The Mystery of the Thirty-nine Girdles
Posted by:
Pharpetron (IP Logged)
Date: 25 January, 2019 01:22PM
The Theft of the Thirty-nine Girdles is, of course, a Hyperborean story, and a sequel to the Tale of Satampra Zeiros, as well as being among the last stories CAS ever wrote.
I enjoy this fun little tale, but I noticed something very odd about its publication history (as described in the Collected Fantasies) that makes no sense to me.
Apparently it was rejected at F&SF because: “The only fantasy element lies in its Hyperborean setting, and the events themselves, in your words, ‘though extraordinary, are not beyond nature.’ Result: an entertaining crime story in an extravagantly exotic setting rather than, strictly, a fantasy.â€
And yet the main event the story turns on depicts a powder being ignited that unleashes a horde of illusions in the form of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and other stranger monsters, which succeed in frightening away everyone in the temple where this took place. This is clearly a supernatural, or fantastic, occurrence.
So then, why does a character within the tale, and the first editor to read it, both say there is nothing beyond nature in the story? Was this something they just overlooked, or am I missing something here?