Get The Dark Eidolon And Other Fantasies Translated By Clark Ashton Smith Version
just couldn't get into this book no matter how hard i tried, its sat in my bookcase between much better books I'm afraid, This is an unsurpassable and diverse collection of short tales from the master of weird horror, sci fi and fantasy, Less well known than his contemporary and friend, HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smiths prose gleams with originality, humour and wonderfully macabre ideas, The language is mesmerising, the imagery unforgettable, the strange worlds and characters entrancing and beguiling, An absolute masterclass in writing, the author should be widely celebrated than he is, I give this great collection five,planets and a galaxy, His entire literary works are also available from Night Shade Books, but this is an excellent place to start, Sometimes, I think nobody can or could ever write prose like CAS: it is as if someone has dreamed up greatened and overfraught word clusters and dared to ascribe or blame them to a form of depersonalised print I dare no longer even quote them here in case I am blamed for letting them loose cyberspatiallyThe detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is one of its conclusions, Ashton Clarke Smith reminds me a bit of Jack Vance in the way some of his tales have quite an epic scope and he often focuses on a very flawed, roguish character.
One of the main differences is the extremely gloomy outcomes for Smith's protagonists, I'm not really a horror fan I got this because of Gene Wolfe's recommendation, Smith is very inventive and imaginative and I found I enjoyed the creativity of each story for the firstquarters, until something utterly horrible happened and the main character most often gets killed in a very unpleasant way.
Smith revels in the misery of inescapable doom as if he is fixated on staring into a pit of despair he can't tear himself away from, Or perhaps he is desperately trying to convey the very practical moral message that no one should ever play around with demons and magic, I do love his ideas, I just wish his ultimate message for every story wasn't Hell and Death, I can picture him sitting at his writing desk considering how to end his latest hero's adventure before nodding to himself and resolutely returning
to put pen to paper and muttering "No, it's hell for you, my boy" An incredible book blooming with vivid language and escapist stories and poetry.
Practically every story was an absolute joy to read, and the couple that were not absolute joys, remained good, A prime effort by CAS, Penguin and ST Joshi, to present this for us, I loved it. IMO, it was a gateway to a whole universe of CAS and his relationships with other writers in his sphere, Very inspirational. A sublime compliment to HPL, Now for a CAS biography by Joshi,shipping.