LITERAL REMAINS

I like pulp.  Old pulp stories, the classics from those wonderful magazines of yesteryear.  We don’t really have any publications today to match those golden greats, no Amazing Stories, Adventure, Black Mask, The Shadow, The Spider, or Horror Stories.  Street & Smith, I miss you, though I never knew you.  Maybe I was born at the wrong time, I don’t know.

Jack Williamson’s Darker Than You Think is a book I’ve wanted to read for a very long time, I just had never gotten around to picking up a copy.  I finally did get a copy, and I can only imagine the wonder and terror Williamson inspired in readers back in the 1940′s when his classic tale first saw the light of day in the pulp magazine Unknown.  As with a lot of classics, its power to scare may have diminished, but it’s still a Grade A flight of fantasy; one which several franchises, such as Underworld and Twilight, owe a debt of thanks.

Reporter Will Barbee is at the airport to cover the return of aged scientist Dr. Mondrick and his expedition from the Gobi Desert.  Mondrick and his team of trusted men have uncovered something of vital importance, something dark and sinister.  While waiting for Mindrick’s plane to land, Will meets the luscious and mysterious April Bell.  She is a new reporter for a rival paper, and though Barbee senses something dangerous about the woman, he can’t deny his attraction to her.  Those family members awaiting the plane’s arrival, such as the blind Rowena Mondrick (the old doc’s wife), don’t care for April.  They feel something not right about the young lady.

After Dr. Mondrick’s plane lands and he begins his speech, just before he unveils his findings, Dr. Mondrick falls dead.  Was it his age?  His bad heart?  Or was it murder, as Rowena instantly believes?

With the disastrous Mondrick event behind him, Barbee agrees to meet April for drinks that night.  Over a few drinks (something the alcoholic Barbee is used to), April tells him the story of her life so far.  Including the part about her being a witch.  She seems to have always had a power to make things come true with her mind, like people falling ill, getting hurt, or dying.  Like old Dr. Mondrick.

Barbee doesn’t believe it, really, and despite the fact that April seems a little off and everyone warns him to stay away from her, he is infatuated with her.  And when he begins dreaming of becoming different animals and running free through the night, that seems a bit strange to him.  When he dreams of his former college friends, Mondricks fellow researchers, being murder, he finds it unsettling.  When he learns they are really being murdered, he is terrified, and believes himself to be going insane.

Darker Than You Thinkis a fun story, with shades of noir and an earnestness that is missing from practically everything on the shelves today.  It’s earnest, but not hammy.  Well, not too hammy.  You have to take into consideration it was written in the 1940′s, and that’s part of it’s charm.  It’s like a slice of horror/fantasy history.

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