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The Heads of Cerberus

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Francis Stevens (1883-1948) was the pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett. She lived at approximately the same time as many of the American scientific romance writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Abraham Merritt. She published fantasy in some of the same magazines as they. And her name has been sometimes linked with the scientific romancers. But Stevens was too much of an original to fit comfortably with this group.

Take her novel, _The Heads of Cerberus_. It was first serialized in _Thrill Book_ in 1919. It was then published by Polaris Press in 1952 in a limited edition of 1500 copies. Damon Knight reviewed it and properly ranked it as a classic (see _In Search of Wonder_, 1967, 9-11). It was reissued in paperback by Carroll & Graf in 1984. And now it has been reprinted again by Munsey's, in a sturdy trade paperback format and with a lovely watercolor cover by Goodloe Byron.

But what in the _hell_ kind of a book is it? The back cover labels it as "horror"-- and so it is, in spots. But not completely, or even mostly. It has been sometimes called an early alternate history fantasy and sometimes a dystopian novel. The central characters inhale a magic dust and are transported into a rather grim alternate Philadelphia of 2118. The city is run by corrupt politicos who stay on top of things through rigged civil service contests, the abolishment of education, and executions. This description is a bit more accurate.

But the novel also has elements of what Baird Searles would have called "light fantasy". It is populated with several comic heroes, a comic heroine, and some comic villains and scoundrels. And while they frequently find themselves in dire straits, Stevens tells their tale with a deft, light touch. Here is one hero who has just been whisked over into the alternate world:

He was alive. His feet pressed the earth with the weight of a quite material body. Why, his very clothing denied any spirituality in this experience. There he stood, bareheaded, dressed in the same old blue serge suit he had bought five years ago in Cincinnati, and which now constituted his sole wardrobe. The sun was warm on his face; the air breathed clear and sweet. Surely he was no spirit, but a living man of flesh and blood. (34)

Begorra! And can you read a passage like that and fail to be assured that things will come out well in the end? Ah, but they have not yet encountered the spectral castle and the ghostly knights and the white haired, cold-eyed Weaver of the Years:

"You are strangers," she said in a voice that might have come from very far away, clear and sweet as a silver bell. "Yet your lives, too, are in my web. Aye! They are mine-- bound up fast in my web that you see not. From here go forward-- go deeper! Heed not the mockings of the dancing Shadow People." (48)

And after this, they fall into the hands of a Philadelphia judge who is ready to toss them into a pit of death:

"In other words, break the Peace of Penn, and you'll get more of war than you'll like. 'Sic semper tyrannus!' Any man who assaults another is a tyrant by intent, at least, so down you go."
"It was your police who attacked me!" accused Trenmore hotly.
Mercy's eyebrows lifted.
"Was it? I had rather forgotten. That does spoil my parable, eh? But we shan't let it interfere with your invaluable opportunity to worship the God of War." (73)

So what in the _hell_ kind of a novel do we have? Not one that can be easily pigeonholed. But one in which the various elements blend together. One told with a beautiful style of writing. A novel with wit. And a novel in which the characters-- Irishmen and Americans, heroes and thieves-- come to life. Do not waste any more time. Order a copy of this book right now, do you hear?