The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies (Penguin Classics)

Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft were the three towering titans of the 1920s WEIRD TALES pulp. Smith's tales wove a unique spell of exotic language, mind-bending locations, and staggering imagination. Yet his output of fiction was restricted to a very short interval of time... his two parents were near the end of their lives, and needed constant attention, so Smith needed a way to make money while sitting with them in their tiny cabin. Once they died, Smith no longer wrote fiction. For his entire adult life he obsessively composed poetry, in a late 19th Century lyrical style. And he wrote a few prose poems in the same style. What you get in this volume is a selection of fiction, prose poems, and poetry. What you also get is not "Smith's Best Stories," but an informed selection of tales giving some inkling of Smith's versatility. I was amazed to find several stories set in the nearest town to Smith's cabin, Auburn, CA, and all but one were new to me. Recommended as a fine introduction to this unique writer.

Weird tales from a forgotten writer. Not sure how I feel about them because they’re generally dark and everyone gets screwed… but very well written. Complex and older vocabulary though, so be warned if you like to look up words when you read; you’ll be doing it a lot

Clark Ashton Smith is an extraordinary writer of fantastic tales. The language is lush and hypnotic, and the worlds are terrifying, mysterious, and haunted. The tales convey a sense of cosmic dread and fear—a plush and luxuriant set of decadent worlds where the old demonic gods roam but there are no angels or saints.

Based on the accolades given to this author on the back of the book, I might be in the minority in not having any prior knowledge of this author and the effect he may have had on writing history, but it's from that minority position that I am writing this review, so take it for what you will.The stories and poems for me were pretty well scattered in terms of quality. Some stories were real page turners and I loved them, while others turned into chores to read through, and a couple I just ended up abandoning and skipping past. His writing style is heavy on lofty vocabulary so have a thesaurus handy, and don't be afraid to look up the footnotes for the stories, and then maybe google afterward.As I said, I ended up skipping some stories, and poetry has never been that compelling to me, personally, so I mostly skimmed through of them one after the other without getting too much out of them other than they aren't bad at all.However, there's a million books I could describe as "not bad, and with some strong points" so, that alone isn't enough to cut it in terms of a recommendation. I don't recommend it as something to buy specifically, but if this somehow ends up in your library, it's a fine addition and picking and choosing some stories can give you a nice quick read.

This is so cool my eyeballs are bubbling! How awesome to see a beautiful painting by Smith on the cover of a Penguin Classics! I wou'd have preferred, perhaps, "The Basilisk" or his gorgeous painting of "Hyperborea," but this, although subtle in its excellent use of colours, is a lovely example of Smith's folk art style. Penguin asked S. T. to write an in-depth Introduction, knowing that this book will serve as first-reading of Smith for hundreds of new readers throughout the world, and the Introduction is quite good, shewing in part the Lovecraftian influence yet pointing out that Smith's art was unique unto himself, as it must be with all genuine artists of genius. The selection is very fine, and I am happy to see that the Penguin editors insisted that the extraordinary poem, "The Hashish-Eater; or The Apocalypse of Evil," was included after S. T. fear'd there would not be room in the wordage allow'd. One of my favourite features of the magnificent H. P. Lovecraft volumes from Penguin is the fascinating and informative Notes at the end of each book, discussing at times what inspir'd Lovecraft to write his story and where the work was first publish'd, &c; and in THE DARK EIDOLON AND OTHER FANTASIES we have a generous amount of notes explaining origin of story and containing snatches of correspondence from CAS and E'ch-Pi-El. In the annotations for "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" we find many delightful lines from HPL admiring the story, then in the notes for "The Last Incantation" we have snippets of a letter by Smith to Donald Wandrei; and additional quotations from Lovecraft's letters appear in the notes of further tales, all of which add to the history of these fantasies in a fascinating way. This is a perfect edition of Smith, and its publication will bring his poetry and prose to a new world-wide readership. Hopefully the book will be such a success that Penguin will ask S. T. for a second volume! I have posted the complete Contents of this Penguin Classics edition in a discussion at the Clark Ashton Smith Forum here at Amazon.[postscriptum: I am especially curious about ye Kindle edition of this book, for I don't own a Kindle, preferring always to read in book form. If you have purchas'd ye Kindle edition, I hope you will share your thoughts concerning it with a review here at Amazon. To see ye entire Contents, click on the "Look Inside" feature of ye Kindle edition.]

If your a fan of lovecrat, w.b. Chambers, ray bradbury, Robert Howard I strongly encourage this anthology. C.A. Smith, an amazing autodidact, is truly a master of the genre. These stories leave a tangible feeling of “holy moly, what the heck was that”, and the details are memorable. Unlike some other writers of the time who just seemingly stack adjectives until the main ideas explored are ephemeral, Mr Smith writes at a college level that a precocious teen would enjoy. Packed with daemons, monsters, wizards, and inter dimensional travels, this stuff is top notch for anyone who enjoys this genre.

Ashton Clarke Smith reminds me a bit of Jack Vance in the way some of his tales have quite an epic scope and he often focuses on a very flawed, roguish character. One of the main differences is the extremely gloomy outcomes for Smith's protagonists. I'm not really a horror fan - I got this because of Gene Wolfe's recommendation. Smith is very inventive and imaginative and I found I enjoyed the creativity of each story for the first 3 quarters, until something utterly horrible happened and the main character most often gets killed in a very unpleasant way. Smith revels in the misery of inescapable doom as if he is fixated on staring into a pit of despair he can't tear himself away from. Or perhaps he is desperately trying to convey the very practical moral message that no one should ever play around with demons and magic. I do love his ideas. I just wish his ultimate message for every story wasn't Hell and Death. I can picture him sitting at his writing desk considering how to end his latest hero's adventure before nodding to himself and resolutely returning to put pen to paper and muttering "No, it's hell for you, my boy..."

This is an unsurpassable and diverse collection of short tales from the master of weird horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Less well known than his contemporary and friend, HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith’s prose gleams with originality, humour and wonderfully macabre ideas.The language is mesmerising, the imagery unforgettable, the strange worlds and characters entrancing and beguiling. An absolute masterclass in writing, the author should be more widely celebrated than he is. I give this great collection five stars, 48 planets and a galaxy. His entire literary works are also available from Night Shade Books, but this is an excellent place to start.

Sometimes, I think nobody can or could ever write prose like CAS: it is as if someone has dreamed up ‘greatened’ and ‘overfraught’ word-clusters and dared to ascribe or blame them to a form of depersonalised print… I dare no longer even quote them here in case I am blamed for letting them loose cyberspatially…The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.Above is one of its conclusions.

An incredible book blooming with vivid language and escapist stories and poetry. Practically every story was an absolute joy to read, and the couple that were not absolute joys, remained good. A prime effort by CAS, Penguin and ST Joshi, to present this for us. I loved it. IMO, it was a gateway to a whole universe of CAS and his relationships with other writers in his sphere. Very inspirational. A sublime compliment to HPL. Now for a CAS biography by Joshi...

I just couldn't get into this book no matter how hard i tried, its sat in my bookcase between much better books I'm afraid.