The Maze of the Enchanter: Volume Four of the Collected Fantasies Of Clark Ashton Smith

The Maze of the Enchanter:  Volume Four of the Collected Fantasies Of Clark Ashton Smith (2009); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger.

Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era. 

Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace. 

OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.

Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivaled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.

In this fourth volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith continues in peak form. Excellent tales of his horrifying Mars of the future ("The Dweller in the Gulf," "Vulthoom") rub shoulders with fine stories of the Earth's last continent ("The Isle of the Torturers"), prehistoric Hyperborea ("The Ice Demon"), and visionary contemporary horror (the terrific "Genius Loci"). We also meet Smith's prototype of Rick from Rick and Morty, the amoral science-magician Maal Dweb.

Note on bracketed categories:

• Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
• Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
• Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
• Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
• Maal Dweb: Alien though human-looking sorcerer who seems to rule over an entire alien solar system.

Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)

1. Introduction by Gahan Wilson
2. A Note on the Texts
3. The Mandrakes [Averoigne] (1933) : Minor tale of posthumous revenge.
4. The Beast of Averoigne [Averoigne] (1933) Restored three-part version of one of the two or three best stories of that demon-haunted medieval French province of Averoigne -- this time threatened from without by a thing from a comet. ESSENTIAL
5. A Star-Change (1933) : Minor but fascinating tale that focuses on the potentially mind-altering effects of alien landscapes and dimensions.
6. The Disinterment of Venus [Averoigne] (1934) Droll, erotic humour involving a pagan statue that really gets a lot of monks... excited. Statuesque, indeed! ESSENTIAL.
7. The White Sybil [Hyperborea] (1934) : Moody, near-prose poem.
8. The Ice-Demon [Hyperborea] (1933) ESSENTIAL. Terrific horror story of the coming of the Ice Age that would end Smith's Hyperborea.
9. The Isle of the Torturers [Zothique] (1933) ESSENTIAL. A perverse, satisfying tale of almost accidental revenge on the titular island by one of its victims.
10. The Dimension of Chance (1932) : Almost parodic with its jet-plane chase at the beginning before diving into another of Smith's unearthly dimensions where our rules do not apply.
11. The Dweller in the Gulf (1933) ESSENTIAL. Human adventurers on Mars meet with one of the Red Planet's most horrible subterranean denizens. The story does a masterful job of conjuring up claustrophobia and body horror.
12. The Maze of the Enchanter [Maal Dweb] (1933)  ESSENTIAL. Droll story of Smith's bored magician.
13. The Third Episode of Vathek:  The Story of the Princess Zulkaïs and the Prince Kalilah [Vathek] (1937) : novelette by William Beckford and Clark Ashton Smith: Heavy sledding if you're not a William Beckford fan. Smith writes about 4000 words to complete Beckford's incomplete 11,000 words of a tale of Vathek from the 18th century.
14. Genius Loci (1933) ESSENTIAL. Smith codifies a new type of supernatural horror in the contemporary world. 
15. The Secret of the Cairn (aka The Light from Beyond) (1933) : Trippy science-fiction story about yet another voyage to another dimension.
16. The Charnel God [Zothique] (1934) ESSENTIAL. A sword-and-sorcery tale that was one of Conan creator Robert E. Howard's favourite Smith stories.
17. The Dark Eidolon [Zothique] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Small epic of Earth's last continent, an evil city, and the evil sorcerer who seeks vengeance against it. 
18. The Voyage of King Euvoran [Zothique] (1933) : Comic tale (albeit with a high death toll) of a quest for a lost crown.
19. Vulthoom (1935) : Smith's malign Mars has another monstrous being. And it's an evil plant.
20. The Weaver in the Vault [Zothique] (1934) : Moody tale of creeping horror.
21. The Flower-Women [Maal Dweb] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Black comedy and magical battles as a bored Maal Dweb becomes the unlikely saviour of a species of carnivorous plant women. Yes, semi-evil plants.
22. Story Notes
23. Alternate Ending to "The White Sybil"
24. The Muse of Hyperborea  (1934) poem
25. The Dweller in the Gulf:  Added Material
26. Bibliography

A Vintage From Atlantis: Volume Three of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith

A Vintage From Atlantis:  Volume Three of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2007); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger. 

Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era. 

Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace. 

OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.

Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivalled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.

In this third volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith has reached the peak of his considerable powers as a prose writer, giving birth to all-time classics that include the horrifying "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" and "The Seed from the Sepulchre" and the brilliant, droll Averoigne novella "The Colossus of Ylourgne." "The Colossus of Ylourgne" and "The Empire of the Necromancers" are two prime examples of Smith's ability to combine horror, irony, humour, and melancholy into one short package. 

• Note on bracketed categories:
• 
  
• Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
• Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
• Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
• Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
• Mars: Science fiction story set on or around Smith's generally terrifying version of Mars.

Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)

1. Introduction by Michael Dirda
2. A Note on the Texts
3. The Holiness of Azedarac [Averoigne] (1933): Ironic, erotic. ESSENTIAL.
4. The Maker of Gargoyles [Averoigne] (1932): Creepy gargoyles do terrible things.  ESSENTIAL.
5. Beyond the Singing Flame (1931) Smith returns to the world of the Singing Flame (See Volume 2) in a work of cosmic ecstasy and mystery. ESSENTIAL.
6. Seedling of Mars [Mars] (1931) (with E. M. Johnston): Another of Smith's subtle parodies of planetary romances  and science fiction of his time, leading to a strange and apocalyptic climax. is this catastrophe or eucatastrophe?
7. The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis [Mars] (1932) Absolutely first-rate science-fiction horror set on Smith's dying, dusty, ancient Mars. It's like the prototype for every Alien-style movie and written horror to come. ESSENTIAL.
8. The Eternal World (1932) : Odd, engaging bit of cosmic speculation and Sublime play with time and space.
9. The Demon of the Flower (1933) : Disturbing tale of metamorphosis and evil plants. 
10. The Nameless Offspring (1932) : Disturbing contemporary tale of ghouls and implied, quasi-necrophiliac rape.
11. A Vintage from Atlantis [Poseidonis] (1933) : Moody prose poem.
12. The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan [Hyperborea] (1932) : Strangely hilarious (in almost a Bugs Bunny sort of way) of how a greedy loan shark gets his just desserts.
13. The Invisible City (1932) : Fun, odd, contemporary  'Hidden City' adventure.
14. The Immortals of Mercury (1932) : Another of Smith's subtle digs at his contemporary science-fiction writers and their planetary romances.
15. The Empire of the Necromancers [Zothique] (1932) : Brilliant, affecting, funny tale of a couple of malign necromancers on the world's last continent. ESSENTIAL.
16. The Seed from the Sepulcher (1933) Horrifying, creepy tale of an evil plant. An orchid, in this case. ESSENTIAL.
17. The Second Interment (1933) : Minor horror.
18. Ubbo-Sathla [Hyperborea/ Cthulhu Mythos] (1933): Time-bending tale of metamorphosis and fate.  ESSENTIAL.
19. The Double Shadow [Poseidonis] (1933) : Witty tale of magics gone wrong. ESSENTIAL.
20. The Plutonian Drug (1934) : Minor time-travel piece.
21. The Supernumerary Corpse (1932) : Very minor scifi murder.
22. The Colossus of Ylourgne (1934) A brilliant novella involving necromancy in medieval French Averoigne. Stands among other things as the lurking precedent for Clive Barker's much-praised "In the Hills, the Cities." ESSENTIAL.
23. The God of the Asteroid (1932): Minor, bleak science fiction story.
24. Story Notes
25. The Flower-Devil (1922) : poem by Clark Ashton Smith
26. Bibliography

Extinction is Extinction

The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch (1965): It's 1980. Earth has been under siege for nearly eight years by giant, fast-growing plants. The cities have fallen. The environment is collapsing as the plants destroy all other plant species and the animals that rely upon them as a result. Basically, humanity has become a rat hiding in fields of 600-foot-tall corn. And now whoever or whatever sent the plants has sent out the exterminators.

To say that Thomas Disch's first novel is an astonishingly bleak end-of-the-world novel is an understatement. We begin in terrible shape. Things don't get better. The plot focuses on a small Minnesota farming community on the shores of Lake Superior. Well, not so much shores. The plants have been relentlessly draining the Great Lakes for years.

So the town of Tassel, much of its original location overrun, has moved to the newly draining bottom of Lake Superior. There, Anderson, the Christian fundamentalist patriarch of the town, attempts to push back the plants and feed his town by growing corn. Just keeping the corn going requires a maximum effort by the village. Anderson believes they are being tested by God. But if they are, then God has gone silent. Or his answer is simply 'No.'

Disch invests this short, terse novel with effectively chosen moments of Biblical imagery and language and the occasional quote. But The Genocides is about the failure of all of humanity's institutions in the face of a sublime and indifferent menace, not a world in which a Christian God actually exists. Or any other gods. 

The occasional scene of terror gives way to scenes of fumbling, racing panic. Our protagonists can only flee or die. Or flee and die. It's a rich, full life. Their numbers dwindle. Winter comes. Internal tensions begin to destroy Tassel almost as effectively as the invasion. Will whatever is behind all this ever show its face? Good question. 

Even at this young age, Disch was a skilled stylist and an occasionally sardonic chronicler of human frailties. Some of Anderson's choices as a leader are understandable yet almost unspeakably grotesque, none moreso than a sort of Uber-Calvinist imitation of communion. We may become invested in whether or not some of the other characters survive, but it's an investment kept at a remove: it's doom alone that ultimately counts.

Disch was never known as a technically inclined science fiction writer, but the science of The Genocides still seems ruthlessly pragmatic and sound. The plants, devoid of personality and agency, nonetheless become an extraordinarily effective foil for humanity's own inhumanity, and for humanity's world-reshaping mistakes. The Earth is at the mercy of the ultimate invasive species. The crops must grow. The weeds and the vermin must go. Highly recommended.