This review originally appeared on Goodreads on December 29, 2016.

Elak of Atlantis: Four Stories

By Henry Kuttner – Diversion Books – July 29, 2014

Review by Robin Marx

The four stories contained in this book were entertaining, but a mixed bag.

The two longest stories, “Thunder in the Dawn” and “Dragon Moon” felt a bit unfocused, with extended, almost psychedelic interludes that reminded me of C. L. Moore's (Kuttner's wife) “Black God's Kiss.” Unfortunately, this aspect of Kuttner's stories compare unfavorably to Moore's.

“The Spawn of Dagon” was the shortest story in the book, but also the most interesting. Elak and his erstwhile companion the perpetually drunk Lycon accept what appears to be a relatively straightforward mission to assassinate a sorcerer. Without giving too much away, there's an interesting twist towards the end and the two heroes find themselves in a tense situation. While Robert E. Howard's “The Tower of the Elephant” is my usual go-to, this would also be a good example of a story to introduce Sword & Sorcery to someone unfamiliar with the subgenre.

While the afore-mentioned Lycon and an ugly, rotund druid named Dalan captured my interest, Elak himself was a bit bland as a character. He's of a royal bloodline, with no interest in ruling. There are hints that he had a falling out with his father, but it wasn't expanded upon. His weapon of choice is a rapier, which is an uncommon choice for a Sword & Sorcery hero. Apart from that, Lycon and Dalan seemed more vividly rendered than the titular hero.

While I don't feel like I wasted my time with this book, the bulk of the stories were fairly forgettable. Moore's Jirel of Joiry was a lot more compelling than her husband's creation.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #Fantasy #HenryKuttner #ElakOfAtlantis

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on December 25, 2018.

Men of Bronze

By Scott Oden – Medallion Press – January 1, 2005

Review by Robin Marx

This action-packed historical fiction book is about Barca, a rage-filled mercenary working in the service of the Pharaoh and entrusted with protecting Egypt from encroaching Greeks and Persians. It reads a great deal like the swashbuckling historicals of Robert E. Howard and Harold Lamb, so fans of the action pulp tradition will find a lot to like here.

Characters are sketched in broad strokes, but the main ones are given enough nuance to keep them from seeming shallow. The pacing is brisk throughout, and the ancient Egyptian setting adds flavor without getting bogged down in minutiae.

While fans of Robert E. Howard or ancient battle action in general are likely to enjoy this book, the ending seemed ridiculously abrupt to me. The climactic battle itself was vivid and exciting, but it would have been nice if a little more time was spent on the conclusion to Barca's tale and the aftermath. The ending isn't bad, per se, just rushed. That being said, I'd be happy to read other books by the author.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Literature #HistoricalFiction #Adventure #MenOfBronze #ScottOden

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on March 12, 2013.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

By Steve Jackson – Puffin – 1982

Review by Robin Marx

I was a big fan of the Lone Wolf and TSR's Endless Quest books back when I was in elementary school, but it was only recently that I encountered Britain's venerable Fighting Fantasy series. It's very much a product of its time, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Like Lone Wolf, these game books pair Choose Your Own Adventure style interactivity with a simple conflict resolution system. It requires the use of six-sided dice, unlike Lone Wolf (which uses a pencil and a printed grid in the book as its randomizer), but it's clever and gets the job done.

As a game book it's fairly fun, but I found the maze towards the end a little tedious, as mazes in text-based games always are. After several failed play-throughs I ended up using a map found online to get through it.

The story itself is pretty sparse, basically a beginning and ending with many unconnected vignettes in between. This is par for the course with Dungeons & Dragons-inspired cave-crawling, where you're never sure what's in the next room and not much of an effort was made to come up with a unifying theme or sensible ecology. I grew up with this sort of thing, so I find it charming, but modern readers without this background might not understand the appeal.

I look forward to playing through subsequent volumes.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Fantasy #InteractiveFiction #FightingFantasy #SteveJackson #TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on November 6, 2012.

The Collected Fiction, Vol. 2: The House on the Borderland and Other Works

By William Hope Hodgson – Night Shade Books – October 10, 2002

Review by Robin Marx

This second volume in Night Shade Books' excellent Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson contains The House on the Borderland, all of the “Carnacki, the Ghost Finder” tales, and some miscellaneous short stories. While the book begins on a very strong note, it loses steam towards the end

While I prefer The Night Land and The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', The House on the Borderland is an incredibly atmospheric work of weird horror. It chronicles the bizarre events experienced by a so-called “Recluse” living in an isolated home in Ireland. While there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason behind the supernatural incidents he experiences, they remain engrossing and filled with tension. Hodgson must have had a fear of pigs, as the “swine-things” that terrorize the Recluse are very effectively (and disturbingly!) rendered.

The “Carnacki, the Ghost Finder” stories are a much more conventional form of horror, but still fascinating. They take the form of what the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction editor John Clute calls a “club story.” Basically Carnacki, an Edwardian gentlemen, invites his (probably tweedy and pipe-smoking) friends over to his house to tell them of his encounters with ghosts and psychic phenomena. All of the stories share this framing device, but it didn't become monotonous.

The Carnacki stories were an interesting mix of traditional ghost stories with something closer to the type of otherworldly horror that Lovecraft would later popularize. While they're referred to as “ghosts”, these hauntings tend towards psychic phantasms and poltergeists more than conventional apparitions. Hodgson's terrifying swine make another welcome appearance in the delightfully creepy story “The Hog.” I liked that Hodgson mixed a few hoax stories in with the “authentic” haunts. Another reviewer said those stories had “Scooby Doo endings,” but I think that's a little too dismissive. The fakes were just as interesting as the supernatural stories

Unfortunately, the last portion of the book is fairly weak. The remaining stories don't have any particular theme to tie them together, and even the tales of the sea—Hodgson's specialty—included here are pretty unexceptional. The stories included in the first collected volume were all pretty great, perhaps some of those should have been reserved for this second book.

Weak conclusion aside, this book is still worthy of a place on weird fiction fans' bookshelves. Hopefully Night Shade Books will continue to champion overlooked classics like this.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #CarnackiTheGhostFinder #TheHouseOnTheBorderland #WilliamHopeHodgson

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on August 17, 2016.

The Door to Saturn

By Clark Ashton Smith – Night Shade Books – June 1, 2007

Review by Robin Marx

[The Door to Saturn] Part of CAS' Hyperborean cycle, “The Door to Saturn” has an interesting premise. A party of inquisitors storm the wizard Eibon's tower, hoping to bring him to justice for heresy. Eibon has a contingency plan, however, and a magic panel presented to him from his otherworldly patron Zhothaqquah to escape to Cykranosh (Saturn). The chief inquisitor Morghi discovers the trick and follows Eibon. They discover that the planet isn't especially hospital to human life, and they put aside their differences in an effort to survive their incomprehensible new environment. While more event- and locale-driven than plot-driven, the pair have an amusing adventure that reads very much like the kind of tale that Jack Vance would later write.

[The Red World of Polaris] This story is a straight science fiction tale, with a ship of explorers pulled down to the surface of a planet orbiting Polaris after drifting too close. They encounter aliens who have replaced their bodies with mechanical shells, and their hosts are homicidally offended when the humans rebuff their offer for a similar “upgrade.” While a lot happens in this story, apart from some vivid description there isn't much of interest here. Like “The Door to Saturn,” it's another story about characters trapped in a strange land, but it lacks the humor and whimsy of the previous tale.

[Told in the Desert] This story returns to one of Clark Ashton Smith's favorite themes: loss. A desert wanderer tells his camp-mates about his chance discovery of an isolated oasis and the charming young woman he romanced there. A callow individual, he takes his simple lifestyle and devoted paramour for granted and leaves the oasis. He realizes his mistake too late, and wanders the deserts searching in vain for the oasis. There aren't any big surprises in this story, but it's a simple fable well told.

[The Willow Landscape] While the previous story had an Arabian setting, this one takes place in ancient China. It involves an art collecting courtier who has fallen on hard times. He supports himself and his much younger brother by selling off pieces of his collection, until he eventually has to part with his absolute favorite piece, a wall scroll depicting a idyllic glen with a rustic hut, and arched bridge, and a small figure of a beautiful woman. The new owner—a fat man who, refreshingly, is not depicted as greedy or cruel—graciously allows the impoverished courtier one last night with the painting. He is rewarded for his love and devotion over the years by a mysterious voice who welcomes him into the world of the scroll, where he lives happily ever after with the maiden in the painting. As an art lover, I enjoyed this story a great deal. It seemed a bit like a reversal of Pygmalion, both feature protagonists who are rewarded for their devotion to a work of art, but instead of Galatea becoming flesh and joining Pygmalion as his wife, the courtier (whose “heart is native here but alien to all the world beside”) is absorbed into the art. This is a beautiful, charming story.

[A Rendezvous in Averoigne] This story is a classic, but probably more for the prose than the plot. It's a nice vampire story, but there's not much in the way of dramatic tension. The protagonist finds himself in a creepy, atmospheric situation, but it's resolved pretty smoothly, all things considered. Everything goes according to plan with the vampire-slaying, and I can't help but think the story would be stronger if there had been more obstacles or setbacks along the way. Still, the story is beautifully told.

[The Gorgon] This story about the caretaker of Medusa's head could easily have been written by Lovecraft or Clive Barker. There aren't any major twists or reveals, but it has a nice creepy tone.

[An Offering to the Moon] This story didn't work too well for me. The core premise, of an archaeologist basically going native and attacking a colleague while investigating an ancient sacrificial site, had promise, but the framing could have been better.

[The Kiss of Zoraida] I tend to like CAS' Arabian Nights-style stories, and while straightforward this is an effectively-written story of a jealous husband's revenge.

[The Face by the River] Not particularly notable or memorable.

[The Ghoul] Another Arabian Nights tale, this one is clever take on the theme of an average person burdened with a horrible task by a monster. Darkly poignant.

[The Tale of Sir John Maundeville] This story about a valiant knight starts off in an exciting and atmospheric manner, but the ending is absurdly anti-climactic. A literal conqueror worm king imprisons the knight for trespassing into the kingdom of the dead and...wordlessly, peacefully releases him after a reasonable period of incarceration. I would have liked to read Robert E. Howard's take on this premise, he would've given it a much worthier ending for sure.

[An Adventure in Futurity] While involving time instead of space travel, the second half of this story is almost a retelling of “The Red World of Polaris,” with an advanced society being overthrown by a slave uprising combined with biological warfare. I found it hard to summon up much sympathy for the future humans, given that they kept slaves in the first place. This story also felt entirely too long compared to “Polaris.”

[The Justice of the Elephant] While set in India, this story has a similar flavor to the Arabian Nights-style. This story makes an interesting pair with “The Kiss of Zoraida,” as it's the lover who gets revenge on the murderous cuckolded husband. That he makes use of the very same “weapon” used to kill the executed wife adds a nice symmetry.

[The Return of the Sorcerer] This story, with a secretary hired to assist a reclusive and harried-looking occultist, starts off quite a bit like “The Devotee of Evil” from Volume 1. Fortunately, it takes a wildly divergent path after the initial setup is established and culminates in a grisly ending that Edgar Allan Poe would have greatly appreciated.

[The City of the Singing Flame] This tale inspires more questions than it answers. It's framed as an “abandoned diary” from a vanished colleague so it's easy to guess the narrator's fate, but the mysterious otherworld is described in an extremely compelling manner.

[A Good Embalmer] It's easy to predict where this story is headed after the opening paragraphs, but this story stands out as one of the more obviously humorous of CAS' tales.

[The Testament of Athammaus] An executioner deals with a monstrous criminal that refuses to stay dead. This story has an interesting premise and some creepy exposition, but otherwise doesn't stand out too much.

[The Amazing Planet] This is an unusually action-packed story for CAS. Mistaken for animals, a pair of space explorers are captured by aliens and put on display at a zoo. Unable to communicate through any means but violence, the pair escape their cage and kill waves and waves of aliens until they're recaptured and shot back into space in the direction of the initial planet. The story has an interesting, desperate premise, but the execution doesn't quite live up to it.

[The Letter from Mohaun Los] I'd grown a bit tired of time travel stories by the time this one appeared, but this one had an interesting twist. The universe is always in motion, so if you travel far enough forward or backward in time you can't count on remaining in the same spot. As a result, the protagonist ends up traveling not just through time, but into outer space and even to other planets. He and his stereotypical Chinese servant encounter a variety of strange societies, make an alien friend, and end up settling in the far future. One repeating theme in CAS' fiction seems to be that you can't go home again. When protagonists journey to strange lands, they usually stay there permanently, either voluntarily or otherwise.

[The Hunters from Beyond] While more than a bit reminiscent of Lovecraft's “Pickman's Model” (something CAS readily admitted himself), this is a fun, creepy story to end off the volume with. After glimpsing an otherworldly monster, a struggling writer of weird fiction visits a sculptor cousin who regularly summons these creatures and uses them as inspiration for his art. The resulting plot doesn't have much in the way of surprises, but it's evocatively told.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #Fantasy #ClarkAshtonSmith #TheDoorToSaturn

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on March 5, 2019.

Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence

By David Benatar – Oxford University Press – October 19, 2006

Review by Robin Marx

Compared to a state of non-existence, coming into existence is always a net harm. The pains and discomforts of life outweigh the pleasures, despite cognitive biases that lead people to emphasize the positive and downplay the (often pretty ubiquitous) negative. Procreating leads to an increase in harm in the world by creating a new sufferer, one incapable of consenting to existence. The extinction of sentient life is a goal to strive for, and sooner rather than later. Individual suicide isn't a good option, however, as it harms those left behind.

When presented with these arguments, people tend to react against them reflexively and quite viscerally. “Was sentient life a mistake?” is sort of a heavy question, and one that involves everyone alive in the world. While Benatar's anti-natalist thesis is a bleak one, his arguments are made in a patient, systematic, and persuasive manner.

While I am open to contrary arguments, I found it difficult to poke holes in Benatar's philosophy myself and appreciated (this is not a book to be “enjoyed”) the food-for-thought.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Nonfiction #Philosophy #BetterNeverToHaveBeen #DavidBenatar

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 4, 2012.

Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy

By Dennis Detwiller – Armitage House – March 1, 2004

Review by Robin Marx

This was an interesting book, but it has some issues. As a game tie-in it's not very friendly to newcomers, the main plot isn't as exciting as an early subplot, and it over-promises for such a slender volume. That being said, I enjoyed what Detwiller tried to accomplish, and both the beginning and ending were quite strong.

This book is for established fans only. This book is billed as “A Cthulhu Mythos Novel of World War II,” and familiarity with the work of H.P. Lovecraft (particularly his Mythos stories “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” and “The Shadow Out of Time”) are effectively required to comprehend this story. Some knowledge of the Delta Green campaign setting for the Lovecraft-inspired Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game is also advisable if you want to get the most enjoyment out of the story.

After a cryptic prologue about an aged military officer contemplating suicide, the story gets very interesting, very quick. We're introduced to a member of the Ahnenerbe, a (historical) Nazi organization dedicated to occult study. It soon becomes clear that he's been left disaffected and not a little mentally unstable by his studies, and that he's just biding his time until he can defect to the Allies and throw a monkey wrench in the Axis's literal scorched earth strategy. The narrative takes him to a coastal town in occupied France, where he becomes an unwilling bystander to the Ahnenerbe's efforts to broker an alliance with the Deep Ones, mutant fish-men introduced in Lovecraft's “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” The close encounters with the Deep Ones are very creepy and obliquely written, Detwiller does an excellent job portraying the characters' sanity leach away through close proximity with the unknowable. Here we had unhinged (yet sympathetic) people committing atrocities to curry favor with disturbing allies; this was the peak of the book for me, it's a shame it came so early.

Unfortunately, the Deep Ones section of the book comes to an abrupt end as the books' true protagonists arrive on the scene: Delta Green, a subdivision of the OSS tasked to deal with supernatural threats. The story to follow is still fun—particularly if you enjoy Delta Green—but after such an atmospheric build-up it felt like a vaguely disappointing bait-and-switch. The story's true antagonists are somewhat undefined, and the primary plot twist towards the end seemed poorly foreshadowed, with baffling motivations.

In the end, the story ends up being a Call of Cthulhu story set during World War II, rather than a “Cthulhu Mythos novel of World War II”. There are two slight distinctions here. One is that readers hoping for an grand reveal of the occult side of World War II will be disappointed; this book is nowhere near that epic in scope. The second distinction is that—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the origins of the Delta Green property—Denied to the Enemy leans more towards the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game's interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos than Lovecraft. I counted about five different creature types appearing over the course of the story, while most literary Mythos authors tend to limit themselves to one or two. While monster-spotting is sort of fun for RPG fans, some of the cameos were a little gratuitous, like attempts at fan service. (Don't have the Tcho-Tchos show up if you're not going to do anything with them!)

If you're already a Delta Green fan, by all means give this book a shot. But if you're not, this book won't turn you into one.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #CosmicHorror #CthulhuMythos #HPLovecraft #DeltaGreen #DeniedToTheEnemy #DennisDetwiller

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on January 4, 2018.

The Collected Fiction, Vol. 3: The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea

By William Hope Hodgson – Night Shade Books – August 1, 2005

Review by Robin Marx

The third entry in Night Shade Books' series of superb William Hope Hodgson collections, this installment collects his novel The Ghost Pirates and 28 other sea-based stories. The stories are a mix of weird tales, mysteries, slice of life tales, and pulpy adventures.

The Ghost Pirates

As with his other ship-bound novel The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', Hodgson makes excellent use of his experience as a sailor, serving up an atmospheric ghost story. Apart from the nautical theme, however, The Ghost Pirates is a very different novel from The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', and in some ways an inferior one.

The highlights of this book are without a doubt the dialogue and the atmosphere. The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' lacked any spoken dialogue, so its inclusion here is a nice change. The jargon-sprinkled sea salt conversations are at times hard to follow, but they feel authentic and flavorful. Some reviewers bemoan the lack of a glossary of nautical terms—Hodgson doesn't go to any effort to explain capstans and binnacles to the reader—but I didn't feel as if missing out on a word here or there impacted my enjoyment of the overall story.

While the plot itself is quite sleight (a characteristic shared by all of the Hodgson novels I've read to date), its execution is well done. Hodgson was a master of atmosphere, setting up a number of strange occurrences that gradually build into a tense, unnerving scenario.

I enjoyed The Ghost Pirates, but I think I would've liked it better had I read it before The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', rather than afterward. 'Glen Carrig' is filled with such bizarre fever dream imagery that the spirits of the dead, however spooky, seem rather conventional by comparison. That being said, The Ghost Pirates is an interesting traditional ghost story, and well told.

... and Other Revenants of the Sea

Making up the bulk of the book, the short stories that follow The Ghost Pirates are, inevitably, a mixed bag in terms of quality, but as a Hodgson enthusiast I appreciated the inclusion of even the lesser works (the posthumously published “Old Golly,” or “We murdered a black sailor because he was black and maybe he's haunting us now?”). The best of the stories are quite good, and the vast majority of them are at least interesting.

Fans of Hodgson's supernatural fiction will find a lot to like here. There are sea serpents, a were-shark, derelict ships overrun with carnivorous fungi and other bizarre horrors, fish men, even a ship made of stone.

The more conventional stories were also fascinating, however. “The Sharks of the St. Elmo” is a particularly tense story about a becalmed ship surrounded by thousands of thrashing sharks as far as the eye can see. The narrator finds himself pushed into a leadership role as the captain and First Mate drink themselves senseless and the crew begin searching about for a “Jonah,” a cursed shipmate who must be disposed of lest he damn the rest of the men. Jonahs are a recurring topic in many of the included stories.

Shipboard bullying is another recurring theme in this collection of stories. I suspect it's telling that, despite his prior career as a sailor, Hodgson refused a position in the Royal Navy when he enlisted in the first World War. Some of the brawlers featured here are presented in a favorable light (e.g., the eponymous “Jack Grey, Second Mate” is a badass who would be at home in a Robert E. Howard yarn), but most of the time they're vicious, drunk foes to be bested by the protagonists. “We Two and Bully Dunkan” is a clever shipboard heist in which two sailors get their revenge against their tormentors. Like a Boys' Life Magazine story gone horribly wrong, “The 'Prentices' Mutiny” is a harrowing tale of a ship's youngest crew members under siege by bullying shipmates turned murderous.

While I consider The Ghost Pirates to be the weakest of Hodgson's novels, it's still a worthwhile read, and the more than two dozen nautical stories that accompany it make this volume a particularly appealing package.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #NauticalFiction #TheGhostPirates #WilliamHopeHodgson

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 14, 2017.

Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys

By Lol Tolhurst – Da Capo – September 22, 2016

Review by Robin Marx

The first half of the book, describing how three friends came together to form a band in a dead-end English suburb, is the strongest. During the years covered in the second half Tolhurst's alcoholism led to blackouts and memory loss, with the result that he seemed to have few anecdotes to relate for some of The Cure's most vibrant years.

The passages involving Robert Smith seemed mostly tentative, as if Tolhurst was worried about damaging his recent reconciliation with Smith by writing anything less than glowing. This was a nice story, gently told, but fans hoping for detailed insight into the inner workings of The Cure are likely to be disappointed.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Nonfiction #CuredTheTaleOfTwoImaginaryBoys #LolTolhurst

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 26, 2015.

The End of the Story

Edited by Clark Ashton Smith – Night Shade Books – September 1, 2006

Review by Robin Marx

[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 Insects from Shaggai, and Y'Golonac. I agree that CAS has fantastic, evocative titles. Campbell also touches on the fact that CAS created and revisited a number of distinct fantasy worlds in his fiction, including the Hyperborea (a pre-Ice Age setting), Poseidonis (remnants of Atlantis), Averoigne (based on medieval France), and Zothique (far, far future, as the Earth gradually dies).

[To the Daemon] This is more of a prose poem than a story, but I like how packed it is with strange imagery (“eyeless titans,” “beings that wander in the green light of the twin suns of azure and orange”). In the Introduction Campbell suggests that it might be Smith talking to his writerly muse, asking this “daemon” to tell him stories, but to me it feels more like a bored sorcerer or aristocrat demanding entertainment from a literal summoned demon. It also reminds me of this famous bit from the very first Conan story by Robert E. Howard, “The Phoenix on the Sword” (also paraphrased at the beginning of the Conan the Barbarian movie):

“KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

Both passages manage to pack a lot of exciting and mysterious imagery into just a wee bit of text.

[The Abominations of Yondo] While one of CAS's early stories, this one in particular stuck with me for the decades since I first read it. The plot is a bit sleight, and it's more of a string of events that happen to the narrator than a plot with a beginning, middle, and end, but I like it.

So much of modern fantasy places an undue emphasis on world-building, where the author conceives and documents everything about his setting in advance and details everything down to the lineage of the last rural goat farmer. Tolkien and the Star Wars Expanded Universe are two major examples of this. While that's a perfectly valid approach and one beloved by geek fans (in my experience especially “right-brain” engineer types who value internal consistency above all else) who want to immerse themselves in ultra-detailed fantasy worlds, it's not the One True Way to go about things in fantasy & SF. In this story CAS hints about so much, without really revealing anything. The result is a lot of appealing mysterious imagery. Remember in Star Wars how cool and intriguing the “Clone Wars” and Jedi sounded? Until you found out how dull the Clone Wars really were, and that Jedi powers are powered by Midichlorians? CAS doesn't mess around with all that. He MIGHT have planned the background out in great detail (I kinda doubt it, though), but he doesn't tip his hand to the readers. He reveals enough to make you intrigued, but continues on with the story. Who are the Inquisitors of Ong and why did they torture the narrator? Why is the world so devastated? Who knows. The reader is left to fill in the blanks by himself. You see this a lot in old school sword & sorcery fiction (“Remember that time we were almost killed by the Winged Men of Xarn?”) and I dig it. I prefer evocative and tantalizing hints over info-dump exposition.

It's interesting to note that the chuckling bat-faced nine-legged monster that emerges from the cave in this story has been statted up in Call of Cthulhu. It's not given a name by Clark Ashton Smith, but the CoC writers call it a Wamp and say it lives in Lovecraft's Dreamlands. There have been a number of other cases where I've read about a cool monster in Call of Cthulhu, only to read the original Mythos story and find out that the monster in question only shows up for a paragraph, or is just mentioned in passing in a “I heard from a guy who heard from a guy that this monster exists” way. It's kind of funny. I love Call of Cthulhu, but it has kind of a funny Pokémon-style “Gotta catch 'em all!” Pokédex take on quantifying and categorizing Mythos creatures.

It's a little thing, but the big image from this story that has always stuck with me is the screaming half-buried statue of the naked woman. I don't have anything particularly profound to say about this passage, but it creeped me out when I first read it, and it still stands out to me today. It reminds me a bit of the Elric stories, where the Sorcerers of Pan-Tang turn enemies into living, wailing statues.

I also like the last line of the story, where the narrator flees back past all the horrors he's seen, into the waiting arms of the Inquisitors of Ong. Did they release him in Yondo as a death sentence? Were they hoping he'd see something in particular? Was this exile to Yondo just another form of torture (perhaps the likeliest explanation to me)? We can only speculate.

[Sadastor] This is a story told by a demon to cheer up a lamia, which is a premise I find delightful.

To me, the main theme of this story is loss, which is something that shows up frequently in CAS's work a lot. Beautiful things are always rotting, temples and empires are falling to pieces, continents sink, and even whole planets die. This focus is probably only natural, though, as Smith was a fan of Romantic poetry and even categorized with his collages as a “West Coast Romantic.” (It might not be a coincidence that a lamia shows up in this story, too, as Romantic poet John Keats famously wrote a poem called “Lamia.”)

As an aside, I like the fact that the demon Charnadis physically flies through space, including into the atmospheres of Neptune and Jupiter. I like how it brazenly defies the laws of physics, with no attempt at providing a pseudo-scientific explanation. I think I first encountered this with the unnamed flying creatures from HPL's “The Festival” (they came to become known as Byakhee), and it's always appealed to me. Unless I'm mistaken, even in CAS's time they knew it was impossible for muscle-powered flight to work in a vacuum, but it's both a cool mental image and a quick way to show that normal human rules about How Things Are do not apply.

[The Ninth Skeleton] Despite mention of a girl named Guenevere, this story takes place in contemporary California, near Auburn (the town in which the real CAS lived). After the past few stories it was a little jarring to see the author turn his same extremely descriptive gaze to California forests rather than alien landscapes.

While there are some nice creepy bits, overall this story fell flat with me. Why are skeletons wandering through the forest carrying infants? Mystery a la “Abominations of Yondo” is one thing, but here it felt too cryptic and obscure. And while It might not have been so played out when the story was written in the 1930s, the ending felt like the “It was all a dream, or was it?” trope.

[The Last Incantation] While “The Ninth Skeleton” was a bit bland, “The Last Incantation” is another one of CAS's best, and a story that has stuck with me for decades. The beginning creates an extremely vivid scene of a wizard's sanctuary, and “Malygris” is a particularly delicious name for a magician. I believe this might also be the first story explicitly set in Hyperborea. Anyway, the ending is classic; Malygris discovers that with all his power, he can't bring back the magic of young love. Again we see the recurring theme of loss in Smith's work. I also suspect it's not a coincidence that Malygris' demon familiar takes the form of a snake; like the serpent in Eden he harbors more knowledge than the protagonist.

[The End of the Story] I think this is the first Averoigne story. While the fairly conventional setting of Averoigne doesn't capture my imagination as much as Zothique or Hyperborea, it still has an interesting atmosphere. The story itself is pretty straightforward, without any major surprises, but the lush, sensual presentation of Nycea appeals. Unlike Lovecraft, Smith was fond of including sexual temptation as an element in his work, and I never get tired of femmes fatale.

[The Phantoms of the Fire] This is kind of a clunky, banal story. It's frequently embarrassing when authors attempt to emulate regional dialects; it was clunky in Lovecraft (e.g., “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”), and it's awkward here, too. The foreshadowing is heavy-handed and the protagonist lacking in sympathetic qualities. About the only redeeming quality is some elegant description of the scenery.

[A Night in Malneant] While the ending is a bit predictable bit light on plot, this story is heavy on atmosphere. It reminds me a bit of Silent Hill 2, with the narrator trapped in a hell that reflects his mental state.

[The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake] One of CAS's lesser works. I found the ending more confusing than mysterious.

[Thirteen Phantasms] I noticed that the name of the protagonist, Alvington, is a bit similar to “Avilton” from the previous story. The plot itself reminds me a bit of “The Ninth Skeleton,” as it basically relates a brief encounter with the supernatural. It feels like Smith is emulating Poe with this story.

[The Venus of Azombeii] I found this story to be pretty exciting. It has sort of a “Lost World” pulp adventure feel, and despite being published circa 1931 the African characters are presented more fairly than in much of the fiction of the time. Despite being idealized to a certain extent, Mybaloe is a strong and appealing character who is given more to do than just be a passive object of admiration. The final paragraph is pretty brutal.

[The Tale of Satampra Zeiros] Like “The Last Incantation,” this Hyperborea story is another example of Smith at his best (Lovecraft especially liked this story as well). In terms of the Mythos, this story introduces Tsathoggua and the monster named the “Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua” in the Call of Cthulhu RPG. As usual, Smith's invented names (Satampra Zeiros, Tirouv Ompallios, Cunambria) are flavorful and charming. While it takes a turn towards the horrific, the first half of the story has a great picaresque feel, with charming dialogue (e.g., the two thieves deciding whether or not to buy food or alcohol with their remaining coin) and a droll voice. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance were influenced by this tale in particular.

The relentless stalking of the amorphous creature from the temple was exciting. In a lot of Mythos tales, the story would end—in insanity or death—abruptly after its first appearance, but Smith doesn't let his characters off that easily. The “every man for himself” finale and jaunty farewells make me smile.

[The Monster of the Prophecy] One of the lengthier stories in this volume, it involves an unsuccessful poet being taken to a planet orbiting Antares, where he lives a brief life of pampered luxury before the dominating regime collapses and he finds himself fleeing for his life. The spacecraft, setting, and the aliens described are all extremely imaginative. (Science fiction was more fun before it was codified by realism-fetishists like John W. Campbell.) This story feels a bit like Edgar Rice Burrough's planetary romances, minus the protagonists super-competence. I also liked that the poet continues to make the best of his life in space, rather than slink back to Earth in defeat.

[The Metamorphosis of the World] Scientists investigate strange and sudden changes in the environment, with the Sahara and other locales undergoing bizarre, life-threatening metamorphoses. As the story progresses they learn that Venusians are “terraforming” the planet, transforming it to suit their habitational needs ahead of their impending invasion. Maybe I haven't read enough classic SF, but the premise felt extremely novel to me; I've read plenty of stories where aliens invade, but this was the first I can recall where they take steps to make the planet more like their own home. I was also a bit taken aback by the grimness of the tone. Nearly all of the characters featured in the story die horrible, agonizing deaths. The story ends 20 years after the start of the invasion, and while mankind has put up a valiant fight and gained some powerful weapons, their victory is still far from assured. Pretty bleak stuff.

[The Epiphany of Death] Short and fairly insubstantial, but atmospherically written.

[A Murder in the Fourth Dimension] This story reads like a minor episode of the Twilight Zone, complete with ironic comeuppance. The romantic conflict at the beginning could have been developed further; as it stands, the narrator just seems petty. The story has an interesting premise, though, and a spooky conclusion.

[The Devotee of Evil] This is another story that relies more on atmosphere and prose than plotting. Much like “loss,” genius characters done in by their own hubris is a frequently recurring theme in CAS's work.

[The Satyr] The appendix of the book has an alternate ending for this story, but the one included with the story itself is far superior. The forest in Averoigne is beautifully described, and the supernatural elements are surprisingly subtle and incidental to the story itself.

[The Planet of the Dead] An interesting portrayal of romance on a dying planet. This story feels like one of those crushing dreams where you experience a perfect love, only to be wrenched back to reality. The way the protagonist is drawn into space through his telescope again reminds me of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom, where John Carter basically teleports to Mars.

[The Uncharted Isle] Brief but creepy. Not only does the narrator find himself on a bizarre isle seemingly removed from time, the fact that the other inhabitants can't perceive him makes his plight feel so much more desperate. This story reminds me of William Hope Hodgson's spooky nautical tales.

[Marooned in Andromeda] SF tales of characters being stranded on dangerous planets are common, but this is the first I've seen that has mutineers intentionally marooned in space. The story that follows is a bit formulaic for CAS (“characters journey through strange terrain” is a theme that pops up again and again), and the “all is forgiven” ending seemed a bit pat, but this was still an engrossing adventure tale.

[The Root of Ampoi] In some ways, this story felt like the opposite of “The Venus of Azombei.” Like that story, the protagonist finds himself in a lost world and romances a tribal queen. But rather than have his idyllic days spoiled by a jealous interloper, he spoils his own paradise out of a sexist desire to “assume his rightful place as a man” and dominate his giant bride. The climax, where Knox is bodily cast out from village society, is effective, but I felt the story could have benefited from some final reflection by the main character on his actions.

[The Necromantic Tale] The ending is probably a bit predictable to modern readers, but this is still an entertaining read in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe.

[The Immeasurable Horror] Another brutal SF tale. If you journey into Smith's version of space you're almost guaranteed a horrible fate. The narrator survives, but endures horrific injuries and mental scars. An interesting example of horrific SF, but by this point in the book it felt a little over-long.

[A Voyage of Sfanomoe] This tale is a sort of counterpoint to “The Immeasurable Horror.” Two genius scientist brothers from the dying realm of Poseidonis build a spherical spaceship and journey to Venus/Sfanomoe in an attempt to avoid perishing along with their society. This being a CAS story, the brothers die nearly immediately after their arrival, but they're extinguished in such a wonderful, painless, exhilarating way that this reader actually felt joy. The last Atlanteans dissolve into beautiful Venusian flowers, effectively being embraced and absorbed into their new home. And that's not such a bad way for two old men to go, is it?

[Concluding Thoughts] While there are some definite hits and misses in this collection, the breadth of CAS' imagination is astonishing. Even the lesser stories are eloquently written, and the better tales (“Abomination of Yondo,” “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros,” “The Last Incantation”) are among the best the fantasy genre has ever seen. Just this one volume would be a powerful retrospective of an author's career; the fact that no fewer than four volumes follow in this Collected Fantasies series is nothing short of amazing. Clark Ashton Smith is a giant, and every fantasy fan should explore his work.

★★★★★

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