A new book on Weird Tales, The Thing’s Incredible: The Secret Origins of Weird Tales, albeit with what is possibly one of the worst covers ever put on a serious book. One glance at that and half the potential audience is gone.

Yet it debuted at PulpFest 2018, where they know their stuff, and it’s had some favourable blog comments. It even had a mention in a Washington Post multi-book review of recent fantastika. The book offers a revisionist business history of the ‘early days’ of the famous magazine, 1923-24, and these years are scrutinised in detail…

“Who were Henneberger and Lansinger, the founders of the magazine, and what strange forces joined them? How did first editor Edwin Baird become the wild man of the pulps? What lay buried in haunted second editor Farnsworth Wright’s past that he never dared speak of? What was the uncontrollable “reorganization” that sucked legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft into a vortex he barely understood? Why did world-famous magician Harry Houdini suddenly appear on the covers of the obscure magazine, and just as suddenly disappear? Finally, how did an all-out war behind the scenes at the magazine lead to the long peace of the Wright years?”