A memory of moonlight, long forgotten: Minas Ithil

From the spider-haunted pass of Cirith Ungol we go now to Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon. A city as great as Minas Tirith, it guarded the way into Mordor through the Ephel Duath. Perhaps the nightmarish presence of the Land of Shadow so close tinged the dreamy Gondorian city with a touch of darkness, as well as infusing it with a need for beauty to contrast the horror.

The Tower of the Moon that dominates the city, once a gleaming symbol of peace and beauty. Centuries later, it would be a menacing presence for Frodo and Sam as they attempted to slip into Mordor.

The Tower of the Moon was the ethereally beautiful counterpart to the stalwart Tower of the Sun. Both were bulwarks of Gondor, anchoring the realm and guarding the Gondorian capital of Osgiliath throughout the long centuries. Plague and civil war weakened Osgiliath, and it declined into empty ruin, leaving its guarding cities on their own. Then, fatefully, Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, fell to Mordor's shadow and became Minas Morgul, the Tower of Black Magic. Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun, then became Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, the last and greatest hope for the Free People of Middle-earth. Before Minas Ithil fell, though, it was a vibrant, creative place, a moonlit contrast to the bright warrior-city that took the name of Minas Tirith.

Queen Mirien has decided to make Minas Ithil her personal domain after continued friction with her husband, King Tarondor.

This book details Minas Ithil before it fell to Sauron's forces. It's an interesting place for those who enjoy urban adventures, and is detailed well. The culture of the city is laid out, with attention given to guilds, social strata, spirituality, education, and intrigue. This is a city of learning and art, and space is even devoted in the book to an overview of poetry in Minas Ithil. It also contains one of the few remaining Seeing-stones, or Palantir, that remains to Gondor. Minas Ithil is a living place, though the Great Plague has recently swept through Middle-earth, and while the city has weathered it better than many other places in Gondor, the weakening has begun that will allow the Witch-king to conquer the city centuries to come. The corruption is there, if subtle.

The marble buildings of Minas Ithil stand bravely, but a shadow already creeps within the city.

The book offers a variety of sites within the city for characters to visit, from dive taverns to universities. In this respect, it's one of the better city supplements I've seen for a roleplaying game. The only criticism I can offer happens to be a major one: Iron Crown Enterprises had already published a major city supplement a few years before. Minas Tirith had been given the hardback treatment, detailing the most famous of Middle-earth cities. While Minas Ithil is a much different place, there is a feeling of sameness here. The opportunity was there for a much more dangerous adventure site to be detailed. Minas Morgul would have made an even greater contrast to Minas Tirith.

A portion of Minas Ithil, the city, with Tower of the Moon itself labeled #4.

Perhaps ICE felt that Minas Morgul was the kind of site that would see little use in a game, and if so, then I can understand that reasoning. It would be an incredibly dangerous place for the player characters to attempt to slip into before the War of the Ring. Teeming with evil, the domain of the greatest of the Ringwraiths, instant death would be at hand for most of the Free People. Still...such danger is part and parcel of roleplaying game adventures. The prospect of such a huge, open adventure site would hold an allure for many adventurers. Spy missions involving infiltrating the city are an obvious opportunity for derring-do for those with ice-water blood. After Sauron's fall, Minas Morgul would have been an immediate target of King Elessar, opening up a whole campaign's-worth of adventures as the remnants of the Dark Lord's forces rush to any bastion that remains to them. Sieges, pitched battles, and building-to-building fighting in a city dominated by complete evil for a thousand years, still possessed of macabre secrets, and so infused with corruption that the King of Gondor would have it razed completely, sounds like a lot of fun.

All that said, this is still an outstanding game book, taken on its own. With some adjustment, it could be placed in other settings, or even converted into Minas Morgul. The details provided, from climate and ecology to court intrigue and hidden spider cults, are all interesting and worthwhile. In any other game or setting, it would be considered a classic. It still is a classic, but is overshadowed by its sibling city, Minas Tirith, both as a publication and as a place, and by the city of black magic that it would become. But, that may be my own lingering disappointment than anything else. Setting that aside, Minas Ithil is one of the better MERP books published.

Along came a spider: The Tower of Cirith Ungol and Shelob's Lair

"There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider form[...]she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dur; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness." - The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter VIII: Shelob's Lair

When the world was young and the fallen Vala, Morgoth, began his schemes to rule over or destroy Middle-earth, he found an ally in Ungoliant, a great, shadowy spider from a time before the world was created. Down through the long years, Ungoliant's brood infested the desolate places of Middle-earth. From the dense heart of Mirkwood to the borders of Mordor itself, spiders of a size and intelligence seen only in the nightmares of our world wove their webs. In the time of Bilbo and Frodo, there still lived descendants of Ungoliant herself. In the Ephel Duath, the Fence of Shadow that looms on the Western edge of the shadowland of Mordor, lived "Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world."

Sauron is an opportunist and a manipulator. The mighty Smaug and the horrific Balrog were not his servants, yet they anchored strategic areas for him. Whether they were drawn by some subtle influence of Sauron or not is unclear. As the greatest of Morgoth's servants, Sauron may well have drawn upon some glimmer of loyalty these beings felt for the master of them all, exiled into the Outer Dark. But his influence was not great enough to draw them forth into his armies; instead, they claimed realms of their own, content to rule what they had. Sauron's grand strategy was of no concern to them, but neither would they hinder it. It is a happy coincidence for him that these great creatures were in places that might have become strongholds against him. Or was it coincidence? The presence of Shelob in a critical pass into Mordor suggests even more strongly that Sauron could exert his will even on those unheeding of it.

Sam and Frodo's trek through the lair of Shelob imprinted itself on my mind from the first time I read it. Absolute darkness in a cave labyrinth is unnerving enough; finding that a true nightmare lives within it seized my imagination. Spiders are not among my favorite creatures in the first place; the thought of a giant one lurking in the dark, awaiting those rendered helpless by imposed blindness, was chilling, and still is. The taunting spiders of Mirkwood were a fairytale menace, and even little Bilbo could hew his way through them, at least when armed with the redoubtable Sting. Their mother, though, was no fairytale creature; she was pure night terror, mindless and driven by dark instinct. But, it was inspiring to find that Sting, the bane of her brood to the North, could also deal her grievous harm.

Tolkien did much of the work in creating iconic monster lairs in the fantasy genre with which we are now familiar. The great halls of Smaug's stolen domain in Erebor is a quintessential Dragon's lair. Moria is a classic Goblin haven, with the King Under the Mountain now a Demon of fire. And, of course, Torech Ungol, Shelob's foul nest, can be found echoed even in modern science fiction, manifesting as the hives of the cinematic Aliens.

A portion of Torech Ungol, Shelob's nest; consider walking through it in pitch darkness, with a foul stench and bits of webbing to confuse and confound you.

The Tower of Cirith Ungol and Shelob's Lair is a Middle-earth Roleplaying adventure of the first order. Set over thirteen centuries before the time of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the book provides detailed overviews of the climate, flora, and fauna of a relatively small part of the Ephel Duath. Interestingly, the time period is one in which Gondor still keeps a watch in force on Mordor, with a garrison in Cirith Ungol, and the city of Minas Ithil still centuries from falling to Sauron's forces and becoming the evil city of Minas Morgul. Orc tribes lurk in the area, Hill Trolls can be found, and, of course, there are Spiders of all sizes, up to and including Shelob herself. There are notes on using the area and tower of Cirith Ungol after it has fallen to Sauron, so it wouldn't take much work to make this book usable in any era. In fact, it could be used to show the area after Sauron has fallen, and Aragorn, now King Elessar, has sent forces to retake and man Cirith Ungol as Minas Morgul is retaken and destroyed.

Shelob herself is detailed using the Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP) game system, and she's pretty horrible, as you might expect. Her lair of Torech Ungol is shown to be twisting and confusing, perfect for getting player characters lost. The great Spider herself is described as being literally a Demon, which makes sense given her ancestry. She is also described as having numerous magical abilities, which, at first, I wasn't too keen on - she never demonstrates anything like them in Tolkien's book - or so I thought. Looking more closely at the sequence in Tolkien's book, though, most, if not all, of these abilities can be rationalized as innate abilities used by way of pure malevolent instinct. They mostly deal with Shelob being able to resist damage and frighten her prey. The latter seems like overkill, since a Spider of her size is automatically guaranteed to scare the waybread out of those unfortunate enough to encounter her. However, considering the thick darkness that defies even the Phial of Galadriel, and the choking horror that seems to lurk about the place, attributing much of it to Shelob's supernatural essence as a Demon seems more than reasonable to me.

This is a particularly solid entry in the MERP line. It resembles classic Dungeons & Dragons adventures in its focus and its underground exploration. Actually, it's more correct to say that Dungeons & Dragons adventures resemble it, because the entire sequence of Shelob's lair in The Lord of the Rings almost certainly had a good deal of influence on D&D in its early incarnations.

Challengers of the Unknown

 

So I finished up the first DC Showcase collection of the Challengers of the Unknown. For the uninitiated, the Challengers of the Unknown is a team of four daredevils - pilot Ace Morgan, acrobat and mountain-climber Red Ryan, skin/scuba diver and scientist Prof Haley, and champion wrestler Rocky Davis, with June Robbins being a de facto fifth member without being accorded the title of full member - who believe they are living on borrowed time. That sketchy knowledge causes them to decide to team up to confront the nebulous concept of the "unknown," which in the Challengers' universe usually involves giant monsters and aliens, often enough at the same time.

Created by Jack Kirby and Dave Wood (there's a bit of uncertainty about this; some seem to think Kirby created them on his own, others cite both Kirby and Wood as co-creators), Challengers of the Unknown appeared in 1957, during a time when superheroes were just beginning to come back into popularity in comics. From the late 1940s and into the mid-to-late 1950s, comic books had become the domain of horror, fantasy, Westerns, and adventure stories. Superheroes had largely faded from view, except for some of the most enduring heroes like Superman and Batman. Eventually, though, superheroes began to come back into their own. The early 1960s would be see the advent of Marvel Comics, but in 1957 Kirby was working for DC. Challengers of the Unknown is an obvious precursor to Fantastic Four, a comic Kirby (with Stan Lee) would come to create in 1961. The Challengers had no superpowers, though, relying mostly on dumb luck and headlong charges to see them through.

The stories have a strange, almost dream-like quality to them, and I do find that I enjoy them more when I'm just about to fall asleep. The Challengers challenge everything - death, fate, destiny, physics, and logic. Several times they encounter artifacts that, according to "real" scientists/archaeologists/whatever, are from ages where magic existed, and literal wizards who use actual magic are cited as historic personages, their abilities mentioned in passing like one would mention Magellan was a sea captain. The Challengers seem to run across a lot of formulae for "mixtures" from the ancient past that cause the imbiber to gain strange powers, aliens with weird devices and popeyes, reclusive scientists who come to create devices they quickly regret inventing, and criminals who use wondrous powers and machines to rob banks. One particular trope that amuses me is the weird science device that the user has to awkwardly hold in front of them and carry around to use, looking much like they're lugging around an 1100-watt microwave oven.

Kirby and the other writers seemed to not even bother with lip service to facts; it wouldn't have surprised me to see them posit the Earth has two moons and we just hadn't paid attention to the second one before now. They remind me of the kid who does the stories for Axe Cop, except they don't have the excuse of being five years old. That type of unfiltered writing is clearly a precursor to the stuff Kirby did later, when he hit his stride with Marvel. There is an energy here that is irrepressible. It also seems like a bridge between the Golden and Silver Ages of comics. The silly premises and the "get her!" plans of action can get tedious, but it's all definitely a piece of the Rosetta Stone for interpreting a lot of early Silver Age Marvel and DC.

A wretched hive of scum and villainy: Brigands of Mirkwood

South of the East Bight, the treeless gouge in the eastern side of Mirkwood, a shadow has crept across the forest. Grim folk and dark creatures make their homes there, while others are transients, moving from one evil place in Middle-earth to another. Mercenaries, spies, and unscrupulous merchants ply their trades from the empty lands West of the Misty Mountains to the plains of the East, Rhun and beyond. Just beyond the East Bight is a crossroads of sorts, the town of Strayhold. Corrupt and colorful, few of the good folk of Middle-earth find their way here. Instead, it is the base for the Brigands of Mirkwood.

The ragged-edged town of Strayhold is a strange place in Middle-earth. Perpetually awake, the flames of torches and lanterns has caused some to dub it Fire Town. It seems a festive place in some ways, with music and carousing to be found at all hours. Yet, it is a festivity that is much like a nightmarish version of the grand celebrations of the Elven-king's court far to the North. Here, though, there is no underlying decency and concern for the well-being of others. The populace is a random hodge-podge of bandits and refugees, earning it the name of Strayhold quite deservedly.

This is a place that will draw the attention of any adventurer in Middle-earth. The foes of the Dark Lord, and those who would do his bidding, will both find much to attract them. It is a raucous place, with the energy of a frontier town, and the decadence of a civilization in decline, corrupted by long years of being a waystation for those who travel to the haunted lands of Middle-earth.

Southern Mirkwood and the lands beyond; Strayhold lies in the southeastern quarter of the map, just beyond the "thumb" of Mirkwood sticking out below the East Bight.

Strayhold is an "evil twin" of many places in Middle-earth. It has the raucous holiday energy of the Elven-king's realm, a melting-pot populace that echoes that of Bree-land, and a wildness that must be akin to that of Tharbad in its decline. The book details numerous characters for the player's characters to deal with, and numerous sites within the town that will naturally draw attention. These latter range from the inevitable taverns to guild-halls for thieves and beggars. The entire city is a black market, with just about any good or item in Middle-earth being available here, for a price. Strayhold is a town for those who have no place left to go, or those who are on their way to even less savory places.

Besides extensive descriptions of the people and places of Strayhold, the book also contains several adventures, three of which are the main focus of the book. Excursion to the City of Strays involves the player characters being hired to acquire a book from a bookseller in the "beggars quarter" part of the town. This is primarily a MacGuffin to get the characters into the town and get a good dose of the two-fisted, fun side of the place. Raid on the Clan-Hall of Rogues has the player's characters asked by some good folk to recover a horn sacred to them from the titular location - the thieves' guild, in other words. The Castle of Leardinoth has no less a personage than Gandalf the Grey himself(!) enlisting the player characters to take down the evil wizard who rules over Strayhold. This will be no easy task, even taking into account that it requires having fun storming the castle; the wizard was trained by no less a personage than the Necromancer himself(!!) In addition, there are a few adventure ideas to keep the player characters busy in the town.

All in all, Brigands of Mirkwood is a solid little book in the Middle-earth Roleplaying line from Iron Crown Enterprises. The Angus McBride cover is dynamic, and the maps, especially the always-impressive regional map by Peter Fenlon, are colorful and evocative. The book gets close to the line between what I think Middle-earth "feels" like and what it doesn't "feel" like, and, I think, straddles that line a bit. Still, the designers did a pretty decent job extrapolating how such a location would come to be and continue to exist in Middle-earth, without resorting to anything truly outlandish.

The Leopard Man/The Ghost Ship: A Val Lewton Double-Feature

Val Lewton's films delved into the shadows of the human mind. The line between sanity and insanity is often a blurry one, obscured by the emotions and urges that exist deep within a person. What seizes a person to do strange and terrible things? When does simple fascination turn into obsession? How can responsibility and duty become corrupted into tyranny? Lewton chose to deal with such issues in The Leopard Man and The Ghost Ship.

A sleepy New Mexico town hosts a traveling troupe of entertainers. The jealousy between a flamenco dancer and a singer ends up setting off a chain of events that leads to tragedy, and then to terror, as an escaped panther preys upon the helpless and innocent. Or does it? Sometimes the most obvious solution is not the correct one, and sometimes that solution is not born from logic.

The narrative of this film seemed to meander at first, moving from character to character. It soon became apparent to me that there was more to this randomness of the story than simple unfocused screenwriting. This was the flow of fate, the stream of destiny, or maybe a small tributary of the greater watershed of creation around and through which the lives of all pass, and, eventually, end. A simple act can flow down the stream of fate, touching and engulfing those in its path, a path that changes without rhyme or reason.

Those caught up in the floodwaters have no real connection: a young girl out on an errand and fearful of the dark; a trusting and naive young woman waiting for her swain in a seemingly peaceful cemetery; and the flamenco dancer herself, who diverted a stream of fate with her own thoughtless actions. Such is life, with random events linking strangers for eternity.

I said insanity was a theme of these movies, and that is true here. But it is also the capriciousness of even perfectly sane people that Lewton explores here, their insensitivity to their fellow humans often driving their actions. They may not be purely malicious, but they are cold and focused only on their own momentary whims. Like the small, sharp sound that can set off an avalanche, though, the slights that people perform on other folk can have dire consequences.

There is striking imagery here. Lewton's trademark deep shadows lurk, as always, and, as always, they lie just beyond our reach, but ever at hand. The panther itself is a shadow made ambulatory, poised to pounce. In tandem with the shadows, the silence hovers, an emptiness that puts the viewer on edge as they wait for that emptiness to be filled with something terrifying. I will also note a strange desert procession at the end of the film, a dream-like, somber parade that leads from life to death.

I was startled to see the revealed cause of the terror. The actual answer to the mystery was not that surprising, in itself; it was the nature of the cause. I'm trying to not spoil the ending, because it is worth discovering. I can only say that there are few movies of this vintage that deal with a phenomenon that has become far too terrifyingly common in our time. It's an unsettling end.

An idealistic young merchant marine officer boards a freighter in his first assignment as Third Mate. The captain takes him under his wing, providing lessons on authority and leadership. The captain's calm demeanor and resonant voice project an air of experience and command. Soon, though, the Third Mate begins to suspect the captain's tranquil air hides something far more sinister. But are the young officer's suspicions simply generated by a misunderstanding of what it takes to lead a crew and bear the responsibility of holding the fates of others in one's hands? Could it be the Third Mate's own actions and words that begin yet another chain of events that lead to what seems a fated conclusion, one in which the destinies of several others become entwined in a downward spiral?

This movie is the sleeper of all the Lewton films I've seen. I had never heard of it before, and certainly had never seen it. Afterwards, it preyed upon my mind. What caused the events to unfold the way they did? Had they been poised for years to fall out that way? Or was it a bolt from the blue, striking without warning?

The characters seem fully realized. Each has a history that has shaped them before the narrative of the film. The captain is a beloved figure. Distant he may be, but the loyalty of his friends and his crew is genuine. What of the Third Mate? Are his suspicions warranted, or are they a product of his own lonely background? He seems good-hearted and idealistic, but his life as an orphan may have made it hard for him to trust and accept the words of others. Even the minor characters are three-dimensional - the First Mate is a world-weary man, hiding a pain and emptiness that is never explained, but is assuredly present. The captain's woman friend, and prospective fiancee, is a realist, but she, too, has hidden elements to her, a long-submerged hopeful side that longs to finally be set free. These characters, and all the others, are so finely-drawn and well-acted that they add to the horror of what is to come. These are real people confronted with something that shakes the foundations of their lives.

In this movie, Lewton's ever-present shadows are overshadowed, so to speak, by an air of claustrophobia and isolation. The ship has few places to hide, and this only adds to the creeping madness that underlays the narrative. The cramped quarters heighten the desperation of an unusually brutal, for the time, fight at the end of the film. Inky darkness, flashing knives, and thrashing limbs make this struggle an art piece of violence. It, too, seems to erupt from nowhere, its violence something rarely seen in a Lewton film. The lack of room to move, and the obstacles in the room, make the fight much more gripping than the classic style at the time of roundhouse haymakers and balsa-wood chair-shattering. It is almost literally a knife fight in a closet, and it's all the more terrifying for that.

This movie bears repeated viewings. There seems more subtext than usual, even for a filmmaker like Lewton, whose films in general seem to have an entire subterranean existence beneath the surface narrative.

The Leopard Man and The Ghost Ship seem a good pairing to me. They both show not a hint of the supernatural about them, as opposed to most of Lewton's other films, which usually are ambiguous about the subject. That lack of the paranormal does not hinder the frightening nature of the films. In fact, that lack, that reliance on the purely real, makes these films disconcerting in ways the others aren't.

From the depths to the heights: Goblin-Gate and Eagle's Eyrie

The Misty Mountains rise up like a spine in Middle-earth, a barrier and dwelling-place for both good and evil. Mighty Eagles roost atop mountain peaks, lofting into the air to patrol the lands about for evil. Deep beneath the mountains, once the domain of the Dwarves, lurk servants and allies of the Shadow. And in one forgotten corner of a Goblin labyrinth, the greatest treasure and worst danger of Middle-earth lay hidden. This is the Goblin-Gate and Eagle's Eyrie.

Topographical map of the route Thorin & Co. took, which came to near-disaster.

What lies beneath the Misty Mountains cold.

The Misty Mountains were every bit as mysterious and dangerous as any other region of Middle-earth.  Wreathed in clouds and fog, they held many secrets. Home to Men, Orcs, Dwarves, Eagles, and Giants, the mountains themselves seemed to be imbued with an intelligence, a watching and capricious sentience. At times they seemed jealous of their passes and craggy roads, working against those who dared to pass through uninvited. Perhaps this was the work of malevolent spirits of the mountains, working according to their own whims or, perhaps, at the behest of the Dark Lord himself. Whatever the case may be, there was a looming menace to the mountains.

Another outstanding map by Peter Fenlon.

Iron Crown Enterprises' Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP) game line seemed at its best when it covered some of the most familiar locations in Middle-earth. This book is no exception, and is one of their better efforts. Weighing in at a slim 42 pages, it is dense with information, a lot of it worthwhile reading. As with all MERP books, it explores the geography, environment, flora, and fauna of the covered region, in this case the central Misty Mountains. Travel through and around the mountains is discussed, with all the attendant obstacles and encounters, from the weather to the cultures of the various beings that live there. The research and extrapolation done is reflected in how believable the area described is, taking Tolkien's descriptions and fleshing them out even beyond his own meticulous attention to details. It lends a dimensionality not often found in game books.

There is a wealth of adventure sites and ideas here. From the inaccessible nests of Great Eagles to the deepest Goblin hole, Goblin-Gate and Eagle's Eyrie covers it all. Besides retracing the steps of the heroes of The Hobbit, which can certainly be done using this book, there are plenty of other places to go and things to do. A trading town provides for both urban intrigue and a base of operations for adventurers.

A Northmen town for the players to have their characters trash.

I think I was most amused by a map for the Eagle's Eyrie, given its nearly-impossible-to-reach positioning, and its simplicity.

Players will always find a way to get to places like this, so I suppose it's best to be prepared.

Of course, the meat of this book is the layout and description of the underworld city of the Goblins. For once, it doesn't seem that this is a place stolen from the Dwarves, evidenced by the comparatively less orderly nature of the "city" - these are natural caverns, expanded upon, perhaps, but in a chaotic, almost random fashion.

Dark labyrinths sprawling with little rhyme and reason seem fitting as the dwelling-places for Goblins.

A history of the entire region is given, though it's more brief than that found in many of the other MERP books. Not a lot changes here throughout the Ages, so the book can be used, with a minimal amount of tweaking, to cover just about any given period of time in Middle-earth.

The Goblin-town is quite a place to explore, a classic dungeoncrawl if there ever was one. Yeah, I make it one word; consider it part of my own personal style guide. The place is full of danger - if you've read The Hobbit, you know what it's like: impenetrably dark and full of Goblins. And yes, Gollum himself can be found, though the likelihood changes depending on when the player characters decide to go spelunking, and even then it'll take a bit of luck. More than a bit, actually. Even if Gollum isn't there, there's still a lot to deal with.

And if he is there, then players can make things more complicated as history is changed. Middle-earth history, but still.

The book provides a few interesting adventures. One even has the player characters hired by a pretender to the Goblin throne to take out the current Great Goblin. It's an intriguing idea, and clever players might be able to have their characters play out the situation in such a way that the Goblins in Goblin-town are rendered paralyzed as a threat as they fight amongst themselves. It's certainly not an original concept, but the familiarity of the location and creatures involved to those who've read the book or seen the movie(s) may lend it an air of excitement and importance that other RPG adventures like it don't have.

Some of the illustrations for MERP books suggest a more simian look to Orcs, Goblins, and Trolls than I've seen in other sources.

This is a good, solid entry in the MERP line. This is from a period when ICE had hit its stride with MERP. The art, the maps, and the content all gel together into a whole that can provide for a lot of fun.

One last thought. It's always struck me that the Goblin army that sallied forth from Goblin-Gate had a helluva march from the Misty Mountains to Erebor. Even if they marched through Mirkwood, which I doubt, they still had a long march through hostile territory, and had to have a vulnerable supply-line. I suppose they could have pillaged and foraged along the way, but given how they managed to surprise the armies of the Free Peoples, you'd think their coming would have been noted much earlier had they been tearing up the lands they passed through. Plus, coordinating their attack to coincide with that of the Orcs from the Grey Mountains and Mount Gundabad is quite a feat in itself. Bolg, the Orc king in Gundabad, must have been an uncommon leader and military genius, and his death may have been more of a blow to the forces of evil in Northern Middle-earth than even the annihilation of the Orc and Wolf armies under his command at the Lonely Mountain.

Even more of a genius is Gandalf, whose machinations seem to have orchestrated, in one fell swoop, a whole slew of victories for the good folk of Middle-earth: the Ring was located and in the hands of one who would not use it in a way that drew Sauron's attention until much later; a huge force of Orcs and their brilliant leader were laid low that might otherwise have been a decisive factor in the coming war against Sauron (as it is, they had recovered enough by the time of the War of the Ring to tie down much of the armies in the North); Smaug, the greatest of Dragons still remaining in Middle-earth, was killed and his threat removed; and the Free Peoples of the North had found common ground and thawed the relations between them all, and began a tradition of working together. So in many ways, Goblin-Gate and Eagle's Eyrie was a pivotal place in Middle-earth history.

Bedlam

I continue my look at Val Lewton's macabre movies with Bedlam. In this, it is London of the 1760s. The paramour of a decadent British noble comes to despise his treatment of those less fortunate, particularly those with mental health issues. For her trouble, she finds herself locked up in that most infamous of mental health facilities, Bedlam. With the help of a Quaker friend, she overcomes her fears of those with whom she shares living space. Yet, her survival is threatened by the de facto head of the hospital, played by Boris Karloff.

The film was inspired by Hogarth's A Rake's Progress. This is a series of paintings and engravings that show the descent into madness of a young wastrel, who ultimately ends up in Bedlam itself. It's an interesting group of pictures, and is an early example of sequential art that would lead, ultimately, to graphic novels and even film storyboards.

This film differs quite a bit from the other Lewton films I've discussed. Instead of the specter of death hanging over the narrative, it is madness that seems to lurk around every corner. The inmates of the hospital seem not so much different from the decadent and venal society on the outside. There is even levity, with the usually-sinister Karloff having an air of the buffoon at times here.

Yet Karloff brings a believability to his character that may have been overlooked or overplayed by another actor. His doctor chafes at having to bow and scrape to those who occupy strata of society above his, saving his anger and frustration for his charges, whom he exploits to curry favor with those he considers his betters. Scheming and vengeful, he doesn't hesitate to use his position to gain power over his enemies. In the end, though, he is a petty, scheming man, with no concern for those he is supposed to be helping.

This film does not evoke the kind of dread of death that most of Lewton's films do. Certainly there are shadows, and there is a body count, but in this film they are more set dressing than the main attraction. The corruption of society is pervasive, with the few stalwarts of morality in the film either too pacifistic to lend more than spiritual help (the Quaker), or gone for much of the narrative of the film (the "Devil Wilkes").

Perhaps instead of dread, Lewton meant to evoke a feeling of irony here. The actions - or, more accurately, inactions - of the Quaker, and the reputation of the hoped-for savior Wilkes (seriously, read about him at that link), are almost the quintessence of irony. Further, the microcosm of society that has been assembled in the general population of Bedlam is even more irony - the line between sanity and insanity, as drawn by Lewton in this film, is nebulous at best, and nonexistent in many cases. So it is irony instead of dread, corruption instead of death...but in the end, Lewton is still dealing with death and horror. Here, though, it is the horror of a society where insanity is determined more for the sake of convenience than for any real affliction, where corruption runs so deep that, in the end, even the best in society have a shadow of it in their hearts. That signals the death of a society, and death was always a subject close to Lewton.

Isle of the Dead

Val Lewton's journey through darkness and death continues in Isle of the Dead. This is one of the most unusual settings for a Lewton film: the First Balkan War of 1912-13. The Ottoman Empire was disintegrating in the face of unified attack, the last remnants of the conqueror of and successor to the Eastern Roman Empire tottering on the brink of oblivion. Fittingly, from a historical standpoint, it was falling at the hands of a culture even older than it: Greece. The film begins in the aftermath of a battle.

Greek General Pherides - played by Boris Karloff - stands in judgment of one of his officers. For failing to ensure all his troops were available when needed, the punishment is death by suicide. It matters not that this officer is an old friend; his failure brought danger to the army, and, by extension, Greece itself. For that, Pherides can grant no clemency. The safety of the army and Greece is paramount to Pherides.

An American journalist, embedded with the Greek army, has been interviewing Pherides. They tour the battlefield, taking stock of the grim results of the day's proceedings. Bodies by the cartload are dragged to mass burials to prevent the spread of plague; disease knows no boundaries, takes no sides. Such a threat to his troops and his country cannot be allowed by Pherides.

The walk by the general and the journalist takes them to a strangely serene scene. A small island stands not far from the shore, Greek buildings standing timeless and beautiful so near to such death and destruction. Pherides recalls this is where his wife was interred years ago, and the two decide to visit her grave.

Soon, though, it is obvious that death and destruction has visited this island, too, though in different form. The mausoleum that housed the body of Pherides' wife has been broken into, the coffins smashed open long ago. A brief investigation into the night-clad island reveals a house inhabited by an archeologist, Swiss now but born Greek, and his guests, a British couple, the young woman hired to help the British woman, another Englishman, and an older Greek woman who runs the household. The lone Englishman falls ill, and by morning he's dead. From then on, death looms over all - the plague that Pherides dreaded has taken hold of the island.

Pherides summons his army's doctor, who confirms the plague, and quarantines the island. The old woman suspects the young woman to be the cause of the evil, a vorvolaka, a type of vampire from Greek folklore. Some scoff, but others, including, eventually, Pherides, take her warnings more and more seriously, especially as more and more inhabitants of the house fall prey to the plague.

As with all of Lewton's films, shadows dominate both visually and narratively. There is some remarkable cinematic use of shadow and darkness in many shots, especially in the last third of the film. The depth of the darkness in which some characters are submerged is surprising, given the time period. But beyond the shadows created by the lighting, there are the shadows on the souls of the characters. Ancient superstition creeps back to life in the present, nightmares come literally true, and dark prophecies become self-fulfilling. By the end, the old gods themselves, Hermes and Poseidon, seem to make their presence felt, though that presence is much more sinister than what is found in Bulfinch.

Karloff gives a solid, effective performance. His Pherides is a war-hardened pragmatist, though he slips into superstition as the old woman's whisperings about gods of old and monsters of legend seem to come true as he watches. He is used to being in control - of himself, of his men, of destiny itself, in the form of Greece throwing off its shackles. When confronted by that which he cannot control, he strives even harder to bring order from chaos...though his efforts prove to be in vain. He is a complex character, as many of Karloff's characters are, and Karloff brings a rich texture to him.

The last twenty minutes or so of this movie creeped me out. The use of shadow is so effective that I found myself reaching to turn on lights as the darkness unsettled me. But it's not just the use of shadow and light that makes Lewton's films so powerful. This film, like his others, also makes use of sound in a very deft way. The film is quiet, with characters speaking in low tones or softly, the wind rustling subtly, the dripping of water sounding like a metronome. As horror descends, this quiet causes the viewer to brace for what seems the inevitability of loudness. When that loudness comes, it is stark and tearing, slashing across the sensibilities of the viewer, so that when the quietness returns, it is no comfort.

This is unequivocally a masterwork by Lewton. The storyline is simple on the face of it, but complex with the mixture of characters who all have their own motives, the grim setting, and the ambiguity of what really happened. Lewton's films always leave it up to the viewer to decide if the supernatural was present, or if everything had a rational explanation. In this movie, in particular, this ambiguity lends the ending a certain frisson of horror that lingers long after the movie is over.

A Christmas Carol and Alastair Sim

I didn't want to let the blog languish too long here in the holiday season, so I thought I'd mention Alastair Sim's turn as Ebenezer Scrooge in 1951's A Christmas Carol. Actually, the film was called Scrooge in Great Britain, and it's an indication of how powerful Sim's performance is; his Scrooge dominates the movie.

That might seem like a no-brainer, the notion that Scrooge would loom over any adaptation of Dickens' Christmas classic. Still, many versions seem more concerned with the fantastic elements and structure of the narrative than with the characters. Sim's portrayal of Scrooge eschews the often cartoonish way the character is shown, and is, for my money, the most naturalistic and believable screen Scrooge.

Rather than the screeching, opaque character that inhabits most versions, Sim's Scrooge is world-weary, sarcastic, and bitter. There is a history to his harsh worldview, a background that is often lost in the portrayals by lesser actors. Certainly those movies may show that backstory, as revealed in the journey to Christmas Past that all such films must take, but Sim lives in that backstory, evoking a real human with reasons for his hateful demeanor.

We see a character arc for Scrooge in the Christmas Past sequences that is remarkable for how well it shows Scrooge's gradual descent from a decent, even idealistic, young man - portrayed in the earliest flashbacks by George Cole, who gives a performance that is often subtle and effective, and which seamlessly melds into Sim's - into the misanthrope of later years. The movie doesn't beat the viewer over the head with the notion of nurture vs. nature. We see Scrooge molded into the man he becomes by circumstances and by his own conscious, increasingly cynical decisions. We see a glimmer of decency, of likability, linger far into his adulthood, but it also seems inevitable, and almost profoundly sad, that he will become the Scrooge we meet at film's beginning.

I've often thought about whether the epiphany Scrooge experiences is too quick, too unnatural. I've seen this movie many times over the years, and that has always been the part that gave me pause. My most recent viewing, which I did with an eye towards keeping in mind my misgivings about Scrooge's metamorphosis at the end, revealed something that hadn't occurred to me before. The giddiness with which Sim shows Scrooge reacting to the knowledge of being alive and well on Christmas day made perfect sense now. It was not just pure existential relief, but also the Scrooge of old was finally able to resurface after being tightly held behind walls built over a lifetime. This younger-in-spirit Scrooge suddenly saw a chance to make new decisions, new choices, that would lead to a new life. It was pure joy out of being released, or, more accurately, releasing himself, from spiritual chains he'd accumulated over the years, the very type of chains that burdened Marley beyond the veil between life and death. It was Sim's deft, nuanced portrayal that made this all clear.

The Seventh Victim

Val Lewton produced a number of films in rapid succession during World War Two, which was no small feat. Even more remarkable is the quality of these pictures. Plenty of Poverty Row producers could churn out programmers at a steady clip, but Lewton was one of the rare few producers who could do so and still have the results be well-crafted and artistic. The Seventh Victim is, for me, one of his most memorable. I tend to say that about all of Lewton's films, but really, this one may be his most unique.

Seventeen-year-old Mary learns that the tuition hasn't been paid by her sister for her boarding school, and rather than accept an offer to work off further tuition, she resolves to go to New York to find her elusive sibling. She soon finds herself immersed in a more sinister mystery than she could have imagined.

Mary's sister, Jacqueline, has sold off her cosmetics manufacturing business and disappeared. Mary's search for her sister quickly descends into a shadowy world, literally and figuratively. A private detective decides to help her, but he finds that he's bitten off more than he can chew. Mary finds further assistance from her sister's psychiatrist, her fiance, and a poet, all in New York's Greenwich Village. Ultimately, Mary finds her sister, loses her, then finds her again, and learns that Jacqueline has run afoul of an evil cult. The resolution of this conflict will lead to one of the most downbeat endings in a mainstream Hollywood production of the 1940s.

This movie's ending is one that initially startled me. That's it? I asked myself after my first viewing of it. Did I miss something? It just didn't end like a '40s movie usually did. It's a bleak worldview, but memorable. It's the culmination of a strangely-woven plot, full of symbolism. Lewton's stamp is clearly here, with understated acting, a quiet atmosphere, inky shadows, and characters with dark secrets. The film is short, not much more than an hour, but as with Lewton's other films, it is packed with atmosphere.

The Seventh Victim continues Lewton's string of films that present richly-nuanced characters who seem to have had a life before the film. We viewers dip into their lives for a brief glimpse, with little explained but much shown. We see enough to believe these characters are people with reasons for doing what they do, but mostly we never see what those reasons are. Each character is a cypher, with a backstory we'll never learn but which is clearly present.

I've mentioned the dreamy nature of Lewton's films before. The Seventh Victim is as quietly nightmarish as his other films. Strange symbols, hidden motivations, and death and danger lurking in unexpected corners all combine to infuse the film with an oppressive blanket of inevitability. Perhaps it was the times; World War II was in the throes of its most intense years, the world teetering on the brink of disaster, as this film, and most of Lewton's others, were in production. The world must have seemed to be descending into damnation, not just to Lewton's characters, but to Lewton himself. It must have seemed like an endless nightmare, and this is reflected in films like The Seventh Victim.

I Walked with a Zombie

It's striking how brief this 1943 Val Lewton-produced film is, considering how much content it contains. In 68 minutes, it manages to establish a sense of place, flesh out several characters, and evoke moods of dread and mystery. Somehow it also manages to clip along smartly as it does all this, yet the movie feels as if it moves languidly, like a dream that morphs into a nightmare.

Betsy, a Canadian nurse hired to tend to Mrs. Holland, wife of a wealthy sugar plantation owner, arrives on the Caribbean island of San Sebastian. She is quickly drawn into a strange tale of a love triangle involving Paul Holland, the plantation owner, his half-brother, Wesley Rand, and Holland's wife, Jessica. When Wesley and Jessica attempted to be together, Paul stood in their way. Soon after, Jessica was struck down by a fever that left her in a catatonic state, able to move and respond to simple directions, but unspeaking and, perhaps, unfeeling. As Betsy learns more about the family strife, she also meets the mother of Paul and Wesley, a surprisingly hale, but unsurprisingly intelligent woman who helps tend to the health of the islanders. Betsy finds herself falling for Paul, and decides to help him by bringing his wife back to her senses. This eventually leads her to seek out the services of the island's houngan, or voodoo priest. There, the houngan and the houngan's followers recognize Jessica for what she is - a zombie. From then on, the love triangle is brought to a head, with powerful forces vying for Jessica. On one side is the ancient voodoo religion, on the other modern medicine, but perhaps more powerful is the other force in play: love, between Betsy and Paul, between Wesley and Jessica, and the mother of Paul and Wesley for her sons, manifesting in hatred and a need for revenge.

The film surprises with its direct and, for its time, unflinching look at a culture descended from slaves. When Betsy listens to the story of how slaves were brought to the island, she awkwardly answers that at least they were brought to a beautiful place. The buggy-driver who has also been a de facto tour guide simply agrees, the history of oppression sitting silently between them.

I was also surprised to find, when I listened to a bit of commentary about the film, that San Sebastian is not a real place. The movie creates this place and gives it a life and culture of its own. It's a believable setting, and I'm amazed how strongly established it is in such a short film.

The film has an air of fate and destiny about it, as all of Val Lewton's films do. The voodoo scenes reinforce this, especially as they are shown with seriousness and respect, giving the religion its due as a deeply held faith. I can't claim to know much about voodoo, but the scenes in this film seem to show evidence of the filmmakers making an effort to bring some authenticity to the subject.

Besides Jessica, there is another zombie in the film. Darby Jones should be noted for his looming presence as Carre-Four. His protruding eyes are unblinking and lifeless. Silent, emotionless, and moving with a slow relentlessness, this performance seems to be a forerunner of George Romero's zombies in Night of the Living Dead. But is Carre-Four a true zombie, in the sense that we know the term? Is he, in fact, undead?

That is one of the most intriguing things about Val Lewton's films, the possibility that the supernatural is at work...or not. The supernatural is strongly implied, but is not necessary for the events depicted. This is addressed directly in this film, when Paul and Wesley's mother is revealed to have feet in both the world of voodoo and in the world of science. Do these forces of magic work due to a power beyond our ken, or do they work because we believe they do? Lewton leaves the question open.

 This is a solid, mysterious film. One can see its influence on films that came after, with expressionistic lighting and understated performances. Most of the characters seem lifeless, in a sense, with strong emotions expressed quietly. Most of the characters, too, seem to move in an almost trance-like state, whether arguing or lost in the throes of religious ecstasy. I Walked with a Zombie is a title that is far more exploitative than the film it is hung on, but it now seems integral to it. It is fascinating and unsettling, and is one of the best of Val Lewton's efforts.

Way Up North...in Middle-earth: The Grey Mountains

We go now from the vibrant far Southern reaches of Middle-earth, to the cold, windswept, mountainous North. One-time home to a Dwarven kingdom, it became the home to some of Middle-earth's most dangerous creatures: Dragons. These are the Grey Mountains.

The Withered Heath is the basin-shaped area between arms of the Grey Mountains to the North. Erebor, or the Lonely Mountain, is just south of central on this map, with the Long Lake on the Southern edge, and Mirkwood to the West.

Removed from much of the grand history of Middle-earth, the Grey Mountains nevertheless played an important role. They loomed in the distance from Mirkwood and Erebor, a haven for threats to the Free Peoples.

 While Dragons were the most spectacular of the region's inhabitants, Orcs also came to infest it, and doubtlessly they assumed ownership of the Dwarven halls delved under the mountains, once the Dwarves fled or were killed. That is, the Orcs took ownership of the fortresses the Dragons did not take for themselves. From then on, the folk of Northern Mirkwood and the surrounding lands had to be wary of attack from the North, drawing attention away from Sauron's machinations in the South.

Within the Grey Mountains is a vast plain called the Withered Heath. This desolate land is the stomping grounds of the Dragons, where they fight and, presumably, mate, far from the eyes of Elves and Men. They seem largely content to stay there, though occasionally one may decide to foray South and seize treasure for its own. The greatest of these conquerors was Smaug the Golden, who took the Lonely Mountain as his home, driving away and killing the Dwarves there, as well as making a ghost town of Dale. Smaug was the greatest of his kind in the Third Age of Middle-earth, but that is not to say his brethren in the Grey Mountains were of no consequence; without doubt similar scenes of destruction took place in Dwarven holds there, too.

This is one of my favorite Middle-earth Roleplaying books. It takes a region that Tolkien gave a little detail about, and manages to flesh it out in a way that seems appropriate to the setting. It's also interesting in its own right, separate from Middle-earth. It's a wild, rugged place by the time of Bilbo and Frodo, bleak and forbidding. The book details Dwarven underground cities and fortresses, an Orc fortress, a Mannish village, and the lairs of some of the Dragons who live in the Grey Mountains and the Withered Heath. An overview of the climate, flora and fauna is given, with Dragons as the apex predators, but bears, lions, and wolves also prowl about, preying on the reindeer, elk, and goats indigenous to the area. It's an area rich in adventure possibilities.

...and I didn't even mention the giants...

 Add in that far to the West, commanding the gap where the Grey Mountains end and the northernmost point of the Misty Mountains begin, stands Mount Gundabad. This great mountain-city, capital of an Orc kingdom, is an anchor-point for the Shadow in the North, and the Orc-King there draws strength from and exerts influence over the Orcs of the Grey Mountains. Even further West lays Angmar, one-time Empire of the Witch-King, and later a haunted land; between it, Mount Gundabad, and the Grey Mountains, the North of Middle-earth is a de facto bastion of evil. For a game, that's a good thing. After all, heroes need evil to fight.

Orcs on a dark expedition.

The Grey Mountains includes a mini-campaign of adventures that involve the characters belonging to the players to help defend a town from Orc raids and assorted other threats. Besides that, the various locations discussed in the book are implicitly ripe for adventure. The Dwarven strongholds, once abandoned, become lost cities waiting to be explored and cleared out, whether they have become homes to Orcs or Dragons.

A one-time bastion of the Dwarves, now lost and defiled by Orcs.

One level of several of a Dwarven city deep under the Grey Mountains. Yet another citadel of Dwarves now in the hands of evil.

A Grey Mountain Dwarven hall in happier times...and I realize the irony that this is a depiction of a funeral.

The book is pretty much chock-full of things for heroes to do. The mini-campaign - and the Dwarven settlements, if the Dwarves are still there - provides an opportunity for interaction between the player's characters and townsfolk, if that's the player's bag. But, if they're more the straightforward kind, who simply want to bash some heads and take some treasure, there is plenty of opportunity for that here.

This is a well-put-together book. It's a setting ripe for adventure. Being tucked away from much of the narrative action of The Lord of the Rings doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't important. Morgoth, Sauron's boss, had his base in the far North of Middle-earth, though that entire portion of the continent to the West was smashed out of existence at the end of the First Age. Still, some remnant of his memory could now still haunt those northern reaches that remain.

Homesteading in the Grey Mountains is not advised.

Certainly such lingering evil can be inferred from the fact that Tolkien made it a haven for Dragons, and it was accessible to places like Mount Gundabad and Angmar. What kept the Dragons there, rather than sallying South into the lands of the Free Peoples? Was it a lack of ambition on the part of Dragons? After driving away the Dwarves and claiming the treasures of that folk, did they simply decide it was easier to remain in the North and occasionally tangle with one another, rather than come into conflict with Men and Elves? Why was Smaug the only one to come South and make his mark? Did some other force for good tie down the Dragons, taking the fight to those Wyrms in the Grey Mountains and Withered Heath? Perhaps Smaug's presence prevented lesser Dragons from foraying out of their traditional territory, and Smaug's subsequent death gave them a healthy dose of fear at the capabilities of the smaller folk of Middle-earth. Whatever the reasons, there is a load of possibility to this region.

The Body Snatcher

Val Lewton's career as a Hollywood producer was dense with classic horror films packed into less than a decade. His films are moody, atmospheric, and infused with an air of gloom. Considered "B" pictures in their day, they've become classics of the horror genre.

The Body Snatcher is a particular treat for the horror fan, as it stars Boris Karloff, with Bela Lugosi in a supporting role. Set in a perpetually overcast Edinburgh in 1831, the story centers on a medical school run by Dr. MacFarlane, a brilliant surgeon. Played by Henry Daniell, MacFarlane is brusque, apparently more used to dealing with the cadavers he dissects than living patients. Dour and impatient, he has set up a scheme where he gets cadavers for his school from a mysterious cabman, Gray, played with impeccable menace by Boris Karloff. How Gray comes by his corpses is of little import to MacFarlane, though the assumption is that Gray is a grave robber. As disrespectful as it is, MacFarlane can at least rationalize that the ends justify the means; he genuinely desires to add to the body, so to speak, of medical knowledge.

The already distasteful situation becomes more complicated as a paralyzed little girl is in need of MacFarlane's expertise. MacFarlane needs to practice a complex spinal surgery that will help the girl. MacFarlane's kind but naive apprentice presses Gray for more cadavers, which sets off a chain of events that make an already dark situation even darker.

This is an unsettling film. Lewton was not afraid to challenge his audience with uncomfortable questions and downbeat endings. Fate and death hang heavy over Lewton's films, and no more so than in this one. MacFarlane's wife, a Highland woman with the gift - or curse - of foresight, sees doom for her husband. Gray's white horse is a portent of death, clopping slowly through the murky night. The shadows never seem to leave, even in the light of day.

Boris Karloff's performance is one of my favorites of his. He looms over the film, his smile an evil rictus, his lined face demonic. Cool, calm, and methodical, he moves slowly and deliberately, an avatar of death, or Death, prowling the streets. He is MacFarlane's conscience, history, and evil nature all in one, forcing the surgeon to confront and embrace his own shadow, driving the plot - both the movie's and MacFarlane's - forward with a profound inevitability. This is Karloff at his best, a true villain, almost supernatural in his ability to evoke dread.

The Body Snatcher is a brief film - 77 minutes - but it is densely packed. It is about death and the dark things that are often necessary for life. It is about where the boundary lies between good and evil, and where the gray area lies between them, and how that gray area changes for the individual depending on circumstances. It is also about the self-destruction that can come when the gray becomes all-consuming, until suddenly it snaps back into focus and one sees they have passed into full shadow.

Return from the Dead: A Brief Review

Return from the Dead is a collection of stories dealing with mummies, edited and introduced by David Stuart Davies. The bulk of the book is comprised by The Jewel of Seven Stars, a book I recently looked at here. The balance of the book is made up of short stories and, in one instance, an excerpt.

The first story, The Mummy, is the excerpted one. It's derived from an 1827 trilogy of novels called The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, by Jane Webb. It's an imaginative story, with a greened-up Egypt colonized and dominated by Americans and British, and balloon-travelling adventurers arriving at the Great Pyramid to revive Cheops by way of electricity. The tone of the story is both whimsical and sinister, an odd combination. It's a brief glimpse into a larger story that reminds me a bit of Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger stories some 70+ years later.

Next, Edgar Allan Poe has an entry with Some Words with a Mummy. This story surprised me; given the author, I expected a dark, macabre tale. Instead, I found it to be a satirical piece, with a group of scientists managing to use electricity (again!) to revive a mummy. Instead of mayhem and horror, though, the revived mummy turns out to be an urbane aristocrat of an apparently more civilized time. He proceeds to settle himself into his new time, garbed in finest 19th-century fashion, sipping wine and puffing cigars, and talking down to his saviors. It's a mildly amusing story, infused with the absurd, meant to point up the foibles of Poe's time. I found it a bit tedious, overall, and while I can't fault Poe for a different type of story than I'm used to from him, I was still a little disappointed there was no real horror to be found here.

Arthur Conan Doyle makes the first of two appearances in this volume with The Ring of Thoth. This is a brief mood piece, and manages to pack a good amount of the macabre into its few pages. A student of Egyptology travels from England to the Louvre, where he encounters a strange museum caretaker who tells him a spellbinding story of love and loss and immortality that has become a burden. It's apparent that the bare premise of this story was used for the 1932 film, The Mummy, with Boris Karloff. Doyle's story is tantalizingly short, evoking a sense of wonder and dread. Its melancholy ending seems wholly appropriate. Still, somewhere in the Nile delta there lives an immortal cat...

Doyle finishes up the collection with Lot No. 249. Oxford students meddle with ancient magics, with predictable results. Regardless of predictability, Doyle crafts a well-done, creepy story, with a lot of atmosphere. I have no idea what Oxford is like, especially Oxford of the late-19th century, but Doyle's attention to detail, from descriptions of the architecture to the sports talk amongst the university students, rings true to me. There are some nightmarish moments, too, which are even more horrific because the world and the characters in it are convincing. The ending is, to me, refreshingly amusing in how straightforward it is. I winced a bit, and the words of Indiana Jones rang in my mind as the conclusion drew down - "that should be in a museum!" This was a fun adventure story.

This Wordsworth Edition collection is worth a read. Besides the stories themselves, Davies' introduction is brief but informative, and gives literary and historical context. In addition, this book contains both endings for The Jewel of Seven Stars, which provides the reader a chance to decide for himself which is better - the bleak original, or the more upbeat, but less memorable, revision. What's interesting to me is the implicit paucity of good mummy stories in general, given the selection presented here. Besides The Jewel of Seven Stars, it's a pretty thin volume.