The Occult Detective

 

Fear is one of our oldest emotions — if not the oldest. And fear of the unknown is one of our greatest fears.

I don’t know what I don’t know, and that lack of knowing scares us. It is primal, that fear of the unknown.

Fear, and playing on our fears, is the stock in trade of the writer of the macabre. Those spinners of stories that parade our fears before us and scare us to death — and we love it.

For all of our façade of sophistication, biologically speaking we are no different than our ancestors from 300,000 years ago. We may no longer be afraid of thunder and lightning, and we may have outgrown our fear of what’s under our beds — we are, however, still controlled by our fears.

Just look at the nightly news. Listen to David Muir’s tone of voice. He’s playing into our fears. And how often do we say, “I’m afraid…” — no matter the context?

Is it any wonder that the tale of terror, the horror story, has never lost its appeal with readers?

Of late, I’ve been reading in the Weird West and Occult Detective genres.

I grew up watching Westerns on TV, although I didn’t read any until recently. I suggest any writers reading this to pick up a few old Westerns and read them. You will quickly see how most genre fiction today is really a Western in disguise.

The Weird West, as the name suggests, infuses the old West with something weird. It could be ghosts, demons, mad scientists, monsters of one sort or another, just as long as it falls into the category of weird fiction.

The Weird West is a somewhat recent category. The earliest examples I’ve found date from the 1950s.

The Occult Detective, on the other hand, had its beginnings in mid-1800s, and picked up steam in the wake of the success of Sherlock Holmes.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been impressed with the Weird West stories I’ve been reading. They are either too weird, or they come off too campy.

On the other hand, the Occult Detective stories I’ve read have been quite good, on the whole.

For contemporary stories featuring occult detectives, I turn to the pages of Occult Detective Magazine. You can find their website here. They are the only publication totally devoted to the Occult Detective genre. It’s one super magazine, and I heartily recommend it.

Then there are the classics. Those occult detectives that began appearing in the 1890s and perhaps reached their peak in the 1940s and 1950s.

Flaxman Low probably started the subgenre, at least in the form that we know it today. He was the creation of E and H Heron. The stories are pretty good, although some readers might find them somewhat slow going. Ghosts: Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low is the only current edition I’ve found (both free and for purchase) that contains all of the stories. It is priced at present for less than $2, and that is a steal.

Thomas Carnacki, the creation of William Hope Hodgson, is perhaps the most famous of all occult detectives, and Carnacki pastiches abound. You can find the original stories at Carnacki the Ghost-Finder for free. Marcus L Rowland also provides a publishing history.

If you want the stories in book form, you can find them all in The House On Borderland And Other Mysterious Places, which is volume 2 of The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson.

Thus far, my favorite among our Fighters of Fear is Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin.

Quinn wrote some 500 stories for the pulp fiction magazines. He was Weird Tales’ most popular writer and was paid at a higher rate than any other writer published by the magazine.

Today, Quinn is little known. Which is a shame. He was an engaging, entertaining, and talented writer.

However, a large selection of his work is available for free on the Internet. And publishers are finally starting to reprint his stories. All I can say is that it’s about time.

All of the Jules de Grandin stories have been collected in 5 volumes by Night Shade Books. You can find the books on Amazon.

Flaxman Low, Thomas Carnacki, Jules de Grandin, and Occult Detective Magazine. That should be enough to get you started enjoying the spooky and sometimes terrifying weird world of the occult detective.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!