HYPERBOREA » Clark Ashton Smith

The_Great_Lestrade · 5/23/2014 12:46 pm

i've been working my way through the two Lost Worlds paper back volumes. Solid stuff, I prefer Smith to Lovecraft, who never really hit it off for me for some reason, with the exception of Shadow over Innsmouth. Not sure whether i prrefer it to Conan yet though.

Handy Haversack · 5/23/2014 12:51 pm

The_Great_Lestrade wrote:
i've been working my way through the two Lost Worlds paper back volumes. Solid stuff, I prefer Smith to Lovecraft, who never really hit it off for me for some reason, with the exception of Shadow over Innsmouth. Not sure whether i prrefer it to Conan yet though.

Nice! Welcome to the Hyperbo(re)ards!

The_Great_Lestrade · 6/04/2014 7:24 am

I just read The Coming of the White Worm. This might be the best sword and wizardry story i've ever read. It would make excelent adventure material (although if it were adapted directly all pcs would need to be high level magic users and would be doomed to die)..

CAS has a lot of short stories. Which ones do you recommend. I have the two lost worlds paper back collections but im thinking of investing in something more substantial, are any specific collections recommended.

Handy Haversack · 6/04/2014 7:43 am

The_Great_Lestrade wrote:
I just read The Coming of the White Worm. This might be the best sword and wizardry story i've ever read. It would make excelent adventure material (although if it were adapted directly all pcs would need to be high level magic users and would be doomed to die)..

CAS has a lot of short stories. Which ones do you recommend. I have the two lost worlds paper back collections but im thinking of investing in something more substantial, are any specific collections recommended.

That's a great story. The White Worm itself is an amazing creation. Creepy, bizarre, unheralded, undeniable.

Great_Lestrade, this thread mentions a couple of collections. Lost Worlds is good because it samples from a lot of CAS's settings:

http://hyperborea.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=567#p567

"The Seven Geases" is particularly AS&SH-y; so is "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros."

And then there was talk of the fact that Penguin is putting out a good bit of CAS:

http://hyperborea.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=1374#p1374

The_Great_Lestrade · 6/05/2014 10:23 am

I read the Seven Geases last night. Very good story. It could convert very well into an under world dungeoncrawl. The descriptions of the dark sorcerers fortress are particularly great.

francisca · 9/03/2014 10:48 pm

I picked up the U. Of Nebraska reprints of Out of Space and Time and Lost Worlds a while back. Just now getting around to read them. Great stuff!

Ghul · 9/04/2014 5:43 pm

francisca wrote:
I picked up the U. Of Nebraska reprints of Out of Space and Time and Lost Worlds a while back. Just now getting around to read them. Great stuff!

You are in for a treat, Rich!

Blackadder23 · 9/05/2014 2:22 pm

Although it may be a tad uncouth, I have to gloat a little. I finally got my hands on the outlandishly priced second volume of the Nightshade CAS books, completing my set!

All it took was an unholy pact with my wife wherein she got to spend an equal amount of money to buy a human skull.

francisca · 9/05/2014 4:51 pm

Blackadder23 wrote:
Although it may be a tad uncouth, I have to gloat a little. I finally got my hands on the outlandishly priced second volume of the Nightshade CAS books, completing my set!

All it took was an unholy pact with my wife wherein she got to spend an equal amount of money to buy a human skull.

Seems fair enough.

Blackadder23 · 9/05/2014 6:40 pm

francisca wrote:
Seems fair enough.

I know, right?

Handy Haversack · 1/12/2015 12:17 pm

Happy birthday, CAS!

Ghul · 1/13/2015 7:04 am

Handy Haversack wrote:
Happy birthday, CAS!

Indeed!

Scalydemon · 3/28/2015 5:53 pm

pdf of complete Averoigne cycle
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Eos7dWiQVGdExnbnZLZjQ5UEU/view

Griffith · 4/04/2015 1:31 am

I am in love with my copies of Tales of Zothique and The Book of Hyperborea, Necronomicon Press.
So much so they are really showing sings of use and wear & tear

Last edited by Griffith (4/04/2015 1:33 am)

Ghul · 4/04/2015 1:24 pm

Griffith wrote:
I am in love with my copies of Tales of Zothique and The Book of Hyperborea, Necronomicon Press.
So much so they are really showing sings of use and wear & tear

I've read every Zothique and Hyperborea tale at least twice.

joseph · 4/04/2015 3:48 pm

Scalydemon wrote:
pdf of complete Averoigne cycle
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Eos7dWiQVGdExnbnZLZjQ5UEU/view

I read through Averoigne a little o er a year ago now, and it has some of my favorite CAS tales. It's very close to my homebrew... a heavily historical world mixed with myth, folklore and weird fantasy/horror.

Last edited by joseph (4/04/2015 4:30 pm)

Chainsaw · 4/04/2015 3:56 pm

Griffith wrote:
I am in love with my copies of Tales of Zothique and The Book of Hyperborea, Necronomicon Press.
So much so they are really showing sings of use and wear & tear

Those Necronomicon prints are awesome. Love mine.

Ghul · 4/28/2015 1:16 pm

While working on the Kickstarter, binding a pile of books, and assembling game sets, I've been listening to a brilliant audio performance of "The Isle of the Torturers," by CAS, read by Reg Green:

Here you can learn more of my primary influence for Hyperborea's "Green Death."

Enjoy!

Jeff T.

Last edited by Ghul (4/28/2015 1:17 pm)

Blackadder23 · 4/28/2015 3:21 pm

One of Smith's top five stories in my opinion. It would make a great short film (or episode of a sixty minute anthology series).

measuredrums · 7/28/2015 4:19 pm

For those in the group who may have missed out on the Night Shade Books 'The Collected Fantasies of CAS' Volumes (such as myself), and are not willing to pay the price of the seperate volumes through secondary markets (also, such as myself) . . . behold . . . TPB reprints are finally coming . . . http://www.nightshadebooks.com/2015/07/16/the-collected-fantasies-of-clark-ashton-smith/