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The Return Of The Sorcerer
A desperate man, running out of money, finally find a job as a translator, but the job turns out to be more than he asked for.
This is one of the most famous of the Clark Ashton Smith's stories set in the fictional world of H. P. Lovecraft.
This is one of the most famous of the Clark Ashton Smith's stories set in the fictional world of H. P. Lovecraft.
40 pages
First published January 1, 1931
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1896 people want to read
About the author
Clark Ashton Smith
686Ìýbooks957ÌýfollowersClark Ashton Smith was a poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. It is for these stories, and his literary friendship with H. P. Lovecraft from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937, that he is mainly remembered today. With Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, also a friend and correspondent, Smith remains one of the most famous contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
His at his official website.
His at his official website.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
July 28, 2019
Described as 'the best" of Clark Ashton Smith, these stories vary in quality. Those with a contemporary setting--like the title story--are typical examples of pulp fiction, only distinguished by a latinate vocabulary even more bizarre than Lovecraft's. Also, many of his science fiction pieces are not really stories at all, but lengthy prose poems masquerading as fiction, more concerned with describing monstrous architectural forms towering over alien vegetation of unearthly hue than they are with actually telling a story.
However, in his best work, Smith creates credible worlds--ancient Hyperborea, the planet Zothique, the mythical medieval French province of Averroigne--where his dark vision of sorcery and his eccentric vocabulary unite with an elegant flow of incantatory language to produce stories which are powerful and unique. I particularly liked "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis," "The Isle of the Torturers," "A Night in Maleneant" (a perfect evocation of a gray shadowy world that could have come from the pen of Ligotti), and--I bet Borges would have loved them both--"The Dark Eidolon," and "The Empire of the Necromancers."
December 25, 2015
I'm just going to mention my favorites in this short story collection.
The Return of the Sorcerer - I can appreciate that this came before some of my favorite horror films, Evil Dead, Lord of Illusions, but I'm stunned to see how many themes and tropes have carried over the years to be embedded so firmly in our horrific psyche. This story is rife with oblivious misunderstandings, but who cares... it's supposed to play upon our greatest horrific imaginings, and if it is heavy, it can be excused because it is a short story. It's also from 1931. It feels pretty damn modern, though. Kudos!
The City of the Singing Flame - So pretty. Missing that taste of other worlds and strange creatures in an alternate reality, full of huge moths, pilgrims in an occult dimension, and an awe-some fraternity of inconceivable life and mind? This is such a pretty story of discovery and sight-seeing. Once more into the flame!
There's a lot of tales that feature necromancy and devils and other kinds of dark gifts. Pretty decent, and even rather modern in flavor, so I'm rather surprised that it came out so long ago.
They ARE very hammy, though, and quite amusingly so, but nothing more deep than, say, a D&D game or one of those EVIL B-Movies of yore. EVIL! EVIL! lol
The Dark Eidolon - This one was probably the most turgid prose I've ever read. Yes, Turgid. Like the biggest glowing evil member of fallen humanity and dark gods. It says a lot that the least evil character is the ancient emperor seeking immortality through necromancy is the most innocent among them. :)
Very b-movie stuff. So much necromancy, so much EVIL! Pretty fantastic, all told, but only if you're a fan of the horror. No suspense, really. Just outright, unhidden, horror. :)
The Return of the Sorcerer - I can appreciate that this came before some of my favorite horror films, Evil Dead, Lord of Illusions, but I'm stunned to see how many themes and tropes have carried over the years to be embedded so firmly in our horrific psyche. This story is rife with oblivious misunderstandings, but who cares... it's supposed to play upon our greatest horrific imaginings, and if it is heavy, it can be excused because it is a short story. It's also from 1931. It feels pretty damn modern, though. Kudos!
The City of the Singing Flame - So pretty. Missing that taste of other worlds and strange creatures in an alternate reality, full of huge moths, pilgrims in an occult dimension, and an awe-some fraternity of inconceivable life and mind? This is such a pretty story of discovery and sight-seeing. Once more into the flame!
There's a lot of tales that feature necromancy and devils and other kinds of dark gifts. Pretty decent, and even rather modern in flavor, so I'm rather surprised that it came out so long ago.
They ARE very hammy, though, and quite amusingly so, but nothing more deep than, say, a D&D game or one of those EVIL B-Movies of yore. EVIL! EVIL! lol
The Dark Eidolon - This one was probably the most turgid prose I've ever read. Yes, Turgid. Like the biggest glowing evil member of fallen humanity and dark gods. It says a lot that the least evil character is the ancient emperor seeking immortality through necromancy is the most innocent among them. :)
Very b-movie stuff. So much necromancy, so much EVIL! Pretty fantastic, all told, but only if you're a fan of the horror. No suspense, really. Just outright, unhidden, horror. :)
November 13, 2024
3.5 for me, but I think a lot of people will rate this higher based on personal taste.
Smith’s vocabulary and wordsmithing leans toward the poetic, which only makes sense as his earliest writings were poetry. Is he a better writer than his chum Lovecraft? That’s another matter of personal taste.
Smith writes solid horror tales when he wants to, but the meat of his writing seems to be vivid descriptions of otherworldly places and things. Long passages (and entire stories) describing what the characters see in a place that cannot exist is impressive, but very boring for me. There’s that “personal taste� thing again so I’ll cut off my commentary here.
Smith’s vocabulary and wordsmithing leans toward the poetic, which only makes sense as his earliest writings were poetry. Is he a better writer than his chum Lovecraft? That’s another matter of personal taste.
Smith writes solid horror tales when he wants to, but the meat of his writing seems to be vivid descriptions of otherworldly places and things. Long passages (and entire stories) describing what the characters see in a place that cannot exist is impressive, but very boring for me. There’s that “personal taste� thing again so I’ll cut off my commentary here.
February 17, 2024
" A short story that slowly, languorously builds a ghastly shambles of nervousness and existential terror as it staggers to and fro between metaphysics and materialism"
It tells of one Mr. Ogden being hired by known recluse John Carnby to translate passages from the
Necronomicon, summoning the original sorcerer , or whats left of him.
Liked the bits with thetorsos and forearms crawling around in the dark. It's a grand, good, and grotesque tale, though slightly troped for someone reads a lot of horror fiction (IE me) especially when reading from musty tomes of lore that should not be opened.
It tells of one Mr. Ogden being hired by known recluse John Carnby to translate passages from the
Necronomicon, summoning the original sorcerer , or whats left of him.
Liked the bits with thetorsos and forearms crawling around in the dark. It's a grand, good, and grotesque tale, though slightly troped for someone reads a lot of horror fiction (IE me) especially when reading from musty tomes of lore that should not be opened.
Read
March 15, 2012Like C.L. Moore, whose Jirel of Jory stories I read recently, Clark Ashton Smith was a pulp author writing during roughly the first half of the twentieth century; in fact, he was, besides Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, one of the mainstays of Weird Tales. He is markedly lesser known and (supposedly) read than the others today, but not necessarily a worse writer for that; in many aspects I would even consider him the most interesting of the three.
For one thing, he is the most varied in both subject matter and style � while Lovecraft is something of a one-trick pony, and Howard’s stories, while thematically more diverse, are all written in a very similar tone, this Best Of collection presents us with stories that range from elegic prose poems to gruesome horror fiction, from satirical allegories to whimsical fantasy stories, and while Smith’s unique style is present in all of those, they are also markedly different from each other.
As an aside, this collection, like the one by C.L. Moore before, gave me occasion to marvel at how much the concept of pulp seems to have changed over the last century � today, ‘pulp� tends to evoke (at least it does for me) fast, sleazy action; and while there might be some degree of sleaziness in Moore and Smith it’s rather subdued (although I seem to remember reqading somewhere that Smith’s stories were toned down for publication in Weird Tales and were much more overly sexual in their unedited versions), their stories are anything but fast-moving, they’re mostly very slow, detailed and colourful descriptions of fantastic landscapes, the kind one would imagine a modern-day reader to get bored with before the end of the first serpentine-syntaxed period of purple prose winds to its end. There are only a few stories of pure description in this collection though, and I thought those were rather the weakest ones in the lot � Moore’s descriptions were for a great part carried by sheer passion, both of her writing and her heroine, and with Smith favouring a detached narrative point of view, his long descriptive passages tend to come across as static and somewhat lifeless.
Another major difference is that in Smith’s work, at least in so far as it is represented in this collection, the racism that is a problem in Howard’s and a major stumbling block in Lovecraft’s oeuvre seems to be refreshingly absent â€� no subhuman blacks or devious Asians populate these stories,. And finally, Smith actually has a sense of humour, something that Howard and Lovecraft are very much lacking in. And not just in the explicitely humorous stories, either: Apparently, Smith saw himself mainy as a poet, and wrote for Weird Tales and other pulp magazines only in order to make some money. The earlier stories in this collection, those written at around 1931-32 are still mostly serious affairs, and clearly influenced by French decadent and symbolist poets like Baudelaire, Rimbaud or Mallarmé; but starting in 1933, Smiths seems to have moved away from his mostly static prose poems towards more dynamic, narrative structures, while at the same time never quite making his peace with the form. As a result, there is a different kind of detachment creeping into the later stories â€� not the ¾±³¾±è²¹²õ²õ¾±²ú¾±±ô¾±³Ùé of the symbolist poet who stand aloof from the mundane world, but rather the wry amusement of a narrator who can’t quite believe that he is doing something as silly as, you know, telling a story, of all things.
That latter trait is something he shares with one of my favourite SFF authors, namely Jack Vance, and as Smith also has a distinct penchant for thinking up weird names and does appear to be the inventor of the “Dying Earth� sub-genre, I feel inclined to disagree with Gene Wolfe in his foreword to this collection, when he insists on Smith’s uniqueness � while he certainly was not as influential as Howard or Lovecraft, I for one am seeing a strong influence (conscious or not) on Vance’s work.
In lesser hands, this constant distancing of the stories from themselves might have seriously undercut the tone of the stories, but Clark Ashton Smith it serves to heighten the sense of the weird and bizarre, and together with his sometimes outlandish vocabulary (I was glad I read this book on the Kindle and was hence able to look the words easily � except that even the integrated dictionary did not know all of them) bestow on them a kind of out-of-this-world quality, turns them into something akin to the hashish-induced visions Smith so often evokes, something almost hallucinatory and always just eluding the reader’s grasp.
For one thing, he is the most varied in both subject matter and style � while Lovecraft is something of a one-trick pony, and Howard’s stories, while thematically more diverse, are all written in a very similar tone, this Best Of collection presents us with stories that range from elegic prose poems to gruesome horror fiction, from satirical allegories to whimsical fantasy stories, and while Smith’s unique style is present in all of those, they are also markedly different from each other.
As an aside, this collection, like the one by C.L. Moore before, gave me occasion to marvel at how much the concept of pulp seems to have changed over the last century � today, ‘pulp� tends to evoke (at least it does for me) fast, sleazy action; and while there might be some degree of sleaziness in Moore and Smith it’s rather subdued (although I seem to remember reqading somewhere that Smith’s stories were toned down for publication in Weird Tales and were much more overly sexual in their unedited versions), their stories are anything but fast-moving, they’re mostly very slow, detailed and colourful descriptions of fantastic landscapes, the kind one would imagine a modern-day reader to get bored with before the end of the first serpentine-syntaxed period of purple prose winds to its end. There are only a few stories of pure description in this collection though, and I thought those were rather the weakest ones in the lot � Moore’s descriptions were for a great part carried by sheer passion, both of her writing and her heroine, and with Smith favouring a detached narrative point of view, his long descriptive passages tend to come across as static and somewhat lifeless.
Another major difference is that in Smith’s work, at least in so far as it is represented in this collection, the racism that is a problem in Howard’s and a major stumbling block in Lovecraft’s oeuvre seems to be refreshingly absent â€� no subhuman blacks or devious Asians populate these stories,. And finally, Smith actually has a sense of humour, something that Howard and Lovecraft are very much lacking in. And not just in the explicitely humorous stories, either: Apparently, Smith saw himself mainy as a poet, and wrote for Weird Tales and other pulp magazines only in order to make some money. The earlier stories in this collection, those written at around 1931-32 are still mostly serious affairs, and clearly influenced by French decadent and symbolist poets like Baudelaire, Rimbaud or Mallarmé; but starting in 1933, Smiths seems to have moved away from his mostly static prose poems towards more dynamic, narrative structures, while at the same time never quite making his peace with the form. As a result, there is a different kind of detachment creeping into the later stories â€� not the ¾±³¾±è²¹²õ²õ¾±²ú¾±±ô¾±³Ùé of the symbolist poet who stand aloof from the mundane world, but rather the wry amusement of a narrator who can’t quite believe that he is doing something as silly as, you know, telling a story, of all things.
That latter trait is something he shares with one of my favourite SFF authors, namely Jack Vance, and as Smith also has a distinct penchant for thinking up weird names and does appear to be the inventor of the “Dying Earth� sub-genre, I feel inclined to disagree with Gene Wolfe in his foreword to this collection, when he insists on Smith’s uniqueness � while he certainly was not as influential as Howard or Lovecraft, I for one am seeing a strong influence (conscious or not) on Vance’s work.
In lesser hands, this constant distancing of the stories from themselves might have seriously undercut the tone of the stories, but Clark Ashton Smith it serves to heighten the sense of the weird and bizarre, and together with his sometimes outlandish vocabulary (I was glad I read this book on the Kindle and was hence able to look the words easily � except that even the integrated dictionary did not know all of them) bestow on them a kind of out-of-this-world quality, turns them into something akin to the hashish-induced visions Smith so often evokes, something almost hallucinatory and always just eluding the reader’s grasp.
April 11, 2015
Before this I'd only read a handful of C.A.S. stories. Smith, along with Howard and Lovecraft were the three big names of Weird tales, everything after that is pretty much "second tier." And a great thing about the internet age is that almost all of the fiction of these three big names is available free (Thanks Gutenberg Australia, etc.).
Smith's stories are concerned with generating a thick atmosphere of the forbidden, of evil, of far-away places. They're full of imaginative, elaborately decadent description and often contain a gloominess that recalls Poe to mind. The prose can be a bit...ornate...flowery (?) but that's partly what generates it's effective outre feeling. Most of these are stories of sorcery gone wrong.
I would say these stories have aged better than the supernatural detective tales of Seabury Quinn for example, but not as well as Lovecraft's. But I would argue the writing of Smith is even more individual, I can tell when I am reading something by or influenced by Smith. On the other hand, I found myself actually preferring the somewhat "less individual," more earth-bound tales. I mean stories not of a sorcerer in a far away land, but of a man, living in a town who has an encounter with the unnatural.
The Return of the Sorcerer - A good, grotesque weird tale, somewhat predictable for someone who has read a lot of horror fiction perhaps but still an excellent story. A man takes a job as a translator for a sorcerer, only to discover that the man is being pursued by a dead sorcerer even more powerful than himself.
The City of the Singing Flame - Good story in the dark fantasy/weird vein, feels like one of Lovecraft's fantasy world stories. A writer discovers a portal to another world inside a crater where a singing flame lures creatures into it, but where?
The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis - This is one of the most creepy stories I've read in a long time. I truly kept thinking I felt something crawling on me, it’s so effective. It’s gory but tastefully done, not overused. A party of explorers on Mars explores an ancient, ruined city, at first they find nothing, but down in a catacomb they are attacked.
The Double Shadow - Another good story, I love this writing style, it's pulpy, yet has a sophistication to it. What makes this story work is that we know a horror is coming, but Smith keeps the form concealed until it's effective to reveal it. An apprentice to a sorcerer finds an ancient mirror washed up on the beach, after performing an incantation with it nothing happens -- or so they think.
The Monster of the Prophecy - Very imaginative sci-fi/dark fantasy with a message of religious tolerance. This is one of the longest in the collection, but Smith maintains interest quite well. A young poet, considering suicide is invited by an alien to travel to another world -- with nothing to lose he agrees, not knowing he is being used for ulterior purposes.
The Hunters from Beyond - Another good earth-bound story, fairly standard "occult forces summoned go out of control" plot, with obvious influence from HPL's "Pickman's Model." A nice break from the more elaborate, other-worldly type of tales. A man sees a horrible, gargoyle-like creature as he is traveling to see his cousin, a sculptor who has been crafting those exact things.
The Isle of the Torturers - This is one of the better stories in this collection. After his kingdom is ravaged and destroyed by the Silver Plague, king Fulbra sails south, but is shipwrecked on the Island of Torturers, infamous for their pleasure for torturing all those who land there.
A Night in Malnéant - A short, dreamlike episode, reminds me a bit of Poe in it's gloominess and woe over a dead love. A man wanders into a town where everyone seems to be mourning his lover who died some time ago.
The Chain of Aforgomon - Another tale of sorcery gone wrong, more gruesome description, but what I thought was most effective was more of a side issue -- how someone seems to be fading from the memory of their friends. A writer of oriental fantasies suffers a terrible death after he experiments with a drug that lets him see his past lives.
The Dark Eidolon - Another good dark fantasy story. Really this is a fairly simple revenge tale at heart, but Smith infuses (pads?) it with a good deal of grotesquerie and decadent prose. A sorcerer who was tormented by a prince when he was a young beggar returns to the man's kingdom for revenge.
The Seven Geases - I actually liked this one quite a bit more than some other titles I've seen more heavily anthologized. I think Smith's power of description is well-served in this quest-like plotline. A man leading a hunting party becomes separated from his fellows, cursed by a sorcerer and sent on a subterranean quest of offering himself as a sacrifice to increasingly horrible gods.
The Holiness of Azédarac - A rather milder story, a sort of time travel romance. A man sent on a mission by the archbishop has acquired proof that the priest Azedarac is engaged in the black arts, but is sent back in time where he discovers hitherto unknown pleasures.
The Beast of Averoigne - This is one of the better stories here, once again I often enjoy stories by Smith which I've never heard of compared to his better-known work. A village and an abbey of monks is terrorized by a fiery, snake-like creature which consumes the bone marrow of it's victims, and seems to have been spawned by a red comet.
The Empire of the Necromancers - This reminds me a bit of Lovecraft's "The Hound" in it's rather over-the-top decadent debauch with corpses. Two necromancers summon up the dead of a long-deceased city in the desert to do their bidding, but the spark of rebellion starts to fester in some of them.
The Disinterment of Venus - This is one of the more run-of-the-mill stories here, not that it's bad, but it feels less distinct. After a group of monks uncover a statue of Venus in the monastery garden, those who have touched it fan out after dark to engage their hitherto suppressed, lustful desires.
The Devotee of Evil - This reminds me of a lesser tale Lovecraft himself may have written. A man moves into a house with a cursed past where he proceeds to build a mechanism which will reveal a vision of pure evil.
The Enchantress of Sylaire - Oh boy, this one's a bit much, the main character is an utter fool, the plot is hilariously convoluted, but it all seems humorously intended...maybe? A man rejected by his lover meets an enchantress who leads him into another world, but her former lover tries to warn him of her treachery.
Smith's stories are concerned with generating a thick atmosphere of the forbidden, of evil, of far-away places. They're full of imaginative, elaborately decadent description and often contain a gloominess that recalls Poe to mind. The prose can be a bit...ornate...flowery (?) but that's partly what generates it's effective outre feeling. Most of these are stories of sorcery gone wrong.
I would say these stories have aged better than the supernatural detective tales of Seabury Quinn for example, but not as well as Lovecraft's. But I would argue the writing of Smith is even more individual, I can tell when I am reading something by or influenced by Smith. On the other hand, I found myself actually preferring the somewhat "less individual," more earth-bound tales. I mean stories not of a sorcerer in a far away land, but of a man, living in a town who has an encounter with the unnatural.
The Return of the Sorcerer - A good, grotesque weird tale, somewhat predictable for someone who has read a lot of horror fiction perhaps but still an excellent story. A man takes a job as a translator for a sorcerer, only to discover that the man is being pursued by a dead sorcerer even more powerful than himself.
The City of the Singing Flame - Good story in the dark fantasy/weird vein, feels like one of Lovecraft's fantasy world stories. A writer discovers a portal to another world inside a crater where a singing flame lures creatures into it, but where?
The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis - This is one of the most creepy stories I've read in a long time. I truly kept thinking I felt something crawling on me, it’s so effective. It’s gory but tastefully done, not overused. A party of explorers on Mars explores an ancient, ruined city, at first they find nothing, but down in a catacomb they are attacked.
The Double Shadow - Another good story, I love this writing style, it's pulpy, yet has a sophistication to it. What makes this story work is that we know a horror is coming, but Smith keeps the form concealed until it's effective to reveal it. An apprentice to a sorcerer finds an ancient mirror washed up on the beach, after performing an incantation with it nothing happens -- or so they think.
The Monster of the Prophecy - Very imaginative sci-fi/dark fantasy with a message of religious tolerance. This is one of the longest in the collection, but Smith maintains interest quite well. A young poet, considering suicide is invited by an alien to travel to another world -- with nothing to lose he agrees, not knowing he is being used for ulterior purposes.
The Hunters from Beyond - Another good earth-bound story, fairly standard "occult forces summoned go out of control" plot, with obvious influence from HPL's "Pickman's Model." A nice break from the more elaborate, other-worldly type of tales. A man sees a horrible, gargoyle-like creature as he is traveling to see his cousin, a sculptor who has been crafting those exact things.
The Isle of the Torturers - This is one of the better stories in this collection. After his kingdom is ravaged and destroyed by the Silver Plague, king Fulbra sails south, but is shipwrecked on the Island of Torturers, infamous for their pleasure for torturing all those who land there.
A Night in Malnéant - A short, dreamlike episode, reminds me a bit of Poe in it's gloominess and woe over a dead love. A man wanders into a town where everyone seems to be mourning his lover who died some time ago.
The Chain of Aforgomon - Another tale of sorcery gone wrong, more gruesome description, but what I thought was most effective was more of a side issue -- how someone seems to be fading from the memory of their friends. A writer of oriental fantasies suffers a terrible death after he experiments with a drug that lets him see his past lives.
The Dark Eidolon - Another good dark fantasy story. Really this is a fairly simple revenge tale at heart, but Smith infuses (pads?) it with a good deal of grotesquerie and decadent prose. A sorcerer who was tormented by a prince when he was a young beggar returns to the man's kingdom for revenge.
The Seven Geases - I actually liked this one quite a bit more than some other titles I've seen more heavily anthologized. I think Smith's power of description is well-served in this quest-like plotline. A man leading a hunting party becomes separated from his fellows, cursed by a sorcerer and sent on a subterranean quest of offering himself as a sacrifice to increasingly horrible gods.
The Holiness of Azédarac - A rather milder story, a sort of time travel romance. A man sent on a mission by the archbishop has acquired proof that the priest Azedarac is engaged in the black arts, but is sent back in time where he discovers hitherto unknown pleasures.
The Beast of Averoigne - This is one of the better stories here, once again I often enjoy stories by Smith which I've never heard of compared to his better-known work. A village and an abbey of monks is terrorized by a fiery, snake-like creature which consumes the bone marrow of it's victims, and seems to have been spawned by a red comet.
The Empire of the Necromancers - This reminds me a bit of Lovecraft's "The Hound" in it's rather over-the-top decadent debauch with corpses. Two necromancers summon up the dead of a long-deceased city in the desert to do their bidding, but the spark of rebellion starts to fester in some of them.
The Disinterment of Venus - This is one of the more run-of-the-mill stories here, not that it's bad, but it feels less distinct. After a group of monks uncover a statue of Venus in the monastery garden, those who have touched it fan out after dark to engage their hitherto suppressed, lustful desires.
The Devotee of Evil - This reminds me of a lesser tale Lovecraft himself may have written. A man moves into a house with a cursed past where he proceeds to build a mechanism which will reveal a vision of pure evil.
The Enchantress of Sylaire - Oh boy, this one's a bit much, the main character is an utter fool, the plot is hilariously convoluted, but it all seems humorously intended...maybe? A man rejected by his lover meets an enchantress who leads him into another world, but her former lover tries to warn him of her treachery.
July 5, 2019
I haven't read all the stories in this collection, just the titular, which was my favorite, about a man who takes an amanuensis position with a strange and questionable recluse in the Oakland Hills; two linked stories about the City of Singing Flame, and a horror one about archaeologists on Mars.
October 28, 2015
I would have to distinguish the collection versus the material inside.
Smith's writing is frequently over-lush, littered with ten-dollar words of dubious necessity, and beset by a curious passivity. Plot and character become little more than scaffolding for Smith to work his word magic and express his imagery or setting. It can be an impressive effect but too much at once--binging a collection, for instance, dilutes the experience. This is a heady, rich wine. Or, possibly more accurately, absinthe.
Given Smith's copyright status, where much is affordably or freely available, a publisher must justify the act of slapping a load of it between covers, and that justification is not here. The "best of" selection is presumably according to Weinberg's own taste, and his curation is odd, being neither chronological by publication nor grouped by setting or theme. Aside from a lackluster introduction by Gene Wolfe, this assortment is left to speak for itself. Frankly, the choices are arguable.
Smith's writing is frequently over-lush, littered with ten-dollar words of dubious necessity, and beset by a curious passivity. Plot and character become little more than scaffolding for Smith to work his word magic and express his imagery or setting. It can be an impressive effect but too much at once--binging a collection, for instance, dilutes the experience. This is a heady, rich wine. Or, possibly more accurately, absinthe.
Given Smith's copyright status, where much is affordably or freely available, a publisher must justify the act of slapping a load of it between covers, and that justification is not here. The "best of" selection is presumably according to Weinberg's own taste, and his curation is odd, being neither chronological by publication nor grouped by setting or theme. Aside from a lackluster introduction by Gene Wolfe, this assortment is left to speak for itself. Frankly, the choices are arguable.
December 22, 2010
One of the best single-author collections I've ever read, and a wonderful introduction to Clark Ashton Smith.
CAS is simply one of the most talented writers I've had the pleasure of reading. His language is rich and decadent to read, a treat like fine chocolate. He melds genres wonderfully, in fact I cannot really describe his style or genre of writing except in list form.
I cannot believe I just now started to read him. This book took me over a month to read simply because I didn't want it to be over!
All of this collection was great, a few of my favorite stories are "The Dark Eidolon", "The Isle of the Torturers", "The Seven Geases", and "The Monster of the Prophecy". I am definitely going to be grabbing up any and all CAS books I can find from now on! I recommend this collection to any CAS newbies, fans of horror, scifi, and fantasy, or anyone that enjoys a great short story.
CAS is simply one of the most talented writers I've had the pleasure of reading. His language is rich and decadent to read, a treat like fine chocolate. He melds genres wonderfully, in fact I cannot really describe his style or genre of writing except in list form.
I cannot believe I just now started to read him. This book took me over a month to read simply because I didn't want it to be over!
All of this collection was great, a few of my favorite stories are "The Dark Eidolon", "The Isle of the Torturers", "The Seven Geases", and "The Monster of the Prophecy". I am definitely going to be grabbing up any and all CAS books I can find from now on! I recommend this collection to any CAS newbies, fans of horror, scifi, and fantasy, or anyone that enjoys a great short story.
August 1, 2012
Here are a group of stories by an overlooked master of the science fiction, fantasy and horror fields.
First published in the 1930s, the unearthly beings in these stories are not just denizens of Hell; they come from someplace worse than Hell. Some of these stories take place in the present day. Other stories take place in the distant past, in an era of amazing cities. Still others take place on impossible worlds in some other universe.
Those who are not horror fans need not be concerned; the horror in these tales is not overwhelming. For those who are fantasy or horror fans, and have never read Clark Ashton Smith, you are in for a huge treat. This is a wonderful place to start. Few writers can reach the level of poetry in their fiction; Smith does it.
First published in the 1930s, the unearthly beings in these stories are not just denizens of Hell; they come from someplace worse than Hell. Some of these stories take place in the present day. Other stories take place in the distant past, in an era of amazing cities. Still others take place on impossible worlds in some other universe.
Those who are not horror fans need not be concerned; the horror in these tales is not overwhelming. For those who are fantasy or horror fans, and have never read Clark Ashton Smith, you are in for a huge treat. This is a wonderful place to start. Few writers can reach the level of poetry in their fiction; Smith does it.
June 4, 2022
The Most Eccentric, Baroque, Sinister, and Occult of Storytellers, on Par with Lovecraft
The Big Three of Weird Tales in the 1930s were HP Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft is of course the most famous for his Cthulhu stories, Howard for his Conan stories, and Smith less well-known among readers for a lack of iconic stories or characters, but my goodness his prose puts Lovecraft to shame in terms of sheer baroque verbosity and lurking occult evil. Some may love it, others may find it purple and over the top, but I guarantee nobody will be left unaffected by the eccentric genius of a reclusive writer who read whole dictionaries front to back and taught himself several languages on his own, through an obsessive love of words and poetry (actually his first passion). Once I got used to his dark themes and doomed tales, I found them incredibly compelling. A one-of-a-kind writer who most undoubtedly influenced many generations of horror writers that came after.
The Big Three of Weird Tales in the 1930s were HP Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft is of course the most famous for his Cthulhu stories, Howard for his Conan stories, and Smith less well-known among readers for a lack of iconic stories or characters, but my goodness his prose puts Lovecraft to shame in terms of sheer baroque verbosity and lurking occult evil. Some may love it, others may find it purple and over the top, but I guarantee nobody will be left unaffected by the eccentric genius of a reclusive writer who read whole dictionaries front to back and taught himself several languages on his own, through an obsessive love of words and poetry (actually his first passion). Once I got used to his dark themes and doomed tales, I found them incredibly compelling. A one-of-a-kind writer who most undoubtedly influenced many generations of horror writers that came after.
July 8, 2018
Smith is one of the pulp fiction kings of the '30s, his dark fantasies are especially evocative of decadent cultures and primeval worlds and his horror stories are a cut above average. He uses purple prose as well as that strange, polysyllabic convention for names that was popular in this period. He helped create the shared mythos that Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (Conan, etc...) used as well as other writers that followed on afterwards. I'm not sure if this is the best collection, I think is better, but I haven't reread it in a while.
If you enjoyed this, you may like other classic pulp authors like or .
If you enjoyed this, you may like other classic pulp authors like or .
June 1, 2021
This Clark Ashton Smith collection has an introduction by Gene Wolfe, which makes it objectively the best collection of Smith's work. The intro reminded me why I love Wolfe so much, and it is also the best piece of writing in the collection. To be clear, there are a couple of good stories here, but overall it's easy to see why Smith's popularity has waned compared to Lovecraft's, despite Smith technically being a better prose writer. Weird tales of cosmic horror live and die by their ideas, not their writing, and Smith didn't understand what ideas inspire terror.
As evidence of Smith's fundamental lack of understanding of how to engender fear I would point to The City of the Singing Flame and its sequel. The City of the Singing Flame is a solid enough story of a man transported to an alien world, where an otherworldly tune renders those who hear it little better than moths being inexorably drawn to a flame. That is an unsettling concept, but it's completely undercut by its sequel story Beyond the Singing Flame, which retroactively makes the self-immolation of the prior tale a good thing. This doesn't just snuff out any fear the first story created, it actively makes the tone of that first story nonsensical. Did Smith really not realize that he was screwing up a good concept? Could he really not leave well enough alone?
Evidently not. My favorite story of this collection is The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, a tale of exploring Martian ruins that has some interesting similarities to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness as well as the first part of the film Alien. It's not perfect, for instance it could have done more to gradually increase the tension in its opening pages (this is a flaw in many of Smith's stories), but overall it was an effective horror tale. Yet, instead of being satisfied with his success, Smith repeats the story nearly beat for beat but to lesser effect a year later in his story The Seed from the Sepulchre. If this was an author getting better with subsequent iterations of a story, that would be understandable, but Smith is copying himself and somehow getting worse in the process.
I’m not going to go over every story in the collection. Even the worst pieces in the collection like The Monster of the Prophecy, The Holiness of Azedarac, and The Disinterment of Venus are more boring than anything else, so analyzing why they don’t work just wouldn’t be interesting. Instead, perhaps it’s worth briefly discussing what is likely Smith’s most famous story, The Dark Eidolon. It is indeed one of his better ones, but that sort of highlights how low the bar is. What ultimately makes this story better than most of the rest of the collection is that it has at its core a revenge story, with the evil sorcerer protagonist wanting vengeance for a harm he suffered long ago that he is unable to forget. It’s an understandable character motivation, and the fact that the sorcerer’s dark god patron forbids him from retaliation adds a smidge of complexity to the situation.
It may sound to you like I’m describing incredibly basic story elements, and indeed I am. But so many of Smith’s stories don’t even establish surface level characterization or sympathetic motivation, so when one does it becomes one of the best stories in the collection! Compare this story to The Empire of the Necromancers, which likewise features practitioners of dark magic, but this time two of them: Mmatmuor and Sodosma. How are the two of them different from each other? Who knows! Smith literally never does anything to differentiate them besides mentioning that one is slightly older than the other. I thought that, at a minimum, they were at least going to turn on each other, but by the end of the story it becomes clear that there could have just as easily been one necromancer (or any number really) and the tale would be no different.
The Empire of the Necromancers is also a story reliant on a prophecy, as many of the stories in this collection are, and in case you’ve never realized this before the prophecy is the laziest narrative device ever invented. It is the writer reaching into the story and inserting the story outline as inevitable events that the characters must play out, just because. Even having everything reliant on coincidences is less lazy, since sometimes coincidences happen in real life, but a prophecy entirely obviates the need to have a coherent plot.
Lovecraft was a subpar writer, but he thought up some scary concepts. Even if Smith was better at actually constructing sentences and had an impressive vocabulary, when I was reading Smith’s The Hunters from Beyond I kept thinking that it was an inferior exploration of the ideas that Lovecraft explored better in The Call of Cthulhu and Pickman’s model. Same with Smith’s The Beast of Averoigne compared to Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space. Having finished this collection and a few more Smith tales besides just to make sure I was getting a large enough sampling, I can say that I don’t care much for Smith as an author. The only stories I would recommend that you check out are The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The Dark Eidolon, The Return of the Sorcerer, and The City of the Singing Flame (and don’t read the sequel). All of these works are available for free and so I don’t recommend that you actually spend any money on a collection, unless you are willing to pay for Gene Wolfe’s short introduction. A good intro and a small handful of solid stories is not enough to make up for the fact that so much of the collection is boring, so I have to give this one a 2.5/5, and I’m rounding down.
As evidence of Smith's fundamental lack of understanding of how to engender fear I would point to The City of the Singing Flame and its sequel. The City of the Singing Flame is a solid enough story of a man transported to an alien world, where an otherworldly tune renders those who hear it little better than moths being inexorably drawn to a flame. That is an unsettling concept, but it's completely undercut by its sequel story Beyond the Singing Flame, which retroactively makes the self-immolation of the prior tale a good thing. This doesn't just snuff out any fear the first story created, it actively makes the tone of that first story nonsensical. Did Smith really not realize that he was screwing up a good concept? Could he really not leave well enough alone?
Evidently not. My favorite story of this collection is The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, a tale of exploring Martian ruins that has some interesting similarities to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness as well as the first part of the film Alien. It's not perfect, for instance it could have done more to gradually increase the tension in its opening pages (this is a flaw in many of Smith's stories), but overall it was an effective horror tale. Yet, instead of being satisfied with his success, Smith repeats the story nearly beat for beat but to lesser effect a year later in his story The Seed from the Sepulchre. If this was an author getting better with subsequent iterations of a story, that would be understandable, but Smith is copying himself and somehow getting worse in the process.
I’m not going to go over every story in the collection. Even the worst pieces in the collection like The Monster of the Prophecy, The Holiness of Azedarac, and The Disinterment of Venus are more boring than anything else, so analyzing why they don’t work just wouldn’t be interesting. Instead, perhaps it’s worth briefly discussing what is likely Smith’s most famous story, The Dark Eidolon. It is indeed one of his better ones, but that sort of highlights how low the bar is. What ultimately makes this story better than most of the rest of the collection is that it has at its core a revenge story, with the evil sorcerer protagonist wanting vengeance for a harm he suffered long ago that he is unable to forget. It’s an understandable character motivation, and the fact that the sorcerer’s dark god patron forbids him from retaliation adds a smidge of complexity to the situation.
It may sound to you like I’m describing incredibly basic story elements, and indeed I am. But so many of Smith’s stories don’t even establish surface level characterization or sympathetic motivation, so when one does it becomes one of the best stories in the collection! Compare this story to The Empire of the Necromancers, which likewise features practitioners of dark magic, but this time two of them: Mmatmuor and Sodosma. How are the two of them different from each other? Who knows! Smith literally never does anything to differentiate them besides mentioning that one is slightly older than the other. I thought that, at a minimum, they were at least going to turn on each other, but by the end of the story it becomes clear that there could have just as easily been one necromancer (or any number really) and the tale would be no different.
The Empire of the Necromancers is also a story reliant on a prophecy, as many of the stories in this collection are, and in case you’ve never realized this before the prophecy is the laziest narrative device ever invented. It is the writer reaching into the story and inserting the story outline as inevitable events that the characters must play out, just because. Even having everything reliant on coincidences is less lazy, since sometimes coincidences happen in real life, but a prophecy entirely obviates the need to have a coherent plot.
Lovecraft was a subpar writer, but he thought up some scary concepts. Even if Smith was better at actually constructing sentences and had an impressive vocabulary, when I was reading Smith’s The Hunters from Beyond I kept thinking that it was an inferior exploration of the ideas that Lovecraft explored better in The Call of Cthulhu and Pickman’s model. Same with Smith’s The Beast of Averoigne compared to Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space. Having finished this collection and a few more Smith tales besides just to make sure I was getting a large enough sampling, I can say that I don’t care much for Smith as an author. The only stories I would recommend that you check out are The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The Dark Eidolon, The Return of the Sorcerer, and The City of the Singing Flame (and don’t read the sequel). All of these works are available for free and so I don’t recommend that you actually spend any money on a collection, unless you are willing to pay for Gene Wolfe’s short introduction. A good intro and a small handful of solid stories is not enough to make up for the fact that so much of the collection is boring, so I have to give this one a 2.5/5, and I’m rounding down.
November 25, 2021
This story has an alternative ending, provided to H. P. Lovecraft in letter form, available here:
There's also a comics story adaptation, with illustrations by Richard Corben, available here:
April 2, 2012
Four stars if you are a fan of classic pulp fantasy -- Lovecraft, Howard, Moore, etc. -- or a fan of contemporary authors like Moorcock and Glen Cook. The Zothique stories clearly inspired Elric, among others, and Smith's overall style seems to have influenced every heroic fantasy writer that I've read (so far), including Fritz Leiber. The horror stories included didn't do much for me, but there are only a few of those; they read like practice sessions for the later work. I would like to read the other stories set in Hyperborea, Averoigne, and Zothique, and hope that other collections become available.
March 28, 2010
I somehow managed to make it this long without reading any Clark Ashton Smith. The recent reprints reminded me that he's the only one of the Weird Tales greats that I've never read. Now I'm sorry that I waited this long. Smith is unequal parts Lovecraft, Rimbaud, and Vance, and much else besides. His stories are decadent, baroque, finely wrought, and very weird. He has a sense of humor like a poisoned dagger. I'd love to read what he would have wrote without the limitations of the pulps, and I covet the Night Shade Books reprint collections.
October 3, 2011
Great stories in a sort of disjointed collection. If I'd been putting the collection together, I think I would have grouped the stories in the same cycle together, or perhaps focused on the stories more like the title story instead of showing the whole breadth of Smith's work. I'd read most of the classic weird horror stories before (a big influence on Heroes of Horror), but was unfamiliar with Smith's more sci-fi-ish, mystical-hallucinatory material.
October 5, 2018
Return of the Sorcerer is a collection of CAS� short stories from 1931-1941. They generally fall into a few categories: “modern� pulp horror (generally pretty good for the period, including the title story, a grisly tale of zombie revenge, and “The Hunters From Beyond�), science fiction (maybe this stuff seemed slick in the early 30’s, but not too good now � although I did like “The Vaults of Yoh-Vomis� which was really more horror than SF, featuring a truly gruesome alien monster), “swords and sorcery�-type fantasy stories (generally adequate � I enjoyed the faerie tale feel that Smith brought to “The Seven Geases�), and several supernatural tales set in medieval France (also decent for the period). This is a solid mix of pulp stories, mostly fun quick reads.
March 17, 2018
A creepy and eventually rather gruesome use of Lovecraft's invention of the Necronomicon with the trope of a scholar of satanism and demonology hiring a young man to translate its more malignant passages for the purposes of dark sorcery with body parts in a lonely rodent-infested mansion.
"I hope the rats did not annoy you too much" and "breakfast was a dismal affair" and that "peculiar slithering the hall". Of course, the slithering is not rats.
September 10, 2013
Perhaps no other writer, barring less commercial scribblers, of course, has leaned on the word so majorly, with such exuberant pail on his marker; Smith hisses enchantment with his fairy-worlds, from Malebolge to his own imaginary realms (e.g., Averoigne and its subsidiary jurisdictions [La Fren��ie, Touraine,and P��rigon], the mythical Zothique, etc.), collaring the old attitudes of Lautremont and Lovecraft and advancing them. Indeed, these tales are principally oblique investigations of antemundane cursives and brackish, Erebean landscapes ��� what the prose lacks in its make-up is a boorish conversation: these stories are meant to be fantastic, are made to be terrific. Smith has no business in being careful and sacerdotal in his script ��� it is a central honesty to remember that he was writing predominantly for the pulps; those who seek precise craftsmanship are encouraged to look for his poetry. If any of these writings fail, it is not because of any self-reproof or extenuation on the author���s part, but rather a symptom of the times ��� we're conditioned to believe that exclusiveness in literature is something insane, and where Smith picks up, there really is a bit of an insular quarry. But all is well. As Lovecraft once asked, "Where does madness leave off, and reality begin?"
June 16, 2019
If, like me, you struggle with the first 4 or 5 stories in this anthology (including the titular story of all things), do continue with the rest as the remainder (with a few exceptions, as per any anthology) are by and far so much better than what you start out with.
I don't think I'll ever love CAS as much as I do , but you gotta admit the lack of racism makes talking about CAS in public a little easier. In general, though, if you like Howard or you'll 100% love CAS; he's got the Weird Tales feel down pat, and you'll love every word.
I don't think I'll ever love CAS as much as I do , but you gotta admit the lack of racism makes talking about CAS in public a little easier. In general, though, if you like Howard or you'll 100% love CAS; he's got the Weird Tales feel down pat, and you'll love every word.
October 25, 2021
Fantastic stories of the Weird Tales era from the criminally underrated author Clark Ashton Smith, all splendid but also sharing a noticeable brilliance that's absent in Lovecraft. Both share the baroque prose, but Smith is the better writer out of the two. I also loved the short stories set in Zothique, such a fascinating location.
That said, "The Monster of the Prophecy" is by far my favorite story by the author that I've read (which are not all of the ones collected in this collection, mind you, just some of them). It's beautiful, a word rarely used to describe a story of lovecraftian horror, so, for originality alone, it's worth a read.
That said, "The Monster of the Prophecy" is by far my favorite story by the author that I've read (which are not all of the ones collected in this collection, mind you, just some of them). It's beautiful, a word rarely used to describe a story of lovecraftian horror, so, for originality alone, it's worth a read.
November 28, 2012
Clark Ashton Smith is one of the authors I consider part of the Golden Age of Weird Tales. I picked up this collection at World Fantasy, having wanted for a while to read more of Smith's stories. As with many works from that era, this collection left me with mixed feelings. There are moments of sheer bloody brilliance, but as with Lovecraft, the language often feels overwrought and forced, and there are elements of racism and misogyny that are hard to miss. A mixed bag, with "The Enchantress of Sylaire," which closes out the book, being my favorite.
January 30, 2013
Would have given it 5 if the Averoigne stories weren't so predictable and boring. Loved the rest, especially Zothique. It seems like Clark Ahton Smith is the link in the chain from my second favorite author (HP Lovecraft) to my favorite (Jack Vance) and I am saddened that I did not bother to read his work before now.
October 27, 2022
Could 100% be a Lovecraft story. It was OK.
December 7, 2016
The second Clark Ashton Smith collection I've read recently. I have to say that I find myself really enjoying his writing, in spite of how overwritten it can be. Smith balances then-contemporary fantasy along with stories set in his mythical worlds, like Zothique and Hyperborea, as well as one returning locale set in 15th century France. Many times the stories are just fine, with clever endings and sometimes odd but effective pacing, but they often are quite capable of weaving a spell on the reader in some regard. I can appreciate Smith's "Weird" in addition to the weirdness he inspired - he's also somewhat less racist than Lovecraft, which, well, isn't saying too much.
But a few in this collection are really quite something, for varying reasons. "The Dark Eidolon" is a bleak tale of revenge, and as with many of the stories set in the world of Zothique, most characters are responsible for or victim to great suffering, in a way that should be comically absurd - but perhaps the language, only as direct as necessary, helps to soften the blow. The pair of "Singing Flame" stories in spite of, or because of, their odd pacing, have left a lasting impact in the matter-of-fact description of the City, and the overall schema of the dimension it inhabits. It reads almost as proto-psychedelic literature in a way. The bleakness and strangeness of tales like these are nicely balanced with others somewhat more satirical, particularly the glee with which Smith depicts men of faith being seduced or tempted by dark women.
A few stories really do feel like a slog to get through, and one short novella is a fun ride that is totally underwhelmed by its ending. But overall this collection is strong and worth a read.
But a few in this collection are really quite something, for varying reasons. "The Dark Eidolon" is a bleak tale of revenge, and as with many of the stories set in the world of Zothique, most characters are responsible for or victim to great suffering, in a way that should be comically absurd - but perhaps the language, only as direct as necessary, helps to soften the blow. The pair of "Singing Flame" stories in spite of, or because of, their odd pacing, have left a lasting impact in the matter-of-fact description of the City, and the overall schema of the dimension it inhabits. It reads almost as proto-psychedelic literature in a way. The bleakness and strangeness of tales like these are nicely balanced with others somewhat more satirical, particularly the glee with which Smith depicts men of faith being seduced or tempted by dark women.
A few stories really do feel like a slog to get through, and one short novella is a fun ride that is totally underwhelmed by its ending. But overall this collection is strong and worth a read.
February 26, 2020
As I continue to read classic works I’m beginning to feel that my favorite genre is the “weird�.
I’m also fascinated how I come across many forgotten authors who are remarkably talented.
Reading this book amazed me for the places it took me.
Smith has been compared to Lovecraft, and the two were friends. Reading Smith you can definitely see resemblances. But whereas Lovecraft’s writing I find all very dark and gloomy and deals mainly with with horror (ALL THE TIME), Smith’s writing sometimes has a playful enchantment.
The best way I could describe it is if you took a good deal of horror, mixed it with some magic and wizardry, throw in some sci-fi, and a sprinkle of fantasy and fairy tale, and throw it all in a blender. Push start and wait for a rainbow colored frothiness to appear. Not that all these elements appear equally in all these stories; there are different proportions of these different elements throughout the different stories.
By the time I finished this book I felt I had to give it 5 stars. I look forward to revisiting Smith in the future, and I hope many others will give him a try.
I’m also fascinated how I come across many forgotten authors who are remarkably talented.
Reading this book amazed me for the places it took me.
Smith has been compared to Lovecraft, and the two were friends. Reading Smith you can definitely see resemblances. But whereas Lovecraft’s writing I find all very dark and gloomy and deals mainly with with horror (ALL THE TIME), Smith’s writing sometimes has a playful enchantment.
The best way I could describe it is if you took a good deal of horror, mixed it with some magic and wizardry, throw in some sci-fi, and a sprinkle of fantasy and fairy tale, and throw it all in a blender. Push start and wait for a rainbow colored frothiness to appear. Not that all these elements appear equally in all these stories; there are different proportions of these different elements throughout the different stories.
By the time I finished this book I felt I had to give it 5 stars. I look forward to revisiting Smith in the future, and I hope many others will give him a try.
July 18, 2023
Clark is the true poet of the trio of weird. Orichalcum. As soon as I saw this word I knew I was reading something to be adored. The Return of the Sorcerer is my all time favourite short story and what made me pick this up. The richly detailed magic and unsettling worlds with consequences in these stories are almost as fascinating as the man himself. If you enjoy Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, complete your trio of Old Weird and know this author. The romantic of the weird trinity. His tales have a more emotional indulgence than Lovecraft and lack the machismo of Howard. Whereas Lovecraft excels in the cold distance of alien minds, Ashton Smith seemed to revel in the nuances of the emotional ramifications meetings with the supernatural and alien would result in.
November 13, 2018
So, as a horror story, I'd give this 2 stars. However, as a humorous sketch, I enjoyed it (entirely not in the intended spirit), so I gave it 3 stars for that reason. Probably a different writer could have made the march of dismembered body parts horrific, but I'd still have to wonder why . Conveniently, this was just enough time for the living brother to hire a translator to come into the house just in time to witness the end. Works great as comedy: "What? No. I can't kill you yet! There are no witnesses!"
July 6, 2022
On the cover of the book, Gene Wolfe's famous words have been quoted, which begin with, "No one imitates Smith."
I agree. It’s difficult if not outright impossible to find out someone writing in such sensuously fantastic manner.
This book contains some of the finest specimens of Smith's fantastic fantasies.
It would be difficult to try to shortlist some of my favourites here. All that I can say is, these eighteen short stories and novellas cover a vast territory. They talk about adventure, fate, destiny, pathos, love and vengeance. But above all, they are grimply poetic, adding a dimension to fantasy that's very rare and very-very special.
Recommended.
I agree. It’s difficult if not outright impossible to find out someone writing in such sensuously fantastic manner.
This book contains some of the finest specimens of Smith's fantastic fantasies.
It would be difficult to try to shortlist some of my favourites here. All that I can say is, these eighteen short stories and novellas cover a vast territory. They talk about adventure, fate, destiny, pathos, love and vengeance. But above all, they are grimply poetic, adding a dimension to fantasy that's very rare and very-very special.
Recommended.
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