The Shaver Mystery, Book Five

Armchair Fiction presents "The Shaver Mystery, Book Five." It's another collection of the far-out tales of Richard S. Shaver. It was said that as each year went by, Richard S. Shaver's writings became much more readable, more "relaxed." But "The Fall of Lemuria," a Shaver ditty from 1949, is anything but that. It is truly one of the most phantasmagorical tales you'll ever read. Yet it is strangely compelling in its own Shaverish way. You won't be able to put it down. Here's a sample:

It had polluted her mind with its night snooping; it had vandalized the lovely gardens of her mind, so long and carefully cultivated, with ill-intended manipulations which destroyed the basic impulses to¬ward beauty, the ever-growing dreams which were the reverse side of reality where the roots of future occurrence were already alive as little seeds of thought. (page 183)

As you can probably tell, it's obvious that Richard Shaver isn't for everybody, but he can be likened to that unusual brand of wine (some people might say vinegar) that everybody needs to taste from time to time. Also included in this collection are Shaver's "Quest of Brail" and "Slaves of the Worm." Two more "classics." So get ready for lost underground races, gigantic caverns, rays, outer space beings, disintegrance-all originally published back in the 1940s at the height of the Shaver Mystery phenomenon. Read on, fellow teros, read on....