Search Results for: ashton

Inspired by the Weird Fiction of Clark Ashton Smith: Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay

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Castle Amber (TSR, 1981). Cover by Erol Otus Castle Amber (aka Château d’ Amberville) by Tom Moldvay (RIP) is a classic D&D adventure that I first enjoyed as a player at age 10 and later as DM. Published in 1981 by TSR, Castle Amber has a wonderful cover by Erol Otus, and excellent interiors by Otus, Jim Holloway (RIP), Harry Quinn, Jim Rosolf (RIP), and Stephen Sullivan (he did the maps, I’m assuming). I didn’t appreciate it as a youth,…

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Nonstop SF Adventure: The Mickey7 Novels by Edward Ashton

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Mickey7 and Antimatter Blues (St. Martin’s Press, February 15, 2022 and March 14, 2023). Cover design by Ervin Serrano Truth to tell, I missed Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7 last year, despite all the breathless praise heaped on it (NPR listed it as one of the Best Books of 2022, calling it “A wildly entertaining mix of action and big ideas peppered with humor and a bizarre love story”). It was our very own Brandon Crilly who tuned me in to the…

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Vintage Treasures: Poseidonis by Clark Ashton Smith

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Poseidonis (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #59, July 1973). Cover by Gervasio Gallardo I’ve been collecting Clark Ashton Smith recently, and I keep coming back to the wonderful Ballantine Adult Fantasy editions edited by Lin Carter in the early 70s. It’s not nostalgia (well, maybe it’s a little nostalgia). And it’s certainly not that the stories aren’t available in other editions — Smith’s work has been annotated and collected by more than half a dozen publishers this century alone, including Night Shade,…

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Vintage Treasures: The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith

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The City of the Singing Flame (Timescape, 1981). Cover by Rowena Morrill We’ve written a lot about Clark Ashton Smith at Black Gate. Like, a lot. Over two dozen articles over the last decade or so by my count, by many of our top writers, including Brian Murphy, Matthew David Surridge, Fletcher Vredenburgh, Thomas Parker, James Maliszewski, M Harold Page, Steven H Silver, John R. Fultz — and especially Ryan Harvey, who’s penned a third of our coverage all on…

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The Ordinary is Ephemeral: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and the Battle Against Modernism

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Weird Tales of Modernity: The Ephemerality of the Ordinary in the Stories of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and H.P. Lovecraft Jason Ray Carney McFarland & Company (205 pages, $39.95 in paperback/$23.99 digital, July 26, 2019) Jason Carney’s thesis in Weird Tales of Modernity is that, in their reaction to modernism, the artistic and literary movement that upended culture as it had been accepted in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, the Weird Tales Three — Howard, Smith, and Lovecraft…

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Adventure and Tragedy on a Far Future Earth: Keith West on Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith

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Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith. Ballantine Adult Fantasy #16, 1976. Cover by George Barr Some years back Keith West wrote a series of articles for Black Gate on the legendary Ballantine Adult Fantasy series edited by Lin Carter. In fifteen pieces between 2013-2015 Keith covered the first fourteen or so titles, including The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt, The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, and The Doom that Came to Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft. Yesterday I was delighted…

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Stories That Work: “It Never Snows in Snowtown” by Rebecca Zahabi, and “Dust” by Edward Ashton

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F&SF cover art by Bob Eggleton Ray Bradbury caused the ruckus first with The Martian Chronicles, but I also blame Eric Frank Russell’s Men, Martians and Machines, and Anthony Boucher’s A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. Before those three books, I only read novels — short ones to be sure — like Tom Swift and Tom Corbett and anything that the Weekly Reader Book Club featured in their regular catalogs. After reading Bradbury, Russell and Boucher, short stories hooked me. They…

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast: Clark Ashton Smith, Poet of The Fantastic

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I’ve started listening to podcasts during my morning commute on the train and, let me tell you, I am an instant fan. I can’t explain what took me so long to discover them, but I am a convert. I’ve really been enjoying Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe’s Coode Street Podcast, and am just getting into Welcome to Night Vale. But the best podcast I listened to this month was Episode 9 of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show from our…

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Birthday Reviews: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Maze of Maal Dweb”

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Clark Ashton Smith was born on January 13, 1893 and died on August 14, 1961. Along with H.P. Lovecraft, he was one of the major authors at Weird Tales, writing stories which were similar to the dark fantasies Lovecraft wrote. Smith maintained a correspondence with Lovecraft for the last 15 years of Lovecraft’s life. While Lovecraft wrote about Cthulhu, Smith wrote about the far future Zothique. Smith was named the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award winner in 2015. “The Maze of…

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Modular: Starfinder Alien Archive — Clark Ashton Smith meets Douglas Adams (with visuals by Ray Harryhausen)

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Though writers are notoriously not always the best parents, I’m a Good Dad right now. I got us a preview copy of the forthcoming Starfinder Alien Archive — it’s due out October 18th. Kurtzhau, my 13 year old son who’s currently GMing the game for his mates, rates it as “Awesome.” I concur. 80+ new aliens (depends on how you count), 20 playable races (some delightfully nuts ), lots of alien tech, each entry a rich adventure seed in its…

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