Page:Weird Tales Volume 26 Number 01 (1935-07).djvu/142

The stories seem to get better and better in every issue. The return of Craig Kennedy is a positive delight. Those two Binder boys rang the bell with Shadows of Blood. 'Twas one of the best stories of its type we have had in many a day. How does Howard manage to bring Conan to us so often and still keep him so interesting? The man must be a genius. I miss our old friend de Grandin. And when do we get another Northwest Smith story? He can't appear too often." [De Grandin will appear again next month, in The Black Orchid. Northwest Smith will shortly appear again in WT, in two amazing tales: The Cold Gray God and The Tree of Life.—The Editor.]

Mary A. Conklin, of Coldwater, Michigan, writes: "Well, I'm back again and it's taking a lot of nerve, too, but I've made up my mind to become a regular contributor to the Eyrie. It's awfully embarrassing to have my letters printed, but I'll be disappointed if this one isn't. Such is human nature! I've just finished the May issue. . . . The Flower-Women by Clark Ashton Smith gets my first vote. It's light and fanciful and yet with an undertone of weirdness that gives it just the right flavor. It's the sort of story that leaves you in a dreamy mood, and after I had read it I laid the magazine down and didn't touch it for more than half an hour afterward. I was so afraid of losing the spell of that story. Clark Ashton Smith is a story-teller supreme. . . . The cover is rotten! Good gosh, it looks like the cover of any common detective magazine. What's the matter with Brundage, or is it the publishers, or perhaps you, huh? Has B. lost her artistic instinct or are you beginning to listen to the evil-minded old moldies? The cover on the April issue was even worse. For heaven's sake do something. I want my 'lovely ladies' back again. The Bronze Casket by Richard Hart was another fine story. The plot was a little old but the story was well told. I enjoyed it."

Miss Lillian Kaltz, of Philadelphia, writes: "This is the first time I have written in to complain or praise. I shall do both. In reading Weird Tales regularly for four years I have never encountered a reprint or a new story to linger as much as did Arthur Jermyn, 'a reprint of eleven years ago,' in the May issue. When I started to read it, it seemed dry—but that ending simply knocked me for a loop and every once in a while it pops up again. Please give us more of H. P. Lovecraft. The ending of Lord of the Lamia was the very best. I felt sorry for the lamia. I like The Bronze Casket a lot. I would like to read more adventures of the Wandering Jew. And of course that divine Conan (Beyond the Black River), but I like him better when he pursues some beautiful girl. When there is a love interest in a weird tale it becomes doubly fascinating. Remember that, please. Now for my complaint. The Weird Tales covers used to be so outstanding, and now, the last two issues have such ordinary scenes. The covers have always been so exotic in coloring and the girls so perfect that my friends and I started framing the gorgeous covers. People I knew who saw the pictures and had never read Weird Tales immediately bought a copy if not for anything but the cover—of course that was until they started reading the stories. Now just because some evil-minded people complain about the 'naked women' on the cover, the magazine loses one of its principal charms. If Weird Tales will continue with such terribly ordinary covers as the April and May issues, I know of many people who will not even notice Weird Tales on the news stands."

C. H. Cameron writes from St. Johns, New Brunswick: "The May issue of WT is so outstandingly good that I just have to write. There isn't a single story that I can adversely criticize, and several are so good that it is hard to make a first choice. I immensely enjoyed Kline's three-part serial, Lord of the Lamia. Yellow Doom by Robert H. Leitfred is a good example of fine science-fiction, much better than what is usually featured in the magazines devoted exclusively to those tales. I've always liked Smith, and though his The Flower-Women wasn't his best by a long way, it was unique and interesting. The Bronze Casket had the poignant twist-ending that is always the mark of better class fiction. I am very much in favor of a cover story contest as suggested by Jack Darrow. I would suggest that you bar professionals from the extra prizes, but have them compete; also that the