SMITH, CLARK ASHTON – THE EMPEROR OF DREAMS. 2002. Fantasy Masterworks #26. Gollancz Books.
Smith wrote for Weird Tales, alongside H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E.
Howard. Smith’s fantasy stories created some astonishingly well described alien
landscapes populated by sorcerers, demons and vampires. There is a very
hallucagenic feel to his very alien creations. This late collection presents
some of his finest stories. In The Theft Of Thirty Nine Girdles, a
couple of thieves hire an alchemist to help them steal the jewel-encrusted
underwear from a sacred temple full of virgins. The Alchemist conjures up a
series of smoke and mist demons, which frighten the temple users while the
thieves, take the girdles from the loins of the women. However, the alchemist kills
a temple priest in the raid, and the authorities know him, and so the thieves
become fugitives. In The Door To Saturn a notorious dark magician
escapes the man sent to arrest him by stepping through a portal that takes him
to Saturn. The pursuer follows him, and the two mortal enemies are forced to
work together to survive on the hostile new world, where they are soon regarded
as Gods. The delightfully titled The Weird Of Avoosi Wuthoqquan deals
with a man who steals a valuable but cursed emerald like stone. When it rolls
away from him, he chases it through the streets and out to a cave where the
jewel and thousands like it trap him in a quicksand like hold as a demon comes
out to devour him. In The Empire Of The Necromancers two extremely evil
sorcerers head to a lost civilisation in a deep desert. They resurrect the dead
and make themselves king and queen of
the corpses, which are forced to serve their every whim. However, one man
remembers that he himself was a magician. He uses his old skills to turn the
tables on the necromancers. This allows the dead to return to death, while the
dismembered but still living corpses of the necromancers are left rolling about
in agony in the desert sands for all eternity. Powerful and poetic material of tremendous imaginative
power.
© Copyright. Arthur
Chappell
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