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Lost Worlds
An artist, poet, and prolific contributor to Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1967) is an influential figure in the history of pulp fiction. A close correspondent and collaborator with H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, Smith was widely celebrated as a master by his contemporaries. Back in print for the first time since 1971, Lost Worlds brings together twenty-three of Smith's classic stories, all of which were originally published in Weird Tales. Rather than center his works on heroes, Smith created fantastical worlds around which he built cycles of stories. Included here are tales from the realms of Averoigne, Zothique, Hyperborea, and others. Told in lush poetic prose, these haunting stories bring to life dark, dreamlike realms full of gothic monsters and mortals. Jeff VanderMeer provides an introduction for this Bison Books edition.
419 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1944
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258 people want to read
About the author
Clark Ashton Smith
720 books996 followersClark Ashton Smith was a poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. It is for these stories, and his literary friendship with H. P. Lovecraft from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937, that he is mainly remembered today. With Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, also a friend and correspondent, Smith remains one of the most famous contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
His writings are posted at his official website.
His writings are posted at his official website.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 26, 2020
I have been a huge fan of Clark Ashton Smith (as well as his ~1930’s Weird Tales compatriots Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft). CAS’s Zothique tales won me over as a fan and encourage me to interview authors on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction”. His beautiful language and focus on grim tales (really grim) are powerful & unique. Check out the website dedicated to sharing his poetry, fiction, and letters at The Eldritch Dark website. Thanks to the Sword & Sorcery Goodreads group for hosting a “Lost Worlds” topic covering any author/work (by chance matching the title of this book). I decided to finally read this 400+page volume. The introduction by famed weird fiction writer Jeff VanDerMeer is short and trite; it covers the first two tales only and is hardly flattering. CAS does appear to be less well known that REH or HPL (currently), and that may be due to the consistent killing of his characters (i.e., no episodic Conan here); his elegant prose is admittedly dense, so it is rarely fluffy, easy reading.
Lost Worlds (reprinted from 1971) serves as a great introduction to CAS, with twenty-three tales covering his main mythoses/cycles: Hyperborea, Atlantis, Averoigne, Zothique, Xiccarph, and others. Below I capture highlights from all stories and summarize the milieus, but first let us explain what new readers should expect:
Grim Doom: Everything ends. Almost invariably, the main character and the world they inhabit dies; their loved ones fail and become irreversibly corrupted. Sometimes stories are is so over-the-top dark you may laugh aloud. CAS was self-aware enough to sprinkle in humor. Like the Coen brother’s movies like Fargo, or Burn After Reading? It’s like those.
Isolated, Passive Protagonists: These are all adventure stories, but the protagonists are not swordsmen or warriors. All are male, and are intellectuals: historians, antiquarians, scientists and sorcerers… perhaps long-lost kings who enjoy passively witnessing the end the world. Many seem to be loners who pine for a lost love, recumbent partner, or leave partners to dig up ancient mysteries instead of having a relationship. CAS seems to have a fetish with turning people into stone.
Organic Antagonists: hostile worlds and creatures often have floral components, even the robots; sometimes the vegetation, as intelligent and meaty as it may be, features metallic petals. CAS had some strange fetish with vegetation.
Language: CAS had an insane grasp of vocabulary and science; his style is unique. Excerpts below.
An overview of sections/cycles:
Hyperborea: These resonate with HPL’s Cthulhu mythos, exhibiting many tie-ins. Many eldritch gods are linked to the land or temples made in their honor. These may be the funniest of the group.
Atlantis: These do not reflect my impressions of a prediluvian, even postdiluvian, Atlantis as portrayed in most fiction. Frankly, these are nice tales but do not present much in a unified milieu; these could easily have been tucked into the other sections [to me “The Last Incantation” and “The Death of Malygris” feel like Zothique stories (i.e, necromancy!), and “A Voyage to Sfanomoë” a Xiccarph tale (i.e., planetary, evil flora!)].
Averoigne: These are deeply ironic tales of a medieval, Christina-Europe infused with sorcery. Inquisition-like Christians and Catholic tendencies inform the atmosphere.
Zothique: My favorite section features an apocalyptic future on a doomed continent where necromancy reigns!
Xiccarph: Planetary adventure with evil flora!
Uncategorized: Most of these are anchored to the real world in present-day (1930’s), with time & space travel aplenty.
Story notes (may contain spoilers).
Lost Worlds (reprinted from 1971) serves as a great introduction to CAS, with twenty-three tales covering his main mythoses/cycles: Hyperborea, Atlantis, Averoigne, Zothique, Xiccarph, and others. Below I capture highlights from all stories and summarize the milieus, but first let us explain what new readers should expect:
Grim Doom: Everything ends. Almost invariably, the main character and the world they inhabit dies; their loved ones fail and become irreversibly corrupted. Sometimes stories are is so over-the-top dark you may laugh aloud. CAS was self-aware enough to sprinkle in humor. Like the Coen brother’s movies like Fargo, or Burn After Reading? It’s like those.
Isolated, Passive Protagonists: These are all adventure stories, but the protagonists are not swordsmen or warriors. All are male, and are intellectuals: historians, antiquarians, scientists and sorcerers… perhaps long-lost kings who enjoy passively witnessing the end the world. Many seem to be loners who pine for a lost love, recumbent partner, or leave partners to dig up ancient mysteries instead of having a relationship. CAS seems to have a fetish with turning people into stone.
Organic Antagonists: hostile worlds and creatures often have floral components, even the robots; sometimes the vegetation, as intelligent and meaty as it may be, features metallic petals. CAS had some strange fetish with vegetation.
Language: CAS had an insane grasp of vocabulary and science; his style is unique. Excerpts below.
An overview of sections/cycles:
Hyperborea: These resonate with HPL’s Cthulhu mythos, exhibiting many tie-ins. Many eldritch gods are linked to the land or temples made in their honor. These may be the funniest of the group.
Atlantis: These do not reflect my impressions of a prediluvian, even postdiluvian, Atlantis as portrayed in most fiction. Frankly, these are nice tales but do not present much in a unified milieu; these could easily have been tucked into the other sections [to me “The Last Incantation” and “The Death of Malygris” feel like Zothique stories (i.e, necromancy!), and “A Voyage to Sfanomoë” a Xiccarph tale (i.e., planetary, evil flora!)].
Averoigne: These are deeply ironic tales of a medieval, Christina-Europe infused with sorcery. Inquisition-like Christians and Catholic tendencies inform the atmosphere.
Zothique: My favorite section features an apocalyptic future on a doomed continent where necromancy reigns!
Xiccarph: Planetary adventure with evil flora!
Uncategorized: Most of these are anchored to the real world in present-day (1930’s), with time & space travel aplenty.
Story notes (may contain spoilers).
July 1, 2016
A few months before I started reading this compilation of short stories I read a compilation of all of Clark Ashton Smith's stories that take place in the world Zothique, which is supposedly the world that gave birth to what is now known as the dying earth sub-genre. Anyways I absolutely loved that collection, not every story in it, but many of them were some of the best examples of well-written stories I've come across. I liked that collection so much I couldn't wait to get my hands on another compilation of Clark Ashton Smith stories and devour it. Luckily my library system has several of his short story compilations. He has become one of my favorite fantasy writers. In imaginative vision he totally outclasses all of the contemporary fantasy writers I've encountered. His prose are so vivid that in some cases I actually feel like I'mm there. His ornate style and archaic use of language might be a turn off for some but in reality his work isn't that hard to read compared to some older authors. Now that I've become totally acclimated to his style of writing I actually find it kind of easy to read and very accessible. It's a shame that so few people nowadays read Clark Ashton Smith. More people should. He wrote many wonderful short stories. My favorite is Xeethra. Some other favorites by him in Lost Worlds include the Beast of Averoigne, Hunters from Beyond, the Plutonium Drug and the Coming of the White Worm. He mainly wrote fantasy but there are some sci-fi stories in this collection, which were particularly interesting. The copy write has run out on his work so people can read his work for free from this website http://eldritchdark.com/writings/shor...
Just read one of the stories I recommended and see the master at work.
Just read one of the stories I recommended and see the master at work.
January 3, 2009
This particular collection of Clark's work contain some of the best pulp stories I have ever read. In a majority of the stories the word "pulp" seems inappropriate, since such care went into creating mood and atmosphere. These are crafted stories, filled with rich language, and a richer imagination that paints worlds filled with both strange beauty and disturbing, decadent horror (as in Baulelaire's Flowers of Evil kind). Maybe this is all too rich for some, but given the genre(s)(fantasy (and horror)), Smith's purple prose seems perfect. If you've read extensively in both Fantasy and Horror, but have not read Smith, you will be struck by the obvious influence he must have had on many of your favorite writers. To be honest, I can't believe I never read this guy before. Probably because he did not write novels, so most of his short story work was buried away in old issues of Weird Tales. Kudos to Bison Books for keeping his work available, and in very nice editions. If you're curious, many of these are available online:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/...
As far as what to read, I'd suggest looking at the index of the Lost Worlds collection. The book is divided into six sections, with five sections representing Clark's created worlds. The last section, "Others" was also the weakest part of the collection. Just pick stories from the other sections, and you should be fine. One story in particular that I would recommend, "The Maze of Maâl Dweb."
Maâl Dweb is a Ming the Merciless type. The opening paragraph shows Smith at his purple prose best:
"By the light of the four small waning moons of Xiccarph, Tiglari had crossed that bottomless swamp wherein no reptile dwelt and no dragon descended; but where the pitch-black ooze was alive with incessant heavings. He had not cared to use the high causey of corundum that spanned the fen, and had threaded his way with much peril from isle to sedgy isle that shuddered gelatinously beneath him. When he reached the solid shore and the shelter of the palm-tall rushes, he did not approach the porphyry stairs that wound skyward through giddy chasms and along glassy scarps to the house of Maal Dweb. The causey and the stairs were guarded by the silent, colossal automatons of Maal Dweb, whose arms ended in long crescent blades of tempered steel which were raised in implacable scything against any who came thither without their master's permission."
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/...
As far as what to read, I'd suggest looking at the index of the Lost Worlds collection. The book is divided into six sections, with five sections representing Clark's created worlds. The last section, "Others" was also the weakest part of the collection. Just pick stories from the other sections, and you should be fine. One story in particular that I would recommend, "The Maze of Maâl Dweb."
Maâl Dweb is a Ming the Merciless type. The opening paragraph shows Smith at his purple prose best:
"By the light of the four small waning moons of Xiccarph, Tiglari had crossed that bottomless swamp wherein no reptile dwelt and no dragon descended; but where the pitch-black ooze was alive with incessant heavings. He had not cared to use the high causey of corundum that spanned the fen, and had threaded his way with much peril from isle to sedgy isle that shuddered gelatinously beneath him. When he reached the solid shore and the shelter of the palm-tall rushes, he did not approach the porphyry stairs that wound skyward through giddy chasms and along glassy scarps to the house of Maal Dweb. The causey and the stairs were guarded by the silent, colossal automatons of Maal Dweb, whose arms ended in long crescent blades of tempered steel which were raised in implacable scything against any who came thither without their master's permission."
May 11, 2009
CAS probably has the richest, most lush prose of any other author of modern fantasy. Sometimes, you feel that his stories are lacking in plot and well rounded characters but that can generally be forgiven if you are willing to slow down your pace of reading and really savour the quality of the prose, much like fine wine.
To give you a flavour, here is the opening paragraph to "The Demon of the Flower":
That's not to say that all the stories are lacking in plot and interesting characters. But it is only fair to warn the potential reader that some of the stories contained in this collection are definitely pure prose.
Thematically, these are a broad range of tales of the fantastic, often quite dark, some bordering on horror. Some are even in the realms of SF but CAS seems to lack any concern for scientific plausibility.
To give you a flavour, here is the opening paragraph to "The Demon of the Flower":
Not as the plants and flowers of Earth, growing peacefully beneath a simple sun, were the blossoms of the planet Lophai. Coiling and uncoiling in double dawns; tossing tumultuously under vast suns of jade green and balas-ruby orange; swaying and weltering in rich twilights, in aurora-curtained nights, they resembled fields of rooted serpents that dance eternally to an other-worldly music.
That's not to say that all the stories are lacking in plot and interesting characters. But it is only fair to warn the potential reader that some of the stories contained in this collection are definitely pure prose.
Thematically, these are a broad range of tales of the fantastic, often quite dark, some bordering on horror. Some are even in the realms of SF but CAS seems to lack any concern for scientific plausibility.
November 23, 2022
Clark Ashton Smith's Lost Worlds, originally published by Arkham House in 1944, collects 23 of the author's stories published between 1930 and 1941, mainly in Weird Tales, though also occasionally in a few other pulps. This particular edition was reprinted by the British publisher Neville Spearman in 1971.
Smith's prose, akin to that of the Lovecraft with which perhaps more readers may be familiar, is richly and beautifully detailed, though of course more adjective-heavy and slow than is the custom today. Of course, we don't read Weird Tales stories of the 1930s to look for Hemingway-esque terseness or to complain about the lack of "Show--don't tell" taught in modern creative writing courses. No, to read these tales is to immerse oneself in the style, point of view, and even subjects of nearly a hundred years ago. It is an exploration of literary history, and a most purposeful one, yet one not merely of critical research but also of enjoyment of terrors that range from cloying to all-enveloping.
The tales here are divided into six categories, with the last being "Other." The preceding sections are stories of pre-Ice-Age Hyperborea, of Atlantis, of creepy Medieval French Averoigne, of "dying Earth" Zothique, and of extraterrestrial Xiccarph. There are monsters and menaces of all variety. There are spells and traps and treachery. There are dooms subtle and presaged and yet unavoidable. There are depictions of the macabre and horror-haunted that, for a reader of patience and care, delight and darkly thrill. Now, I confess that somehow I found this collection not quite as solid as the 1942 Out of Space and Time, but even this means a rating of 4.5 stars, so for Clark Ashton Smith's nevertheless entertaining Lost Worlds let us round 'er up to a 5-star read.
Smith's prose, akin to that of the Lovecraft with which perhaps more readers may be familiar, is richly and beautifully detailed, though of course more adjective-heavy and slow than is the custom today. Of course, we don't read Weird Tales stories of the 1930s to look for Hemingway-esque terseness or to complain about the lack of "Show--don't tell" taught in modern creative writing courses. No, to read these tales is to immerse oneself in the style, point of view, and even subjects of nearly a hundred years ago. It is an exploration of literary history, and a most purposeful one, yet one not merely of critical research but also of enjoyment of terrors that range from cloying to all-enveloping.
The tales here are divided into six categories, with the last being "Other." The preceding sections are stories of pre-Ice-Age Hyperborea, of Atlantis, of creepy Medieval French Averoigne, of "dying Earth" Zothique, and of extraterrestrial Xiccarph. There are monsters and menaces of all variety. There are spells and traps and treachery. There are dooms subtle and presaged and yet unavoidable. There are depictions of the macabre and horror-haunted that, for a reader of patience and care, delight and darkly thrill. Now, I confess that somehow I found this collection not quite as solid as the 1942 Out of Space and Time, but even this means a rating of 4.5 stars, so for Clark Ashton Smith's nevertheless entertaining Lost Worlds let us round 'er up to a 5-star read.
January 14, 2019
This collection of his stories, originally published in Weird Tales magazine, includes examples of many of the settings in which he worked: Atlantis and Hyperborea in the distant past, the fictional French province of Averoigne during the spread of Christianity, and a dying world in the future. Smith was a correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard who worked references to their tales into their own, but from what I've read by the three of them, was probably a more skilled writer. He mixes horror, science fiction, and fantasy, with monstrous beings from distant worlds messing with mankind and ordinary people getting caught up in bizarre visions. as well as some adventure stories. Poetic description of unnatural settings and creatures was also standard for him. Not all of the stories are equal in quality, but it's a good collection overall.
April 27, 2021
Clark Ashton Smith's abilities of description are beyond compare. These worlds are so lush and unique, the stories generally take a back seat to the scenery and poetic descriptions of what is happening in them. Generally all these stories are very bleak and only one of them has a kind of happy ending. The stories are wide ranging thematically but my favorites are the ones that deal with Necromancers, which is a good chunk of them. Definitely read this if you are into Sci-Fi, fantasy, or horror as Smith is a unique talent that combines all of these in a beautiful, awe-inspiring way.
October 6, 2019
Clark Ashton Smith är onekligen en av mina absoluta favoriter, punkt. Mannens begåvning för språk och atmosfär är i en alldeles egen liga oavsett man pratar prosa eller lyrik. Den här volymen gavs ursprungligen ut som en systervolym till "Out of Space and Time" och innehöll då de mer S&S:iga novellerna. Riktigt, fantastiskt bra är det i alla fall.
August 14, 2025
Nothing beats Mr. Smithy, true king of imaginative descriptions and horrors beyond all comprehension. This was a great edition, collecting a ton of amazing stories.
Necromancy in Naat is still my favourite
Necromancy in Naat is still my favourite
May 7, 2013
(NB: I read both of the Bison Frontiers of Imagination / U. of Nebraska Press editions of Lost Worlds and Out of Space and Time at the same time, so this review will cover both.)
While most or all of the Clark Ashton Smith opus is now available free online, this was my first reading of stories from this author considered one of the "big three" writers for the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and while not all of the writing is great, some of it is quite beautiful and haunting.
Smith is at his best when working in a "decadent" vein: sleepwalking heroes drawn against their will to dire fates, necromancers reanimating foul corpses, worlds on the brink of decay and destruction, weary dreams of past lives and the end of times. Smith's links to Dunsany and Theosophy are obvious, but he also channels the prose poems of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. While reading, one imagines the paintings of Odilon Redon or Arnold Böcklin... islands of the dead, haunting shapes in the shadows.
Of the various settings (Averoigne, Poseidonis, Zothique, etc.) that he invented, Smith's strongest stories in these two collections (to me) were those from Zothique ("The Dark Eidolon", "The Empire of the Necromancers", "Necromancy in Naat") and Atlantis ("The Last Incantation", "A Death of Malygris", "The Double Shadow"), and his two prose poems "From the Crypts of Memory" and "The Shadows".
There are a few duds in the anthology, and Clark Ashton Smith's prose and vocabulary can be purple and too recondite; he also doesn't excel at either action/adventure (unlike Robert E. Howard) or at providing access to his horrors via contemporary characters (as in Lovecraft), but as a kind of self-taught American Rimbaud writing dreamscapes of decaying lands haunted by necromancers and dire portents, he leaves an enduring mark.
While most or all of the Clark Ashton Smith opus is now available free online, this was my first reading of stories from this author considered one of the "big three" writers for the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and while not all of the writing is great, some of it is quite beautiful and haunting.
Smith is at his best when working in a "decadent" vein: sleepwalking heroes drawn against their will to dire fates, necromancers reanimating foul corpses, worlds on the brink of decay and destruction, weary dreams of past lives and the end of times. Smith's links to Dunsany and Theosophy are obvious, but he also channels the prose poems of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. While reading, one imagines the paintings of Odilon Redon or Arnold Böcklin... islands of the dead, haunting shapes in the shadows.
Of the various settings (Averoigne, Poseidonis, Zothique, etc.) that he invented, Smith's strongest stories in these two collections (to me) were those from Zothique ("The Dark Eidolon", "The Empire of the Necromancers", "Necromancy in Naat") and Atlantis ("The Last Incantation", "A Death of Malygris", "The Double Shadow"), and his two prose poems "From the Crypts of Memory" and "The Shadows".
There are a few duds in the anthology, and Clark Ashton Smith's prose and vocabulary can be purple and too recondite; he also doesn't excel at either action/adventure (unlike Robert E. Howard) or at providing access to his horrors via contemporary characters (as in Lovecraft), but as a kind of self-taught American Rimbaud writing dreamscapes of decaying lands haunted by necromancers and dire portents, he leaves an enduring mark.
March 23, 2013
The sort of thing where a little goes a long way--and then everything started seeming tenebrous and miasmal. Or actually, tenebrific and miasmous...I don't know if he really knows more words than W C Fields, but he's got to know more cognates than any man who ever breathed. The only really excellent story (I thought) was "The Chain Of Aforgomon"; the out-of-time bit got to be rather an overplayed hand for him, but there it was so big and worlds-straddling that it got pretty cosmic. Also liked the first paragraph of "Planet Of the Dead"--ending with: "For Melchior was one of those who are born with an immedicable distaste for all that is present or near at hand....The Earth is too narrow for such, and the compass of mortal time is too brief; and paucity and barrenness are everywhere; and in all places their lot is a never-ending weariness." And "Genius Loci" I suppose was fairly original--about a place that was accursed without any outside reason. Interesting too the fairly gross details in some of them--and the fact that a couple end in mid-action with the bad side winning. One more thing: his prose style is fine but unfortunately his dialogue tends to resemble it too much--not making for the naturalest of tones. And then there was describing something as "like the nauseous vomit of horror-sated hells." Holy smoke.
July 7, 2017
Smith personally collected what he considered to be his best tales for 'Out of Space and Time', his first collection for Arkham House. Whilst that does contain some absolute classics, I consider 'Lost Worlds', his second Arkham collection, to contain his best stories. Opener, 'The Tale of Satampra Zeiros' is possibly Smith's best ever piece, a 'Hyperborean grotesque' which HP Lovecraft described as bringing him "well-nigh delirious delight" upon first reading. The quality does not diminish throughout the succeeding tales of Atlantis and Averoigne. We then have a set of Smith's finest Zothique stories, "The Empire of the Necromancers", "The Isle of the Torturers" and "Necromancy in Naat". The undiluted essence of what makes Smith great boils throughout this triumvirate, a coalescence of the bizarre, grotesque and poetically beautiful. The latter half of the book also contains some stone cold classics (especially "The Demon of the Flower"), but a few duds too ("The Plutonian Drug"). Closing tale "The Treader of the Dust" is a suitably chilling finale however, and one of Smith's best 'weird tales'. Overall, a brilliant collection.
January 29, 2014
Antologia dedicata a Clark Ashton Smith: maestro del pulp-weird, corrispondente di Lovecraft, collaboratore fisso di Weird Tales.
In molti dei suoi racconti traspare, in tutto il suo splendore, lo spirito pionieristico della fantascienza degli anni trenta: viaggi nel tempo e nello spazio per sfuggire a una realtà terrestre monotona e alienante, verso altri mondi orbitanti, spesso, attorno a più stelle. I protagonisti di Clark esplorano e scoprono mondi popolati da fiori e piante pensanti, vero e proprio marchio di fabbrica per Clark, che si fondono con visioni di apocalissi di antichi pianeti e razze aliene in estinzione, stregoni quasi onnipotenti, antichi demoni e cupi dèi che amalgamano magia, esoterismo e tecnologia come mai prima.
Da non perdere:
-Le sette fatiche
-Il pianeta della morte
-Da stella a stella
In molti dei suoi racconti traspare, in tutto il suo splendore, lo spirito pionieristico della fantascienza degli anni trenta: viaggi nel tempo e nello spazio per sfuggire a una realtà terrestre monotona e alienante, verso altri mondi orbitanti, spesso, attorno a più stelle. I protagonisti di Clark esplorano e scoprono mondi popolati da fiori e piante pensanti, vero e proprio marchio di fabbrica per Clark, che si fondono con visioni di apocalissi di antichi pianeti e razze aliene in estinzione, stregoni quasi onnipotenti, antichi demoni e cupi dèi che amalgamano magia, esoterismo e tecnologia come mai prima.
Da non perdere:
-Le sette fatiche
-Il pianeta della morte
-Da stella a stella
Read
November 29, 2012False
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