The End of the Story

Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Book 1

By: Clark Ashton Smith

Narrated by: Fleet Cooper, Allan Robertson, Joe Knezevich, Bernard Setaro Clark, William Neenan, Chris Kayser

Published in chronological order, with extensive story and bibliographic notes, this series not only provides access to stories that have been out of print for years, but gives them a historical and social context. Series editors Scott Conners and Ronald S. Hilger excavated the still-existing manuscripts, letters and various published versions of the stories, creating a definitive "preferred text" for Smith's entire body of work. This first volume of the series, brings together 25 of his fantasy stories, written between 1925 and 1930, including such classics as "The Abominations of Yondo," "The Monster of the Prophecy," "The Last Incantation" and the title story.

©2006 The Estate of Clark Ashton Smith (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

This is a treasure

I was completely drawn into these wonderful fantasies the narrations made them come alive loved it

Campaigner

This collection was performed well. The stories themselves are great. A great value for those who enjoy H.P. Lovecraft etc.

Wonderful collection of Ashton's tales.

Clark Ashton Smith is in a class of his own. Enter the bizarre, weird, fantastical, adventurous, and freaky world of Ashton's imagination. You will not be disappointed.

Fantasy and scifi stories of their time

Really interesting read to understand the tone of speculative fiction in the early 20th century. Smith's stories shift fairly fluidly between sci-fi space-faring adventures on alien worlds to pseudo-horror fantasy tales of occult powers or ancient evils seeping into contemporary life. Smith tends to see the binary of good versus evil in these worlds and also leans quite heavily on the archaic concept of "elder races" or "sub-species." This was likely common thinking for a white man in the 1920s or 30s, but it must be acknowledged by 21st-century readers.

Phoney baloney

Smith's fantastical stories rely heavily on silly names, psuedo "olde" English, and dubious situations. Most irritating of his mannerisms is dropping the prefixes of words to make them sound ancient. Too many times to list, but an example would be "broiled" for "embroiled." Definitely at the low end of the fantasy and horror writers. I used these stories as my going to sleep listens, as it didn't seem to matter whether I heard the whole story or not.

If you love lovecraft and howard you'll love this

On of the three great trio none of the stories disappointed i bought all 5 books and they are all excellent and have a bit of range from pulpy sci-fi to cosmic horror to knights and wizards. One thing you'll notice is old clark loved warlocks and alot of the stories revolve around such they are never boring though and are always interesting love these books

I knew I would like this book, but I was surprised

If you could sum up The End of the Story in three words, what would they be?

I knew I would like this book, but I was surprised by how much I loved it. Highly recommended for all lovers of old school Weird Tales authors.

fabulous fantastics

these stories are inventive, fantastical and colorful. they just draw you into their fantastical world. highly recommend.

Mostly wonderful.

Some of the stories felt a bit incomplete, but that is understanable for what is being presented. Much of this is full and wonder of the fantastic and weird.

Enthusiastic narrators; dubious quality control

Clark Ashton Smith is an acquired taste, somewhere between Vathek, the Burton Arabian Nights, Poe, and Baudelaire. His fable-like mood pieces, with their florid language and minimal but morbid plots, do not cater to modern tastes. But if you want to hear an inspiration for Lovecraft, Jack Vance, Ray Bradbury, and others, Smith is a key source.

The narrators for this audiobook make a game effort with a difficult text, but pronouncing a relatively common word such as “ennui” as “EN-you-eye” gives me no confidence that they handled Smith’s famously recondite vocabulary competently. —Michael Rooney