Fear, by L. Ron Hubbard, is a psychological horror thriller from 1940. I was delighted to get as a review copy, because I’ve been reading a lot of older scifi recently.

Fear focuses on Professor James Lowry, who first mocks the idea of the supernatural in favor of provable facts, and well, you can guess what happens to any scholar who does that in thriller. Professor Lowry somehow loses four hours of memory, unsure how his suit got torn and wrecked, how he lost his hat, and how he got a weird mark on his arm:

How could he have torn his suit and stained it with mud? What could have put this stamp upon his arm? A chill came over him and he found it difficult to stop his jaw muscles from contracting.

From that moment, strange things begin to happen, with an ominous note warning him that if he uncovers what happened in those missing four hours, he will die. The people around him begin to act in unsettling ways and the world around him is just not quite right, even if he can’t explain it or prove it.

This book has that unsettling Twilight Zone atmosphere. Something just offstage is very clearly wrong.

Suddenly Lowry had a strange feeling about things, as though something was happening behind him which he should know about. He stopped and whirled around. The boy had stopped trotting, but started instantly. The man at the lawn mower had paused but was now mowing again. The little crowds of students had ceased gesticulating and laughing for the smallest fraction of time but instantly went to it once more.

Although Fear a thriller, the pacing was a bit slow for me (and, I think, for modern readers in general). Lowry’s paranoia builds slowly throughout the book. He tries to unravel possible hallucination or malaria symptoms from a twisted, broken reality, and he becomes more and more anxious as he can’t trust his own mind. It’s an intriguing theme, with an overall focus on repressed memories that adds another layer to this supernatural thriller, but modern thrillers move a lot faster.

There are relatable elements in this supernatural story. Lowry’s overall concern that he can’t trust his own senses creates a lot of tension, but it’s also relatable — who hasn’t wondered if maybe they’re misinterpreted something? Who hasn’t misplaced something and been sure they left in it an obvious place? This relatable element helps ground the supernatural elements, and pulls the reader into Lowry’s confusion. Maybe there’s a rational explanation for all of this?

When Fear was first published in Unknown Fantasy Fiction magazine in the June 1940 issue, the magazine’s editor, John W. Campbell, said: “The present warning is to make sure none of you miss Hubbard’s story.… For Hubbard’s yarn is not one to miss. Fear has been built of nightmare stuff. It is meant to chill the readers on any hot summer night.… Be warned, Fear will set cold lizard feet a-crawl on your spine and make voices gibber in your ears! For Hubbard has, in his first line, pointed out that such things as he tells may happen to any man. And he’s quite right!”

Even if there are dated parts, there are still unsettling elements in Fear. There’s a creeping sense that Lowry can’t rely on his own memory and can’t trust his own senses, and that creates the tension and fear in this one.  I always like a story where there’s tension and something creepy, but no gore. It’s an interesting read overall, and as always, it’s interesting to read older works and think about what’s lasting.