors Donald Trump’s America.  

Without giving away any spoilers, “Hellstrom’s Hive” is somewhat disjointed and lacks any compelling characters.  There’s a reason why “Dune” is Herbert’s claim to fame and not “Hellstrom’s Hive”.  And yet, this is a fun and quirky little novel that exudes enough weirdness to make it worth your while.  It’s like a deep cut on your favorite record (anyone remember those?).  It may not be Herbert’s best work, but it’s definitely not forgettable.  Give it a read if you’re looking for some entomological escapism.  And to fully enhance the experience, pair it with a viewing of The Hellstrom Chronicle.  Both are out there and easily accessible.  

Thus, I hereby decree “Hellstrom’s Hive” worthy of exhumation from the Paperback Graveyard and urge you, humble reader, to go forth and find it.  As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to leave any thoughts or comments you find relevant.

Until next time … I remain your humble pulp literary servant. 

What happens when you inadvertently unearth an ancient, alien civilization in a frozen Antarctic Mountain expanse?  If H.P. Lovecraft has anything to do with it, madness will surely ensue.  Thus, his aptly titled “At the Mountains of Madness” (hereafter referred to as ATMOM). Despite the fact that this is perhaps my all-time favorite horror story, not everyone holds the tale in such high esteem.  On numerous occasions I’ve been confronted with quizzical responses or even scornful reproach from folks after reading the story on my recommendation. 

To be fair, ATMOM is flawed.  Originally submitted for publication to Weird Tales in July of 1931, the story was rejected, which rankled Lovecraft.  ATMOM wasn’t officially published until 1936, when it was serialized in the February, March, and April editions of Astounding Stories.  Even so, it was heavily edited and had major omissions.  This further rankled Lovecraft, who may have considered it his penultimate work of fiction.  With this in mind, allow me to present a basic synopsis of the story and share my perspective on its strengths and weaknesses.  I’m sure it will come as no surprise that, in the end, I will stand by my assertion of ATMOM as a major classic which you, fearless reader, are free to agree or disagree with. 

The story begins under the auspices of an Antarctic expedition to test the efficacy of a new experimental drill.  Three cheers for science, technology, and the plunder of unspoiled lands!  Anywho, things take a turn for the strange when a remote advance team unearths a cave using the aforementioned drill.  Radioing back to expedition leader Dr. William Dyer at base camp, they also report the discovery of fossilized remains of lifeforms entirely unknown to science. Like, really bizarre.  We’re talking about barrel shaped creatures with star-like heads and massive batwings.  I know, right?  This discovery is poised to turn the evolutionary history and biology of our entire planet on its proverbial head!  Suddenly, that newfangled drill isn’t such a big deal.  But things turn dire when contact is mysteriously lost with the remote team.  Now, that’s a real chin scratcher.  A rescue party is hastily assembled, headed by the stalwart Dr. William Dyer himself. Off they fly in one of their specially designed Antarctic airplanes.  The wreckage of their comrade’s camp along with gruesome slaughter of all but one missing team member (Gedney) is what Dyer and company discover.  Oh, and those bizarre fossils they heard about … several of them are missing as well … almost like they weren’t really fossils at all but perhaps … no, no, it’s too terrible to contemplate.  The only rational explanation is the poor Gedney went mad and killed everyone, packed up those fossils, and made for the nearby mountains. Sure, that makes sense. 

So, we’re off again, flying toward the imposing mountain range to hopefully find Gedney and get this whole untidy affair sorted out.  After all, there are major scientific discoveries at stake.  We don’t want to muddy the waters with madness and mass murder, right? 

Now, in my opinion, this is where the story starts to lose people.  For the purposes of brevity and in the interest of avoiding spoilers, allow me to nutshell it for you.  In the mountains, Dyer and friends discover an ancient, seemingly dead civilization. The ruins they plumb predate human evolution and are clearly the province of a highly advanced and entirely different order of life (remember those barrel shaped star-headed fellows?). Referencing my old Del Ray paperback edition of ATMOM (printed in 1988), Lovecraft spends the next 47 pages providing exposition and description of the ruins.  Nearly half of the novella.  When you take into consideration Lovecraft’s depth of imagination and descriptive prowess, this can be a bit much for some readers.  The action takes place entirely through Dyer’s exposition.  Applying a rather slapdash blend of engineering, archaeology, and anthropology, Dyer and his companions are able to piece together the entire history of this uncanny race over what amounts to the course of an afternoon.  It’s a bit much, and the reader is tempted to ask “Hey, didn’t you guys come here to test a drill?”

And yet, if you can hang in there and suspend your disbelief, there is potent magic at work in Lovecraft’s prose.  He weaves another world out of his imagination, and one that inspires the most delightful sensation of dread (if you’re into that type of thing, and since you’re reading Lovecraft, I suspect you are).  In the end, there is some action that takes place, for that seemingly dead civilization might not be as dead as we were initially led to believe.  Very satisfying and worth the wait.  To whet your appetite, let me inform you that there are oversized mutant penguins.  I’ll spare you any further details to avoid giving anything away, but let it suffice to say that it drives one of Dyer’s companions completely over the edge of sanity.

What makes ATMOM great is the aforementioned dread that Lovecraft conjures.  As badly as we want to learn the origin of the alien lifeforms and their civilization, we know there’s going to be a price to pay.  And the further we go, the bigger we realize that price is going to be. It’s similar to Leahy’s “In Amundsen’s Tent”, but on a much grander scale.  For it’s not just rousing some undescribed and inhuman entity from its slumber, it’s reawakening an entire fiendish race.  And who knows what these chaps are going to do after realizing they’re sharing the planet with a bunch of puny humans? 

This is a masterful use of the horror archetype I call “don’t go in there.”  You see this used for better or worse in almost every horror movie.  It’s done particularly well in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien, which is widely considered to be heavily influenced by ATMOM.  Lovecraft, perhaps better than anyone else, defines humanity’s place in the universe.  And let’s just say we’re not in the upper echelon of who’s running the show.  ATMOM clearly establishes not only our frailty as a species, but that it would be best if we keep our heads down and go unnoticed by some of the more dominant denizens of the universe. 

If you’re still reading, thank you.  I hope this little exposé has sparked some interest in ATMOM.  While somewhat maligned, I can’t emphasize enough how much influence Lovecraft in general and ATMOM in specific have had on the evolution of the horror genre through the 20^th and into the 21^st centuries.  Do yourself a favor and check it out.  If you do, please reach out with any thoughts, comments, or even those damnable criticisms which I know you might very well have.  Happy reading!

Originally published in the January 1928 issue of Weird Tales, “In Amundsen’s Tent” is a curious blend of fact and fantasy.  The story engages two historic 1911 Antarctic expeditions (led by Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott respectively) as its historical backdrop. 

In the interest of avoiding too many spoilers (for I highly recommend this peculiar little horror nugget), I’ll focus on why “In Amundsen’s Tent” is pure magic.  First and foremost, it transports the reader from the mundane into the macabre through a series of vivid portals.  Each of these gateways serves as a threshold for increasing the reader’s discomfiture. 

After a somewhat clumsy preamble, our first gateway is the bleak and frigid landscape of Antarctica.  Back in the 1920s, but even so a century later, this continent represents an inhospitable, alien terrain.  The narrative begins with three Antarctic explorers, Dahlstrom, Eastman, and Nels, who are isolated and vulnerable in this harsh environment. The story implies their venture is some undisclosed years after the abovementioned 1911 Amundsen and Scott expeditions.  Leahy slyly describes the cases on their sleds as “long and black like coffins” to foreshadow impending doom.  And then it comes in the form of a deserted tent on the horizon, completely unexpected and out of place.  What other choice is there for these stalwart explorers but to have a closer look?   

And thus, we cross our second threshold.  For in this tent, they discover a severed head. There is no accompanying body, causing them to speculate that the motive was cannibalism.  Ghastly to be sure, but entirely reasonable considering the environment.  Yep, that makes sense, and all is well until our explorers discover a sled buried in the snow outside the tent containing plenty of food.  So, it wasn’t hunger that led to this baffling beheading.  And need we even ask where the rest of this poor chap’s body ended up?  Fortunately, in addition to the severed head, they happen upon the journal of one Robert Drumgold, which describes the events leading up to his gruesome demise. 

To be fair, nothing makes a severed head more enticing than a journal providing some context for its decapitation.  Onward, brave readers, if you have the stomach for it. And hopefully you do, because the fate of Robert Drumgold and his expedition is entirely worth it.  For as we learn in this journal, Drumgold was also an Antarctic explorer around the time of the 1911 Amundsen and Scott expeditions.  He was also part of a three-man team, including his fellow explorers Sutherland and Travers.  And along with these two, he also happened upon a deserted tent in the frozen expanse. 

Whoa.  That’s some eerie symmetry Leahy is building.  Right?  The dread resulting from this symmetry is what opens the next portal.  There’s still time to turn back, brave reader. But no, we must go on.  Because of the Norwegian flag hoisted overhead, Drumgold and his compatriots surmise this is a tent left behind by the Amundsen expedition.  There is something distinctly unnerving in the bulge on one side of the shelter.  It’s as if something entirely untoward has taken up residency in there.  And their sled dogs are acutely terrified of this tent, which leads to the inevitable decision by Sutherland to have a look inside.  Spoiler alert, he does not discover another severed head. 

What Leahy does brilliantly is not really revealing to the reader what’s in the tent.  Whatever it is causes Sutherland to immediately go mad.  And despite his warnings, Travers has to have a look for himself.  Then he goes mad, leaving Drumgold as the only remaining sane member of the party. There’s lots of exposition about what the thing in the tent might be, and whether or not it’s alive or dead. But we never really get to see it for ourselves…leaving Drumgold, and the reader having to imagine it.  This is the heart of the magic I referenced above. 

We cross our final threshold with the headlong flight away from whatever this horrific discovery was, and the realization that some deserted Antarctic tents are best left unopened.  Because our three hapless explorers, two of them now insane, are no longer alone in the frigid expanse.  Tension builds in the following journal entries that cover January 5^th through the 11^th (presumably of 1912).  Leahy masterfully depicts a cogent yet veiled series of events that lead up to a severed head to be discovered years later by Dahlstrom, Eastman, and Nels.  Even worse, we’re given no resolution to the fate of these three in the wake of their grisly discovery. 

And this is why “In Amundsen’s Tent” is pure magic.  In contrast to many contemporary horror stories that rely on gratuitous depictions of violence, Leahy achieves success by engaging the reader’s imagination. This human faculty is the wellspring of our most potent emotions, including horror.  It’s easy to lose sight of that in an age of overstimulation and excessive visual displays that fall short of what our own imaginations are capable of conjuring.    Hopefully, I haven’t given too much away here and recommend this story