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Joseph
Oct 06, 2012 rated it it was amazing
Zothique is probably my favorite of the settings Clark Ashton Smith used for his stories. The setting: The distant future; all of Earth's continents have merged together into a single supercontinent under an ember-like dying sun. The surviving human kingdoms are decadent and perverse; the deserts are dotted with genii- and lamiae-haunted ruins. Without Zothique, there would be no The Dying Earth and no The Shadow of the Torturer.

Smith's prose is, as always, elegant and bejeweled.

Favorite stories ...more
20 likes ·   · see review
Derek
Jul 15, 2022 rated it liked it
Shelves: dying-earth, ballantine-adult-fantasy, bucket-list
Most of the time Smith doesn't have 'story' in mind. He's creating an extended mood or image playing out like someone panning across a large painting. Sometimes this means a deconstructed story layout that doesn't arc and may not satisfy.

This combines with a writing style that frequently reads like a "do not do" list: colons and semicolons everywhere and sometimes in the same sentence, a precisely-chosen overcomplicated word, and descriptions that go from 'lush' to 'overstuffed'. Lin Carter freq ...more
6 likes ·   · see review
Steven
May 12, 2009 marked it as to-read
Shelves: fantasy, pulps
Jim Kuenzli
Jun 24, 2009 rated it really liked it
Shelves: fantasy, horror-macabre-dark
Richard Byers
Oct 27, 2011 rated it it was amazing
Jeremy Acord
Nov 01, 2011 rated it really liked it
Bruce
Feb 21, 2012 rated it really liked it
Shelves: fantasy
Steven Harbin
Apr 14, 2012 rated it it was amazing
1 like · 
Fletcher Vredenburgh
Jul 08, 2012 rated it it was amazing
3 likes · 
Jason Koivu
Jun 17, 2013 marked it as to-read
Wayne
Jun 20, 2013 rated it it was amazing
David
Oct 10, 2013 marked it as to-read
Shelves: fantasy, literature, horror
1 like · 
Andrew
Feb 02, 2014 marked it as to-read
James
Jun 28, 2014 marked it as to-read
Paul Ballard
Sep 23, 2014 marked it as to-read
Vincent Darlage
Nov 19, 2014 marked it as to-read
John Adkins
Jan 30, 2015 marked it as to-read
Wayne Heinz
Sep 07, 2015 rated it it was amazing
[Name Redacted]
Oct 15, 2017 marked it as to-read
Tri
Sep 03, 2022 marked it as to-read
Jon
Feb 07, 2023 added it
Shelves: appendix-n
C.L. Werner
Jan 07, 2024 marked it as to-read  ·  review of another edition
1 like · 
Carley
Jun 01, 2024 marked it as to-read
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Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

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