The Emperor Of Dreams

The Emperor of Dreams is an intelligently put together collection of the short stories of Clark Ashton Smith, one of the most interesting of the group of fantasy writers who congregated around the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s. Like his correspondent and friend Lovecraft, Smith was hugely influenced by the fantasies and horror stories of Lord Dunsany, from whom he learned to make dream landscapes seem coherent and to pepper his stories with whimsically polysyllabic names like Thasaidon and Moriggian. Smith's fiction is as ironic as Dunsany's, but distinctly more pessimistic; characters he likes, on the whole, are likely to die only slightly less horribly than the covetous or callous. These are stories whose human characters live on the sufferance of more powerful entities whom they are perpetually offending, almost without meaning to. The mundane world whose jewels and scents and bright flowers Smith portrays, in a prose that frequently heads off in the direction of the purple, is a thin skin over realms of vertiginous emptiness and nightmare. These are stories with a tremendous influence on the fantasy-fiction that followed them--they are an acquired taste which many love passionately. --Roz Kaveney

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Superlative dark fantasy - Rated
Although never as popular as his friends Lovecraft and Howard, Smith
managed to carve his own niche in fantasy fiction.This is the first
publication of his stories in almost a decade, and fantasy euthusiasts should jump at the chance to read his unique work.
Smith mixed horror stories set in the mundane world with fantasies set in imaginary realms as remote as possible from that world.
Of the former stories, "The Gorgon","The Seed From The Speculcher" and the "Hunters from Beyond" are the best, clever depictions of hostile cosmic forces attacking foolish curious humans.
The fantasy stories are set in locations, as critic Brian Stableford has observed, in worlds as remote as possible from the real world. This enables Smith to weave baroque tales which usually have a horrific or tragic conclusion. Some of them,such as
"The Seven Geases" or "The Dark Eidolon" feature more "Outre" elements than the average novel. Even a minor tale like the "Abominations of Yondo" is rendered fascinating by elements such as meteoric mountains and shadow-demons.
There are a few flaws. Smith sometimes goes overboard on the weird names. The stories he wrote in the 1950s are unmemorable. The Zothique stories sometimes have nasty racist stereotyping ("Negro cannibals" or the "Fu Manchu" Asians of "The Isle of the Torturers").
Despite this, the collection is largely superb. It is concluded with a superb biography of CAS by Stephen Jones. Recommended.

a marvellous book - Rated
Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary and correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and other great writers of the '30s pulp magazines, and it shows.

The contribution to the `Cthulhu Mythos' by Smith is very evident in this collection of short stories, although his approach is very different to that of both Lovecraft and Howard. The writing is very intense, the stories cannot be read quickly- each sentence has a lot of weight behind it, considerable thought put into the sound of each word.

The stories, for the most part, are fantasies: similar to Lovecraft's dreamlands tales, and the faerie land stories of Lord Dunsany. Smith's approach, though, is very much his own. Happy endings do not exist, and bad things happen to everyone be they pleasant or not. The fantasy world herein is one that is very harsh to the curious, and unforgiving to those who intrude on it whether by accident or design.

A personal favourite is `The Seed from the Sepulcher', a story set in the '30s. This is a story that definitely out-Lovecrafts Lovecraft! it has cosmic implications, contaminating horror and dreadful, soul-destroying realizatons. It is also a very uncomfortable story to read: its final sequence is truly chilling.

Recommended to any fans of pulp, horror or fantasy. Particularly recommended to fans of Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. A very good book.

A great overview of Smith's work - Rated
I just wish it included some of his illustrations! If you have never read Clark Ashton Smith, this book will introduce you to one of the most amazing writers of the past century. Or of the current one, for that matter. He used words the way that Michelangelo used paint and marble; his prose is three-dimensional, and in the hands of anyone else it probably wouldn't work, would seem overblown and even silly. But Smith was truly a master, and his prose is simply gorgeous. Yes, the stories are all very good, and others have spoken of their content so I won't go on about that. I love the stories, the mythos, the fantasies, but even more I just love reading the very sentences and phrases penned by this wizard. It is a true pity that just because Smith wrote genre he is not considered to be a writer of literature.
I would very highly recommend this book both for the wonderfulness of the tales it contains and the great joy of reading some of the most beautifully executed prose ever written. Also, the book contains a short bio of Smith, which is quite interesting.

A fine collection of stories by Smith... - Rated
Clark Ashton Smith is a writer whose work I've enjoyed for a few years now. I picked up this new collection as it contained several stories I hadn't read yet. I must say that the choices are excellent. Smith's wonderful, exotic tales of Zothique, Averoigne, Poseidonis, and Hyperborea are well represented, and his unusual stories set in the present-day (well, his present-day, the 1930's), are all well worth the read. Smith was also a poet, and his prose has a richness of language that makes it a pleasure to read. He is one of the most imaginative authors I have ever read. Highlights of this collection are "The Empire of the Necromancers", "Necromancy in Naat", "The Nameless Offspring", and "The Tale of Satambra Zeiros". In my opinion though, they are all great. This book gets a definite "thumbs up" from me. It's a good introduction for new fans and I think many familiar with his work will find some stories here new to them. A real plus is Stephen Jones' detailed, informative Afterword. Buy it and help keep Clark Ashton Smith in print!

Stunning! - Rated
Clark Ashton Smith writes peotically of strange worlds, people and creatures. If you like Vance, Moorcock and Lovecraft, you will love this! Ashton Smith's visions are unifirmly dark, and you sometimes wish that he had turned his talents to slightly lighter topics. Still, these short stories are to be savoured.