The Druid Stone: Ugony and the Ecstasy

The Druid Stone by Simon Majors

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard the saying before and know it to be true. Not that I’m demeaning the work of all the wonderful cover artists out there. Indeed, a good book with a beautifully decorative cover illustration makes for a treasure in any home, to be sure, and I’m nerdy enough to have my own favorite artists of such: Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Richard M. Powers, Virgil Finlay, James Bama … the list goes on and on. All I’m saying is that it can be a risky proposition to purchase a book, about which you know absolutely nothing, based on an attractive piece of cover art alone. Not that this has stopped me in the past, and with occasionally fortuitous results. Back in 1980, the Ballantine edition of Daniel da Cruz’ novel The Grotto of the Formigans sported a cover so very captivating that I purchased it on the spot. Fortunately, that cover, by H. R. Van Dongen, was faithful to the story line, and the book turned out to be a genuine winner. Flash forward to just last year. The cover of Monarch’s first edition of J. Hunter Holly’s The Flying Eyes (1962), featuring a now-classic illustration by Jack Schoenherr, is so wonderful that it just had to be in my at-home collection. Again, the illustration turned out to be faithful to its source material, and the novel itself a hoot and a half. All of which is my long-winded way of getting around to the book in question, The Druid Stone, by one Simon Majors. The first edition of this paperback boasts a cover that has intrigued me for years, and that ultimately proved irresistible for yours truly … even though I knew absolutely nothing about the novel’s story line or its author going in. And this time, I regret to add, the outcome has been … well, mixed at best, let’s just say. More on that in a moment.

The Druid Stone was initially released in July 1967 by Paperback Library and featuring that gripping (well, for me, anyway) cover painting by Victor Kalin. On this cover, a group of white-robed men – one carrying a naked woman, another a black cat – is shown in front of a Stonehenge-like edifice at night. Some of the congregants are shown carrying torches; others, human skulls atop poles. One of the assembled men stands atop a dolmen, brandishing a torch and sword. Oh, it is a cover for the ages, alright, but sadly, as things turn out, has absolutely nothing to do with the novel itself! Hey, you can’t judge, right? The Druid Stone was reprinted in the U.K. in 1970 by the New English Library, featuring a much more faithful cover by an unknown artist. That same year, the Paperback Library reissued the book with yet another unfaithful cover (artist unknown), and then the book would go OOPs (out of prints) for no fewer than 48 years, till the publishing company called the Gardner Francis Fox Library reissued the novel as a trade-size paperback in 2018.

And it is at this point that I should perhaps mention that “Simon Majors” was indeed a pen name for the creator more widely known as Gardner F. Fox … a gentleman whose career is exceedingly difficult to squeeze into a single paragraph. He was born in good ol’ Brooklyn, NY in 1911 and today is perhaps best known for his work in comics. During the Golden and Silver Ages at DC alone, Fox was responsible for over 1,500 (!) issues, and was the co-creator of The Flash, Hawkman, and the Justice League of America. As a novelist, Fox would pen five novels about the Conan-type character Kothar, and four dealing with the equally barbarous Kyrik. He also wrote no fewer than 25 titillating novels centering around secret agent Eve Drum, aka The Lady From L.U.S.T. (the League of Underground Spies and Terrorists); my two favorite titles from this notorious series must be Kiss My Assassin and The Copulation Explosion! As if these weren’t enough, Fox also wrote 10 stories dealing with a character known as Niall of the Far Travels, plus a dozen other novels (including The Druid Stone) and five historicals. Gardner Fox passed away in 1986, at the age of 75.

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Now, as for The Druid Stone itself: The book introduces the reader to Brian Creoghan, now in his mid-30s; a man who has traveled widely, held many unusual occupations, and made a study of arcane lore and cultural oddities around the globe. When we first encounter him, Creoghan has just moved to the (fictitious) small town of Woodstead, in southern New Hampshire, where both young children and cats have mysteriously gone missing as of late. Brian soon makes the acquaintance of two other recent arrivals, a brother and sister by name of Ugony (no, not Agony, Ugony; “Is that name for real?” a local cop asks Brian at one point) and Moira MacArt, and is invited to their house for dinner. Over drinks, Ugony confesses that he and Brian had met years earlier, in Hong Kong, and goes on to admit that he feels Creoghan might be the perfect person to assist in some of his researches. Ugony, as it turns out, is a student of Irish mythology and druidic lore, and has a pet theory concerning the henges, dolmens and menhirs to be found in France, England and other European locales. To be precise, he maintains that these ancient edifices were used by the Celtic priests in their attempts to reach another world, possibly in an adjacent dimension, and regales Creoghan with a wealth of cultural legends to back up his hypothesis. Creoghan, an adventurer to the end, agrees to assist, and is led by Ugony into his home’s museum room, which contains Celtic and druidic relics, dioramas … and the large, upright monolith known as the Druid Stone. Creoghan places his hands upon the stone and – wonder of wonders – is instantly transported to the world known as Dis!

And it is here that Fox’ novel takes a sudden turn into the realm of sword & sorcery and high fantasy. Brian now finds his consciousness residing in the body of Kalgorrn, the “mighty-thewed” warlord of High Mayence. Sometime earlier, Kalgorrn and his lady love, the red-tressed witchwoman named Fann, had been put into a comatose state by the evil wizard Afgorkon, who had been hired by Kalgorrn’s warlord enemy Thasaikor. Now, Kalgorrn and Fann have revived, only to find that Thasaikor wields complete dominion over all of Dis. And so, the two lovers begin their quest: First, the must win back Shadowmaker, Kalgorrn’s magical sword that had been forged from a meteorite. Then, they must seek assistance from Omborion, Kalgorrn’s father and a wizard whose powers rival even those of Afgorkon. Then, they must destroy the five Stonehenge-like “gates” that Thasaikor hopes to use to invade Earth. And finally, they must destroy both Afgorkon and Thasaikor, as well as a host of lesser wizards and demons in the evil warlord’s employ. And so, a parallel story line of sorts is given the reader by Fox. In the Earth segments, Brian Creoghan awakens in his own body, tries to convince himself that he hasn’t just been dreaming, romances the beautiful Moira MacArt, engages in some detective work to find out what happened to the latest missing child and those cats, fends off the increasingly suspicious and hostile Woodstead townsfolk … and, most importantly, wonders whether or not he should face another go with the Druid Stone, and return to his Kalgorrn form in that other dimension. And in the alternating segments set in Dis, his sword-wielding warlord self is kept very busy engaging in a mission to save not just one world, but two…

As you can possibly tell, this story line really does have nothing whatsoever to do with the scene of druidic sacrifice depicted on the front cover of my 1967 Paperback Library edition. Still, I have to admit that it is very evident that Gardner Fox did more than a little homework pertaining to the druids, Celts, and Irish mythology before the penning of this book. And his use of alternating story lines really does help propel that book along. Oddly enough, this old sword & sorcery buff much preferred the scenes set on Earth over the swashbuckling action set on Dis. The Earth scenes come off as better written and more thoughtful, and feature nicely rendered dialogue and interesting discussions. I particularly enjoyed Ugony’s fascinating and convincing explanation as to why the Romans were so intent on wiping out the druids almost 2,000 years ago. Wisely, Fox set these Earth scenes during the autumn season in New England, culminating on Halloween; a most appropriate backdrop for the chilling events in progress. As we are told early on:

…[Brian] had always liked autumn, late September and October with its smoke fires and rustling leaves blowing in a wind, with November waiting, growing hard and cold toward its end when the tree branches loomed dark against a grey sky. It was a dying time of year, but the air was like a thin wine, invigorating and oddly stirring…

The sequences set in New Hampshire are more deliberately paced and atmospheric, somehow, than the ones set on Dis. The budding romance between Brian and Moira is handled well, and the reader hopes that these two will be able to make a go of it, despite the odds.

On the other hand, the sword & sorcery sequences, although undoubtedly fun, are given to us – somewhat unsurprisingly, given Fox’ background – in an almost comic-book style. They are rather broadly sketched in, with an emphasis on imaginative color and movement … perhaps too much movement. For such momentous, action-intensive and cosmic events, a depiction twice as long would not have been out of order. And so, when Kalgorrn’s journey to Afgorkon’s private island, followed by his battle with the evil wizard, is brought about in under seven pages of book length, the reader feels somehow shortchanged. If only Fox had let himself linger a bit more in this alien realm, he wouldn’t have been guilty of doing his readers such a disservice (or perhaps, in this case, I should say “Dis service”!). These fantasy sections are thus too compact and fast moving for their own good, and are often so over the top that they often feel like a parody of the sword & sorcery genre. Still, the author’s evident joy in depicting them can be contagious, and I will admit to finding many of these way-out moments quite a blast. Still, it is to be hoped that the five Kothar novels, written from 1969 – 1970 (!), and the four Kyrik novels, written from 1975 – 1976 (!), demonstrate a slightly more matured style and leisurely exposition.

As might be anticipated from such a novel, any number of thrilling and/or memorable sequences are given to the reader. Among them: Kalgorrn’s battle with a resurrected corpse; his fight with Sthloo, a demon from the gulfs of space whose mere presence causes everything in its vicinity to freeze over; Kalgorrn’s going up against a forest filled with vampiric flowers; his retrieval of Shadowmaker from a small island set in the middle of a life-draining swamp; Kalgorrn and Fann’s visit to Omborion’s abode of living light, in the heart of a dreary marshland; Kalgorrn and Fann’s battle with a bevy of Thasaikor’s swordsmen at one of those interdimensional gates; Brian’s dukeout with a lynch mob of suspicious townsfolk, and his subsequent investigation of how a local 12-year-old girl disappeared; Kalgorrn’s battle with a slavering demon by the sea; his showdown with Afgorkon on that private island (rushed as it might be); the battle between Kalgorrn, backed up by his recently reawoken soldiers, and Fann on one side, and Thasaikor, his minor wizards and hideous demons on the other; and finally, the plight of Ugony and Moira as an angry mob tries to burn down their house, while the comatose Creoghan lays inert and immovable by the Druid Stone. So even though the book at times feels minor, rushed and lightweight, it yet remains readable and entertaining.

On top of the other problems that I had with Gardner Fox’ work here, a few other quibbles came to mind upon later reflection. At several points in his book, Fox tells us of a vast machine at the edge of our known universe that is shown breaking down and repairing itself. The breakdowns seem to have some connection with Creoghan’s ability to utilize the Druid Stone and be translated to the world of Dis, but we never learn anything about this godlike machine, or who built it, or what its precise function is. Why was its inclusion here even necessary? Beats me. Another unresolved mystery concerns what happened to those missing kids. Yes, we do discover what happened to the two missing cats, and to the 12-year-old girl, Peggy, but it’s as if Fox forgot all about those two missing boys. And then there is the matter of the book’s numerous instances of ungrammatical sentences. Thus, “The lych had risen from some lonely grave, had come at the bidding of the warlocks who served Thasaikor to try and stop them in their escape”; that should of course be “try to stop.” “His hand and part of his forearm was already inside it”; that should naturally be “were already.” Fox also mistakenly calls the shuttle on a loom a “shuttlecock,” and has Brian reflecting back on an incident that had transpired “three days before,” whereas it had only been two. And there are several instances of a character referring to something mentioned in a previous conversation that had actually never been mentioned at all! Combine all this with the inordinate number of flat-out typos in the Paperback Library edition and you’re inevitably left wondering “Was this thing ever copyedited or proofread?” Finally – and this really is nitpicking, admittedly – if Ugony and Moira had been born in Ennistymon, in western Ireland, wouldn’t their surname be more credible if it were “McArt”? Isn’t MacArt more Scottish than anything?

Anyway, as you can see, The Druid Stone really is something of a mixed bag. It is a book that I personally had to own and investigate, but is one that I can only halfheartedly recommend for you. Fun enough, but hardly what I would call “required reading.” Still, there is that wonderful piece of Victor Kalin art on the front cover… {big sigh}