From the Bookshelf of Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"…
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February - March Groupreads - Anthologies
By Stephen · 11 posts · 41 views
By Stephen · 11 posts · 41 views
last updated Mar 27, 2023 09:03PM
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By Stephen · 30 posts · 54 views
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What Members Thought
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
Smith's prose is, as always, elegant and bejeweled.
Favorite stories ...more
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
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
Jun 24, 2009
Jim Kuenzli
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
horror-macabre-dark
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