The Dark Eidolon

Tales of Zothique #4

by Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Ambrose Bierce, Joaquin Miller, Sterling, Nora May French, and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith was one of "the big three of Weird Tales, along with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft", where some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. It has been said of him that "nobody since Poe has so loved a well-rotted corpse." He was a member of the Lovecraft circle, and Smith's literary friendship with Lovecraft lasted from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937. His work is marked chiefly by an extraordinarily wide and ornate vocabulary, a cosmic perspective and a vein of sardonic and sometimes ribald humor. His first literary efforts, at the age of 11, took the form of fairy tales and imitations of the Arabian Nights. Later, he wrote long adventure novels dealing with Oriental life. By 14 he had already written a short adventure novel called The Black Diamonds which was lost for years until published in 2002. Another juvenile novel was written in his teenaged years—The Sword of Zagan (unpublished until 2004). Like The Black Diamonds, it uses a medieval, Arabian Nights-like setting, and the Arabian Nights, like the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the works of Edgar Allan Poe, are known to have strongly influenced Smith's early writing, as did William Beckford's Vathek. At age 17, he sold several tales to The Black Cat, a magazine which specialized in unusual tales. He also published some tales in the Overland Monthly in this brief foray into fiction which preceded his poetic career. However, it was primarily poetry that motivated the young Smith and he confined his efforts to poetry for more than a decade. In his later youth, Smith made the acquaintance of the San Francisco poet George Sterling through a member of the local Auburn Monday Night Club, where he read several of his poems with considerable success. On a month-long visit to Sterling in Carmel, California, Smith was introduced by Sterling to the poetry of Baudelaire. He became Sterling's protégé and Sterling helped him to publish his first volume of poems, The Star-Treader and Other Poems, at the age of 19. Smith received international acclaim for the collection The Star-Treader was received very favorably by American critics, one of whom named Smith "the Keats of the Pacific". Smith briefly moved among the circle that included Ambrose Bierce and Jack London, but his early fame soon faded away.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, Weird Fiction, Dying Earth, Pulp

54 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

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 4 out of 5]

CAS builds up a wonderfully twisted sense of foreboding as a mysterious evil wizard appears out of the blue and begins to mete out his revenge little by little, enjoying every minute as he watches his victim's slow descent into madness.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just the kind of pulp-y over-the-top story CAS does so well.

[M Cody McPhail · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most premier dark fantastical thing you'll ever read. The most extreme. The most brutal. Fucking amazing.

[Mighty Sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

dark tale of revenge and black magic

Clark Ashton Smith is a giant of weird tales. And the Dark Eidolon doesn’t disappoint. But (BUT!) this edition badly needs an editor to clean up the formatting. There are words mashed together on almost every page which constantly pulled me out of the flow of the story.

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 1 out of 5]

More Demigods than Deities & Demigods: Cyclopedia of Gods and Heroes from Myth and Legend and all in the first pages. Strange demonic lineages, do not a story make.

[Joe Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

Short, but an amazing use of language and a startling imagination. The value of pre Tolkien fantasy can't be overestimated.

[Marceline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Atrociously bad formatting in this kindle edition made this feel more a chore to read all the way through and most of my time was spent trying to decipher the vast amounts of wordswithnospaces, like that.

The story itself had a rather slow buildup for me but other than that, was fairly solid. The ending fell a bit short for my taste but what can you expect out of a short novella like story? Lovecraftian elements and perhaps a bit of Howard as well? It would make sense since they seemed to have borrowed off each other and would often write stuff in one another's mythos.

I cannot recommend this kindle edition. It's atrociously formatted and the publisher doesn't seem to care. Try finding it in a story collection on paperback instead.

[Wingswept · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a good story in this somewhere but the kindle version has multiple grammar errors that made reading the story less than enjoyable. Aside from that, the story was that of a typical Lovecraftian vibe, though harder to follow at times (may have been due to the near constant grammar errors of the kindle version, or may have just been the poor sentence structure at times) and I ultimately only finished it because the climax of the story interested me. Probably worth a read for those who enjoy Lovecraftian literature, but don't suffer through the Kindle version like I did.

[mabuse cast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the Clark Ashton Smith stories I've read so far the easiest way to describe his style of weird fiction is "the middle ground between HP Lovecraft & Robert E Howard"! This was a bit of a challenging read at some points because of that but I really respect just how much Smith commits to the bit with this weird as hell dark fantasy/sword and sorcery story!

I loved the dark fable quality this story has and the poetic almost King James Bible from hell style of language as well!

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similar to The Colossus of Ylourgne, it's a story about the revenge of a little shorty who becomes a powerful sorcerer.

Read it for free online at http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/...

[Samuel Beard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short cosmic fantasy.

My first real trip into Clark Ashton Smith. Preposterous verse, but fabulously imagined worlds and characters.

Gargantuan in scale and tipping the scales of horror over fantasy in many ways.

Look forward to more in the future.

[Daniel Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one that has a good story, but is weighed down by oitdated racist and sexist language of the era.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old fashioned fantasy of the pre-Tolkien type. Even though it's listed as the fourth story in a series I had no issues following it as my first one.

[Jonah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imaginative to be sure, but a bit hard to follow for me. More like a flash in the fire than a slow burn.

[Per · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Sara 🦷 · Rating 2 out of 5]

i did not understand a thing

[Jake Longstaff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid 3.5

[Taylor Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

randomly chose this off google to do a fantasy genre analysis essay on and i was thoroughly surprised! i’d send invisible horses to raid the home of my enemy too if i could

[Peter L.N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different edition though.

[Andrew Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the vein of Edgar Allen Poe's A Tell-Tale Heart, evil and darkened hearts are stalled to the horror of impending chaos night after night. Clark has given some very macabre imagery here, reminiscent of black-and-white horror films, especially with a Rasputinesque sorcerer and ancient desert kings being mummy servants to a necromancer, riddled with rodent like creatures within their hearts, and partnered with a forgotten giant race that now walks as imposing skeletons playing flutes like a pied piper leading lambs to their slaughter, as well as crimson dragon-men guarding a necromancer's gates. At one point, it's a like a dreamy nightmarish Nutcracker dance upon the living.

The last continent, Zothique. In Xylac, and Zothique as a whole, the gods and demons of old, from Hyperborea, Mu and Poseidonis, have returned to a world of dimming sun and blossoming stars. On a continent teeming with necromancers and evil people, the greatest is Namirrha of Xylac, who came from the Tasuun desert to play equals with the dark lord of hell, Thasaidon, and to give pained revenge to Emperor Zotulla.

Beggar boy Narthos had come to hate the cruel city of Xylac, especially when Prince Zotulla spurned him, and made his way to the Tasuun desert to learn the dark arts of necromancy under the tutelage of hermit sorcerer Ouphaloc.

Long dead from the Tasuun desert kingdom, evil King Pharnoc's statue for dark Thasaidon resides and gives prophecy to Namirrha but both have a different opinion of Zotulla's worth. Zotulla's favorite lover, Obexah, a deviant from the Isle of Torturers witnesses the horrors brought to life by Namirrah's hatred for humanity and its most vile actors, and the crimes of their hearts rebirthed in monstrous fashion, as the empire is trampled underfoot by the coursers of the lord of the abyss, Themagorgos. There are no happy endings for blasphemous avengers nor debaucherous sadists.

The Abominations of Yondo
The Charnel God
The Dark Eidolon
The Death of Malygris
The Double Shadow
The Empire of the Necromancers
The Isle of Torturers
Necromancy in Naat
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros
The Tomb-Spawn
The Voyage of King Eurovan
The Weaver in the Vault