Don't Dream

Don't Dream: The Collected Horror and Fantasy Fiction of Donald Wandrei, Philip J. Rahman and Dennis Weiler, Fedogan and Bremer, 1997

This is a collection of, mostly, reprinted horror and fantasy from one of the greatest writers of the Pulps era. There are many types of stories here, ranging from dreamlike fantasy to psychological horror to pseudoscientific stories to squishy, slimy horror stories.

A meteor strikes Earth near the Great Lakes and disgorges thousands of invisible fire beings who attach themselves to a person, then cause that person to spontaneously burst into flame. Two men are trapped on a sailing ship, adrift in the middle of the ocean after a storm. Many days of hot sun, salt water and food cargo below decks causes the creation of a carnivorous blob that feeds at night. A college biology lab experiment gone wrong results in the creation of a giant amoeba that escapes from the lab and absorbs people. A scientist discovers a new anesthetic that keeps the patient totally awake, even while major surgery is performed, without the patient feeling any pain at all. After it is tried on a badly injured man brought to the local hospital, the scientist discovers that the inability to feel pain becomes permanent.

A half-dead jungle explorer stumbles into a camp run by a couple of scientists. While he remains unconscious, they electronically switch his personality with various animals, including a black panther and an eagle. In a Midwestern farming town, a farmer goes out to his garden to dig up some potatoes. The potato digs itself farther and farther into the earth, as if it doesn't want to be dug up. Another farmer goes out to his orchard, only to find that the whole orchard has moved itself a couple of miles away.

There is also an account of the founding, with August Derleth, of Arkham House, the small press publisher. This later became a multi-year court battle, started by Wandrei, that almost destroyed Arkham House, and did destroy Wandrei's reputation in the science fiction/fantasy world. That should not detract from the fact that this is an excellent collection of stories from the old days, written by one of the giants of the field, and is well worth reading.