The Last Hieroglyph: Volume Five of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith

The Last Hieroglyph:  Volume Five of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2010); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger.

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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 fifth volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith's creative juices continue to flow before rapidly going dry due to increased family responsibilities and a cessation of the creative forces that made for his incredible five-year burst of greatness. Nonetheless, many fine stories come from his pen, especially before 1939. Almost all the stories, regardless of date of composition or publication, began as entries in Smith's Commonplace Book of the early 1930's.

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.
• Malygris: Stories that involve the great Poseidonis mage Malygris (See also The Last Incantation, Vol. 1)

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

1. Introduction by Richard A. Lupoff
2. A Note on the Texts
3. The Dark Age (1938) : Mournful science-fiction story about the descent of (a) Dark Age. 
4. The Death of Malygris [Malygris] (1934) ESSENTIAL. Posthumous revenge for one of Smith's mighty, malign sorcerers.
5. The Tomb-Spawn [Zothique] (1934) : Bleak horror tale of the last continent.
6. The Witchcraft of Ulua [Zothique] (1934) ESSENTIAL. Erotic, ironic tale of an innocent young man, a malign queen, and the thankful intercession of the man's magical uncle.
7. The Coming of the White Worm (Chapter IX of the Book of Eibon) [Hyperborea] (1941)  ESSENTIAL. Brilliant tale of the descending Ice Age at the end of the Age of Hyperborea. 
8. The Seven Geases [Hyperborea] (1934) ESSENTIAL. A droll, horrifying tale of malign justice directed at a very annoying nobleman.
9. The Chain of Aforgomon (1935) : Contemporary horror in the vein of the Cthulhu Mythos.
10. The Primal City (1934) : Weird, minor lost city tale. 
11. Xeethra [Zothique] (1934) : Almost a prose poem of Zothique, very atmospheric and melancholy.
12. The Last Hieroglyph [Zothique] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Brilliant, almost post-modern tale of gods, destiny, and... writing?
13. Necromancy in Naat [Zothique] (1936) ESSENTIAL. Moody and melancholy, but also a satisfying tale of revenge and love beyond the grave.
14. The Treader of the Dust (1935) ESSENTIAL. Another white guy reads the wrong spells from the wrong book. Horrifying decay and disintegration are marvelously expressed in Smith's prose. In the vein of the Cthulhu Mythos.
15. The Black Abbot of Puthuum [Zothique] (1936) ESSENTIAL. The closest Smith ever came to writing a Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sword-and-sorcery tale. A lot of funny, and surprisingly ribald.
16. The Death of Ilalotha [Zothique] (1937) : Minor horror tale with a memorable final few paragraphs.
17. Mother of Toads [Averoigne] (1938) ESSENTIAL. Erotic horror story. Genuinely creepy and disturbing, especially if you don't like toads.
18. The Garden of Adompha [Zothique] (1938) ESSENTIAL. This time the plants are the good guys! Some very curious erotica here at times.
19. The Great God Awto (1940) : Mild parody of Smith' hated automobile culture.
20. Strange Shadows (1984) : Attempt at a more contemporary (for 1941), flippant 'Unknown Magazine' style doesn't work, which may explain why it was not published for more than 40 years after composition.
21. The Enchantress of Sylaire [Averoigne] (1941) : Funny, erotic tale of Averoigne, witches, werewolves, and love rejected and found.
22. Double Cosmos (1983) : Minor alternate dimension story. 
23. Nemesis of the Unfinished (1984) : Very minor bit of 'horror' about writer's block.
24. The Master of the Crabs [Zothique] (1948) : Funny, grotesque tale of crabs and treasure and magic. 
25. Morthylla [Zothique] (1953) : Minor, mournful tale of the last continent. 
26. Schizoid Creator (1953) : Another stab at Unknown Magazine dark fantasy.
27. Monsters in the Night (1954) ESSENTIAL. Much-anthologized piece uncharacteristic of Smith's prose style.
28. Phoenix (1954) : Bradburyesque science-fiction story anticipates Danny Boyle's Sunshine, among other things.
29. The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles [Satampra Zeiros/ Hyperborea] (1958)  ESSENTIAL. Smith's lovable thief from his early story "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" returns for a curtain call. 
30. Symposium of the Gorgon (1958) : Minor drollery.
31. The Dart of Rasasfa (1984) : Very slight parody of Gernsbackian scifi of the 1920's. 
32. Story Notes
33. Variant Temptation Scenes from "The Witchcraft of Ulua"
34. "The Traveler" (1922) : poem
35. Material Removed from "The Black Abbot of Puthuum"
36. Alternate Ending to "I Am Your Shadow" 
37. Alternate Ending to "Nemesis of the Unfinished" 
38. Bibliography

Roughing It in the Bush of Ghosts

An American Werewolf in London: written and directed by John Landis; starring David Naughton (David Kessler), Griffin Dunne (Jack Goodman), Jenny Agutter (Nurse Alex Price) and John Woodvine (Dr. Hirsch) (1981): Revisionist werewolf movie may be the best thing writer-director John Landis ever did from a stylistic standpoint: he actually seems to be a director here, as opposed to someone pointing a camera at chaos (Animal House, The Blues Brothers).

Landis's love for old B-movies is an unassailable fact. An American Werewolf in London riffs overtly and implicitly on the Universal Pictures werewolf mythology: characters talk about it, while events follow the logic of the Lon Chaney, Jr. Wolfman in all his tragic, furry glory.

Backpacking American college students on a Great Tour of Europe somehow make their way to Northern England, which turns out to be a terrible idea because, you know, werewolves. Griffin Dunne's character gets off easily; David Naughton's character gets infected and wakes up three weeks later in London, England, where the paranoid villagers have shipped him. A whirlwind romance with a lovely nurse ensues. Terrible nightmares that occasionally seem to have been cribbed from Heavy Metal magazine also ensue.

And then comes the full moon.

Landis shows more invention here than in all his other movies combined: his peculiar take on werewolves keeps things fresh and unpredictable despite the fact that the narrative will ultimately be very, very predictable. Naughton's callow nature and bemused expression grew on me over the course of the movie -- he doesn't have the baffled, confused physicality of Lon Chaney, Jr. as a man whose life has gone to Hell through no fault of his own, but he certainly plays bewildered well.

The transformation effects by Rick Baker and Rob Bottin became justifiably famous and much-imitated to this day. The full-size werewolf 'puppet' is a bit less convincing, and should probably have been kept off-screen as much as possible: its best moment comes in a truly excellent and atmospheric extreme long-shot in a Tube station. Still, entertaining, sad, and intermittently unnerving. I'd imagine the English village the students happen upon must be located only a few short miles from the island of The Wicker Man. Recommended.

　

The Last Halloween (aka Grave Halloween): written by Ryan W. Smith; directed by Steven R. Monroe; starring Kaitlyn Leeb (Maiko), Cassi Thomson (Amber), Dejan Loyola (Terry) Graham Wardle (Kyle), Jesse Wheeler (Brody), Tom Stevens (Skylar), Jeffry Ballard (Craig) and Hiro Kanagawa (Jin) (2013): Surprisingly competent SyFy Channel TV movie about the usual gang of idiotic young people wandering around a haunted woods. It's the sort of time-waster that's better than 90% of the theatrical releases made on the same template, but that's not saying much: there are a lot of bad horror movies out there.

But for a movie whose star, Kaitlyn Leeb, is most famous for playing the three-breasted hooker in the Colin Farrell-starring remake of Total Recall, the bar is pretty low. And Leeb is pretty, though back to two breasts. It's a TV movie, so there's no nudity, which is unfortunate.

British Columbia stands in for Japan here. Good old British Columbia! Does it ever get to play itself? A lot of the trees may have previously appeared on Stargate SG-1. College exchange students go into Japan's "Suicide Forest" (which is real) to make a documentary about Leeb's attempt to find her birth mother's body and conduct a ritual to send her tortured soul on to the Great Whatever. This has to be done on Halloween, a holiday I was not previously aware was on the traditional Japanese calendar.

Interesting things happen sporadically until somebody makes the terrible decision to bring on the stereotypical zombie/possession make-up. Leeb's mother is a possessed Linda Blair from The Exorcist! No wonder things go awry!

But I was entertained. Leeb being nude would have made things more entertaining. Oh, well. I can always look at photos of her winning the Miss CHIN bikini pageant. Lightly recommended.

Angry like the Wolf

The Wolf Man starring Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving and Anthony Hopkins, directed by Joe Johnston (2009): I've never found the Hollywood version of the werewolf to be all that compelling a monster, seeming as it does more suited to an action movie than a horror movie. Especially since movie werewolves seem to have the strength and agility of ten wolves, bringing to mind the Incredible Hulk rather than a reasonably imagined supernatural entity.

In this remake of the 1940's Universal horror movie that introduced doomed lycanthrope Laurence Talbot to the world, the makeup effects are often swell (Rick Baker, prosthetic and makeup man extraordinaire, does the heavy lifting here -- he designed the wolf man in An American Werewolf in London, among dozens of other worthy, old-school effects projects on his resume). The production design is terrific, as is the use of real-world exteriors and CGI period recreations of various locations in London.

Unfortunately, one can see the stitches where the studio jigged and rejigged a movie that was supposed to be released over a year ago. To cite one example among many, the Gypsy connection to the werewolf, central to both the original movie and to the first part of this one, suddenly goes nowhere. Or, more accurately, the origin of the werewolf suddenly shifts from Hollywood-gypsy to somebody-may-have-heard-of-Rudyard-Kipling. The significance of a medallion discovered in the early stages of the film thus becomes...well, insignificant.

This is the sort of dead end that happens when scripts are combined and scenes are reshot. For no discernible story reason, an inspector sent to investigate the killings (played by Hugo 'Elrond' Weaving) turns out to be Inspector Abberline, the inspector who really was in charge of the Jack the Ripper investigation, as about one sentence in the movies explains. Why use a real historical character? It adds nothing to the narrative and, if you know the real Abberline's post-Ripper history, makes the last ten minutes of the movie completely goofy.

Del Toro and Emily Blunt do their best with the material, never descending to camp. Anthony Hopkins hams it up. The werewolves move so quickly that they seem more like weightless superheroes than convincing manimals. The rhyme about werewolves that original Wolf Man screenwriter Curt Siodmak wrote back in the 1940's ("Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night...") introduces the movie. But the werewolves, in their Incredible-Hulk-like shredded clothes, fail to move.