Customer Reviews

Lost Worlds, Vol. 1: Zothique, Averoigne and Others

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"None strikes the note of cosmic horror so well as Clark Ashton Smith...a universe of remote and paralysing fright--jungles of poisonous and iridescent blossoms on the moons of Saturn, evil and grotesque temples in Atlantis, Lemuria, and the forgotten elder worlds, and dank morasses of spotted death-fungi in spectral countries beyond earth's rim...Who else has seen such gorgeous, luxuriant, and feverishly distorted visions of infinite spheres and multiple dimensions and lived to tell the tale? His short stories deal powerfully with other galaxies, worlds, and dimensions, as well as with strange regions and aeons on the earth. He tells of primal Hyperborea and its black amorphous god Tsathoggua; of the lost continent Zothique, and of the fabulous vampire-curst land of Averoigne in medieval France...In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer dead or living." --H. P. LOVECRAFT

"Incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures...take one step across the threshold of his stories and you plunge into color, sound, taste, smell, and texture: into language." --RAY BRADBURY

"His tales remind me of Innsmouth jewellery--stories like strange ornaments, the metal elaborately inlaid and fired, studded with unknown and precious stones, from unknown and timeless culture." --FRITZ LEIBER

The Contents:

ZOTHIQUE
The Empire of the Necromancers
The Isle of the Torturers
Necromancy in Naat
Xeethra

AVEROIGNE
The Holiness of Azedarac
The Beast of Averoigne

OTHERS
The Letter from Mohaun Los
The Light from Beyond
The Hunters from Beyond
The Treader of the Dust

This paperback prints about half of the Arkham House collection. Clark Ashton Smith's imagination was vivid and uninhibited. He explored all regions of the fantastic, far more thoroughly than did his friend, H. P. Lovecraft. Like Lovecraft, Smith was able to combine the traditional genre of supernatural horror with the then-new genre of science fiction. His work is unique and excellent, superbly crafted tales beautifully told. I especially like the cover illustrations for these Panther pb editions--they are weird and lovely.