WEIRD TALES – September, 1947

Editor: D. McIlrwaith
Associate Editor: Lamont Buchanan
Cover by Boris Dolgov
Published by Weird Tales
Dated: September, 1947

I have an ereader. It has many wonderful and convenient uses. I play games on it, I watch video on it, I browse the web on it.

The cover to my copy of September 1947’s Weird Tales. Copyright 1947 by Weird Tales.

Oh, and I do actually read on it. I’m not someone who feels reading books on an ereader is heresy or anything. But just as I prefer extended gaming sessions on a console, big movies on a surround-sound television, and the full web on my laptop, there are still times where I feel reading a book from a book is the better experience. Why is that? Well, ereaders/tablets have this wonderful ability to connect to the internet or other handy programs. You are never really alone when reading digitally. Find a word you don’t know, a reference that’s beyond you, or just get to an especially scary moment? You have an electronic safety net to pull you out of the experience and put everything right.

You can’t do that with a book. With an old-fashioned book you have pages, the author’s words, your imagination, and nothing else. Without the internet a tap away you are, essentially, trapped with the story. Some my find that inconvenient.

I consider that setting the mood.

Of course, the right mood has to be paired with the right reading material, and I found the September, 1947 issue of Weird Tales to be a wonderful bit of fun to read curled up in a corner chair. It’s creepy and funny, with both dread and humor. Not every bit of fiction received the same amount of enjoyment and appreciation from me, so let’s take a look at what’s inside this gorgeous cover, shall we?

Beware, spoilers ahead!

Moving in page order, the first short story is Quest of the Gazolba, which inspired the issue’s cover. Written by Clark Ashton Smith, Mr. Smith is an author who I had never heard of until I’d begun collecting these old pulp publications. This is the second of his stories I have read, and I’ve learned that I should be eagerly searching out his name. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…