Status Updates From Tales of Weird Menace

“Moon of Zambebwei (untitled synopsis)”

Again, a synopsis of the published story with few if any significant differences. I’m struggling to think of exactly where these synopses fit in with Howard’s creative process. Was this his brainstorming? It’s not as though the opening essay tells us anything about this, preferring to laud “Skull-Face”.

“The Black Hound of Death (synopsis)”

A pretty straight summary of the story. No revelations, here, except Brent’s assistant was white in the draft, but mixed race in the finished tale.

“The House of Om (synopsis)”

Sooo this is a full blow by blow synopsis of a Yellow Peril story. Now, the villain is an expatriate American, but some of the broad details are similar to “Guests of the Hoodoo Room”, including a frame-up, an heiress under the power of the bad guy, and a world domination plot. But, uh, Om’s plot sounds like QAnon talking points. Time is a circle, I guess!

“The Devils of Dark Lake (untitled synopsis)”

As I read this synopsis I’m laughing again at how ridiculous this story is, and then I’m surprised because Howard omitted one key detail from the synopsis when writing the main story, resulting in—astoundingly—a LESS racist tale.

“Sons of Hate”

Three partial synopses. They detail the evolution of the story as Howard imagined it. The first two are pretty much in-line with the final story. The third has most of the plot beats, but Howard was considering changing Stalbridge’s last name to Brandon and having Gorman getting brained by the iron slug while driving a car instead of while he was running to the rescue.

“”James Norris…””

This synopsis is a blueprint for a murder mystery with zero occult trappings. I mean, fair enough! I’ve read enough exploitative racism to last the rest of my life and this has none of the like.

“The Spell of Damballah”

A Kirby of unknown provenance investigates a case where a man’s fiance has been hypnotized. But, no, it’s not Oriental, here, but a Haitian con-man who is using voodoo to control affluent young women into stealing their fathers’ riches and then running off with him. As this fragment terminates, Loup is 0 for 2 but has just taken a potshot at our hero, the bullet grazing his scalp.

“Spectres in the Dark”

A city is under siege from spectres that are haunting people and appear to be capable of possessing them, driving them into murderous rampages. This story doesn’t go so far as to reveal what the cause of this epidemic is, but if the weird aside between the narrator and his brother in law is any indication, then it’s some sort of Oriental hypnotism / mesmerism at play.

“The Jade God”

Another night, another cursed treasure. This one APPEARS to be set in the antebellum South and has two men rushing to the defense of a third, who talks about “the jade god” right before he expires. And their locale is kind of isolated due to a recent flood. And the dead man had just entrusted a jade idol to one of his two would-be rescuers.

“Yellow Laughter”

A bizarre fragment, the setup of which I don’t entirely understand. It looks like some sailor’s boat was taken over by Chinese malcontents, one of whom he knows by name. The “yellow” paranoia is palpable, concluding with an image of all the invaders laughing at the MC while he rows away in a small watercraft, which he presumes is his means of escape. God only knows where this was going.

“The Ivory Camel”

This one opens with a detailed description of a ranch owner milking his cow and then drops a few n-bombs (the fugitive he kills is apparently an Arab Indian), before settling into the Weird Menace portion. He was carrying some sort of cursed treasure and a cult is looking for it but it’s the Great Depression and ol’ Karnes McHenry needs the money bad enough to fight for it.

“”The night was damp…””

A terrified young woman hides in Gordon’s flat. She is so desperate that she offers to be his slave if he shelters her. She’s running from a snake, and it just so happens that the dude in the flat across from him is some weirdo in who Howard invokes the horrors of hypnotism. Then there’s the odd bit with the dagger point and, uh, just what was supposed to be the finish???

“The Red Stone”

Idk how you could tell that this would end up being a “weird menace” story from the four paragraphs that we are left with, but given the subjects that the REH foundation has divided these books in, it’s just about the best possible guess. Anyway, dude goes for a walk after sundown, claims that it leads to something extraordinary, winds up in an affluent part of town, the end.

““From the black, bandit-haunted mountains…””

This would apparently be another Black John story, the bear of a man from “Black John’s Vengeance”. In this case he’s been marked for death while in China. The fragment ends before it gets around to telling us exactly what he’s done, but he was defending a village from some raiders and presumably earned the ire of the aggressor faction.

“The Return of the Sorceror”

The plot of this one promised a pretty rollicking novella with one Abner Brill travelling from Tibet to England in order to pay for his life and that of his failed treasure hunter friend in arms. It ends not too long after Brill gets his mission, though, and with no indication of who or what the sorceror of the title is. Oh well!

“Taverel Manor”

The two best buds from “Skull-Face” appear and make for a pretty good investigatory pair. The characterization of the manor and the moor is pretty good. The story ends before we reach any firm conclusions, though. With the law of conservation of characters, it would seem that Hammerby is one of the villains if not the big boss.

“Black Wind Blowing”

If your mortgage holder offers to give you the whole mortgage plus $1,000 1930s dollars and all you have to do is marry his stunningly beautiful niece, then you ought to know that he’s just trying to escape death by the demon-worshipping cult of Ahriman. Not to say that you shouldn’t help the poor woman out, but a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

“Guests of the Hoodoo Room”

This Yellow Peril story’s MC has way more character, a surly and brutish private detective who is helping out the local bums because they are mysteriously disappearing. The side-story is a missing heiress that inevitably collides with the main plot. The ending is, uh, a little too neat (Jake saves the day??), but it’s a fun story. I don’t get why Ziegler has no accent.

“The Devils of Dark Lake”

Uh, this is another Weird Africa / Yellow Peril hybrid that feels like it’s set in Louisiana with some New Orleans voodoo thrown in for good measure. Our main villain is a white boy who was born in China and went full weeaboo when his crush, Joan, turned him down and married Dick. The MC was whatever; voodoo priestess Celia, who helps him out, was a WAY more interesting character.

“Black Hound of Death”

HOLY SHIT, HOWARD

This story is INCREDIBLY charged. Garfield’s death duel is with Tope, a black man who murdered the law officer who was bringing him in and who is compared in an obviously unflattering manner to a gorilla. The main villain is a werewolf who at the end has our damsel in distress, another Gloria, naked and tied up, spread eagle. It’s incredibly exploitative.

“Moon of Zambebwei”

Oh, hey! This one’s set in Mississippi! …and features an imprisoned woman, assumed dead, the object of desire of the descendants of two slave-holding families. And a whole lot of other racially charged stuff, including a smuggled “carnivorous ape” treated as a living god and a weird way of framing first antagonist Ballville’s death alongside the black man who was torturing him.

“Sons of Hate”

Kirby and Gorman return to try to help an Englishman who ripped off another Englishman and an Arab some fifty years ago, resulting in their sons come to avenge fifty-year-old blood oaths.

Gorman is developing into the Texan brawler that Howard wishes he was, which makes the n-bombs that he drops here and there more awkward than they already are.

“The Hand of the Black Goddess”

A detective yarn where American detectives meet a wealthy heiress and get embroiled with Hindu Thuggee devotees of Kali, with an 11th hour rescue from friendly Muslim treasure guardians. Butch Gorman is the ur-Howard, a Bowie Knife-wielding blood tornado, but not exactly the MAIN character role. Gorman gets most of the shine in this tale as lead Kirby’s partner.

“Talons in the Dark”

A lot of overlap here with “Skull-Face” and El Borak. This is a Weird Africa story where a multiracial OrIeNtAl posse tries to avenge the death of their White Leader… but they have the wrong guy!! When John Galt bursts in on the scene I completely had him confused for the Buckley dude who first went with Brill to the shack.

“Black John’s Vengeance”

Another yellow peril story where John looks to investigate his good friend’s death, uncovering a rebellion that is being stoked by…exactly who you’d expect given the economy of characters, let alone the bit where John starts to wonder “W.W.E.B.T.”. The Black Lama name drops Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth, but in a twist, he is only invoking these names cynically.

“The Brazen Peacock”

Of all the things I was expecting to read, Melek Taus wasn’t one of them. Howard goes full bore in elaborating a sensational cult of Satan, the first half detailing how the MC’s life debt friend got the peacock idol, the second how the MC goes to rescue his faithful Muslim servant Ali and his aforementioned life debt friend.

“The Noseless Horror”

Detective John Gordon appears again in this supernatural murder-mystery where an Egyptologist is slain by iNsAnItY in his manor. Howard is back in a more comfortable groove, subverting the “yellow peril” stories by giving us a strange character who seems to fit the bill for the murder—Ganra Singh—but who ultimately saves the lives of the bumbling protagonists.

“Skull-Face”

This is one of the pulpiest things I’ve yet read from Howard. This story stands in contrast to the attitude behind REH’s Early Adventures of El Borak, which had a multi-racial gallery of comrades for ol’ Frank Gordon. Here, Cthulhu—I mean, Kathulos—has a multiracial crew of thugs that he plans to use to recreate the civilization of Atlantis.

So, like, Skull-Face is a loving tribute to Fu Manchu stories. I’m familiar with the character—an oriental criminal genius—and Agatha Christie had her own swing at the stereotype with The Big Four. The pacing is brisk, with short, snappy chapters, and Steve Costigan sticks out for being an addict, a hashish smoker who becomes something superhuman when he drinks the elixir provided to him by Tulsa—err…