Forrest Ackerman's foreign correspondence runs something like this: one Canada; one Philippine Islands; several New Zealand; four or five Great Britain; two Ireland; one Switzerland; one Hungarian. Here's a "new" word: _Fantastiac_. One who goes in for the weird and grotesque in life; also one who likes weird fiction. R. H. Barlow is planning on issuing "The Shunned House" by H. P. Lovecraft sometime in the fall. Clark Ashton Smith is about 40 and has been a weird poet since boyhood. He is a protege of the late George Sterling and a fantastic painter of great power. He has translated "Baudelaire." Donald Wandrei is 25 and a U. of Minn. graduate. His sole occupation is fiction-writing--comes from St. Paul but lives in New York. * * * * * The Fall of the Three Cities (Annals of the Jinns--8) by R. H. Barlow Far to the south of Phoor and bordering upon Yondath extends the vast jungle land. The River Oolae enters it at several points, making travel by boat difficult between Phargo on the desert its outlet in the unnamed land. Where the jungle ceases it gives way abruptly to a vast and mighty plain. This open country is now desolate and entirely uninhabited. Nothing but the six-legged and grotesque monster-things called _rogii_ roam its interminable fields of waving grass. Yet once this lower south-land was a populous and fertile plateau, from the swampy morasses of Yondath even unto the mountains and Zath, where dwell the fungii-masters. How it came to be so barren is told in antique myth, and when people hear the fate of the land beyond the jungle they shudder and make prayers in the air with the small finger. This then is the tale of the fall of the cities of the plain--they that were called by men Naazim, Zo, and Perenthines. Naazim lies now a waste, nor is there any trace of Perenthines. But one can yet find ancient ruins of Zo, and the vandals of Time have not entirely effaced the elaborate carvings of amber which lie half-buried in the concealing grass near where the vast pool was once constructed in the center of the city.