The Door to Saturn

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith #2

by Clark Ashton Smith, Scott Connors (Editor), Ron Hilger (Editor)

“None strikes the note of cosmic horror as well as Clark Ashton Smith. In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer.”
—H. P. Lovecraft

Clark Ashton Smith, considered one of the greatest contributors to seminal pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, helped define and shape “weird fiction” in the early twentieth century, alongside contemporaries H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, drawing upon his background in poetry to convey an unparalleled richness of imagination and expression in his stories of the bizarre and fantastical.

The Collected Fantasies series presents all of Smith’s fiction chronologically. Authorized by the author’s estate and endorsed by Arkham House, the stories in this series are accompanied by detailed background notes from editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, who in preparation for this collection meticulously compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith’s own notes and letters. Their efforts have resulted in the most definitive and complete collection of the author’s work to date.

The Door to Saturn is the second of five volumes collecting all of Clark Ashton Smith’s tales of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. It includes all of his stories from “The Door to Saturn” (1930) to “The Hunters from Beyond” (1932), as well as an introduction by Tim Powers.

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

316 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2007

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

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit less quality than the prior volume. still fairly entertaining, with a handful of excellent stories and only one that was laughable drek.

with this second stage in his career, story-wise it appears that CAS became less interested in yearning tales of love, alien and otherwise, and refocused on contes cruel. the majority of the pieces in this collection are short ones describing unfortunate and disturbing endings for a range of deserving or undeserving characters. unfortunately, that particular offshoot of short horror fiction has little interest for me. they usually lack the depth, resonance, and ambiguity that I often crave in my Weird Fiction. alas!

however that handful of excellent stories truly shined. "Door to Saturn" is a lot of droll fun as two enemy wizards find themselves within the bizarre landscape of Saturn, and at the mercy of its various bizarre residents. "The Testament of Athammaus" features an absorbingly repulsive villain/monster. both have the feel of classic sword & sorcery high fantasy, except with a thick red vein of CAS darkness. "A Rendezvous in Averoigne" takes place in one of the author's more underrated locales: the imaginary French countrysides and castles of Averoigne, circa the 12th century, I assume. this one features two lovers and their servants encountering a dismal castle in the countryside, and its hungry residents. "The Letter from Mohaun Los" is an amusing science fictional tale of space travel to a couple very off-kilter and threatening planets. featuring a giant tentacled robot, of all things! and the bonafide classic of the the collection, "City of the Singing Flame" details the haunting lure of a flame of extermination, captivating all sorts of alien creatures - as well as our protagonist and his buddy - to their potential doom.

CAS' prose throughout all of the stories is lushly descriptive and gorgeously purple, per usual.

if you'd like to read synopses of all of the stories, please refer to Andy's excellent review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

⚜

Hyperborea
The Door to Saturn
The Testament of Athammaus

Averoigne
A Rendezvous in Averoigne

- love -
Told in the Desert
The Willow Landscape

- death -
The Gorgon
An Offering to the Moon
The Kiss of Zoraida
The Face by the River
The Ghoul
The Kingdom of the Worm
The Justice of the Elephant
The Return of the Sorcerer
A Good Embalmer

- strange adventures -
The Red World of Polaris & A Captivity in Serpens
An Adventure in Futurity
The City of the Singing Flame
The Letter from Mohaun Los

- drek -
The Hunters from Beyond (although it did introduce me to the word "nympholepsy" for which I suppose I'm grateful?)

[Benjamin Uke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whereas Robert E. Howard was a master of action, Lovecraft a master of atmosphere, and Moore a sort of jack of all trades, Smith has intimidating capacity to conjure raw imagination through his prose, being a poet at the start many of his stories handle like dark-hued prose poems.

Morghi, an inquisitor and zealot of the elk-goddess Yhoundeh, burst into the wizard Eibon abode with a posse, with the intent of bringing the dark wizard to justice.
Torturing his servants to find his location, thezealots search every corner and crack of the tower, Morghi finds a series of paintings, sculptures, and works of pottery on the highest floor, all of them seemingly ancient-beyond humanity.

But curiously, behind one of these paintings is a metal panel large enough to fit a person and which seems to function like a door... Leading the inquisitor to get teleported to saturn. This of course, is not the Saturn we know: it’s not a gas giant, evidently, and the air is breathable for humans. Its 1930's scifi-fantasy Saturn with drinkable rivers of “liquescent” metal and eugenecist frog-people.

There's an attempted forced marraige to a frog queen (she eats you afterwards), a fungus avalanche and general shenanigans...

Welp, I thought I'd be reading a horror-action (just look at the cover art) and got a fantasy comedy. Still, fun to see an author with quality prose not taking himself too seriously.

[ᴅᴀʟᴜ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.1 ☆

Eibon saves christmas.

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best of three that I've read. A zealot chases a heretic across space and time. Good, but the ending falls flat. Required the discipline of several restarts. Succeeds in transporting the reader to an unknown realm. Made me want to warm up to Smith, but still a 2.5. Was the man intelligent? Indeed, a poet even, a visionary, but. . . .

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

[The Door to Saturn]

Part of CAS' Hyperborean cycle, the Door to Saturn has an interesting premise. A party of inquisitors storm the wizard Eibon's tower, hoping to bring him to justice for heresy. Eibon has a contingency plan, however, and a magic panel presented to him from his otherworldly patron Zhothaqquah to escape to Cykranosh (Saturn). The chief inquisitor Morghi discovers the trick and follows Eibon. They discover that the planet isn't especially hospital to human life, and they put aside their differences in an effort to survive their incomprehensible new environment. While more event- and locale-driven than plot-driven, the pair have an amusing adventure that reads very much like the kind of tale that Jack Vance would later write.

[The Red World of Polaris]

This story is a straight science fiction tale, with a ship of explorers pulled down to the surface of a planet orbiting Polaris after drifting too close. They encounter aliens who have replaced their bodies with mechanical shells, and their hosts are homicidally offended when the humans rebuff their offer for a similar "upgrade." While a lot happens in this story, apart from some vivid description there isn't much of interest here. Like The Door to Saturn, it's another story about characters trapped in a strange land, but it lacks the humor and whimsy of the previous tale.

[Told in the Desert]

This story returns to one of Clark Ashton Smith's favorite themes: loss. A desert wanderer tells his camp-mates about his chance discovery of an isolated oasis and the charming young woman he romanced there. A callow individual, he takes his simple lifestyle and devoted paramour for granted and leaves the oasis. He realizes his mistake too late, and wanders the deserts searching in vain for the oasis. There aren't any big surprises in this story, but it's a simple fable well told.

[The Willow Landscape]

While the previous story had an Arabian setting, this one takes place in ancient China. It involves an art collecting courtier who has fallen on hard times. He supports himself and his much younger brother by selling off pieces of his collection, until he eventually has to part with his absolute favorite piece, a wall scroll depicting a idyllic glen with a rustic hut, and arched bridge, and a small figure of a beautiful woman. The new owner--a fat man who, refreshingly, is not depicted as greedy or cruel--graciously allows the impoverished courtier one last night with the painting. He is rewarded for his love and devotion over the years by a mysterious voice who welcomes him into the world of the scroll, where he lives happily ever after with the maiden in the painting. As an art lover, I enjoyed this story a great deal. It seemed a bit like a reversal of Pygmalion, both feature protagonists who are rewarded for their devotion to a work of art, but instead of Galatea becoming flesh and joining Pygmalion as his wife, the courtier (whose "heart is native here but alien to all the world beside") is absorbed into the art. This is a beautiful, charming story.

[A Rendezvous in Averoigne]

This story is a classic, but probably more for the prose than the plot. It's a nice vampire story, but there's not much in the way of dramatic tension. The protagonist finds himself in a creepy, atmospheric situation, but it's resolved pretty smoothly, all things considered. Everything goes according to plan with the vampire-slaying, and I can't help but think the story would be stronger if there had been more obstacles or setbacks along the way. Still, the story is beautifully told.

[The Gorgon]

This story about the caretaker of Medusa's head could easily have been written by Lovecraft of Clive Barker. There aren't any major twists or reveals, but it has a nice creepy tone.

[An Offering to the Moon]

This story didn't work too well for me. The core premise, of an archaeologist basically going native and attacking a colleague while investigating an ancient sacrificial site, had promise, but the framing could have been better.

[The Kiss of Zoraida]

I tend to like CAS' Arabian Nights-style stories, and while straightforward this is an effectively-written story of a jealous husband's revenge.

[The Face by the River]

Not particularly notable or memorable.

[The Ghoul]

Another Arabian Nights tale, this one is clever take on the theme of an average person burdened with a horrible task by a monster. Darkly poignant.

[The Tale of Sir John Maundeville]

This story about a valiant knight starts off in an exciting and atmospheric manner, but the ending is absurdly anti-climactic. A literal conqueror worm king imprisons the knight for trespassing into the kingdom of the dead and...wordlessly, peacefully releases him after a reasonable period of incarceration. I would have liked to read Robert E. Howard's take on this premise, he would've given it a much worthier ending for sure.

[An Adventure in Futurity]

While involving time instead of space travel, the second half of this story is almost a retelling of The Red World of Polaris, with an advanced society being overthrown by a slave uprising combined with biological warfare. I found it hard to summon up much sympathy for the future humans, given that they kept slaves in the first place. This story also felt entirely too long compared to "Polaris."

[The Justice of the Elephant]

While set in India, this story has a similar flavor to the Arabian Nights-style. This story makes an interesting pair with The Kiss of Zoraida, as it's the lover who gets revenge on the murderous cuckolded husband. That he makes use of the very same "weapon" used to kill the executed wife adds a nice symmetry.

[The Return of the Sorcerer]

This story, with a secretary hired to assist a reclusive and harried-looking occultist, starts off quite a bit like The Devotee of Evil from Volume 1. Fortunately, it takes a wildly divergent path after the initial setup is established and culminates in a grisly ending that Edgar Allan Poe would have greatly appreciated.

[The City of the Singing Flame]

This tale inspires more questions than it answers. It's framed as an "abandoned diary" from a vanished colleague so it's easy to guess the narrator's fate, but the mysterious otherworld is described in an extremely compelling manner.

[A Good Embalmer]

It's easy to predict where this story is headed after the opening paragraphs, but this story stands out as one of the more obviously humorous of CAS' tales.

[The Testament of Athammaus]

An executioner deals with a monstrous criminal that refuses to stay dead. This story has an interesting premise and some creepy exposition, but otherwise doesn't stand out too much.

[The Amazing Planet]

This is an unusually action-packed story for CAS. Mistaken for animals, a pair of space explorers are captured by aliens and put on display at a zoo. Unable to communicate through any means but violence, the pair escape their cage and kill waves and waves of aliens until they're recaptured and shot back into space in the direction of the initial planet. The story has an interesting, desperate premise, but the execution doesn't quite live up to it.

[The Letter from Mohaun Los]

I'd grown a bit tired of time travel stories by the time this one appeared, but this one had an interesting twist. The universe is always in motion, so if you travel far enough forward or backward in time you can't count on remaining in the same spot. As a result, the protagonist ends up traveling not just through time, but into outer space and even to other planets. He and his stereotypical Chinese servant encounter a variety of strange societies, make an alien friend, and end up settling in the far future. One repeating theme in CAS' fiction seems to be that you can't go home again. When protagonists journey to strange lands, they usually stay there permanently, either voluntarily or otherwise.

[The Hunters from Beyond]

While more than a bit reminiscent of Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model" (something CAS readily admitted himself), this is a fun, creepy story to end off the volume with. After glimpsing an otherworldly monster, a struggling writer of weird fiction visits a sculptor cousin who regularly summons these creatures and uses them as inspiration for his art. The resulting plot doesn't have much in the way of surprises, but it's evocatively told.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this volume as much as the first one, maybe a bit less, but that's probably because I skipped several stories here I'd read elsewhere -- and those are some of his better ones. So it's hard to judge.

Smith's sci-fi stories aren't as interesting as his delvings into grotesquerie with his decadent language and often gruesome goings-on. And looking at the story notes, Smith himself doesn't like them as much himself. That said, his science fiction stories greatly improved over this course of this collection I thought. There are some very good, stand out stories here.

Only five of these stories appeared in the original run of Weird Tales (not including "The Face by the River" which appeared in a 2005 issue). That's not many considering the first volume had 16, and the one after this has 11. All stories that appeared in Weird Tales I marked with (WT) by the title.

The Door to Saturn - I thought this was a really good story, very imaginative, less horrific and macabre. It was rejected from Weird Tales as "too fanciful," and other editors essentially told him he used too many big words! A priest seeking to arrest a heretical sorcerer, follows him into a portal to Saturn where they encounter some very strange inhabitants.

The Red World of Polaris - Another of Smith's sci-fi exploration stories, some of imaginative description with little action for the first 3/4, then a cinematic ending that I thought was too drawn out. This story has a very interesting history, being rejected by various magazines, then being sold to a fan who disappeared. Ooooh spooky. A crew of humans explore a red planet in the orbit of Polaris, inhabited by creatures very strange and far-advanced.

Told in the Desert - A far less fanciful story, certainly told with the usual ornate language though. This is a short, melancholy story of a man wandering the desert, seeking an oasis and woman who saved his life.

The Willow Landscape (WT) - A poetic story, short and predictable but still worth a read. A poor scholar is forced to part with a painting which is so realistic he almost feels drawn into it.

A Rendezvous in Averoigne (WT) - This is an excellent story, on the face of it, it's a somewhat conventional vampire story, but the grotesque language in which it's told makes it Smith's own. A man and his lover are transported into a dark world, staying in an old decaying castle owned by occupants long believed to be dead.

The Gorgon (WT) - I liked this story, primarily for the reasons Lovecraft did (as noted in the story notes), it's atmosphere. It does have a nice, exciting ending and some creepy details as well. A man wandering the London streets encounters a stranger who claims to have the head of Medusa.

An Offering to the Moon (WT) - This is a _decent_ story, a bit more pulpy than usual, not among my favorites here. Two archaeologists discover a ruin, and find themselves acting out a terrible rite there.

The Kiss of Zoraida - A decadent little conte cruel, Smith more or less admitted to Lovecraft that it was a rent-payer. A jealous husband take a horrible vengeance.

The Face by the River (WT2005) - This is a decent story, with a nice, feverish atmosphere of obsession about it. Something different from Smith. A man becomes haunted by a woman he has murdered, in a very strange manner.

The Ghoul - This story is pretty good considering it's length of 2,000~ words. A man explains why he has murdered people to feed a ghoul.

The Kingdom of the Worm - AH, now THIS is Smith in full on decadent, grotesque mode. Charnel worms, corpses, lots of lavish description. I love it, although I can see Farnsworth Wright's complaint that it has "little plot." A brave knight wanders into a city of the dead, and is made to experience the horrors therein.

An Adventure in Futurity - Holy Safe Spaces Batman! This story is about as non-PC as you can get, I have to admit it's got some very racist implications. It's one of those sci-fi adventure stories with an apocalyptic bent; a fun, pulpy read which hasn't aged well and lacks what really makes Smith's work individual I'd say. Smith admitted in a letter to Lovecraft that he thought it was "junk." A man agrees to accompany someone from the future on his return trip to a time when mankind faces many challenges to it's survival.

The Justice of the Elephant - Another conte cruel, very brief. A elephant trainer takes a terrible vengeance on a king.

The Return of the Sorcerer - I read this previously, my notes said: A good old weird tale, a bit predictable in it's pulpiness perhaps, but I'm still a sucker for these types of stories. A man takes a job as a translator for a sorcerer, only to discover that the man is being pursued by a dead sorcerer even more powerful than himself.

The City of the Singing Flame - I read this previously, my notes said: Good story in the dark fantasy, weird vein, feels like one of Lovecraft's fantasy world stories farnkly. A writer discovers a portal to another world inside a crater where a singing flame lures creatures into it, but where to?

A Good Embalmer - Rather uninteresting story, very short. Reminds me of something one might read in Tales From the Crypt! One embalmer jests that if his friend ever comes to embalm him with his poor abilities, he will come back from the dead to stop him.

The Testament of Athammaus (WT) - This is one of the best in this collection, a real horror tale and Smith seems to know he'd written a great story too, according to the story notes. A town executioner tells of his difficulty in killing an other-worldly man who resurrects each night.

A Captivity in Serpens - This is another sci-fi adventure story, but this one is far better than most of the others here. It's both more outre and exciting throughout. A space crew find themselves captured, and studied as specimens of a far-advanced civilization.

The Letter from Mohaun Los - And ANOTHER sci-fi adventure story, but this one was the best in my view, partially because by the end it seems to be more interested in fantasy than sci-fi. It's imaginative, smart and has some very memorable moments and images. A man who builds a time machine to transport himself to a simpler time, not only finds himself in a strange time, but in strange worlds as well.

The Hunters from Beyond - Another I'd read previously, my notes: Another good earth-bound story, fairly standard "occult forces summoned go out of control" story, obviously a bit of a take on HPL's "Pickman's Model," a nice break from the more elaborate, other-worldly type of tales. A man sees a horrible, gargoyle-like creature as he is traveling to see his cousin, a sculptor who has been crafting those exact things.

[J.W. Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second volume in the five volume “Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith” series is entitled “The Door to Saturn,” and while the story that is contained within that the title of said volume is named after is one I wasn’t particularly fond of, this collection has some quality otherworldly tales within, some even stronger of quality and story than the ones found in the previous volume, “The End of the Story.” This volume brought me even greater appreciation of Clark Ashton Smith’s tales. The stories I enjoyed are as follows:

– “The Red World of Polaris”: The second episode of the Smith’s series of the intergalactic adventures of Captain Volmar and the crew of the starship Alcyone. In this episode they land on a planet where a race of beings have quite literally sold their souls to the machine, and threaten to do the same to them.

– “A Rendezvous in Averoigne”: Another episode in Smith’s legendary “Averoigne” dark fantasy series. In this tale, two lovers plan a romantic rendezvous when they fall into the clutches of a nightmare castle full of foul beings.

– “The Gorgon”: Otherworldliness pervades in this tale of a mentally unstable collector of occult artifacts that invites a curiosity seeker into his dark den of accumulated curios, including one deadly and grisly item that dates back to the monster-infested days of ancient Greece.

– “An Offering to the Moon”: A pair of archaeologists are thrust into nightmare when the dark, forgotten empire of Mu stretches its hoary, clawed hand forward into modern time.

– “The Face by the River”: A horny and desperate man is thrown into a specially-tailored version of hell when he cheats on his wife with his secretary, and then murders said woman when she threatens to tell his wife.

– “The Kingdom of the Worm”: Smith’s very dark and Poe-like pastiche of the adventures of the medieval knight Sir John Maundeville.

– “An Adventure in Futurity”: A time travel adventure where a man is catapulted 14,000 years into the future where certain nefarious interplanetary intelligences are allying together to overthrow humankind.

– “The Return of the Sorcerer”: A classic in Clark Ashton Smith’s grim catalogue of tales. A young lad applies to be the secretary of a strange, rich old man, when he happens upon a dark and diabolical macabre secret.

– “The City of the Singing Flame”: One of the most otherworldly tales I’ve read by CAS. A writer is transported to a vastly alien dimension with otherworldly sights, beings, and phenomena that his eyes can scarcely believe.

– “A Good Embalmer”: Another tale that was definitely inspired by the works of Poe. An apprentice mortician learns that embalming is a grislier business than he could ever have imagined.

– “The Testament of Athammaus”: Undoubtedly the best tale in this collection, another episode in Smith’s “Hyperborean Sequence.” The chief executioner of the abandoned mighty city of Commorium sets the record straight about how it eventually became an empty ruin.

– “A Captivity in Serpens”: The third episode in “The Captain Volmar Sequence” and probably the best I have read so far. Being captured by giant hunters is only the beginning of woes and interplanetary nightmares for the crew of the Alcyone in this tale.

– “The Letter From Mohaun Los”: This story reads like H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” on steroids. A passionate scientist and his servant move not only through time but also through space in globular time-traveling device and journey from world to world with sights and beings and civilizations completely alien to them.

– “The Hunters from Beyond”: The friend of a quirky and morose artist whose tastes tilt towards the diabolical encounters the darksome interdimensional things that have inspired his latest grisly work.

I was very much impressed by the tales in this collection. As these stories are collected chronologically, one can see how, over time, Clark Ashton Smith’s tales get better and better. I give “The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith Vol. II: The Door to Saturn” a 4 out of 5.

[Jesse Bullington · Rating 5 out of 5]

More beautiful and bizarre stories from Smith, many of which I had not read in years or never read at all. The chronological order continues to fascinate me--having read the stories in order of setting before via his collections, it is a treat to bounce from Hyperboria to Averoigne and on to stranger pastures still. That all of these tales appeared in less than a year makes them even more impressive. Again, the Clark Ashton Smith collection to invest in.

[Marc Bagué · Rating 5 out of 5]

Això segueix agradant-me més del que em pensava. No decau en cap ni un dels relats, des de la mes rància i clàssica història de ciencia-ficció espacial, amb heroïcitats increïbles incloses, fins el terror còsmic més malrotllero, passant per històries d'amor i pèrdua de les d'encongir el cor. Dir que era un geni és quedar-se molt curt.
Esperant que algú em regali el següent...

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since the book is called The Door to Saturn, and since that's the first story that appears in the collection, I should probably deal with that one first.

It's a bit odd coming to it as a H.P. Lovecraft junkie. In Lovecraft's stories, Tsathoggua is pretty similar to the other Great Old Ones--a creatue of nameless fear, worshipped in secret by formless things that crawl along the black channels in lightless N'Kai deep below the surface of the earth. Lovecraft obviously took that from The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, but he put his own spin on it, and I read Lovecraft's work first, so coming to "The Door to Saturn" and have Tsathoggua portrayed as essentially a wizard's demonic familiar who shows up, makes ironic comments, and shares cosmic wisdom was pretty jarring. Even though that's a minor part of the story, the whole tone of "The Door to Saturn" has a kind of ironic wink behind it, from the "prophecy" uttered by Hziulquoigmnzhah on Saturn to the straight ripoff of the Blemmyes as a Saturnian race. And then right when it seems to be getting interesting, it ends.

That's a problem with a lot of the stories in this book. actually. Take A Rendezvous in Averoigne. That story is one of Smith's most famous and reprinted stories, and I can kind of see why just from the language alone. Here:

But when he thought to reach again the spot from which he had heard that shrill unearthly scream, he saw that there was no longer a path; nor, indeed, any feature of the forest which he could remember or recognize. The foliage about him no longer displayed a brilliant verdure; it was sad and funereal, and the trees themselves were either cypress-like, or were already sere with autumn or decay. In lieu of the purling brook there lay before him a tarn of waters that were dark and dull as clotting blood, and which gave back no reflection of the brown autumnal sedges that trailed therein like the hair of suicides, and the skeletons of rotting osiers that writhed above them.

That is fantastic. The mood that the story sets, from the gloomy forest to the shadowed and unhallowed castle to the inhabitants who should not be, all of it is extremely creepy and evocative. And that makes it all the more frustrating that the story slowly builds and builds and then solves itself in, like, three paragraphs, the end.

I think that's why I rated The Door to Saturn only three stars. While the writing was uniformly good across the board, and there was a lot of really evocative language, there wasn't actually that much that stuck with me after I read it. Many of the stories ended much earlier than I would have liked, and seemed to spend 90% of the time setting up a problem only to solve it in an instant: An Adventure in Futurity, "The Red World of Polaris," and "A Captivity in Serpens" (no eldritchdark.com links for those) were all stories of that type.

There were two main stories that stuck with me. One was The Testament of Athammaus, another Hyperborean story like "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros," and one that actually tells the past of the city that Satampra and his companion visit. That one was quite creepy, though I thought the mood was a bit undermined by how clinical the tone was. Despite describing hideous and terrible events, the protagonist has a rather blasé attitude towards the whole thing and even has the distinction of being the last person to remain in the city before its ultimate abandonment. He is an executioner, true, but he still doesn't have that much experience with ultra-mundane beings like Knygathin Zhaum and I would have thought that the experiences of dealing with such an entity would have affected him more deeply.

Come to think of it, that's my problem with most of the stories here. There's no emotional weight to the characters' actions, even if the words of the narrative themselves are forboding or gloomy or eerie or horrific, I rarely get the sense that the characters actually feel that way.

The one story where I really felt like the characters weren't square-jawed Heroes was The Return of the Sorcerer. And actually, for the longest time, I thought this was one of Lovecraft's stories, because I originally read it in one of those books that's half-filled with Lovecraft stories and half-filled with stories by other authors, and then has Lovecraft's name all over the cover to help sell it. This is probably the moodiest story in the entire book, with palpable emotion expressed by all the characters contained therein, and it's absolutely worth reading even if you don't read any of the other stories.

Also, in reference to my review of The End of the Story where I mention Smith's use of Latinate words, there's a quote from a letter Smith wrote to Lovecraft in the appendix of The Door to Saturn where he says:

I was told the other day that my ‘Door to Saturn’ could be read only with a dictionary--also, that I would sell more stories if I were to simplify my vocabulary.

Which I did find quite amusing, though I admit that the stories here would lose a lot of what made them great if the language were simpler. Many of them don't have much to recommend them in terms of plot, but the language makes them worth at least one read.

Well, some of them. I wouldn't recommend "An Adventure in Futurity" or The Letter from Mohaun Los at all, but "The Return of the Sorcerer" or Told in the Desert are definitely a good read.

Previous Review: The End of the Story.
Next Review: A Vintage from Atlantis.

[Jonas Gehrlein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quality feels very uneven and a lot of the shorts feel like they could use some more editing I especially didn't like most of the sci-fi shorts some like 'The Gorgon' and 'The Kingdom of the Worm' are interesting enough to keep it from a one star but nothing is really amazing.

[Jorge Villarruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best stories, a few of them are boring and a few of them are really good. The first volume was better.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hear you knocking, but you can't come in.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is good and well for all sorcerers to remember the proper pronunciation of Hziulquoigmnzhah!

[Ardee-El · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second in a series that collects the prose of Clark Ashton Smith in chronological order (by composition, not publication), with notes and—in some cases—alternate endings. And yes, I've read the first (The End of the Story), only before I started keeping track here on Shelfari.

Like a sweet confection, the writings of Clark Ashton Smith should be consumed slowly over time, not in a single gluttonous sitting. His work seems uniquely suited to the short story—the denseness of his prose would probably become too oppressive over the length of a novel, like swimming in quicksand. But for a short dip in a dangerous pool . . .

Broadly speaking, Smith's prose falls into three categories (with quite a bit of overlap): Science Fiction, Horror and . . . something else. Call them weird tales, call them phantasmagoria, call them simply fantasy; they take place in lands and worlds similar to ours but slightly different, in realities both antiquated and at right angles to what we know or think we know. These are mist-shrouded regions illuminated only dimly by twilight and the occasional retort of lightning.

His science fiction is perhaps the least of his work. Even Smith in letters to H. P. Lovecraft (portions of which are included here in the notes for each story) seems to dismiss them, many of which were written to order. They are typical of the time, and bring to mind many other writers, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Leigh Brackett: Fantastical science and planets which mirror aspects of ours too often and too closely, only with more aesthete heroes—not quite as apprehensive as one of Lovecraft's, but a far cry from one of Burroughs' bare-chested pseudo-barbarians or one of Brackett's cowboys-or-African-explorers-in-science-fiction-disguises. The "science" is often absurd, and there is a soft undercurrent of racism that was no doubt emblematic of the time. (There is, however, one story, The Letter from Mohaun Los that contemplates a time machine that moves in time only, not in space—so that space, that is, the Earth and our familiar solar system, moves away and the time machine remains stationary, until another planetary system moves into the same space. Much of the story is familiar "space exploration" from a 1930's vantage point, but that central conceit is memorable . . . almost Whovian.)

Smith is on much firmer ground with his horror stories. Here he is nearly a blood brother to H.P. Lovecraft. This volume contains his oft-reprinted (and rightly so) "The Return of the Sorcerer" and is worth the price of admission alone. (It is also one of the few stories with an alternate—and more grisly—ending.)

And then there is that third kind of tale, of which Smith was an unsurpassed master. The eldritch quality of his vocabulary, the complexity of his prose, the painterly portrayal of the places he takes the reader to . . . the effect is sharing in a dream—or a nightmare. In this category, this volume contains another Smith favorite, "A Rendezvous in Averoigne," a deceptively simple story of a balladeer en route to a romantic rendezvous in a French wood, which he has had the misfortune of forgetting is said to be haunted . . .

One of the added joys of reading an author's works in order written is sharing in his development, as he flexes his muscles, and his concepts and interests progress and mature.

As with the first volume in the series, highly recommended.

[Χρυσόστομος Τσαπραΐλης · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second tome of Clark Ashton Smith's collected works gathers a number of stories, ranging from choked-in-action sci-fi (A Captivity in Serpens) to oriental weird (The Willow Landscape, The Ghoul) and good old grotesque horror (Return of the Sorcerer). Obviously, the reader's disposition towards a particular genre will be the prime influencer of the pleasure derived from each story, structural issues notwithstanding. Thus, not being a huge fun of pulpy science fiction I was exhausted by the sheer length of "The Red World of Polaris," "A Captivity in Serpens," and "The Letter from Mohaun Los." The sheer weight of the never-ending descriptions in these three stories required a Herculean effort to navigate which proved too much for me. Thus I consider them the weakest of the bunch.

These three aside, I will use three qualitative categories for the rest of the stories:

Mediocre:
-The Door to Saturn: The collection's namesake kicks off in a promising way, with a sorcerer hunting another through a portal that leads from Earth to Saturn, and their consequent travels in the alien planet.
Alas, the Saturnian landscape, fauna and flora edges on the gonzo side of the aesthetic spectrum. The descriptions are not as lengthy and numerous as in the aforementioned trio of sci-fi stories, there is bizarreness aplenty, but still the story is rather far from my personal taste. Of course, for those whose mind exalts in such settings, this is a very well-written specimen.

-An Offering to the Moon: The Pacific Ocean, two explorers, and a jungle temple of a long-lost tribe.
Rather standard "exotic" material without much of an edge. Nothing spectacular.

-The Kiss of Zoraida: The fate of two illicit lovers is sealed in a brutally ironic way.
Descriptive grotesquerie galore, but other than that this snapshot-like, fatalistic and very short story doesn't boast a supernatural element or something spectacular.

-The Face by the River: A killer haunted by his victim's visage.
This is more of a study in the emotional deterioration of a ghost-tormented individual, rather than a ghost-story in itself. Well-written nevertheless, it will definitely appeal to some.

-An Adventure in Futurity: A lengthy time-travel story that begins with slight hues of the weird mystery before taking us to a rather distasteful far future of humanity, where human superiority is characterised by emotional detachment and cold intellectualism, as well as the enslavement of beings from Venus.
Apart from the excellent beginning there was little to personally enjoy in this story.

-The Justice of the Elephant: A good short story of justicial revenge (somewhat fairytale-esque) set in the East.
Very short and rather satisfying, it nevertheless doesn't manage to set itself apart.

-The City of the Singing Flame: A man discovers a portal to a strange gigantic city, in whose center is a Flame that sings, luring everything in it.
A fantasy thematic with sci-fi-like descriptions (as far as their overwhelming abundance is concerned). This borders on the Lovecraftian oneiric/fantastic of Kadath and Randolph Carter. The central idea of the Singing Flame is extraordinary, but the realisation seems somewhat faulty.

Good:
-Told in the Desert: A story of the Arabian Tales sort with a mythological core (the extraordinary bride setting a rule that must not be broken).
Beautiful, evoking description of the desert, of the campfire, of the oasis, of the tormented protagonist himself.

-The Willow Landscape: An oriental-themed short story about a magical painting, this is a good-hearted, touching and satisfactory story. Not much else to say without spoiling.

-The Gorgon: A man is led to the depths of London, where he faces (somewhat) the head of the Medusa.
Bordering on greatness, yet just missing the final step, this is a masterful blending of the contemporary urban with the mythological. Ominous escalation of the macabre, amazing hinting at heroic artifacts, and greatness in the description of the Medusa lair. Still, it stumbles just before the end.

-The Ghoul: A man is forced into a horrendous pact with a ghoul, in order to save the corpse of his deceased loved one.
Arabian Nights on grotesque steroids, this delivers all that the title implies: ghoulish delights steeped in gothic drama.

-A Good Embalmer: An embalmer makes sure that his body will, after death, stay clear of his business partner's less-than-perfect funereal art.
Due to the setting it reminded me somewhat of the funeral house in Neil Gaiman's "American Gods." This is a light-hearted narrative that could be part of a Hammer horror-anthology extravaganza. Beautiful and pleasantly shocking.

-The Testament of Athammaus: Set in an unspecified ancient era, this is an executioner's narrative of how his city was deserted, after a convicted outlaw (and possible distant relative of Tsathoggua) refuses to stay dead.
I had difficulty deciding if this is good or great - it certainly borders on the latter. I finally settled on very good. A fairy-tale-esque recurring motif, heaps of graphic description, and the helplessness in front of the abhorrent - the consumption of passers-by is of monumental conception and execution (sic).

-The Hunters from Beyond: An artist taps into the occult to enhance his work and (obviously something goes wrong).
Not the most original of stories, somewhat related to Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model," yet it comes out solid due to the sheer weight of Clark Ashton's language and atmosphere evoked.

Great/Amazing:
-A Rendezvous in Averoigne: A man, his lover and two servants are lost in an ancient, labyrinthine forest, ending up in the castle of an ancient aristocrat.
One of the best vampire stories of all time, this is graced with an incredibly evoking gothic atmosphere. The rich language flows like blood falling on velvet curtains, it smells of ancient mysteries and crypts just opened.

-The Kingdom of the Worm: Sir John Maundeville (a knight that features in a 14th century book) travels through the cursed land of Antchar, beholding unnerving visions before coming to the court of the Worm in all its terrible majesty.
Written in the style of the original "Travels of Sir John Mandeville" the story is steeped in medieval, religious horror. Antchar is revealed as a land out of Poe's more terrible fantasies. A piece of art to be visited again and again, bound to reveal new unholy treasures each time.

-The Return of the Sorcerer: The protagonist is employed by an old man as a secretary. The employer requires both the man's linguistic skills in Arabic as well as the presence of another living being in the huge empty house.
A claustrophobic, dark and brutally suggestive story, that ends in a crescendo of implied grotesqueness. (There is an alternative ending that is of less quality) A classic in the spirit of Lovecraft's Charles Dexter Ward.

[Ivan Lanìa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nel corso di questa primavera non ho avuto il tempo di leggere romanzi corposi, ergo ho scelto un paio di raccolte di racconti e le ho lette ad alternanza, incastrandoci un romanzo breve qua e là. Una delle due antologie l'ho finita oggi ed è appunto questo The Door to Saturn , secondo volume dell'opera omnia di sua eminenza Clark Ashton Smith, ed è stata una gran bella cavalcata.
Ora, secondo me questa raccolta non raggiunge la qualità notevolissima della precedente The End of the Story, ma mi rendo conto sia anche una questione di gusto: a me piace poco lo Smith autore di fantascienza che prende astronauti più o meno improvvisati e li scaraventa su un pianeta alieno abitato da esseri contorti, impostando la prosa come una relazione di viaggio alla Jonathan Swift, e questo volume comprende non pochi racconti di quel filone, alcuni dei quali pure costruiti su premesse molto simili (e infatti le note storiografiche segnalano che, effettivamente, il gusto personale di Smith si era felicemente armonizzato con le richieste del mercato), pertanto ho provato un certo qual senso di ridondanza – che però si è sciolto come neve al sole al cospetto dei racconti macabri e crudeli, di cui invece mi ingozzo come fossero ciliegie. Deliziosamente dolceamari "Told in the Desert" e "The Ghoul", commovente "The Willow Landscape", assolutamente terrificante "The Hunter from Beyond" – e mi sono ufficialmente appassionato anche al ciclo di Hyperborea, il cui primo racconto contenuto nel volume primo mi aveva lasciato freddino.
Che dire, Smith si conferma a mio modello artistico postumo, e non credo aspetterò altri due anni per passare al volume terzo.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second in Night Shade Press' five-volume Collected Fiction of Clark Ashton Smith. OK, no, not every story in here is a masterpiece. Per Smith's comments as related in the "Story Notes" at the end of the book, even he didn't think so himself. But the high points ("The Door to Saturn", "The Willow Landscape", "A Rendezvous in Averoigne", "The City of the Singing Flame", and "The Testament of Athammaus" are the ones that leap out from the table of contents) are more than good enough to offset some of the weaker entries.

Again, you get Smith's evocative vocabulary and gorgeous imagery. Again, for me, at least, it works better in the more remote, fantastical settings -- the imaginary medieval French province of Averoigne, for example, or the prehistoric lost continent of Hyperborea. The tales of contemporary horror are competent enough but often seem to lack spark, and Smith's attempts at series science fiction ("The Red World of Polaris" and "A Captivity in Serpens", both about the redoubtable Captain Vormak of the ether ship Alcyone, just didn't do much for me.

Having said that, it's Smith. If you're just curious and want to dip your toes, you'd probably be better-served by more of a best-of collection, but if (like me) you're a completist, you'll be happy to have all of his fiction available in a single series.

[Jess M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is for volumes 1 to 5 of the set. I have a weakness for collecting, a weakness I was more than willing to indulge for a set such as this. I found however that not all of CAS’s stories measure up to ones I had previously read (typically in pulp). And I am NOT AT ALL a fan of his poetry.

The publisher has also added an impressive appendix to each vol. Sadly the margins and typeface used are substandard, not to mention the questionable cover art that seems to mock rather then venerate this amazing writers work. This collection is gift for the true CAS devotes among us, but probably not the best place to start your encounters with the author.

New CAS readers may be happier with a half dozen pulps and old paperbacks.

[Rjyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second volume of a comprehensive collection of Smith's short stories, almost all of which were written for specific pulp magazines so Smith could make money with which to take care of his aging parents. So the quality of these stories fluctuates-- there are great notes to each story which reproduce some of Smith's own comments on them, usually taken from the copious correspondence he engaged in with HP Lovecraft. He denigrates a few of these stories as trifles squeezed out to satisfy the various editors' proclivities so he could get that dough, but he expresses great pride in most. The first and last stories in the volume are particularly great, although for opposite reasons: the first is a highly original meld of soft sci-fi and low fantasy, infused with a sly, dry humor that made me howl in out-loud laughter. Between them, there is some repetition of themes and phrasings, which makes a lot of sense considering he was cranking them out for a variety of different publications.

If you've never read CAS, I would highly suggest starting with ZOTHIQUE, a collection of short-stories taking place in the same setting, a masterpiece and the powerful grandpa of the Dying Earth fantasies of J Vance and G Wolfe. (It's kinda expensive to buy physically but you can find a free pdf online if you poke around.) "The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies" published by Penguin Classics is very available physically, and gives a good overview of his various styles of stories-- Lovecraftian dread-horror, light-hearted spacefaring, fantasy tales taking place in vivid faux-Arabian, faux-medieval-France, faux-India, and Atlantian/Hyperborean locales, among others-- as well as a whole bunch of prose-poems and poem-poems he wrote, which (at certain times in his life, at least) he considered his real passion. BUT the title story in this collection is one of his best, so if you know you like CAS and haven't read it yet, you def want to acquire this book.

[Keith W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good collection by C.A.S.. At this point I’m starting to see why Clark Ashton Smith seems to have a bit less staying power than H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, for despite writing a variety of fun and interesting stories, his work feels a little more scattered than HPL’s and REH’s, which both continuously explore similar themes. Smith’s stories also seem to be lacking Robert E. Howard’s memorable characters and pseudo historical world. While he does have a few characters who appear in multiple stories, so far there is nothing comparable to a Conan the Barbarian, or the Cosmic Pantheon of Lovecraft.

All that said, I definitely recommend his work so far if you are interested in pulp fantasy and sci-fi. Smith managed to explore some science fiction concepts nearly a century ago in interesting ways I have not encountered anywhere else. His imaginings of the future are just as interesting for their accuracies as their inaccuracies of how technology and our knowledge of the universe has progressed.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's sole very solid material here, and if it only constituted the best tales here it'd be 5 stars. However, precisely because Night Shade Books were trying to compile the complete run of Smith's weird fiction (outside of juvenilia), the book out of necessity includes a number of fairly inferior stories clearly knocked out solely to pay the bills. This drags down the average, but once you've identified those and are able to skip them what remains is golden. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Davide Pappalardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things come into focus and Smith shows a more defined style, now fully informed by Lovecraft's influence and the more fantastical side of sci-fi. But, he retains his humor and some more traditional gothic tendencies too, keeping his own personality. One can appreciate the writer growth and some forward- thinking ideas for the time as alien cyborgs and the use of atomic energy.

[Mejix · Rating 4 out of 5]

The literary equivalent of outsider painting. There seems to be a plot but then it's abandoned for another. Moments of weirdness, but also clunky and unresolved. Then there is the image of "the national mother." I wonder what Bolaño would have made of him. Somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4.

[NanoCyborg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent worldbuilding, humorous in more places than one, and an interesting and intriguing ending.. one that can continue into more of the Hyperborean mythos perhaps. Definitely my favorite so far, alongside the Testament of Athammaus.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another collection of macabre stories from an earlier era. The writing, especially the vocabulary, is sumptuous. The science fiction is naively charming.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really excellent collection of properly world-class weird fiction, from an author considered to be one of the major figures missing from the Appendix N. Loved it!

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

🚀 🌎 🪐

[Timothy McGowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

CAS’s writing brings to life fantastical worlds, horrific beings, and compelling characters. This collection of works is a must read for anyone who loves horror, sci fi, and fantasy

[Macomfort · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraterrestrial travel narrative. And amusing!