pulps
The Arkham Sampler #7
This issue of *The Arkham Sampler* (Summer 1949) presents fiction spanning science fiction and supernatural genres. Ray Bradbury's "The One Who Waits" depicts an incorporeal Martian entity inhabiting a well for ten thousand years. When Earth astronauts arrive, the creature sequentially possesses each crew member—Jones, Sessions, then Mathews and the remaining men—driving them to suicide or self-destruction at the well until all six are absorbed, the entity returning to its patient vigil. Jules Verne's "In the Year 2889" envisions futuristic civilization: cities of millions with 1000-foot buildings, aerial transit, pneumatic tubes enabling 1000-mph travel, and Jackson's accumulators and transformers converting energy from sun, earth, and natural forces into heat, light, electricity, or mechanical power. David H. Keller's "The Door" remains unexcerpted. The issue also includes poetry by Vincent Starrett, Clark Ashton Smith, and others, plus critical essays on science fiction and literature.