The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith
Binding: Paperback Publisher: Hippocampus Press ISBN: 0976159252 ISBN-13: 9780976159254 Released: 01 Jan 2006 RRP: £11.94 Average Rating:
Customer Reviews
Varied content, but worth the price for the better essays- By: Murray, 10 Sep 2006 This book contains 27 essays, dating from 1945 to several from 2006, composed especiallly. As always with what is mostly amateur criticism, the quality varies. A few writers are content to make vague praises & summarise the plots of some of Smith's bizarre works, but there are the outstanding ones who reallly manage to say something new. The volume's price is worth it simply for Brian Stableford's essay "Outside the Human Aquarium" & Stefan Dziemianowicz's look at Smith's Averoigne stories. In addition, there are two offerings from the ubiquitous S T Joshi, as well as a collection of contemporary reviews of books published in Smith's lifetime, & an annotated chronology of his short stories. Subjects covered include each of Smith's major fantasy worlds (Zothique, Averoigne, Hyperborea), Smith's poetry & prose-poetry (nothing on his paintings or sculptures, unfortunately), his master/pupil relationship with George Sterling, as well as intelligent attempts to position Smith as regards the literary fad of his day, Modernism. On the whole, free from too much of the must of academia, at its heights, this book can reallly cast a new light on Smith's fascinating work.
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