"I, John Doe, Being of Unsound Mind and Body and Otherwise Qualified As a Potential Writer of Fantastic Fiction, Do Hereby Resolve . . ."

"Credo for Fantasy Writers."

By Robert Bloch (1917-94; Wikipedia HERE; ISFDb HERE; SFE HERE).

First appearance: Peon (fanzine), May 1955 (today's text).

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Essay (3 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "The following oath is recommended to be administered to all profession-al writers of weird or science fiction by the editor who purchases their first story."

IF everybody had followed our author's advice, just about all—no, make that ALL—of the best (and worst) science fiction/fantasy of the past two centuries would never have existed. But not to worry; nobody took his credo to heart, not even him.

References and resources:

- "the Necronomicon":

  For a book that never was, it sure got around a lot:

  "There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I [H. P. Love-craft] invented these names myself. Robert Bloch devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis . . ." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria":

  "Atlantis (Ancient Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, romanized: Atlantìs nêsos, lit. 'island of Atlas') is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world, making it the literary counter-image of the Achaemenid Empire. After an ill-fated attempt to conquer 'Ancient Athens,' Atlantis falls out of favor with the deities and submerges into the Atlantic Ocean. Since Plato describes Athens as resembling his ideal state in the Republic, the Atlantis story is meant to bear witness to the superiority of his concept of a state." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "Geologists state that the existence of Mu and the lost continent of Atlantis has no factual basis, and is physically impossible, as a continent can neither sink nor be destroyed in the short period of time asserted in the legends, folklore and literature about these places." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "Lemuria, or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the discovery of plate tectonics and continental drift in the 20th century." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "uranium piles":

  "Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1 during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. . . Although the project's civilian and military leaders had misgivings about the possibility of a disastrous runaway reaction, they trusted Fermi's safety calculations and decided they could carry out the experiment in a densely populated area. Fermi described the reactor as 'a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers'." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- We've run across Robert Bloch several times since starting this weblog: "Wolf in the Fold" (HERE), "The Skeleton in the Closet" (HERE), "A Matter of Life" (HERE), "Murder from the Moon" (HERE), "The Suicide in the Study" (HERE), "The Past Master" (HERE), and "Comfort Me, My Robot" (HERE).

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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