The End of the Story in Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

Jan 22, 2012 Joseph rated it it was amazing

This is the first of a five-volume set from Night Shade Press collecting all of Clark Ashton Smith's short fiction, arranged by order of composition; I'd already read probably 75-80% of the stories contained herein, but these are probably the closest we'll ever get to a definitive Clark Ashton Smith collection -- they went back, as much as possible, to original manuscripts and any corrections or emendations that he had made.

CAS was one of the Big Three of Weird Tales (the other two being H.P. Lo This is the first of a five-volume set from Night Shade Press collecting all of Clark Ashton Smith's short fiction, arranged by order of composition; I'd already read probably 75-80% of the stories contained herein, but these are probably the closest we'll ever get to a definitive Clark Ashton Smith collection -- they went back, as much as possible, to original manuscripts and any corrections or emendations that he had made.

CAS was one of the Big Three of Weird Tales (the other two being H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard). He came to weird fiction from a different direction -- he was a Californian and a poet. His stories, if simply described, aren't anything too out-of-the-ordinary, but his prose is rich and strange. Here's the opening paragraph of the very first piece, "The Abominations of Yondo":

The sand of the desert of Yondo is not as the sand of other deserts; for Yondo lies nearest of all to the world's rim; and strange winds, blowing from a pit no astronomer may hope to fathom, have sown its ruinous fields with the gray dust of corroding planets, the black ashes of extinguished suns. The dark, orblike mountains which rise from its wrinkled and pitted plain are not all its own, for some are fallen asteroids half-buried in that abysmal sand. Things have crept in from nether space, whose incursion is forbid by the gods of all proper and well-ordered lands; but there are no such gods in Yondo, where live the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells.

That should give a good idea of what you're in for. Me, I was captivated. Were all of the stories worth five stars? No -- as always in a collection of this sort, it's going to be a bit of a mixed bag. My personal favorites are the ones set as far from modern times as possible -- there are early stories in here of Poseidonis (the last outpost of foundering Atlantis) and Hyperborea (a lost land that predates Atlantis) and Averoigne (an imaginary province of medieval France) and strange planets unknown to Terrene astronomers. My least favorite of the stories are the more conventional tales of contemporary horror, although even then the writing is gorgeous and evocative. ...more

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Mar 25, 2011 Robin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. [Introduction]
The introduction is nice and appropriately respectful of Clark Ashton Smith's legacy, but it won't mean much to new readers not yet familiar with his work. The introduction was written by British horror writer Ramsay Campbell, who along with Robert M. Price and Brian Lumley, is one of the major living figures in modern Lovecraftian horror fiction. Campbell's Lovecraftian creatures have been statted up in Call of Cthulhu, most notably Glaaki (from The Inhabitant of the Lake), the In ...more

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Sep 19, 2015 Nathan Jerpe rated it liked it

Shelves: france, fantasy-classics, 1920s, 1930s, poetry-proem, vegetable-lore, african-interior, sword-and-planet, colossophilia

These are CAS's earliest stories, and they show him still finding his stride.

Highlights for me:
-The Monster of the Prophecy (novelette)

and the Averoigne stories:
-The End of the Story
-A Night in Malneant
-The Satyr

But there is a lot here of historical interest too - CAS's growth as a cosmic poet, and sales records of his stories. There is even one tale which is dedicated to H. P. Lovecraft, and might even feature him as a character. ...more

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