Manly Wade Wellman, Strangers on the Heights (Night Shade Books, 2004)
Pulp fiction doesn't get enough respect. No, I'm not talking about Quentin Tarantino's film, I'm talking about the vast array of stories that were published first half of the 20th century in magazines like Strange Stories, Weird Tales and Argosy. For the price of a few coins in your pocket, you could be taken away to a mysterious mansion and its interesting but strangely unsettling owner, the lowdown dirty streets of a private investigator's world, or off to another world entirely. Dismissed as disposable entertainment (the magazines themselves were printed on cheap stock, mostly from coarse wood pulp), many authors of these types of stories never got the long-term recognition and respect they deserved. For every Dashiell Hammett, Isaac Asimov and H.P. Lovecraft that got their start in the pulps, there were dozens of writers who have disappeared from the public consciousness.
Manly Wade Wellman straddles the line between fame and obscurity. Well known to many genre fans but unheard of to the "general population" of readers, Mr. Wellman is probably best known for his Silver John stories: tales that take place in Appalachia and feature a guitar playing wanderer who is much more than he seems. As a fan of horror short stories, I've been lucky enough to get my hands on some of Mr. Wellman's later work, thanks to collections like Shadows. Reading these few offerings only whetted my appetite, but I thought that I'd have to scan short story collections and hope I'd get lucky if I ever wanted to read more. Now Night Shade Books has gathered a collection of his writing and published them in a series of hardback editions. I have to say that it's about time. The last time collections of Mr. Wellman's stories had been published was back in the 80s. Hopefully these editions will stir interest in some and bring others back to his work.
Strangers on the Heights is a collection of two stories. The first gives this book its title, and was originally published in Startling Stories back in 1944. This story of two friends out to gain understanding of (and not a little payback for) their friend's sudden and mysterious death starts out with hints of "Old Ones," sparking visions of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. They soon find out that they've got a lot more than devil worship on their hands, and the story quickly goes commando as the friends, both of whom saw war up close and personal, decide to even the score in a town that has been held in the grip of these creatures.
The second story, "Nuisance Value," was first seen in Astounding Science Fiction in 1938. Here, aliens have taken over the planet swiftly and violently. Fifty years later, a small bunch of survivors plan an attempt to win back their world before it's too late. But one man decides that they need to gather more information and goes out to spy on the enemy in order to learn their weaknesses. This story reminded me of Ursula LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest, with a bit of Rambo thrown in for good measure. The story's epilogue is a timeless one, reminding us that those in power often place no value on the past.
Both of these stories deal with humans having to protect their world from outside domination, which I'm sure was at the heart of all Americans in those days before and during World War II. There are fantasy elements in each, but at their heart they are science fiction stories, with their descriptions of death rays, space ships and machines that heighten psychic communication. Neither of these stories suffers from what I like to think of as Star Trek Syndrome; the creatures Mr. Wellman describes are not even remotely humanoid, which give these outsiders from outer space a bit more realism than a bunch of green, blue or orange colored two-legged creatures. I know, I know, I like Star Trek too, and I understand that on television, budget drives creativity. I'm just saying that it's refreshing to find aliens that are . . . well, alien. Put your phasers down.
At 157 pages, this book isn't doesn't take long, but Mr. Wellman packs a lot into those few pages, giving his stories a slow, easy style and the feel of a tale well told. Reading these stories, I could feel a little of what it must have been like for a kid at that time to have these stories in their original pulp form. For a moment, I could see myself up in a tree house wearing my homemade space helmet and trusty cape, drinking a glass of Ovaltine. Good times, good times.
