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"IT IS with pleasure," writes C. M. B. S., from Havre, France, "that I I note you have included Ooze, Penelope, and An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension in your book-publication of A. G. Birch's novel, The Moon Terror. I read these 'yarns' in the early issues of Weird Tales, and have not forgotten them—who in the name of 'horned toads' could? When I read Rud's yarn (Ooze) I was on board a ship bound for Vera Cruz, Mexico, loaded with dynamite and gunpowder for use in a 'forthcoming' presidential inauguration down there, and a pair of gun-boats had been a trifle too industrious in our vicinity. To top off all that, one of the crew went 'cuckoo' and tried to blow up the ship. We also had some very heavy weather at the time. In the midst of it all I read Mr. Rud's yam and got the thrill of my life. I also experienced a really thrilling nightmare shortly after. If there is anything I like better than a really weird yarn, it is a nightmare of the first order. Why I like it is something that I can not explain. It is nature, I suppose, for me to like anything that is adventurous. I have been that way all my life, and am now close to sixty years of age. Prior to my twelfth year nightmares frightened me, but since that time I have always enjoyed them. I get a most pleasing 'kick' out of my struggle with them. 'Riding' nightmares and reading weird tales really helped me practise self-control in a practical manner. In all my reading of such stories as The Moon Terror and the other three, I have never encountered anything that ever beat them in their particular line. Rud is great in creating monsters. Starrett's Penelope can, to my idea, be given a dual interpretation. I do not know whether others see it that way or not, but to me it seems a story within a story—one side of it humor and the other side satire, yet both sides fantastic. It is clever, and, alone, easily worth the price of the book. . . . Wright, with ten thousand husky citizens of Jupiter imprisoned within a soap-bubble, etc., came darned near wrecking a ship—the whole crew laughed for two weeks over it! A man with an imagination like his should surely enjoy life—provided someone does not crown him in self-defense. His yam is enough to give one apoplexy from laughing. . . . Birch
