A Vintage from Atlantis (The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Vol. 3) [Hardcover]

Clark Ashton Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 11, 2007

Published in chronological order, with extensive story and bibliographic notes, this series not only provides access to stories that have been out of print for years, but gives them a historical and social context. Series editors Scott Conners and Ronald S. Hilger excavated the still-existing manuscripts, letters and various published versions of the stories, creating a definitive "preferred text" for Smith's entire body of work. This third volume of the series brings together 21 of his fantasy stories.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books (December 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597800309
• ISBN-13: 978-1597800303
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #792,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Timeless tales from the pulps, August 19, 2010

By 

John Middleton (Brisbane, QLD, AUST) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Vintage from Atlantis (The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Vol. 3) (Hardcover)

This is the third volume (out of 5) of Night Shade Book's collected works of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS). CAS wrote only short fiction - and often the shortest stories were the best of all. This volume contains stories set in Averoigne, Hyperborea, and other unnamed weird worlds, including our own. These stories are...well, not horror, but thrilling. In Stephen King's terms, CAS never went for the gross-out.

The stories are weird tales, or speculative fiction - a mix of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, adventure, all told in a unique style. A number of stories in this volume are superb, but the names mean nothing, and there are too many to list the plots of each. The best stories are "fantasy" rather then "sci-fi" as a rule, but everything here is worth reading.

CAS creates superb imagery and his stories roil with life: even when little is objectively happening, how it is told is wonderful. Every word is evocative, carefully chosen, and has a cumulative effect when reading that creates immersion in the story for the reader.

"The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan" for example is only 8 or so pages long, but is a beatifully crafted little tale that has a wonderful, powerful ending. Even knowing the story will not end well, its a surprise and a shock.

This book is not for everyone, in the sense that it is an expensive hardback full of dense prose - it's a luxury good, of sorts. Having said that, everyone should read it, or at least the stories that CAS wrote.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an old fashioned pleasure trip, January 9, 2009

By 

Patrick Malone (atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Vintage from Atlantis (The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Vol. 3) (Hardcover)

Part of a series of classic and wonderful fantasy stories. Something that takes one back to the days of curling up on the sofa and reading for the shear pleasure of it. The whole series is great.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Yet in this Amazing Collection, July 30, 2008

By 

Stanley C. Sargent "Stanley C. Sargent" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Vintage from Atlantis (The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Vol. 3) (Hardcover)

This third installment of a five-volume series is the best yet; luckily there are still two more (and the definitive biography of Smith) yet to come. Connors and Hilger have gone over Smith's original manuscripts with great care whenever available, producing the most meticulously corrected versions of the stories ever published or likely to be. This volume includes many of my favorite Smith tales, notes on each tale, and "The Flower-Devil," which is "The poem that "The Demon of the Flower" was based upon." Once again, Jason van Hollander's bizarrely dark and beautiful artwork graces the book's cover. Smith fans will love all 331 pages of it!