Appendix N+ Book Review- Dwellers in the Mirage by A. Merritt

 A. Merritt- Dwellers in the Mirage 1932

Again, my opinion remains very humble, but from my perspective A. Merritt is one of the lesser revered masters of the genre.  Don’t sleep on this one, it’s an absolute classic.  In it we see the common pulp trope of the powerful western European hero in a strange land as the the protagonist, Leif Langdon, is a massive blonde guy with Scandinavian roots who impresses all with his mere size and power.  This guy has no kind of Campbell hero arc, he’s an accomplished hero before we even meet him, and this story does a good job of depicting a heroic journey of his descent into the strange world setting of the story.  Where as in Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions, the hero is mystically and instantaneously transported to the magic realm from his home world in the midst of a WWII battle with little explanation, and we get right into the fantasy action, Merritt is much more descriptive in showing Leif and his companions journey down a deep endless valley into the fantasy world of Dwellers.  It has much more of a Lost Horizons vibe, like the real world and this fantastic one are really connected through actual geography, only knowledge of the route bars entrance to the fantasy world.  What starts out as kind of an Alaskan pioneer adventure story slowly transforms into pure fantasy dripping with sword and sorcery.  He also does an excellent job of connecting real history to his pulp story, using the Uighar people as the culture that has a mystical connection to the hidden world.  The key to the story is that our hero is mystically destined to bear a magic ring that summons an all powerful and horrible creature.  In Leif's first interaction with the magic summoning he is unaware of what is actually occurring, and what he is responsible for, but by the end of the novel he is faced with a classic moral dilemma typical of many great stories, pulps and otherwise.  In its connection to AD&D, I see lots of inspiration by way of how summoning is handled, as well as the type of imagery that goes along with massive ancient underground temples that hold the means to summon terrible creatures, and the kind of thoughts and inspiration that went into books like Deities and Demigods.  Also in Dwellers, we see a well developed example of a classic pulp trope- the mystical race of humanoids that are caretakers or gatekeepers to the fantasy world.  The heroes interact with a race of very small humanoids who are caretakers of the valley and guardians of the summoning ritual.  The creature itself- the great Khal’Kru is somewhat Cthulhu-like, and came a few years after the Lovecraft story, but has its own personality/flavor, and commands a great presence in the novel, both in visions and when it is actually summoned.  Dwellers in the Mirage is must read, and I’m told his other work Ship of Ishtar is equally essential Appendix N reading.