HYPERBOREA » Clark Ashton Smith

JasonZavoda · 3/02/2014 9:58 pm

CAS is probably the biggest current influence of mine. In the past I managed to read a few of his stories but it wasn't till the last few years that the bulk of writing became available to me. First it was the big kindle collection, but then I picked up his 5 (now 6) volume set of works from Nightshade Books and have really started delving into his amazing writing. I have a series of write-ups covering some of his stories I was working on that I have been meaning to restart. I will start posting them somewhere here if Jeff doesn't mind.

Ghul · 3/03/2014 6:13 am

Yes, those Nightshade volumes are incredible. I've got them all, and I enjoy them greatly. CAS is my favorite of the Big Three when I am reading his work . . . but then I change my mind and say HPL when I am reading his work. But I cut my teeth on the works of REH, and when I am reading his work, it feels like a punch to the gut and like home all at the same time. Recently I finally read all the El Borak tales, and my infatuation with Howard's fiction and poetry was rekindled.

Lord Kjeran · 3/03/2014 11:08 am

I have those on my Amazon wish list. Need to pick them up sometime. I do have a couple of old CAS paperbacks like "Hyperborea."

JasonZavoda · 3/03/2014 11:53 am

Ghul wrote:
Yes, those Nightshade volumes are incredible. I've got them all, and I enjoy them greatly. CAS is my favorite of the Big Three when I am reading his work . . . but then I change my mind and say HPL when I am reading his work. But I cut my teeth on the works of REH, and when I am reading his work, it feels like a punch to the gut and like home all at the same time. Recently I finally read all the El Borak tales, and my infatuation with Howard's fiction and poetry was rekindled.

I now have most of Howard in the big DelRey Trades (which are fantastic) but I'm missing the boxing/western stories, the Horror and the 2 best of (I'm not sure what they contain). I do have the big Howard omnibus from Kindle. Howard is an all-around fantastic writer. I have an old paperback with his Cthulhu horror stories and a bunch of paperbacks with some of his other writings, but those DelReys are like the Nightshade CAS series, just amazing to own.

JasonZavoda · 3/03/2014 12:01 pm

Lord Kjeran wrote:
I have those on my Amazon wish list. Need to pick them up sometime. I do have a couple of old CAS paperbacks like "Hyperborea."

I would grab them. They have the CAS stories in the order that he wrote them and an amazing appendix with notes and publishing information about each story. CAS kept a writing diary about each story and they give information from it. I can't believe how little he made and the ones he couldn't sell.

Lord Kjeran · 3/03/2014 12:43 pm

I have a collection f Howard's westerns: "The End of the Trail." I need the boxing stories as well.

http://www.amazon.com/End-Trail-Western-Stories-Robert/dp/0803273568 .

Druvas · 3/12/2014 3:44 pm

My but those Nightshade releases are expensive. Only in hardback (or Kindle) and around $100 for vol. 1 and $40-70 for vols 2-5 each. I wonder why there is no current print edition omnibus of his works? For pretty serious lovers of the genre, I'd think it would sell well.

Scalydemon · 3/20/2014 10:14 pm

I have several CAS books, mostly the 'collected fantasy' series, but I recently got turned on to a British print book that was pretty reasonably priced. If you are looking for a good representative stories collection in hardback you may want to check this type out.

Here is a pic of the book I picked up

Handy Haversack · 3/21/2014 7:31 am

I have that collection, too. Univ. of Nebraska Press reissued that and Out of Space and Time a few years ago, but they don't seem to be in print now.

Scalydemon · 3/24/2014 10:29 pm

Penguin books is now printing CAS . This releases tomorrow on Amazon. I pre-ordered one a few months back and they sent me a message that it will ship tomorrow

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Eidolon-Other-Fantasies/dp/0143107380/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395718010&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dark+eidolon

JasonZavoda · 3/24/2014 11:09 pm

Scalydemon wrote:
Penguin books is now printing CAS . This releases tomorrow on Amazon. I pre-ordered one a few months back and they sent me a message that it will ship tomorrow

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Eidolon-Other-Fantasies/dp/0143107380/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395718010&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dark+eidolon

That looks like a CAS painting on the cover. I will have to see if the kindle edition has the table of contents. They had three volumes of his poetry for free on kindle at one point but they started disappering (probably posted without permission).

Handy Haversack · 3/25/2014 7:49 am

Get it together, Penguin! I work for a scholarly press, and we manage to have the search-and-discovery files up for print and Kindle by the day before publication! And generally well before that, as soon as Amazon will put them up.

A good bit of cross-over in the fiction with the other collections I have, but quite a lot of poetry, it seems.

Scalydemon · 3/27/2014 9:59 pm

The cover is a painting by CAS titled 'The Spy'. I recived this a couple days ago. I really like the feel and look of these Penguin classics series. I have started a ways into it and like the 'prose poems' they are mostly the size of a very large paragraph and some are like instant adventure seeds. Also a few short stories I have not read (some are very common printed in here)

Crisippo · 3/28/2014 2:43 am

Scalydemon wrote:
Penguin books is now printing CAS . This releases tomorrow on Amazon. I pre-ordered one a few months back and they sent me a message that it will ship tomorrow

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Eidolon-Other-Fantasies/dp/0143107380/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395718010&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dark+eidolon

I'm throwing my status as a library power-user around at my local library to get them to pick this up. CAS is not much read in Norway, never been translated. Hopefully i'll succeed, i think i'm 6 for 7 when it comes to recomending fantasy to them.

Santaj · 4/02/2014 11:41 am

Man, somehow I had missed out on Clark Aston Smith for all these years. I hadn't even heard of him until a year or two ago. I discovered his works while reading some OSR blogs. This was during a time when I was paying a great deal of attention to the DCC RPG and Smith was listed as an influence on the type of fantasy presented in that game. Still more time passed and I hadn't read Smith. His books are hard to find in my neck of the woods. Then I purchased a five volume set of collected works for my Kindle although I greatly prefer physical printed books. I have finally gotten my hands on two books, The Return of the Sorcerer and a new one, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. I've begun reading the stories in the newer book and I'm greatly enjoying them. Smith is quite the wordsmith and I find myself having to read carefully to really take it all in.

JasonZavoda · 4/02/2014 12:17 pm

Santaj wrote:
Man, somehow I had missed out on Clark Aston Smith for all these years. I hadn't even heard of him until a year or two ago. I discovered his works while reading some OSR blogs. This was during a time when I was paying a great deal of attention to the DCC RPG and Smith was listed as an influence on the type of fantasy presented in that game. Still more time passed and I hadn't read Smith. His books are hard to find in my neck of the woods. Then I purchased a five volume set of collected works for my Kindle although I greatly prefer physical printed books. I have finally gotten my hands on two books, The Return of the Sorcerer and a new one, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. I've begun reading the stories in the newer book and I'm greatly enjoying them. Smith is quite the wordsmith and I find myself having to read carefully to really take it all in.

The nice thing about the Nightshade books series (now with a 6th book collecting miscellaneous writing) are the end notes and their chronological order (and the attempt to find CAS' unedited work).

Ghul · 4/02/2014 1:18 pm

What? Sixth book? (heads over to Nightshade . . .)

JasonZavoda · 4/02/2014 3:14 pm

Ghul wrote:
What? Sixth book? (heads over to Nightshade . . .)

It has the same style binding but only says "The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith" rather than the 5 volume collection titles.

Ghul · 4/07/2014 6:55 pm

Great news for fellow CAS fans!

finarvyn · 4/10/2014 4:14 am

Santaj wrote:
Man, somehow I had missed out on Clark Aston Smith for all these years. I hadn't even heard of him until a year or two ago.

My experience is a lot like this. I attribute in part to the fact that Gary never included CAS in his "Appendix N" style lists. (He put out several of these prior to the AD&D DMG, and none of them include Smith.)