Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett) was a grand writer, becoming a writer at the start of the last century because her explorer husband had died on an expedition and she needed money to take care of her daughter and ailing mother, she had no aspirations to making a living as one, and in fact stopped as soon as her financial woes were over.
Writing what has come to be called Dark Fantasy, and she the mother of same, she used themes that, while often cliché today, were original, or if not original differently used by her.
An example being her The Heads of Cerberus, in which she created the first Parallel Universe story, also both H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt had high praise for her, so that has to tell you something.
My point being she was both creative and innovative.
I bring her up here because of her 1918 story Citadel of Fear.
Its in this tale that I think, along with her great talent, we also find some of her major flaws.
First off I personally think that she could have really used a good editor.
Starting out as a lost world story I really wanted to found out more about this world with its glowing rivers, semi-intelligent bog-hounds, and strange people, and yet just as things really start to become their most fascinating things are abruptly ended and its 15 year later with one of the main protagonists and our point of view back in America, with the story changing from being a lost world adventure to being a Gothic Mystery / Monster story!
At first I was a bit put off by this and thought that there had been a mistake and chapters from the wrong book had been mixed, but then we find that yes this is one of the heroes from the first half of the story.
However, while not as well written as the first part, I was soon just as interested in the murky goings-on's involving mysterious monsters in the night, and what seems to be a perhaps mad scientist.
Unfortunately it also seems that at some point Ms. Bennett grew tired of the tale and left more than half a dozen mysteries unresolved, before ending it with an abruptness that left me going WHAT! That's it? Who stole the last chapter? Give it here!
Ah Well
But why post here with the theme of this Blog?
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Big reveal below
Well, it seems there are, though its not very clear that this is what is happening, more than a few amazing transformations.
It seems that more than just one of the two American adventures featured at the start of the story return.
Along with the big Irish lug from who's point of view we see thing from, the little conniving weasel we thought had been left behind to die after having an evil god or living statue or... I don't know, some damn thing, look into his soul and liking what it sees has, been taught by this cosmic supreme nastiness how to turn people into white apes, thinking slime hounds, creepy half-wit servant guys and giant glowing snakes, or worms, or... well, did I say the whole things is kind of murky? Well it is.
So there you have it, and despite my grousing it still is an interesting read, not great, but worth it for it's uniqueness.
And as it is now in the public domain if you have an electronic reader you can find it for free at the Gutenberg Project, Manybooks, or Amazon and even have it delivered via whispernet.
And if, after you read it, and you feel the need to write those last two or three final chapters tell me about it.
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