The Living Death and Drome by John Martin Leahy

The double-decker volume entitled The Living Death and Drome, from the Seattle-based imprint Sarnath Press, gathers together two novels from the weird-fiction author John Martin Leahy; the second of two volumes that Sarnath has recently issued focusing on this relatively unknown pulp writer. The entirety of Leahy’s fictive career was limited to just three novels and four short stories; that initial collection, Draconda and Others, had given the reader the author’s first novel, Draconda (1923), and the quartet of shorter works, while volume 2 rounds things off neatly. These are both big, handsome volumes, with a few too many unfortunate typos, and eruditely introduced by weird-fiction authority S. T. Joshi in the first. As regards this second volume, we are here given a brace of full-length works that have either never been reprinted (in the case of the first) or have gone unpublished for over 70 years (in the case of the second). But the resurrection of them both should come as welcome news for all fans of pulp fiction, Radium Age sci-fi, and lost world/lost race fare.

Let’s take a look at each of the novels in this volume 2 individually, shall we? The Living Death was Leahy’s only piece of fiction that did not make its initial appearance in the pages of the legendary Weird Tales magazine. Rather, it was first published in Hugo Gernsback’s Science and Invention magazine as a 9-part serial, beginning in the October 1924 issue and wrapping up in the June 1925. (Science and Invention, incidentally, dealt mainly with nonfiction articles on scientific matters; from 1913 – 1920, it was known as The Electrical Experimenter. It is not to be confused with Gernsback’s earlier Modern Electrics magazine, in which his classic novel Ralph 124C 41+ first appeared serially from 1911 – 1912.) And after the 9^th and final installment of The Living Death ran in June ’25, the novel would go OOP (out of print) for a full 99 years, till Sarnath Press brought out these two Leahy collections in 2024.

The Living Death cleaves fairly evenly into two discrete halves, and is narrated to us by a fellow named Bond McQuestion (the first of a slew of characters here with unlikely monikers), who returns to the area around Puget Sound (Leahy’s stomping ground as well) to visit his old friend Darwin Frontenac. This latter is a scientist who had lately caused an uproar in the press after it was revealed that he had come up with a means of placing living creatures in a type of drug-induced suspended animation, as well as bringing them back to life! While the two men catch up with one another they are visited by the famous explorer Stanley, uh, Livingstone, who regales them with a rather astounding story. Livingstone had also recently caused waves in the national papers when he’d reported that, during his recent explorations in Antarctica, he had come across a tropical valley in which palm trees grew in abundance! Now something of a laughingstock as a result, Livingstone tells Frontenac and our narrator his story in some detail. Thus, in the novel’s first section, we learn how the great explorer had discovered a geothermally warmed Antarctic Ocean inlet that he’d dubbed Summer Haven, and how, many weeks later, the hidden tropical valley had been found in a mountain chain thousands of feet above sea level. While exploring this valley, three of his men had been lost … decapitated by an unknown attacker! While returning to Summer Haven with his remaining companion, Hampden, the two men had made an even more astonishing discovery: In a snowed-over cavern atop a low mountain had been found nothing less than a beautiful young woman encased in a block of ice; a woman who did not appear to be dead and who was dressed in scanty apparel, leading the explorer to surmise that she might have been a resident of the continent when it was still tropical; that is to say, around 90 million years ago! But could she possibly still be alive in that frozen condition … and for such an unimaginable length of time? Sadly, Hampden had met with a fatal accident in a crevasse before the two could return to their ship, with the result that Livingstone was left with no photographs or other proofs to back up his remarkable claims.

I think you can see where this is heading. Livingstone, currently dying of a heart ailment, pleads with Frontenac to return with him to the cavern of the so-called “Sleeping Beauty,” and if at all possible, to employ his new discovery and bring her back to life. Thus, in the novel’s second section, the three men do indeed raise an expedition to the frozen continent, taking along with them the eccentric naturalist Archimedes Bukink, as well as the best sled-dog musher who they can find, Louis Louisiana, aka Nunatak. After many months at sea, and one genuine tragedy, the shore of Antarctica is at last arrived at, and after wintering in place for some months more, our narrator, Frontenac, Nunatak and four others make the trek of many hundreds of miles to reach the hidden valley, which Livingstone had named the Gardens of Paradise, as well as the cavern system in which resides the Sleeping Beauty. And as had been the case in Livingstone’s initial exploration, the body count during this second journey, unfortunately enough, turns out to be not a low one…

I am happy to report that Leahy’s style of writing, which this reader had found decidedly problematic in Draconda, shows a marked improvement here; surprising, since only four or five months separated Draconda’s sixth and final installment in the May/June/July 1924 Weird Tales from the first installment of The Living Death. This second novel is less meandering, more compact, more cleanly written. There is less of a dependence on the 10-cent words that Leahy used to impress his readers in the first novel, and when the unusual words do crop up here, they seem to be more necessary, and naturally introduced. Still, readers should prepare themselves for such doozies as “sastrugi,” “imprimis,” “cacography,” “perioeci,” “supererogatory,” “hypsometer,” “oulopholite,” “sinter,” “oneirocritic,” “acephalous” and “ocellated.” Downplayed here also is the reliance on those long, tedious info dumps that often brought Draconda to a screeching halt. And yet, there is one section in which our narrator plies us with endless instances of scientists having been proved wrong throughout history, but as if to apologize, McQuestion adds “I thought of these things and of many more, and then the captain broke the silence and my train (or jumble) of thought – for which, I have little doubt, you will be rather thankful”!

The Living Death functions as both a tale of exciting Antarctic adventure and a lost world/lost race tale. It is possibly indebted to H. Rider Haggard’s 1919 novel When the World Shook, in which a trio of explorers discovers a woman (and her father) on a South Pacific island, the two of them in a state of suspended animation after a period of 250,000 years. Leahy had already clearly demonstrated a fondness of Haggard in the Draconda novel, and the crystalline ice coffin that Sleeping Beauty reposes in does indeed remind one of the crystal coffins of Yva and Oro in the Haggard book. The Living Death is of course beholden to the daring exploits of the great Antarctic explorers, including Roald Amundsen (the Norwegian whose team was the first to reach the South Pole, in 1911), Englishmen Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and the Swede Otto Nordenskjold, all of whom are discussed in McQuestion’s narrative. And, it strikes me, Leahy’s novel also owes a debt of thanks to Edgar Allan Poe’s only full-length work, https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/sDsH-H8Hot1g8EQ-_ODWKVrQ2-VTwGRy https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/sDsH-H8Hot0zm8UR8hqBt9sYplBO5J-7

June summer sun solstice concept with silhouette of happy young woman’s hands relaxing, meditating and holding sunset against warm golden hour sky on the beach with natural ocean or sea background

This Friday is 2025’s summer solstice. The Farmer’s Almanac provides some information on the event.

Last Saturday, people all over the USA participating in a protest event called No Kings. The Facebook page called Alt National Park Services tracked attendance and reports a final number of 13.1 million people.

The Guardian provides a Best Of round-up of new speculative novels. Esperance has caught my attention—although the horror of sleepless zombies is intriguing too.

I tried to say “femfanzines” three times fast and sprained my tongue, but this article about them is pretty interesting. (Thanks, File770.)

Smithsonian Magazine has this wonderful article on Egyptian Blue, an artificial dye whose recipe is lost to history no more.

In Reactor’s SFF Beastairy, Judith Tarr writes about a classic kids’ movie, Free Willy. I’ve never seen it, and now I want to.

Nice interview with writer and historian Natania Barron! If you get a chance, check out some of her history-of-fashion podcasts. They are great.

Paging Kat… audiobook sales rose 13% in 2024.

Romper shares some summery recipes for a solstice feast.

The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter

The first A.G. Slatter book I’ve read, 2025’s The Crimson Road was a treat. Violet Zennor is a smart, witty, bitter young protagonist with an unusual upbringing, who reluctantly embarks on a quest she has no desire to undertake. The story is a vampire-themed fairy tale, filled with magic and danger. I wanted to know how Violet would fare against the dreaded vampire Leech Lords, who rule in the north. Violet has been trained to fight and kill, but she’ll need more than the arts of war to prevail against the being who has risen as their new leader.

I loved Slatter’s world. It is filled with magic, which I would call mostly conventional, and socially and economically it seems to straddle pre-industrial-revolution and mid-19^th century Europe. Violet inherits a manor house and a fortune, which she can’t access without the permission of the banker who was her father’s friend. The locals in her town assume without question that she will get married and be the Lady of the Manor, which Violet has no taste for. On the other hand, she defiantly refuses to pursue the quest her father insisted on.

A.G. Slatter

That quest has its roots in the not-so-secret tragedy of her family. When Violet was a child, her mother died giving birth to another child, a boy who was stillborn. Strangely, her father sold the body of her dead brother to a mysterious man, for a huge sum that was the kernel of the family fortune. Her father then trained Violet to be a warrior and demanded that she go north to the Leech Lords to retrieve her dead brother’s body, before his thirteenth birthday. Violet refuses, but her father’s companions, a bishop and the banker, conspire to force her to continue. It is, however, three murder attempts by assassins that finally convince Violet to take up the quest.

Violet is a vivid and acerbic first-person narrator, and the secondary characters are almost all wonderful. I especially liked Violet’s housekeeper and her stepmother. Violet befriended the town’s feral child, Freddie, who trails her once she sets off on her quest. Freddie has her own secret and her own story. In the nature of a certain type of fairy tale, Violet encounters people on the road, and helps many of them. Some of them help her in return later in the story.

Part fairy tale, part vampire-hunter quest, the book also adds the mystery and fun of a secret journal, which reveals, over time, the origin of the Leech Lords. Witches play a major role, and so does Violet’s horse.

The Crimson Road is a fun, exciting read. It isn’t overly complex and you will see some plot beats coming, but if you’re like me, you will still enjoy the visuals, Violet’s sardonic view of things, and her challenges with the vampires. Summer is on its way; I’d put The Crimson Road near the top of the summer reading/vacation book list.