Die Grabgewölbe von Yoh-Vombis: Gesammelte Erzählungen Band 2

by Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) ist H. P. Lovecrafts vergessener literarischer Gefährte aus den Tagen des Weird Tales Magazine. Seine Dark Fantasy ist von halluzinatorischer Intensität. Viele Fans halten C. A. Smiths Werk sogar für bedeutsamer als das von H. P. Lovecraft. Im Festa Verlag erscheinen Die gesammelten Erzählungen von Clark Ashton Smith in sechs Bänden (je etwa 416 Seiten). Geordnet nach Zyklen, jeder Zyklus mit einer Einführung des amerikanischen Fantastikexperten Will Murray. Inhalt Band 2: Die unentdeckte Insel Das Ungeheuer aus der Prophezeiung Der Brief aus Mohaun Los Das Gorgonenhaupt Die Epiphanie des Todes Eine nekromantische Geschichte Die Unsterblichen des Merkur Ein Leichnam zuviel Die namenlose Ausgeburt Die Knospen des Grabes Will Der Mars-Zyklus von Clark Ashton Smith Die Grabgewölbe von Yoh-Vombis Der Herrscher der Tiefe Vulthoom E. Hoffman Erinnerungen an Klarkash-Ton Scott Connors und Ron Anmerkungen zu den Erzählungen

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Weird Fiction, Fiction

416 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1988

About the author

Clark 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.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first time reading Smith and I am impressed. Set on Mars, this is a deeply chilling and gruesome sci-fi tale that anyone who's a fan of the Alien series of films will immediately appreciate. Many draw comparisons between Smith and HP Lovecraft, who were contemporaries and wrote in not dis-similar styles that feel hypnotic if not detached, with dense, baroque prose. There's some of that here to be sure, but I didn't have much difficultly parsing the prose and on the whole it felt more accessible to a modern reader than Lovecraft's writings. It also delivers some real punch, whereas I feel that HPL's writings are often mostly buildup, giving only fleeting glimpses of the real terrors that are intimated at. There will definitely be more Clark Ashton Smith in my reading future!

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1932, this is a classic mash-up of a Mars part-derived from Edgar Rice Boroughs, the Lovecraft of Mountains of Madness and the period lore of ancient civilisations (like those being explicated in the popular press of the 1930s) pushed back 40,000 years and across the solar system.

It suffers from being a Lovecraft pastiche in style at the beginning, with the standard issue mad man turning up in civilisation to tell a a tale of eldritch horror, but once the actual tale starts to get told it is genuinely atmospheric and horrific.

The bottom line is leech-like brain eaters lurking in the bowels of the planet and you can see the link between 1930s pulp and the C movie horror films of the 1950s here but there is genuine awe and terror in this story and it is justly regarded as one of the fantasists' best.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very trippy story. I can see where Frank Belknap Long got his inspiration for his Martian stories.

[Jersy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clark Ashton Smith might become a new favorite short story author for me. This collection contains some imaginative science fiction and bone chilling horror, sometimes mixing the two genres to great effect. Some of the stories contain enough ideas for whole novels and still manage to be satisfying.
If you don't know what to expect from Clark Ashton Smith: The horror story are sometimes comparable to the style of Lovevraft - though I enjoy CAS's approach more - sometimes to Poe, the SF often has an adventurous, exploration vibe, getting to know a planet and its inhabitants.
Though it clearly reads like stories of that time, the individual tales are varied and creative, making me want to discover more from Clark Ashton Smith.

[Kalkwiese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Auch Band 2 vom CASs gesammelten Erzählungen zeigt einen vielseitigen Dichter, der in seiner Prosa-Phase aberwitzige, atmosphärisch dichte und verstörende Welten für seine Leser öffnet. Dieses Mal konzentriert sich die Sammlung auf interplanetare Reisen.

Ein Highlight ist für viele sicher der Mars-Zyklus am Ende dieser Ausgabe. Persönlich sind es allerdings gerade die Horror-Geschichten, die mich am ehesten kalt lassen. Man könnte sich fragen, warum ich dann die Texte von Lovecrafts Kumpel lese - der Grund ist, dass CAS eben noch viel mehr kann.

Genug gesagt.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short detailing the explorations of the lost city of Yoh-Vombis on the planet Mars. A horrible surprise lies in wait for the archaeologists as they explore the vaults and caverns beneath the shifting desert sands.

A perfect example Smith’s adept blurring of the horror/sci fi genres.

Also titled ' The Vaults of Abomi'

[José Cruz Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hellish science fiction tale penned by a brilliant wordsmith. If you think that H. P. Lovecraft could really turn a phrase, wait until you read his friend (and favorite writer) Clark Ashton Smith. One of the things I love about Lovecraft is that my vocabulary seems to grow whenever I read his stories, so I was delighted to see that Ashton Smith also had a prodigious amount of words at his command. As someone said before, the man was a poet who happened to write in prose.

The story itself is good, but the plot seems a little cliché nowadays, what with all the sci-fi movies and videogames that have come out in the last 20 years or so... Still, it's a worthwhile read. I will definitely check out his other works.

[Teresa Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this author and title thanks to HorrorBabble, as they read and draw attention to a lot of Lovecraft-esque writings. It is one I'll have to suggest to my son as he is a fan of the Doom franchise and it would tie in very well to that interest. I particularly like how the tale is a Mars exploration that was written well before we had space capability. I am going to have to read some of his other works.

[Forked Radish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Archeologists should always carry flamethrowers.

[Aura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute classic, very scary.

[Tyler D · Rating 5 out of 5]

More like the vaults of yoh-mama

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 Sterne, in Lesegruppe gelesen

[Per · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/...

[...] By the end of September, editor Wright had the tale. To Smith's dismay, Wright demanded that he "speed up the first half" of the story, "on the plea that many of his readers would never get to the interesting portion as it stands". Smith complained about this to Lovecraft: "Oh hell ... [sic] I suppose I can throw out a lot of the descriptive matter, but it's a crime all the same".

Smith completed the revisions requested of him on 24 October, taking the story from 8000 to 6300 words by sacrificing "one or two thousand words of carefully built atmospheric preparation" from the first third of the story. The revised "Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" was accepted by Weird Tales [...]

The original version can be found in the second link above. There's also a comics story adaptation, with illustrations by Richard Corben, available here: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/...

[Terry Wells]

Although I'm not a fan of Clark Ashton Smith, I was able to enjoy this story. It's been reviewed before, but I want to take a different tack and mention a couple of pop culture instances where the monsters from this story have possibly been the inspiration.

Firstly, in the original "Star Trek" series, the Enterprise adventurers land on a mysteriously decimated colony planet and encounter the population's been almost wiped out by deadly parasitic flying blobs that attach themselves to human hosts. These things appear very much like Smith's description of his Martian leech horrors. This is a very grim "Trek" episode with no room for cutes! One of my favourites.

Also, in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, in number 26, "Crypt of the Sorceror", one of the things your dice-rolled character must fight is an Iron-Eater. This is a blob that falls from the ceiling onto your character's head and munches on his helmet!

[J S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Klarkash-ton out-Lovecrafts Lovecraft...on Mars.

The quality of Smith's science fiction varied wildly, usually from lame to an absolute drag...except for the Mars stories. It was clear that Smith had a passion for Mars, and no story better exemplifies that than "The Vaults of Yoh Vombis". Writing from the wildly-inaccurate speculation of the time, Smith in effect creates a alternate history where Man has begun to colonize the Red Planet, slowly encroaching on the taciturn, waning natives. When an anthropologist hears rumors of an older, since-extinct race, he organizes a team to travel across the Martian desert to study this forbidden necropolis. From the awe of unhallowed ages, menace leads to horror upon horror, and eight men learn why the natives shun Yoh Vombis. It is exquisitely crafted and paced, and represents a dark jewel of horror that Lovecraft (or Smith himself, truthfully) could never quite touch.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smith is, I feel, a more accessible writer than Lovecraft and arguably on a technical level, a better one. He reads more modern and while of course the science is outdated and often just plain wrong, this doesn't, I find, detract from the story. This short details an expedition to a lost city shunned by the terrified locals, and of what befalls the group of scientists who foolishly decide to venture there. Unlike Lovecraft, Smith tends not to describe events as indescribable and instead goes into at times rather gory detail. This is Lovecraftian writing if Lovecraft was as good a poet as Smith, whose use of words while similar is often more lyrical, and at times even more satisfying. Is it as good as the very best of Lovecraft? No, I don't think it is, but it is certainly better than a great deal of Lovecraft's shorter stories.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die unentdeckte Insel: 4/5
Das Monster aus der Prophezeiung: 4/5
Der Brief aus Mohaun Los: 3/5
Das Gorgonenhaupt: 3/5
Die Epiphanie des Todes: 2/5
Eine nekromantische Geschichte: 4/5
Die Unsterblichen des Merkur: 3/5
Ein Leichnam zu viel: 5/5
Die namenlose Ausgeburt: 2/5
Die Knospen des Grabes: 5/5
Die Grabgewölbe von Yoh-Vombis: 5/5
Der Herrscher der Tiefe: 4/5
Vulthoom: 3/5

[mabuse cast · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid pulp sci-fi horror tale from clark ashton smith that is more or less his condensed take on HP Lovecraft's "at the mountains of madness" but set in an ancient martian city instead of Antarctica!

[Ostrava · Rating 4 out of 5]

A precursor to Alien. Very cool.

[Nick Chianese · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's "At The Mountains of Madness" on Mars.
It's "Alien," 40 years before the film.

And above all, it's great.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chilling!

[Haurenlill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovecraft could never

[Ευθυμία Δεσποτάκη · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εξαιρετικά δεμένο αρχαιολογικό/κθουλιακο scifi. πραγματικά απολαυστικό κείμενο.

[Gianluca Fiore · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of CAS best. Chilling, reminding of both The Thing and Alien.

[Jake Longstaff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely goated CaS story. I’ve only read 6-7 of his stories so far and only one has missed the mark for me, that being the azederac one.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

An atmospheric horror short story set on a very Edgar Rice Burroughs style Mars with its alien life and lost civilizations. Beautiful word painting and genuinely pretty chilling horror derived from the weird. Clark Ashton Smith at his best.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh this story is scary as hell. Very creepy, makes my skin crawl, and it takes a lot for that to happen. Literally while I was reading it I was checking to make sure a spider wasn't crawling up my arm or on my head. Although I've read a lot of Weird Tales authors, this is the first story I've tackled by Smith. I'll definitely read more of his work. I love the writing style, it's very "Lovecraft," the horror at the end is like an added bonus, what really makes the story work is it's suspense and atmosphere.