The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith from Night Shade Press

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2006-2010); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger. Night Shade Press.

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.

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.
• Mars: Science fiction story set on or around Smith's generally terrifying version of Mars.
• Maal Dweb: Alien though human-looking sorcerer who seems to rule over an entire alien solar system.

The End Of The Story:  Volume One

In this first volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, we see Smith emerge almost fully formed as a writer of weird prose. He's definitely still finding his voice and his way (and a market), but his first published story ("The Abominations of Yondo" (1926)) and second story composed is a small masterpiece of weird horror and an unnervingly altered future. 

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

1. Introduction by Ramsey Campbell
2. A Note on the Texts by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
3. To the Daemon (1943): Slight but telling prose poem.
4. The Abominations of Yondo (1926): In this memorable story influenced by Lord Dunsany, Smith crafts his first essential tale, a weird and unsettling story set in some strange distant future.
5. Sadastor (1930) : Slight but telling prose poem.
6. The Ninth Skeleton (1928): Slight meditation on time.
7. The Last Incantation  [Malygris] (1930): Short, pithy fantasy set in one of Smith's strange fictional realms not of our Earth (but certainly of his) introduces a mage who will return, Malygris. ESSENTIAL.
8. The End of the Story  [Averoigne] (1930): Bleak tale of vampirism and desire is the first set in Smith's medieval French province of Averoigne. ESSENTIAL.
9. The Phantoms of the Fire  (1930): Slight contemporary ghost story.
10. A Night in Malnéant  (1933): A tale of mourning seemingly set in a nightmare almost seems like a dry run for a lot of Thomas Ligotti's work half-a-century later.
11. The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake  (1931): Sight contemporary horror story.
12. Thirteen Phantasms  (1936): Slight meditation on time and identity.
13. The Venus of Azombeii (1931) : Slight African adventure of a Lost City/Tribe with some unfortunate racial elements and little fantastic content (really, none).
14. The Tale of Satampra Zeiros : [Satampra Zeiros/ Hyperborea]  (1931): First tale of the prehistoric world of Hyperborea and the charming thief and raconteur Satampra Zeiros is also a sequel to a later Smith story, The Testament of Athammaus. ESSENTIAL.
15. The Monster of the Prophecy  (1932): Colourful, slyly satiric planetary romance, the latter almost literally by the end.  ESSENTIAL.
16. The Metamorphosis of the World  (1951): One of Smith's satiric broadsides at his contemporary science-fiction writers also reads as a straightforward apocalyptic piece of science fiction anticipating some of our own fears of climate change.
17. The Epiphany of Death  (1934): Moody horror tale is also a nod to H.P. Lovecraft.
18. A Murder in the Fourth Dimension  (1930): Slight but fun bit of contemporary science fiction.
19. The Devotee of Evil  (1933): Contemporary horror plays with pseudoscience in its explanation for the existence of EVIL.  ESSENTIAL.
20. The Satyr  [Averoigne]  (1931): Disturbing dark fantasy from monster-haunted Averoigne. ESSENTIAL.
21. The Planet of the Dead  (1932): Melancholy science fantasy about a man who feels estranged from his own place and time, a recurring theme in Smith's stories.
22. The Uncharted Isle  (1930): Clever piece of dimension-hopping science fiction. ESSENTIAL.
23. Marooned in Andromeda  [Captain Volmar : 1]  (1930): First of Smith's three complete stories and one fragment about his oddball crew of space-faring adventurers and mutineers. The satire of his contemporary space opera writers is subtle until it suddenly isn't. First Smith story to feature dangerous plants.
24. The Root of Ampoi (1949): Slight contemporary Lost City/Tribe story.
25. The Necromantic Tale  (1931) : Slight dark fantasy tale of reincarnation and swapped minds.
26. The Immeasurable Horror  (1931): Disturbing, horrifying science-fiction adventure set on and above Smith's nightmarishly lush Venus. ESSENTIAL.
27. A Voyage to Sfanomoë  [Poseidonis]  (1931):  Science fantasy set as Atlantis falls takes us back to the nightmarishly lush Venus of  "The Immeasurable Horror."   Also, dangerous plants! ESSENTIAL.
28. Story Notes by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
29. "The Satyr":  Alternate Conclusion  [Averoigne]  (1931): The alternate ending to "The Satyr" is even more disturbing than the chosen ending.
30. From the Crypts of Memory (1917) : poem by Clark Ashton Smith
31. Bibliography by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger

The Door to Saturn:  Volume Two

In this second volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, we see Smith pretty much at the zenith of his powers as a weird fantasist. The stories can be weird and occasionally horrifying, but also droll and comical in some cases. Smith moves among contemporary horror and distant realms of self-created fantasy with apparent ease. Even a story that waited 55 years to be published -- "A Good Embalmer" -- is an enjoyable bit of dark whimsy that reminds one of the stories of Ambrose Bierce.

There are more attempts at relatively straightforward horror-fantasy here than in any other volume, suggesting that Smith was working to place stories in markets by writing stories to fit the existing markets.  This tendency would wane as his career progressed.

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

1. Introduction by Tim Powers
2. A Note on the Texts by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
3. The Door to Saturn  [Hyperborea]  (1932): Smith's novella about his legendary sorcerer Eibon becomes funnier the longer it goes, and ends with one of Smith's nods to interspecies sex, carefully phrased so as to avoid rejection from the magazines of the 1930's. ESSENTIAL.
4. The Red World of Polaris  [Captain Volmar 2] (2003) : Smith's second tale of Captain Volmar and his intrepid space-faring crew again walks the line between Space Opera and satire, but becomes awesomely apocalyptic over the final third.
5. Told in the Desert (1964) : Minor bit of horror.
6. The Willow Landscape (1931) : Lovely, melancholy Orientalist tale.
7. A Rendezvous in Averoigne  [Averoigne] (1931) : Another Averoigne story lays out some of the province's more dangerous locations. ESSENTIAL.
8. The Gorgon (1932) : Minor horror story.
9. An Offering to the Moon (1953) : Minor tale of a modern-day archaeological expedition gone nightmarishly wrong.
10. The Kiss of Zoraida (1933)  : Minor bit of Orientalist nastiness.
11. The Face by the River (2004) : A fairly straightforward contemporary ghost story.
12. The Ghoul (1934) : Weird Orientalist dark fantasy about ghouls. 
13. The Kingdom of the Worm (1933) : Smith pays homage to a little-known confabulist of the past with some pretty eerie and disturbing moments of travel through a disintegrating landscape infected by rot.
14. An Adventure in Futurity  (1931) : One of what is almost a Smith sub-genre -- a guy gets into a machine of either his or alien design (or a future human's, as here), and travels to another world or time. This one visits the future, and aims some pointed satire at conventional time-travelling narratives.
15. The Justice of the Elephant  (1931) : Minor 'revenge' horror story. With elephants!
16. The Return of the Sorcerer  [Cthulhu Mythos]  (1931) : One of Smith's most anthologized stories is a sly, blackly humourous tale that intersects with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. ESSENTIAL.
17. The City of the Singing Flame  [Singing Flame : 1] (1941) A work of visionary dark fantasy that focuses on the ecstasies of the Sublime. Followed by a sequel. ESSENTIAL.
18. A Good Embalmer  (1989) : Droll contemporary horror story.
19. The Testament of Athammaus  [Hyperborea]  (1932) Great work of dark fantasy is a sort of prequel to Volume 1's "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros." ESSENTIAL.
20. A Captivity in Serpens  [Captain Volmar : 3] (1931) Smith's third tale (second published) of Captain Volmar and his intrepid space-faring crew again walks the line between Space Opera and satire yet again, and features a lengthy, dizzying chase scene through a cyclopean city.
21. The Letter from Mohaun Los  (1932) : One of what is almost a Smith sub-genre -- a guy gets into a machine of either his or alien design, and travels to another world or time. This one visits other planets while attempting to travel in time, discovering that gravity doesn't apply to objects in transit through the time-stream.
22. The Hunters from Beyond  (1932) : Solid, visceral yet cosmic horror story nods in a way to H.P. Lovecraft's great "Pickman's Model." ESSENTIAL.
23. Story Notes by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
24. Alternate Ending to "The Return of the Sorcerer" 
25. Bibliography by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger

A Vintage From Atlantis:  Volume Three 

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. 

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.
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 in the vein of Poe.
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

The Maze of the Enchanter:  Volume Four 

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.

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 [Mars] (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 (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 [Mars] (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

The Last Hieroglyph:  Volume Five

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.

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.
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's 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

Note: If you've read this far in the Supercut, note that the illustrations for the covers of collected editions always have Clark Ashton Smith's face on one of the characters. The More You Know!

It Only Seems Like Eternity

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 16: The Eternity War and Others: written by Roy Thomas and J.M. de Matteis; illustrated by John Buscema, Bob McLeod, and Ernie Chan (1980; collected 2008): Workmanlike Dark Horse reprints of Conan adventures originally published by Marvel Comics in the early 1980's. The only item of historical note is that this collection bridges the transition from writer Roy Thomas to other writers on the Conan colour comic book.

Thomas had written the Marvel Conan pretty much by himself since the comic started publication in 1970. But 1979-1980 saw Thomas out at Marvel and in at DC, where he'd soon be writing his self-created sword-and-sorcery book, Arak, Son of Thunder. While two Conan Annuals present some of Thomas' last Conan work for the next ten years or so, a young J.M. de Matteis does nothing to embarass himself here on the included issues of the monthly book: but Marvel's Conan was, like a a lot of other Marvel comics of the time, pretty bland gruel.

Long-time Conan artist John Buscema was only doing breakdowns by this point, leaving it to other inkers to put perhaps too much of a hard edge on the final art (Buscema was apparently chronically dissatisfied with Ernie Chan's work as an inker/finisher which, given the eternal perversity of Marvel Comics, probably explains why Chan finished so much Buscema work). Chan would be a good inker for Buscema if super-heroes were involved but on Conan a lighter hand (or maybe a moodier one like Alfredo Alcala) would have added some sorcery to the cleanly, blandly depicted swordplay.

I'll tell you, though, Buscema really had problems with drawing horses. And don't get me started on the Manotaur, a creature as badly designed as its name was badly chosen. Only recommended for Conan completists.

Skulls and Bones

Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars: written by Robert E. Howard and Ramsey Campbell containing the following stories: "Skulls in the Stars:, "The Right Hand of Doom", "Red Shadows", "Rattle of Bones", "The Castle of the Devil", "The Moon of Skulls", "The One Black Stain", "Blades of the Brotherhood." (1928-1968; Collected 1979): Solomon Kane was Conan-creator Robert E. Howard's 16th-century Puritan monster-fighter whose adventures ranged from the English moors to deepest, darkest, most fictional Africa, there not actually being a lot of vampire cities in real Africa. That we know of. Because Solomon Kane wiped them all out.

Unlike Conan, whose battles against evil came mostly came as a by-product of his battles for money and power, Kane intentionally sought out evil. Howard is already more canny at a young age (the Kane stories were all written before the age of 25) than many pulp writers ever are: there are a number of fascinating writerly observations about Kane's personality throughout these tales, most of them about Kane's non-self-aware fanaticism and its pros and cons when it comes to fighting evil.

Kane is obsessive, and his faith is unshakeable -- and it often seems that that unshakeable faith brings powerful forces to his aid when he needs it. He can, however, fight his way out of almost any situation. And unlike Conan, he has the benefits of gunpowder and muskets.

Ramsey Campbell does a nearly seamless job of finishing up one Kane fragment ("The Castle of the Devil") in this late 1970's collection. The rest of the stories (and one poem) were finished by Howard himself, with the remaining Kane stories and fragments in a second volume. The adventures here aren't quite as fantastic as those in the second volume. Kane fights 'normal' brigands in one story, while in another the foes are human and the help from an African magician the only magical part of the narrative.

Howard's racism is noticeable throughout, though later stories set in Africa would make Africans much more sympathetic as Kane battled to save tribespeople from supernatural threats (again with the help of the canny African magician he first meets here). The action is involving, the portrayal of Kane fascinating, and the events sometimes move into the realm of the epic. Highly recommended.

Walk on the Wild Side: The Best Horror Stories of Karl Edward Wagner Volume 2

Walk on the Wild Side: The Best Horror Stories of Karl Edward Wagner Volume 2 edited by Stephen Jones (2012): Centipede Press has done readers of horror and dark fantasy a tremendous service with the release of its two-volume collection of the late Karl Edward Wagner's best horror fiction. This is the weaker of the two volumes, collecting Wagner's shorter works with an emphasis on his late-life burst of often pornographic short stories.

Wagner started his writing life as a dynamo, both in horror and in heroic fantasy, much of the latter featuring his time-jaunting anti-hero Kane. He also worked on his own short-lived specialty press (Carcosa), wrote a licensed Conan novel (The Road of Kings), and took over editorship of DAW Books' excellent Year's Best Horror series in the early 1980's, a job he'd hold until his death in 1994.

Along the way, something happened. It involved the consumption of astounding amounts of alcohol and the growth of an intermittent writer's block that would persist from the late 1970's until his death. Trained as a psychiatrist, Wagner must have known something was going on. But what? We'll never entirely know, and the prose pieces in these two volumes by Wagner's friends suggest that he was ultimately a mystery to them as well.

We know that Wagner wrote at least one pornographic novel, and an awful lot of his late output collected here ranges into the territory of erotic horror (or 'horrotica!!!). I really wish he hadn't.

Gone for the most part is Wagner's marvelous sense of place and psychological depth, replaced with spurting penises in foaming hot tubs and more girl-on-girl action than normally found in a frat boy's hashish dream. There are a few gems here -- the creepy asylum story "Into Whose Hands" and the sad homage to The King in Yellow, "I've Come to Talk to You Again, are excellent, as is the punk-rock nightmare "Did They Get You To Trade?"

There are several stories across both volumes that deal with writers, writer's block, and writers either grown old or old before their time. How autobiographical these stories are is ultimately unknowable, but the cumulative effect certainly feels autobiographical. As an editor and a writer, here lies a fallen giant, an indispensable part of 1970's and 1980's horror, dark fantasy, and heroic fantasy. And if Karl Edward Wagner never became as great as he could have been -- well, the tragedy of his personal fall outweighs literary concerns. Recommended.

Conan: Beginnings and Endings

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 1: The Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories: written by Roy Thomas, based on stories and fragments by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp; illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith and others (1970-1971; collected 2003): Marvel's long-running affair with Robert E. Howard's mighty barbarian begins here, with the first few early-1970's issues of the Conan colour comic book (a B&W magazine, The Savage Sword of Conan, would soon follow).

Roy Thomas was always a bit of a wet blanket as an adapter of Howard's stories. He buffed away all the sharp edges of Conan for the Comics Code Authority while indulging in that peculiar sin of 1970's comic books, the endless description of things one can already see in the comics panel.

Nonetheless, the strength of Howard's original stories still shines through, especially in the title adaptation of what I'd say is Howard's finest Conan short story. "The Tower of the Elephant" offers us a thieving young Conan, a seemingly impregnable fortress, a wicked sorcerer, a giant spider, and a surprisingly sympathetic character who allows Conan to showcase his rough-hewn Cimmerian honour. Other stories introduce such Conan staples as giant snakes, wicked Set-worshipping wizard Thoth-Amon, and an endless string of slave girls, prostitutes, and thieves.

Main artist Barry Windsor-Smith, a Kirby knock-off artist before his stint on Conan, grows with astonishing swiftness from issue to issue. He maintains the dynamism he learned from Kirby while coming quickly into an early version of his fluid, evocative style. He's the only comic-book artist I can think of whose two main artistic influences are Jack Kirby and the Pre-Raphaelites. It's neato. Recommended.

The Chronicles of King Conan Volume 1: The Witch of the Mists and Other Stories: written by Roy Thomas, based on characters created by Robert E. Howard and stories by L. Sprague de Camp, Bjorn Nyberg, and Lin Carter; illustrated by John Buscema, Ernie Chan, and Danny Bulanadi (1980-81; collected 2010): Writer Roy Thomas's decade-long affiliation with Conan at Marvel Comics would end fairly early into this early 1980's spin-off series, which gives us a 50-something Conan ruling the Hyborean Age's greatest kingdom, Aquilonia.

The five double-length adventures reprinted here present King Conan's final, multi-issue battle with the wizard Thoth-Amon, owner of the most unwieldy hat in Marvel history. Conan's son Conn is a chip off the old block, already a decent fighter at the age of 13. Penciller John Buscema's Conan is stolid and solid and grim. Buscema is strong on humans and, as always, somewhat uninspired when depicting the fantastic -- unlike seminal Marvel Conan artist Barry Windsor-Smith, Buscema is too representative in his art to convincingly depict magic and monsters. It all makes for a good time-waster, but not much else. Lightly recommended.

Conan the Destroyed

Conan the Barbarian: written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Sean Hood, based on the character created by Robert E. Howard; directed by Marcus Nispel; starring Jason Momoa (Conan), Stephen Lang (Khalar Zym), Ron Perlman (Conan's father), Rachel Nichols (Tamara) and Rose McGowan (Marique) (2011): Oh, what an awful, awful movie. The sheer ineptitude of this movie caused me to think fondly of Conan the Destroyer, which really wasn't that good of a movie but which, compared to this movie, was Citizen Kane.

Don't ask me what that makes Citizen Kane.

The makers of this movie steadfastly ignore pretty much everything from Robert E. Howard's 1930's pulp creation and the 20-odd stories and one novel he appeared in. What they substitute is an awful, derivative revenge plot lifted instead from the original Conan movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As evil despot Khalar Zym, Stephen Lang looks and acts hopelessly out of his depth, while Rose MacGowan, as his evil sorceress daughter Marique, jarringly plays everything with about as flat and contemporary an accent as one can imagine. We know she's evil, though, because she voluntarily paints a unibrow on herself. Quel horreur!!!

As Conan, Jason Momoa doesn't have much to do other than run around, ride around, and strike muscleman poses in lieu of demonstrating any actual sword-fighting skills. Not that one would be able to notice any such skills, as the editing jumps around a lot, I'd assume to hide the fact that no one involved with this movie knows how to stage a fight scene, much less any other type of scene. The movie substitutes a wearying series of chases and fights for character development, explanation, exposition, and world-building.

In this Conan's world, a person can pretty much get anywhere on horseback in less than a day. Apparently, the entire Hyborian realm is roughly the size of Oxford County. Written and directed by idiots, Conan the Barbarian is a wretched, stupid, embarrassing botch. Nothing makes much sense, and you're not going to care anyway. Not recommended.

Solomon Kane (2011) by Ramsey Campbell

Solomon Kane (2011):

By Ramsey Campbell,  based on the screenplay by Michael J. Bassett and the character created by Robert E. Howard (2011): Based on a well-regarded movie that I haven't seen yet, Solomon Kane gives Conan creator Robert E. Howard's 17th-century Puritan ghost-and-demon-buster an actual origin story.

Featured in about a dozen stories, poems and fragments from the early 1930's, Solomon Kane predates Conan by a few years. Robert E. Howard created a LOT of heroes during his short, prolific life. Unlike many of those heroes, Kane moves within an actual historical context. His adventures take place in the 16th and 17th centuries, though many of them are in an Africa as fanciful as any of the wholly fictional lands of Conan.

Campbell finished up several Kane fragments for publication in the 1970's, there demonstrating an ability to approximate Howard's prose style without sliding into parody. He does the same here. His Kane is a brooding, haunted hero, and the environment is bloody and filled with the violence of men and supernatural beings. Campbell nicely echoes Howard's occasionally wonky diction (there's a stretch involving the repeated use of the word 'supine' that almost does slide into parody) and seriousness of purpose.

The novel is fun, but it's not funny or light-hearted or campy, though Campbell does seem to get stuck with what seem to be a couple of campy, Bondian missteps from the original screenplay. The worst of these comes when a necromancer says 'How do you like what I've done to the place?' to Kane as Kane regards with horror what the necromancer has done to his ancestral home. Augh! This is what Michael Moorcock and James Cawthorn flagged as "deadly jolite" in their study of fantasy, Wizardry and Wild Romance, a terrible bleedover from the Bond films.

Overall, though, this is one of the ten best non-Howard, Howard novels I've read. Ramsey Campbell deserves praise for sublimating his own peculiar style and thematic concerns to the service of telling a fairly straightforward sword-and-sorcery novel in the Howard tradition. And screenwriter Bassett does, for the most part, lay out a plausible background for this Renaissance Man, whose greatest Howard moment (in my eyes) came when he physically beat the crap out of a ghost. Recommended.

Conan in the Hands of an Angry Thesaurus

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 2: Rogues in the House and Other Stories, written by Roy Thomas, illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith, Sal Buscema and Others (1970-71; collected 2003): This second volume of Thomas and Windsor-Smith's pivotal Conan Marvel comic-book work of the early 1970's offers one fairly faithful adaptation of a Robert E. Howard Conan novelette (the eponymous "Rogues"), a lovingly rendered adaptation of short story "The Frost-Giant's Daughter", and several other stories of young Conan as he wanders around thieving, getting arrested, escaping arrest, and fighting wizards, gods and monsters.

Windsor-Smith's art grows more splendid and idiosyncratic throughout this volume as he changes from Kirbyesque super-hero artist to lush, pre-Raphaelite-influenced illustrator at a fairly astonishing rate of progression. He wouldn't stay on Conan much beyond this point, but he'd remain the acknowledged, definitive comic-book Conan artist ever afterwards, though John Buscema would soon surpass him in page count if not in overall effect.

Writer Roy Thomas thuds along as if he were paid by the word (which he wasn't). He'd work on Conan's comic-book adventures at Marvel for a decade and become the "definitive" Conan comic-book writer through sheer weight of output. Occasionally, the artwork creaks and shudders under the weight of all that obscuring prose. Uk wuk. Recommended.

Albino Gnome

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 3: The Monster of the Monoliths and Other Stories, written by Roy Thomas, Michael Moorcock and James Cawthorn, illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith, Gil Kane and others (1971-72; collected 2006): It took awhile for Marvel's comic-book Conan the Barbarian to gain sales traction, but once it did it ran for about 30 years in both colour and black-and-white magazines. For fans, the high point of the series came early, when long-time writer Roy Thomas was teamed with up-and-coming artist Barry Windsor-Smith for the first twenty issues or so of the colour comic.

Windsor-Smith's art became increasingly refined, complex and painterly as the series went on, evidenced in part here by the decision to try printing one issue directly from his pencils (it doesn't work that well here reproduced and remastered in a high-quality format, so I shudder to think what it looked like on pulp newsprint).

Thomas was (and is) an almost self-parodically verbose writer, and it becomes quite trying here after awhile, though this was admittedly also Marvel's house writing style at the time. Which is to say, every damn panel has to have dialogue or captions in it. When your book is about a taciturn barbarian, this seems especially annoying.

Included here is the two-part cross-universal team-up between Conan and Michael Moorcock's anti-Conan sword-and-sorcery character, Elric of Melnibone. The Windsor-Smith art achieves some startling effects in this story, especially in a battle between two god-like beings, though it suffers somewhat from Windsor-Smith's misunderstanding of what Elric's headgear was supposed to look like. As is, Elric ends up wearing a hat that seems to have been borrowed from a garden gnome. How does Conan keep from laughing?

Other artistic high points occur throughout this reprint collection, including a two-parter illustrated by Gil Kane. The writing can be a really heavy, purple slog at points, but the art makes this worth picking up. Recommended.

No Conan

The Robert E. Howard Library Volume 7: Beyond the Borders, edited and with an introduction by T.K.F. Weisskopf (1996):

Stories:

1 · The Voice of El-Lil
34 · The Cairn on the Headland
61 · Casonetto’s Last Song
67 · The Cobra in the Dream
76 · Dig Me No Grave
95 · The Haunter of the Ring
117 · Dermod’s Bane
125 · King of the Forgotten People
152 · The Children of the Night
173 · The Dream Snake
182 · The Hyena
200 · People of the Black Coast
213 · The Fire of Asshurbanipal

Conan creator Robert E. Howard may have more variant editions of his many stories than almost any other 20th-century fantasy writer. This volume comes from Baen Books' 1990's Howard line, and focuses on non-Conan, mostly horror and dark fantasy tales set in the 1920's and 1930's. Lost civilizations, African shenanigans, and supernatural investigators predominate, along with a Howard stand-by, the ancestral memory story (or maybe more accurately the 'reincarnation recalled' story).

Most of the stories here are slight but interesting -- Howard was an inherently interesting writer, which is a lot rarer than you may think; even his prejudices can be fascinating. I really like contemporary dark fantasy tale "The Cairn on the Headland", with its suggestion that the pagan gods were actually demonic, possibly Cthulhoid forces from Outside. Howard also has some fun with an evil phonograph recording ("Casonetto's Last Song") and various evil animals, men, and lost races. Editor Weisskopf completely whiffs on one of Howard's real-world historical references (Weisskopf seems to think Howard made up a religion which is in fact is a real one). Oh, well. Lightly recommended.