Tales of the Red Dwarf - The Magical Writings of Richard S. Shaver

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the lost and forgotten magical fantasy novel by the infamous science fiction hoaxer Richard S. Shaver. Actually Shaver's editor Ray Palmer was the hoaxer; Shaver believed he was writing "the truth' about the survivors of ancient extraterrestrials still living in caverns below and plaguing surface people with mind-control ray machines. This dubious expose was called "The Shaver Mystery" and dominated the pages of AMAZING STORIES, America's most popular sci-fi mag in the 1940s. Shaver's weird tales of the subterranean "Dero World" are enjoying a modest revival in reprinted editions. We were among the first 21st century Shaver revivalists with our 2007 film BEYOND LEMURIA. In our new version of "The Shaver Mystery" we placed the Cavern World of the Deros in another dimension, a parallel world very close to our own. However Shaver himself always insisted that his underground Deros were in this physical dimension --whereas his editor Palmer insisted they were "disembodied spirits." Shaver was an empathic receiver, a rue mystic. He revealed what might be the real secret of his Cavern World in a marvelously crafted fantasy novel that never has had a title of its own. It appeared in three separate issues of AMAZING and FANTASTIC from 1947 through 1949. The first part was "The Tale of The Red Dwarf," next came the third part "Daughter of the Night," followed by the second part two years later called "Erdis Cliff." Shaver precedes Moorcock's fictional Multiverse, and even M-Theory by decades. -- So, if you want to discover a new dimension, tune in and we'll slide down the worm hole.