Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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!

I just accidentally review'd A VINTAGE FROM ATLANTIS at THE DOOR TO SATURN listing. I've included a full Table of Contents. I am tempted to now review THE DOOR TO SATURN here, but that would be silly and annoying.

THE DOOR TO SATURN -- A Review
The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Volume 2

Contents:
Introduction by Time Powers
A Note on the Texts
The Door to Saturn
The Red World of Polaris
Told in the Desert
The Willow Landscape
A Rendezvous in Averoinge
The Gorgon
An Offering to the Moon
The Kiss of Zoraida
The Face by the River
The Ghoul
The Kingdom of the Worm
An Adventure in Futurity
The Justice of the Elephant
The Return of the Sorcerer
The City of the Singing Flame
A Good Embalmer
The Testament of Athammaus
A Captivity in Serpens
The Letter from Mohaun Los
The Hunters from Beyond
APPENDIXES
Story Notes
Alterate Ending to "The Return of the Sorcerer"
Bibliography

A VINTAGE FROM ATLANTIS is a better book -- & it has a far finer cover illustration.