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Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith

One of the most overlooked and under appreciated authors of the early days of Weird Tales and other pulp science fiction / fantasy / horror magazines. Here’s a sample of his poetry and links to his works.

Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith

He who has trod the shadows of Zothique  And looked upon the coal-red sun oblique,  Henceforth returns to no anterior land,  But haunts a latter coast  Where cities crumble in the black sea-sand 

And dead gods drink the brine. 

He who has known the gardens of Zothique  Where bleed the fruits torn by the simorgh’s beak,  Savors no fruit of greener hemispheres:  In arbors uttermost,  In sunset cycles of the sombering years,  He sips an aramanth wine.

He who has loved the wild girls of Zothique  Shall come not back a gentler love to seek,  Nor know the vampire’s from the lover’s kiss:  For him the scarlet ghost  Of Lilith from time’s last necropolis  Rears amorous and malign. 

He who has sailed in galleys of Zothique  And seen the looming of strange spire and peak,  Must face again the sorcerer-sent typhoon.  And take the steerer’s post  On far-poured oceans by the shifted moon  Or the re-shapen Sign.”

. . .

“Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition… for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller, Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as ‘The Last of the Great Romantics’ and ‘The Bard of Auburn’. Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that ‘in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled’, and Ray Bradbury said that Smith ‘filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures’…Smith was one of ‘the big three of Weird Tales, with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft…’” -- Wikipedia

Clark Ashton Smith at the Faded Page.

Clark Ashton Smith at Project Gutenberg.

Hyperborea

Xiccarph

Zothique

Other Dimensions

Out Of Space And Time

Tales Of Science And Sorcery

The Star Treader And Other Poems

more stories and poems by Clark Ashton Smith

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Skullduggery [FICTOID]

“Anyone who eats this papaya,” said the witch doctor, “will turn into a skull.”

“Is it poisoned?” the explorer asked.

“No.”

“Cursed, then?  I don't believe in curses.  Too rational, don'tcha know.”

“I could teach you a thing or two about curses that would make your scrotum crawl up to hide between your kidneys, but no, not cursed.”

“Radioactive?”

“Come on, man!  We're in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle!  You see any nuclear reactors or atomic bomb test sites around here?”

“Well, somebody could be illegally dumping nuclear waste…”

“No, not radioactive.”

“Infected? Bacteria, fungus, virus, parasites, whatever?”

“You're not even warm.”

“What then?  It looks like a perfectly ordinary papaya.”

“It is a perfectly ordinary papaya –- well, not perfect.  See, there's a little bruise on it.”

“Aha! The bruise!”  

“Just a bruise. Nothing extraordinary about it.”

The explorer sighed. “All right, I give.  Why will the papaya turn anyone on earth who eats it into a skull?”

“Because all of us shall die someday, my friend.”

The explorer looked impassively at the witch doctor for several long moments then said, “That is the stupidest answer I've ever heard.”

“No, it works,” said the witch doctor.  “Everyone dies sooner or later, and when they do, they decompose into a skeleton.”

“What if they’re cremated?  Ha!  Didn't think of that one, did you?”

“At some point in the procedure the skin is burned off, leaving a skull.”

“But the papaya doesn't cause that to happen.”

“Never said it did,” said the witch doctor.

“But you created that impression.”

“Did I?  Or did you assume I meant that?”

“We're getting into epistemological territory here,” said the explorer.

“You see any philosophical infants crawling around?”

 © Buzz Dixon

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Knights Errant

It is the most pleasant of fantasies:  The invincible / incorruptible / virtuous hero who roams the land, thinking naught of themselves, only how they might be of service to those in dire need or peril. 

Sir Lancelot (which, alas, proved not so incorruptible nor virtuous) is the most iconic of these heroes, but he’s far from the only one. 

Sir Percival, Roland, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, and Lohengrin are all well known examples from the so-called age of chivalry, but more modern examples include the free roaming cowboy, the private eye, the secret agent, and the self-appointed avenger. 

It’s a mark of the impact of capitalism that the most common current example of the knight errant — be they Travis McGee or Philip Marlowe — all expect to get paid for their services, but once on the job are indefatigable. 

A more traditional casting of the knight errant is Jack Reacher.  Supported solely by a military pension he earned after years of heroic service, Reacher now wanders the land seeking wrongs to right.  

I read one of the Reacher books and for reasons explained below just couldn’t connect with the material.  But I absolutely understand the character’s appeal and why millions of people love the books / movies / TV shows.  I deny no one their pleasure.  

There is a visceral thrill when Reacher administers two-fisted justice to some carjacker threatening a mother and child, but those scenarios always turn out the way the writer wants them to turn out. 

Years ago in the midst of the Vietnam war a writer (Gordon Dickson, IIRC) for Analog penned a story where human military handily defeated alien guerrillas.  A reader suggested the writer be put in charge of US strategy in Vietnam.  

Editor John W. Campbell reminded the reader that the writer got to play both sides in his conflict.  

The knight errant is an early version of the superhero, a being with near god-like powers who defends the weak and never imposes their will on the populace at large (unless it’s Fletcher Hanks’ space wizard Stardust in which case all bets are off).  While many classic knights errant fought dragons and wizards, they did so primarily through human means, the occasional severed Medusa head not withstanding. 

In the real world, this sort of thing rarely happens and when it does, it’s typically at a high price to said knight.  

Someone did a body count for the old TV Western The Rifleman and calculated Lucas McCain killed 500 people in the course of the series. 

Nobody — no matter how justified or noble — kills 500 people and walks away emotionally unscathed.  The best warriors learn to deal with this and may present a civil, controlled persona to the world, but it preys on them nonetheless. 

It is a fantasy to assume they do. 

By all means, feel free to indulge in that fantasy; I’m not giving up my Raymond Chandler novels anytime soon.   

But recognize they are a fantasy, a wish fulfillment.  

There’s only been one realistic knight errant story:  Don Quixote. 

 © Buzz Dixon

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The Birth Of The Blues [FICTOID]

The philosopher's child popped out -- not from her head, much to the philosopher's disappointment, but in the old fashioned manner -- fully formed.

Not fully grown (that would be ridiculous and exceptionally painful) but fully formed, capable of expressing a complex yet well reasoned theory of knowledge.

“How,’ the infant epistemology said, patting its sides for pockets on a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches it wasn't wearing, looking for a pack of Gauloises that all Francophile philosophers (Phrancofile filosofers?) smoke, “do we know what we know?  How do we even know we know what we know unless we know we know what we know we know, but how can we know we know what we know we know we know we know?”

“I think you threw in one ‘you know’ too many,” the philosopher said.  “Y’know?”

The obstetrician held his hands up in the timeout signal.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa!  Before we delve into any of that, how in the hell did this fucking baby come out like this?”

“The first thing in any philosophical discussion is the definition of terms,” the epistemology said.  “I am no ‘fucking baby’ but rather a fully formed set of precepts and conditions.”

“Bullshit!” said the increasingly profane obstetrician.  “You're just a mouthy little brat.”

The infant epistemology took a long imaginary draw on its nonexistent French cigarette.  “You don't know that.”

”Like hell I don't know that!” shouted the obstetrician.  He was wearing skin diving flippers for no other reason than the writer thought it would be funny.  “You're standing there right in front of me, covered in afterbirth, pretending to puff away on a cigarette.  That's the gawddam definition of a mouthy little brat.”

The infant epistemology blew out a perfect imaginary smoke ring.  “How do you know you know I'm a mouthy little brat?  For all you know, I could be a figment of your imagination.” 

“Hey!” the philosopher's anus shouted,  “I'm in charge of phenomenology around here!”

 © Buzz Dixon

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