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7/28/2015 6:55 pm  #41


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Great to hear!  Although I already took the hit for a complete set...


Michael Sipe 1979-2018
Rest in peace, brother.
 

7/28/2015 8:21 pm  #42


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Blackadder23 wrote:

Great to hear!  Although I already took the hit for a complete set...

I am in this camp.. Ah well, I got my $$$ worth
 


I filled my palace with deadly traps so trap admirers will come and visit me

AFS magazine - pulp literature meets old school gaming http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.com/
 

9/05/2015 9:27 am  #43


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Thought this was cool. A postcard sent from HPL to CAS in December 1933


I filled my palace with deadly traps so trap admirers will come and visit me

AFS magazine - pulp literature meets old school gaming http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.com/
 

5/02/2016 11:00 am  #44


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Eric writes on his blog about using Jason Z's write up from AFS 3, an adventure based on 'The Uncharted Isle' by CAS 

http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-tyler-prequel-actual-play-event.html


I filled my palace with deadly traps so trap admirers will come and visit me

AFS magazine - pulp literature meets old school gaming http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.com/
 

5/13/2016 10:36 pm  #45


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

CAS: Emperor of Dreams documentary indiegogo
Interesting video short
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clark-ashton-smith-the-emperor-of-dreams#/


I filled my palace with deadly traps so trap admirers will come and visit me

AFS magazine - pulp literature meets old school gaming http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.com/
 

5/14/2016 7:47 am  #46


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Scalydemon wrote:

CAS: Emperor of Dreams documentary indiegogo
Interesting video short
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clark-ashton-smith-the-emperor-of-dreams#/

Very interesting. I'm tempted! 


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

5/22/2016 5:10 pm  #47


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Ghul wrote:

Scalydemon wrote:

CAS: Emperor of Dreams documentary indiegogo
Interesting video short
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clark-ashton-smith-the-emperor-of-dreams#/

Very interesting. I'm tempted! 

Ditto.  I own a copy of DSF's Emperor of Dreams bibliography, so that title definitely caught my eye!

 

7/02/2016 10:19 pm  #48


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Of this I can never grow tired:

++++++++++++++++++++++

Ralibar Vooz, high magistrate and redoubtable hunter, was both puzzled and irritated by this behavior of the smoke. Likewise, the aspect of the rocks around him was disconcertingly and unpleasantly deceitful. He was wasting too much time in an exploration idle and quite foreign to the real business of the day; but it was not his nature to abandon any enterprise no matter how trivial, without reaching the set goal. Halloing loudly to his men, who must have climbed the cliff by now, he went on toward the elusive smoke.

It seemed to him, once or twice, that he heard the answering shouts of his followers, very faint and indistinct, as if across some mile-wide chasm. Again he called lustily, but this time there was no audible reply. Going a little farther, he began to detect among the rocks beside him a peculiar conversational droning and muttering in which four or five different voices appeared to take part. Seemingly they were much nearer at hand than the smoke, which had now receded like a mirage. One of the voices was clearly that of a Hyperborean; but the others possessed a timbre and accent which Ralibar Vooz, in spite of his varied ethnic knowledge, could not associate with any branch or subdivision of mankind. They affected his ears in a most unpleasant fashion, suggesting by turns the hum of great insects, the murmurs of fire and water, and the rasping of metal.

Ralibar Vooz emitted a hearty and somewhat ireful bellow to announce his coming to whatever persons were convened amid the rocks. His weapons and accouterments clattering loudly, he scrambled over a sharp lava-ridge toward the voices.

Topping the ridge, he looked down on a scene that was both mysterious and unexpected. Below him, in a circular hollow, there stood a rude hut of boulders and stone fragments roofed with cedar boughs. In front of this hovel, on a large flat block of obsidian, a fire burned with flanes alternately blue, green and white; and from it rose the pale, thin spiral of smoke whose situation had illuded him so strangely.

An old man, withered and disreputable-looking, in a robe that appeared no less antique and unsavory than himself, was standing near to the fire. He was not engaged in any visible culinary operations; and, in view of the torrid sun, it hardly seemed that he required the warmth given by the queer-colored blaze. Aside from this individual, Ralibar Vooz laoked in vain for the participants of the muttered conversation he had just overheard. He thought there was an evanescent fluttering of dim, grotesque, shadows around the obsidian block; but the shadows faded and vanished in an instant; and, since there were no objects or beings that could have cast them, Ralibar Vooz deemed that he had been victimized by another of those highly disagreeable optic illusions in which that part of the mountain Vormithadreth seemed to abound.

The old man eyed the hunter with a fiery gaze and began to curse him in fluent but somewhat archaic diction as he descended into the hollow. At the same time, a lizard-tailed and sooty-feathered bird, which seemed to belong to some night-flying species of archaeopteryx, began to snap its toothed beak and flap its digited wings on the objectionably shapen stela that served it for a perch. This stela, standing on the lee side of the fire and very close to it, had not been perceived by Ralibar Vooz at first glance.

"May the ordure of demons bemire you from heel to crown!" cried the venomous ancient. "O lumbering, bawling idiot! you have ruined a most promising and important evocation. How you came here I cannot imagine. I have surrounded this place with twelve circles of illusion, whose effect is multiplied by their myriad intersections; and the chance that any intruder would ever find his way to my abode was mathematically small and insignificant. Ill was that chance which brought you here: for They that you have frightened away will not return until the high stars repeat a certain rare and quickly passing conjunction; and much wisdom is lost to me in the interim."

"How now, varlet!" said Ralibar Vooz, astonished and angered by this greeting, of which he understood little save that his presence was unwelcome to the old man. "Who are you that speak so churlishly to a magistrate of Commoriom and a cousin to King Homquat? I advise you to curb such insolence: for, if so I wish, it lies in my power to serve you even as I serve the Voormis. Though methinks," he added, "your pelt is far too filthy and verminous to merit room amid my trophies of the chase."

"Know that I am the sorcerer Ezdagor," proclaimed the ancient, his voice echoing among the rocks with dreadful sonority. "By choice I have lived remote from cities and men; nor have the Voormis of the mountain troubled me in my magical seclusion. I care not if you are the magistrate of all swinedom or a cousin to the king of dogs. In retribution for the charm you have shattered, the business you have undone by this oafish trespass, I shall put upon you a most dire and calamitous and bitter geas."

++++++++++++++++++++

Clark Ashton Smith, The Seven Geases


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

2/07/2017 1:23 pm  #49


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Quick question about which collection to get.

My favorite local book store as Vols. 1 & 2 of the collections by Nightshade. Francisca was mentioning how good the Buffalo Press ones are. He also says that the Nightshade ones would be good.

Any thoughts on a preference for "best" CAS collection?


What? Me worry?
 

2/07/2017 3:23 pm  #50


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

I've not seen the Buffalo Press editions.  I do have the Night Shade Press set (half in hard cover, half in soft cover).  I am happy with them.  It seems to be a good collection of his fantasy fiction.

 

2/18/2017 8:55 pm  #51


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

I have the Night Shade collection which is downright amazing. Not sure about the Buffalo Press editions...


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

7/21/2017 8:25 pm  #52


Re: Clark Ashton Smith


I filled my palace with deadly traps so trap admirers will come and visit me

AFS magazine - pulp literature meets old school gaming http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.com/
 

7/24/2017 5:58 pm  #53


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Nice find!


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

8/04/2017 9:43 pm  #54


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

I have AS&SH to thank for bringing Clark Ashton Smith to my attention. I discovered Lovecraft in high school and Howard in the Marines- I'm astonished I never heard of C.A.S. until a few years ago.

 

2/17/2018 3:36 am  #55


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Well, in the last two weeks I've read collections from R.E. Howard, Lovecraft, and lastly CAS (The Collected Fantasies Vol. 1).  All three were great.  Howard's work was a revelation.  Lovecraft's work is spooky good but there were no great surprises, as I've had a fair amount of second hand exposure to his mythos.  But Clark Ashton Smith?  Wow.  This guy was a mad genius.  I'm thoroughly impressed by the breadth of genres he moves through with ease, with imagination overflowing throughout!
 

Last edited by BinaryTortuga (2/17/2018 3:49 am)

 

2/17/2018 4:04 pm  #56


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

I'm reading the Sword of Zagan, which he wrote when he was 15. Smith was a true prodigy. Just unbelievable.


"Role-playing isn't storytelling. If the dungeon master is directing it, it's not a game."  ~ Gary Gygax
 

2/26/2018 1:06 pm  #57


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

I am starting A Vintage from Atlantis tonight. I have only read the stories listed as an influence for Castle Amber in the past. Looking forward to it, I am armed with my dictionary as C.A.S. sends me there a lot.


Has anyone seen one? Has anyone seen one in a hundred years??
 
 

3/05/2018 6:45 am  #58


Re: Clark Ashton Smith


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

3/05/2018 2:30 pm  #59


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

Thanks, Ghul!

The reviewer does not seem to know much about the economies of publishing, especially scholarly publishing -- especially in relation to the economies of small art-house presses that publish through subscription! I think one of the things to wonder about is why the letters aren't being put online for free study by scholars. CAS's stories, like HPL's and REH's. are freely available online because they have entered the public domain. I think the only reason the letters *aren't* available is so that the price point on the books can be protected. Though I cannot believe any sales would be cannibalized. Those who want $100, high-quality book will buy them; those who don't never will. An online collection is not going to do anything but expand the potential audience of those who might spend the money -- and increase the access of scholars to these letters.

 

7/15/2019 12:06 pm  #60


Re: Clark Ashton Smith

I took part in a fantastic podcast with the gentlemen at the Appendix N Book Club. The topic was Clark Ashton Smith's "Hyperborea" cycle of short stories, which were hugely inspirational to me during the development of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. We had a great conversation about works that I'm truly passionate about. Take a listen, if you have the chance, and also the other Appendix N Book Club podcasts that they have produced. Cheers! ~Jeff T.  https://soundcloud.com/appendixnbookclub/episode-50-extra-credit-clark-ashton-smiths-hyperborea-with-special-guest-jeffrey-talanian


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

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