SS4 20 Season Wrap Up

Join us for a look back over Season Four! We choose our favourite and least favourite stories, and talk  pig farms, art vs commerce, General Tabasco,  the Brundage covers, the FJ Ackerman debate, trolls, nudes and what is weird?
Favourite favourite words@  pythonamorph,  mumiyah,  tenebrific, volutation, leatheroid, maculations.
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 Innsmouth Literary Festival        Continuum 26     
Innsmouth Forum       Grooving in Green   

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SPEAKER_02 0:10

Strange Shadows.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

The Carcash and Smith podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Greetings, friends, and welcome to Strange Shadows episode 20, the season wrap-up. Yes, we can't believe it. We're already at the end of season four. So we're going to take a nostalgic look back over the last 19 or so episodes today. I'm one of your hosts, Rob Poyton.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

And I'm the other one, Tim Mendies. Yes, we're going to be delving back into a couple of little bits of Bob's. We're going to be recounting our favourite favourite words. That's even a sentence. And we've got some letters and some other bits and pieces. So yes, we're just going to have a bit of a chat, really.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yes, and I think we were just saying earlier that out of all the seasons, I think this has been the strongest in terms of the stories. In fact, it's been difficult to choose a favourite, isn't it? Yeah, because I think we've had to choose three each, haven't we? Yeah. Yeah. Decided totally arbitrarily that we're going to choose three each. Shall we do a top-of-the-pop style countdown meet? Nice. Yeah, we both do a lot, a lot of work for charity, but uh, you know, don't like to talk about it. There's that home for retired shogoths charity, is uh is uh a favorite of ours, isn't it? Indeed, indeed it is. And there's the the fund for old bastard musicians. There's another one. There's the other one. Oh, I've just thought of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

I've just thought of something you could bag in the next IBC pearl and scream, eels on wheels.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Oh eels on wheels, genius.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Wow, mind blown. Eels on wheels. Why did no one in the east end ever think of that? Oh, yeah, exactly. They're pretty sharp down there, generally. Eels on wheels, eels on wheels. Yeah, you can imagine it, can't you, going down the market? Eels on wheels. Nice, nice. Yeah, that's that's going in the uh the memory bank, that one. Okay, before we get into all that though, just a couple of news items. We're delighted to announce that at the Innsmouth Literary Festival 26 on the 19th of September, Stephen Jones, one of our guests of honour, will be signing copies of the new edition of Weird Shadows over Innsmouth. Of course, I'm sure most of you will know of this trilogy. I think for both of us, that's a favourite series, isn't it? Three collections of Innsmouthian Wonderment. Oh, absolutely, yeah. There's some absolutely cracking stories in all of them. Yep, and that and Weird Shadows has got stories by Ramsay Campbell, Kim Newman, Brian Stableford, and others, as well as HPL's previously discarded draft of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. So you'll be able to get your copy Oddly Moist off of the press and signed by Mr. Jones himself. And also alongside that, there's gonna be a special edition of Phantasmagoria magazine being launched on the day as well. So definitely looking forward to seeing that. In fact, the editor Trevor Kennedy is gonna be popping into Innsmouth soon, so keep an ear out on the IBC and uh you can hear our chat with him coming up. And finally, coming up in a couple of weeks' time is uh excellent gaming event, Continuum 2026, that runs from the 24th to the 27th of July at Cranfield in Bedfordshire. That's four days of RPGs, tabletop games, board games, panels, and events. Okay, shall we start with our favorite words then, sir?

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Indeed, yes, our favorite favourite words, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Favourite, favorite, favorite, favorite square.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Yeah, it's always an entertaining one. Right, I think for my first one, I'm gonna go with one from the Isle of the Torturers, Pythonomorph.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Oh chef's kiss.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Yeah, a pythonomorph is an extinct marine reptile class of squamous reptiles that links mossosaurs with snakes. So it's kind of the missing link of of the of the snakey kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

There we go. Nice, and that's what you could see in that sort of uh glass fish tank kind of setup he had in his chamber, I think, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 4:55

That was the one, yeah, outside the window with all the dead crew floating about.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, yeah. Oh yes. Lovely scene, a lovely scene. Yeah. My first choice, and uh I've neglected to put down what story it was from, uh, is mummia, which is the historical medical preparation made from ground embalmed human bodies. The infamous practice of medical cannibalism was prominent across European elites from the 12th to the 17th centuries, and maybe even beyond, according to some conspiracy theories. Uh, this was all based on the false belief that preserved ancient Egyptian flesh held miraculous healing powers. Now, what I liked about this was learning the origin of the word mummy, because I uh you just take these things for granted. A mummy's a mummy, right? But why isn't a mummy called a mummy? What's that got to do with being a mother or anything like that? But of course, this is from the Arabic mumaia and the Persian moom meaning wax that initially referred to the naturally occurring mineral pitch or bitumen that was used as a remedy. And early medieval European translators confused the terms, concluding that mumaya referred to the embalmed flesh rather than the actual resin itself. So I thought that's a a lovely bit of uh sort of gruesome and history and everything else all mixed in together there. I did like that one.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Oh, yeah, brilliant, absolutely great stuff. Now, next one I've chosen because I'm a goth. Pure and simple. It's from Genius Loki, tenobrific.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

There's a smashy and I see, it's tenebrific, mate.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which means dark, gloomy, or causing darkness. And yeah, it's one of those that is always used in uh to name remixes by goth bands. Tenebrific mix or tenebrae mix or da da da da da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You often get that sort of tagged on as remixes, so yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Nice, as a as opposed to acid house music, which was tenerific. Tenerific. Just ignore me, I'll go. My second choice, just purely because I like the sound of the word as much as anything, is volutation. The archaic or formal action of rolling, wallowing, or tumbling. And we all like to do one of those every now and again, don't we? Let's let's be honest. Especially after a few pints. Yes. There you go. There you go. Rooted in the Latin volutari to roll about, it primarily denotes wallowing, rolling or tossing about on the ground, steady, e.g., an animal rolling in the mud or dust. It can also mean, and here's where we get the smithian context, circular movements such as a slow rolling or gyrating movement of the hips. Oh. I like the dramatic pause of the hips. Well, it's not really specifically of the hips, I just added that in for effect. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Well, that's the thing, it's Smith, so I believed that. I swallowed that whole cloth. Now, the next one I've chosen, mainly because I'm an idiot, uh, and also as a shout out to one of our uh friends of the show and regular correspondents, Tobias Nielsen. So I've gone with a word from the dimension of chance: leatheroid. A leatheroid is an artificial leather-like material made from chemically treated paper or synthetic resins. And people who recall that episode, or the episode after when we talked about this, will remember us talking about a song by a German power metal band, except London Leather Boys. That's right, of course, yes. Yes, how could I forget the London Leather Boys? Exactly. So now we've got London Leatheroids. There we go. And I also thought, leatheroids, is that a particularly persistent form of piles?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Oh dear, that's a real tough set of farmers, that is, isn't it, eh? Oh is it? Yeah, yeah. Boom, me, let's mean leatheroids are playing up something rotten. Oh dear, oh dear. Straight to the bottom, of course.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Oh, I've got over literally.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And my final one is now this is a northern word. I think the others have been Latin. This has got to be a northern word. So I'm gonna do it in my cod northern accent with apologies for anyone north of Watford. Maculations. Maculations, aye. Yeah, yeah. The MACLADs. The presence of spots blotches or stained markings. And this can be applied in three contexts biology and zoology, so we see it in animal markings, such as uh leopard spots, that kind of thing. Or plant markings, discoloured areas, variegated patterns or dots on flower petals and foliage. Again, very Smithian. It can also be applied in medical terms to denote skin lesions, the presence of discoloured blemishes or flat spots on the skin. And bizarrely, it's also used in philately, stamp collecting. Uh under with the with a wonderful sort of two-word phrase of stamp stains. Stamp stains.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

I was gonna say that sounds a bit filthy.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Stamp stains are an area of staining, discoloration, or foreign matter that degrade a postage stamp's physical condition. And of course, thinking about it after, it's a deviation from immaculate, which is perfectly clear. It's one of those, isn't it? You you have immaculate, but no one ever says maculate. I've never heard that outside of Smith.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Yeah, I think that's one of his the beautiful things about his use of language, isn't it? Is you you find often it's alternate uh versions of words you're familiar with.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Right. Next up I've got a phrase. Uh it goes all the way back to the first story of the the of the this season, the Mandrakes, and the phrase is connubial infelicities. Oh, suit you, sir. Connubial relating to marriage and infelicities is a thing that is inappropriate. So this is Smith we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Draw your own conclusions. And the phrase that I'm gonna choose, uh again, this is impossible, right? Because every page has got at least one phrase on it. Oh yeah. But the one that really caught my eye was, and I'm probably gonna pronounce this wrong, uncongenial exigency. Exigency? Exigency. Uncongenial exigency. I'm gonna go for that. That's an unavoidable, urgent demand or crisis that is highly unpleasant, incompatible with your nature, or disagreeable to handle, which is a lovely phrase. And uh it puts me in mind of Basil Rathbone in Comedy of Terrors, who has that great line to Vincent Price, who I think is trying to kill him at the time. I find your actions inimical to fellowship. Excellent stuff.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Right now, should we move on to our favorite stories, sir? Yes, why not? Why not? Indeed. Right, so my first choice is gonna be genius lochi. I absolutely love that story. Uh I'm a huge like The Willows is one of my favorite stories of all time, Blackwood. And that gives me the same kind of vibes. I'm a real sucker for them haunted landscape kind of stories, and I think that is definitely one of the best.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Absolutely, it's very evocative, isn't it? And it's one of those interesting, weird stories where nothing much particularly happens. You know, we've got that um uh unfarnsworthyan lack of action kind of thing, but that's one of the strengths of a story like that, is pure atmosphere.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Yeah, well, I mean, you can say that about the willows, nothing actually really happens.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Oh, totally, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it is so unsettling.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

Yeah, yeah. I still think it's one of the most effective, and I think that is one of Smith's creepiest. Yeah, totally agree on that. It's that's that creeping dread that people always talk about when they talk about the Love Craftian, and that nails it.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

And and also that aspect of paradoya that comes in as well, with is that a face in the trees and and all that sort of stuff that really adds to it, all doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Yeah, I love all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

I mean, it's just a classic weird tale, and again, one that would be ripe for a uh adaptation for TV, 30-40 minutes, pretty straightforward, you would have thought.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00 14:24

It's uh one to email Mark Gaetis. Which you can't necessarily say about my first choice, and well, this could be either of the two main mast towers, but I'm gonna go with the dweller in the gulf. Uh, and obviously the vaults of your bombs. I mean, to me, they're neck and neck, and both similar in that they are science fiction or scientific fiction, but they're not really, they're horror stories. Yeah, and they're both survival horror stories, really.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Yes, that's why, yes, that was one of my choices as well. That was my second choice, is Dweller in the Gulf. Uh, for that reason, it is survival horror, it's Dead Space, it's uh something like that, you know. It's such a a forerunner of the get like the video, specifically the video games that I play, the sci-fi horror ones.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

It is, I think this is where we see Smith ahead of his time because, well, we're gonna mention some of his other scientific fiction stories in a moment, um, in in sort of not quite so glowing terms. But here, he seems so ahead of the curve because this is, as you say, FPS computer games, it's Star Trek, it's alien, yeah. It pre-shadows all of those things, and I think I that with the Dweller in the Gulf, one of the things, particularly for me, was just that blindness, the eyes. Yeah, I mean, being bereft of a sense in that environment is just absolutely terrifying.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Yeah, yeah. I thought the reveal was very well done as well. It wasn't your rubber, you always bring it up, yeah, your rubber monster coming over the windowsill at the end of the mesotent. It wasn't that.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

No, no, this is something totally alien. Smith does such a good job with that. Uh, and again, well, maybe not so much these days, but that means uh a more difficult adaptation or a more challenging adaptation, perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Yeah, definitely. Right. So, yeah, you've you've had my second one, so I'm gonna go into my third one now. So, which is the charnel god.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

That's my next one. Is it excellent? There we go. Great minds think of lights.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Oh, yeah, I just love how grim this story is. It's just grimness. You said it earlier, grimness squared, isn't it? It's but it's the whole concept of Mordigian that I've always liked to the point where I've used Mordigian in several stories of mics. I like the concept of the this ghoul god, this this yeah, this sort of mortuary god, the charn god. There you go. And I like I like how it's like, well, you can leave because you're not taking my dead bodies. You're fine, you can go, but you you're fucked. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, because it it's not like a heroic, well, I suppose it's a heroic attempt to rescue someone in a sense, but it's the case of if they're dead, that's it. This is the law, you know. I've pinched this idea for my mothership campaign briefly. They're on this huge space station, and how do people eat? There's millions of people on the space station, so there's got to be some kind of farming mechanism going on. So I've decided one aspect of that is this huge area that's just full of pig farms, and we can imagine the horror of that. But the extra horror is because there's been a couple of murders. If a corpse is unidentified or if it isn't claimed, guess where it goes?

SPEAKER_03 18:04

In the pig swell.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

I kind of I kind of borrowed that concept to an extent now. Whether there's a big, huge, uh fluffy maggot grave worm god in there, I I I I don't want to do any spoilers, but you know, there's quite a good chance there is, isn't there?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Well, it it echoes that uh serial killer in Canada, doesn't it? Is it Picton? Uh Robert Picton, I think, or something like that. Um but yeah, he he was a pig farmer and he would yeah, feed his victims to the pigs.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, we're back to uh brick bricktopping snatch, and it that famous speech.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yes. And my third choice is the disinterment of Venus.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Now, again, take any of the Averroyne stories, but I think this I think as I said at the time, this was uh uh I think Genius Loki was the first story I read, and this was probably the second or third, so I've always um been a fan of it, and it's naughty monks.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

I mean the rumpy monks, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Smith writing about rumpy monks, I mean it just doesn't get any better than that. And I thought the interesting thing with these well, I mean, just in general, but these three in particular for me, we've got science fiction, we've got dungeons and dragons, and we've got a sort of uh medieval naughtiness. Yeah, you know, Smith spans all of these genres, he can turn his hand to any of these genres, and they're all written in a slightly different style, with slightly different voice, and they're all hugely effective.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Yeah, I think that's one of his strengths, is that he can switch it up. Because I think, like, if you just even just look at the cycles, Hyperborea, Avarorian, Zothic, uh Poseidonis, and Orban, right? They're all slightly different, they all intertwine at points, but they're all slightly different the way that they're structured, the way that they're written. And I think that really does it's like when you put them together in in a like in an anthology, if you anthologize them, they they flow and become a whole. The way it's written is very the way that one's written is written the same way as say the Colossus of Elon. Yes, but it's not written the same way as the dweller in the gulf.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah, that's that's a very good point. There's there's a consistency in the tone for the setting and the language used because obviously we we get all that sort of uh the the medieval terms in Averroin, but then we go to Zothic and we get that very uh the necromantic, colourful language like that. Indeed. Yeah, and and it just works, but you know it's Smith each time in a way that as much as I and Lovecraft is a favourite, of course, you don't really see that in Lovecraft. Or I don't think Howard to an extent. Howard wrote a lot of uh across a lot of different genres, so boxing stories, westerns, and all the fantasy stuff, but it's all I don't want to say it's all the same because that's not strictly fair, but it's blood and thunder, you know. Yeah, whatever the set in, it's blood and thunder.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

Yeah, there is always an element, even in the sort of quieter horror things like pigeons from hell, there is always like an element where somebody gets punched in the face or or coal cocked with a with the butt of a gun, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So, of course, the flip side of the Smithian coin then, least favourite I'm not gonna say worst, but let's say least favorite stories in uh in this edition. What what are yours?

SPEAKER_03 21:52

I'm gonna put money on the fact that we've chosen the same ones here. I'm thinking that as well, yeah. My first is the third episode of Barthek.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Boom, ding dong. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, we have a winner. That was uh no hesitation for me in that one.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Yeah. I think yeah, yeah, it's one of those because obviously it's a continuation of something else by somebody else. I think I wasn't invested in it right from the start, if that makes any sense. It's I uh maybe if I was a fan of the original Vartech, yeah, then maybe I'd get something out of it. But as it's presented in isolation, it just I I did a lot of skimming on that.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

I struggled to read the the the first part, which was from the original uh author, really struggled, and then Smith, you can kind of tell there's a slight shift, yeah, but obviously he's trying to copy that style. And you know, I I think like we said at the time, yeah, there's some great language in there and some nice phrases and everything else, but it was a bit of a slog, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Yeah, yeah. But I guess it's one of those things that he it he just wanted to do, which I appreciate, because as we've seen, he does tend he he had been forced throughout his career to do things he didn't particularly want to do just to pay the bills.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yes, you know, the grow the best example of that is that competition winners thing, yeah, which which was the Mars setting, but doesn't uh hold a candle to yo bomb this or or the dweller, does it kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 23:27

No, because it was more your traditional sort of little green menu kind of invading thing and all that kind of business, which is very much rote, isn't it, at that point. Um yes, so my second uh do you want to do your say do your second one and we'll see if it's the same.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Well, mine mine was the dimension of chance. There we go. And I and I think it's telling that for that one in particular, really it was just these two, pretty much. And it's it's the that scientific thing as we've just been talking about. Farnsworth wants action, okay. Let's give him some action. And one thing we noticed in those stories is that repetition of the same beats. Go to the planet, crash, get captured. They say, Don't press the big red button, that destroys our civilization. They escape, press the big red button, uh, a spaceship appears and whisks them off. And that's that's the plot for most of those stories, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Yeah, and I think I think that one was the most egregious because we'd seen it so many times slightly better, like uh better disguised. Whereas that it was just like this is just the bullet points, isn't it? This is very much by numbers. Uh but again, also we said that if you compare it to 90% of the other stories of the same type, this was better. You know, it's just when you compare it to things like Genius Loki or Child of God or something like that, it's just night and day difference.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

This is the old art and commerce thing. I mean, we we we have this discussion over and over again, and it oh yeah, it's so applicable to the pulp writers. Uh, and you can only think of a band like um the Beatles. Uh who did they first sign with? Were they with EMI? It was EMI. Yeah. Hello, EMI. Goodbye. Um, yeah, it'd be like, well, can't can't you write another Love Love Me Do? No, man, we're doing uh Tax Man now, you know. Oh, people won't want to hear that. You better stick to the popular stuff, and it's that old thing again of as a creator you want to spread your wings, but the demands of the market are such that uh you know you you get very confined. And at the end of the day, none of these people were dilettantes, were they? It's interesting that a lot of Lovecraft's protagonists are dilettantes, but he himself, you know, doesn't have two bobter wrap together. No, this is it.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Yeah, a lot of them come from very wealthy old families and old money. It's those old money New Englanders he tended to gravitate towards as his protagonists, and yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Whereas with Smith, uh they're all uh struggling poets undergoing pecunary depletion, of course. They're all bohemians, right? They're all San Fran, San Fran crowd, and it kind of thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Yeah, very much so. Yeah. I think that's I think that's another problem with the scientific ones, because obviously with the the very nature of them, he has to craft a different type of protagonist. And and they're all your kind of olmars. Oh, that's true, yeah. You know, because I I guess he has a kind of dim view of that kind of person. So they're all kind of a bit stupid and gung ho, and those things where it's like, you can see this is a problem a mile off, but yet they still weighed in with both feet. Which I guess this is his satire, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what comes across most in his science fiction stories, isn't it? The the lantern jawed tweed idiot blundering through Venus, stepping into quicksand and you know, yeah, prodding things with his walking stick that shouldn't be prodded and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. We have naught but a thermos and a revolver for the protection. It would kind of be interesting to see if he'd have gone down that route, you know. Uh obviously there were writers of that time in that in that satirical vein. Yeah, how we he could have branched off into your PG's PG Smith. There you go, there's a mashup.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Yeah, I think he could be done that really well, actually. But yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

So we'd be interested, of course, dear listener, to hear your choices. Do they match with ours? I think, as I said, uh volume four of this series has been particularly strong. Smith really hitting his stride, uh and it's really only those two that I could pick out uh among them, and everything else is top five, really.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

And nice to see, I know we only get the one recurrence, but uh with the flower women and the maze of Maldweb, you know, I can't help again feeling a little bit sad that that wasn't the start of a longer series of the adventures of Maldweb. Yes, I would agree with you on that, definitely. So I understand you've been having a little delve into the letters, sir.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Well, I've been having a delve into the eerie in Weird Tales, something I like to do every now and then. And the last like three stories that we covered ended up in Weird Tales, but for one for big time constraints, we didn't really get a chance to have a look. So I've I've dug out some bits and pieces. Some of them are related to the stories, other things are just things I found when I was looking that amused me. So the first one is a letter which is given the heading embarrassed, and is from Mary A. Conklin of Coldwater, Michigan, who writes, Well, I'm back again, and it's taken a lot of nerve too, but I've made up my mind to become a regular contributor to the eerie. It's awfully embarrassing to have my letters printed, but I'll be disappointed if this one isn't. Such is human nature. I've just finished the May issue, The Flower Woman by Clark Ashton Smith, gets my first vote. It's light and fanciful, and yet with an undertone of weirdness that gives it just the right flavour. It's the sort of story that leaves you in a dreamy mood. And after I'd read it, I laid the magazine down and didn't touch it for more than half an hour afterward. I was so afraid of losing the spell of the story. Clark Ashton Smith is a storyteller supreme. That's nice, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

It's hard to disagree with that, but I love that. I was in a dream. Isn't that great feedback to get as an author, something like that? That's marvelous.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Yeah, um, exactly. And it's really funny because we as we know that we throughout this series, um, Weird Tales, the letters in it, has been dominated by one big discussion, right? Yes. So in the in the next breath, the cover is rotten. Good gosh. It looks like the cover of any common detective magazine, which is interesting because that's what we said, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

What's the what's the matter with Brundage? Or is it the publishers? Or perhaps you, huh?

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Wow. Wow, that goes from uh light to shade very quickly, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Yeah, doesn't it? Has B lost her artistic instinct, or are you beginning to listen to the evil-minded old Moldies? Lovely old Moldies. I know. This is hilarious because you think from the start of it it's going to be along the usual lines. But it's the cover on the April issue was even worse. For heaven's sake, do something.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

I want my lovely ladies back again. So is she complaining that they're not risque enough? Because that that was obviously the the main issue, it seemed.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Indeed, yeah, and we're seeing it from both both sides here. It's really quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

That is, yeah, yeah, because obviously the uh the outraged calls by Summer Brandage's more saucy covers. Uh so perhaps she was told to dial things down a bit then.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Well, that's from what I can gather that it did happen, uh, which started its own kickback, which is really funny. Now the next the next letter we've got here is referring to the weaver in the vault. It certainly was a shock, writes Joseph Arden of Detroit, to see that Clark Ashton Smith had drawn his own illustration for his catchy yarn, The Weaver in the Vault. I suggest you keep Mr. Smith on the artist's staff, as his illustration has many of your artists shoved off the map. Mr. Smith must be a man of many and diverse talents. So far in Weird Tales, Smith has not only been the outstanding poet and outstanding author, but now it looks as if he'll become your outstanding artist also. That's nice, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Nice. Yeah, yeah. He certainly had his own style as as um those sort of line drawings. And I guess he was if anyone's gonna capture the feeling of his story, it's gonna be him.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Now, in the same bunch of letters, this has got nothing to do with the story or Smith, but I wanted to read this because we've we've often discussed what makes a weird tale and things like this. Now, this is a letter from Robert Block of Milwaukee. Nice, yeah. He writes The person who objected to a depiction of material decay as an example of weirdness is utterly wrong in his reasoning. Weirdness is a quality, a quality inspiring definite emotion and having certain definite forms of reaction patterns. One of these emotions or reaction forms is fear, the fundamental emotion. Now, nothing occasions more fear than the unknown. Death comes under this heading. It is an embodiment, the essence, the symbol of the unknown, a mysterious, awesome, fearful state to mortals. Therefore, death as such is weird because it inspires fear, and the processes of decay that come with death take on that same weirdness due to associative powers. For this reason, a skeleton, a grinning skull, or a rotting cadaver is fearful. And if, as in such stories, such a thing is reanimated with unnatural life, fear is born. If decay is not weird, then some of Poe's, Bears', Macken's, and Lovecraft's best stories are not weird tales. If death and decay and chaos are not weird, then no unnatural transposition of commonplace phenomena can be considered so, for they are simply distortions of matter-of-fact embodiments. Therefore, I fear I must disagree with your critique.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Very nice, very insightful, isn't it? And nice that he parallels HPL's famous saying, you know, the oldest human emotion is fear, and then runs with it and develops it. Absolutely. And yeah, well, you can't argue with that, can you? Why is the sight of uh of a corpse fearful? Why does that provoke fear? There's a degree of empathy, perhaps you see yourself in that. You know, it's a little tap on the shoulder, isn't it? A little bony tap on the shoulder, a little reminder. Yeah, there is that.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

Well, from death to more death here, this this is an obituary, which may which I just thought I'd read. Uh it's titled Death of a Poet. Once again, it becomes our sad duty to record the death of a valued contributor. Robert Nelson died at his home in St. Charles, Illinois after two weeks' illness. And he goes on to say he received his first encouragement from no less a poet than Clark Ashton Smith. Wow. His worth gave clear promise that he would someday occupy an important place among the great poets. A promise that now, alas, can never be fulfilled.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Oh, that's sad. That's sad. That's the the the flower cut down before it can bloom, kind of feeling, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 36:01

Yeah, I just thought it was nice that because obviously Smith had a lot of encouragement from people such as George Sterling and Samuel Loveman and all them guy them them San Francisco guys, and that he's he was passing it on to uh you know sadly somebody who ne who never fulfilled their promise. But there you go.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, and it it's a theme we've seen across whether you call it the Lovecraft Circle, the Smith Circle, the San Francisco Circle, or even into modern times, that support and encouragement is is almost universal, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 36:37

It is, yeah, definitely. Right, so we're moving on to Vul Thum. Now, this next bit of praise comes from no no lesser person than Henry Kuttner. Ah, you know, writer of the old graveyard rats. Yeah, yes. I was like a a favorite story and band name. Henry Kutner writes from Beverly Hills. The August issue is a good one, and then he goes on to say Clark Ashton Smith managed to inject the right note of nightmare realism into his yarn. Yes, uh definitely. That's another one that that almost made my list, Volfoom. That was a good one. Yes. B. M. Reynolds of North Adams, Massachusetts, writes Vulthum by Clark Ashen Smith was his best this year. Smith's work is always consistently good, whether his locale is the dim past, the far future, or interplanetary. Yeah, we couldn't agree more on that. It's um nice to see this, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah. Well, that's exactly what we said, isn't it, just earlier? And it's nice to see that people appreciated that back then as well. Because a lot of these genres were new, really, I guess. I mean, science fiction is we go back to Jules Verne, and we've got various things before, I guess Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, possibly, one of the earliest sci-fi novels. But I get the idea these are all on the frontier, these writers. They're trying new ideas and setting a lot of the tropes and beats that are going to be picked up later on.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

Indeed. Yeah, I've got one final one about Volfoom here. This is from William T. Carnahan from Mexico. I have just finished reading your latest issue and wish to congratulate you on what I consider easily the best story in it, Volfoom by Clark Ashen Smith. It seems to me infinitely superior to any other tale I have ever read, even in your own magazine, of the so-called weird scientific variety. The plot's only a fair one, but its exposition is most intelligent and workmanlike, and the finish is of a masterful simplicity that commands praise. Yeah. So all that praise out of the way, we're gonna go straight back into the important matters, which is nudes. Um now this one here's Tim with the nudes. Tim with the nudes. This one really this one made me actually like guffour out loud because it it's it's it's obviously satire. It's somebody taking the piss out of the whole debate, and I love it. I'm here for this kind of thing. I I do wonder if this is somebody under a pseudonym like, because we'll see in a minute. There's there's certain little clues here. Captain J. Wilmer Benjamin writes from Lewisburg, West Virginia. One hears that pictures of nudes females on magazine covers do increase circulation, but I have to agree with the gentleman who writes about his maiden aunt. After all, as a reader, I would prefer a cover I could show Aunt Petunia. Aunt Petunia is still old fashioned and thinks the human form divine should be neither seen nor heard. It is a little bit difficult to make her believe that Lovecraft is a second Edgar Allan Poe, and that many of the weird tales are beautiful and interesting because she won't investigate after one look at golden goddesses in the altogether. Nude gals are beautiful, but are they art?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Oh, outstanding. Yeah, that has all the the feel of uh what we call it today. Someone's trolling their aren't they a bit, you know. Oh, just a little. Beautifully done, beautifully done. Art Petunia.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

Art Petunia, I love it. So that brings me to my final clipping here, and this is from from somebody who will uh be familiar to long-term listeners, especially those who tuned in for our episode on the boiling point debacle. Yes, this is from Forrest J. Ackerman, and the article is called In All Their Curvy Clarity. That's not easy to say after a few pints, is it? No, it's not, is it? Perhaps you would be interested in my comment on your covers as a disinterested observer. As far back as I can remember, they have featured unclad heroines. Your contention seems to be clothes make the woman ordinary. Yesteryear your covers were not so controversial, because though nude, the hapless heroines were more vaguely, indistinctly illustrated. Then came the Brundage beauties in all their curvy clarity. And I have followed with amusement the resulting endless argument. Rita Robson in your September issue sums up for the opposition in what I should hazard will become a famous phrase. After all, the thrill of viewing a nude isn't exactly a weird one. Right. Got a point, I suppose. Yeah, no, yeah. Ponder that. Maddeningly as a Minga maiden, the fascinating feminine form on the bloody hell. He likes his alliteration, doesn't he? The fascinating feminine form on the cover is truly tantalizing. Fortunately, I can appreciate such poultry trude, as I am not a fanatic about whether your covers are fantastic or not. I am principally interested in C. L. Moore and your science fiction. But were I a weird art enthusiast, I suspect I should say the scene selected for the cover did not represent the spirit or spirits of Weird Tales's contents. It shows simply peeping Tom startling Miss America as she emerges from her suitless swim. The blue woman is a gorgeous girl, but she is not blue. She is flesh coloured, not phosphorescent. So how is she weird?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Oh god. Yeah, there you go. Again, I suppose he's sort of got a point.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

He has got a point, but oh, he's so long-winded about everything, it just drives you mad.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah. Um was he quite young at this time? I'm I'm guessing, because he did he pass away relatively recently. So I don't know, was he was he kind of block's age sort of thing?

SPEAKER_03 43:30

I think so, yeah. Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think he was a contemporary of Block. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I think that's where we can excuse him to some extent because obviously this is the guy who laid into Smith as well, uh, quite vituperative in many ways. Um, and I think to be fair, he did moderate his view uh a little later on in life. But um, it did provide from some some uh quite fiery exchanges in the area, didn't it?

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Oh, I love I love the Boiling point for Yasko. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I uh yeah, absolutely great stuff. But yeah, I mean, because I think the opening shot was him wishing the gods to make Clark Ashton Smith's pen ink dry up.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

That was yeah, for God's sake. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, stop it, stop this man writing, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 44:20

It's kind of it's kind of very similar now when you go on the uh you know, any fandom, right? And you get the the 14-15-year-old edge lords, and it's just like, oh, they should be executed for the the crimes against Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

You know, I know, I know. I just I've actually come off of one forum and it and it was largely a good forum covering a lot of Robert E. Howard stuff, but I just got so fed up with someone banging on about woke every other post, and and even things that hadn't been made yet or not written yet. Oh, I know. Uh there's a new Savage Sword of Conan run being put. Oh, I bet it's gonna be oh, and it's just so wearing, and there's no point in arguing against it because half the time they're probably trolls or bots anyway, you know. But yeah, it's um it just muddies the water, then it it's it's people pissing in the swimming pool basically. That was that old joke, wasn't it? Your your son got sent home. Why he was pissing in the swimming pool? Yeah, everyone does that, yes, madam, but not from the top diving board. Oh, yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

Oh, I'm I'm with Billy Conley on this, like way back when, when he was getting a lot of complaints because of his language on TV and things like that. You don't like it, change the fucking channel. Simple. If you don't like it, don't watch it.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Yeah, so yeah, I mean, in that sense, as we can see, this isn't new, but at least back then, this is people putting pen to paper and actually articulating points of view and usually articulating them quite well. No one's just going uh like I I got a comment on one of my videos the other day, it just said crap. Oh, yeah, right. What you want a crap, your crap, I'm crap, the video's crap. Why what's the point of that?

SPEAKER_03 46:19

You know, yeah, it's yeah. Yeah, I'd much rather have a Forrest J. Ackerman because at least that was that's quite entertaining to read.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

There's an there's intelligence behind it, right? You might agree or disagree, but you can have uh you can have a debate.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

Yeah, it's it's just so funny that that basically the entire year was dominated by people arguing about Brundage's covers. And the it was only halted right at the end because people started arguing about something else, and it was about whether the it should include the stories of the Dr. Satan stories, because they printed one of them and it caused a massive debate. Oh, it's not weird, yes, it is, it's weird detective, but it's not got aliens in it, but it's weird detective, it's weird.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

This is our kind of thing we referenced earlier, though, right? This this is uh the genres finding their place and space, exactly, because there wasn't this, you know, people called it fantasy, the pH thing, or just yeah, weird stories. I mean, Poe was classified as a weird author, I guess. Oh no one was calling it horror as such. Uh so it it's kind of people shuffling around a bit and finding their voice in a way, I think, as well.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Yeah, I'm uh yeah, I'd I'd go along with that.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

And and nowadays that's become so bloody calcified and specialized, isn't it? You know, well, it's it's weird fiction, but what sort of weird fiction is it cosmic, empathic? You know, is it large, is it small? It's my question. It is it good or not from my perspective, do I enjoy it or not?

SPEAKER_03 48:03

You know, yeah. I mean it's it's whenever you uh I mean you must know it first hand from when you upload the insmuth gold things to Amazon, yeah. Putting in the fucking tags and everything for the algorithm. Because I've had it, I've had it with like uh a novel I've released last year because my publisher had no idea what to put it under, because it's post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian comedy cyber punch.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

There's there's already four separate genres now, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:34

Exactly, you know. So, what the hell do you classify it? Well, they want everything nicely put in a little box.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

It is uh it goes back. I'm sure I read something about Tolkien with this when he was asked to do a follow-up to the Hobbit. Again, that same thing. Well, the Hobbit's been really successful. Can you follow it up with something else? Yeah, we're gonna go from a 60-page kids book to 800 pages, you know, and he follows that up with the Silmarillion. Still never finished that, still never finished it. Still never finished, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. That is that I found that a struggle. But you know, this is the artist, the person who's doing the work, spreading their wings. Everything starts small, everything starts with a uh in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, and a hundred years later, pretty much, you still got people discussing this stuff in great depth.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Very vociferously.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Yes, yes. Now, speaking of that, that's a very good word, vociferous. Uh, and we're we're staying with FJ actually. Because Clark Ashton Smith had some opinions on Mr. Ackerman's opinions. And I don't know that he ever voiced these in public, so to speak. I've I've I don't know if he responded to Weird Towers. I we might have mentioned that before.

SPEAKER_03 50:01

Oh, he did he did respond, but it wasn't Weird Tales, it was uh the fantasy fan. It was the boiling point in the fantasy fan. He was the fantasy fan, he did reply, and then a bunch of then like Lovecraft and Block and everybody else piled in.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

But of course, in his private correspondence, he was well if he was guarded in his public correspondence, maybe, but he certainly wasn't in his private correspondence. This is a letter to Barlow, Robert Barlow, and this is from Two Worlds Unknown, the letters of Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wondry, Howard Wondry, and R. H. Barlow, edited, of course, by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi. So it's uh it's a fairly length letter, but I'm going to read most of this out because one thing that amuses me with this, we get a little bit about FJA, then he talks about something else. And this must have really been niggling him because he comes back to FJA two or three times. And of course, we have the opportunity to read an atom a return address. So Pluck Ashton Smith to Robert H. Barlow, Auburn, California, november sixteenth, nineteen thirty three. RH by, master of the Floridian sabbat, dark and formidable frere. Thanks for your trouble in typing the maze of the enchanter. Hall, the sub-editor of that Triple X Astounding, now writes me that they are not buying any more with fiction, only stories with a definite scientific basis, whatever that may be. So again, there's another example of exactly what we've just been talking about. In return for your labour, I enclose a miscellany of scripts and autographic material, also one or two drawings. Now is limbering up. I suppose Forrest Ackerman and other laboratory-minded donkeys of the same breed have been braying their disapproval of the mild and tepid element of weirdness in some of the astounding items. I fear too that the Fantasy in Crawford's magazine will get the same reception. These birds who are so hellbent on realism and scientific very similitude should stick to the Scientific American, in which they will find no superstitions other than those of current materialism.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

We then get a little uh a mention of I saw and rather liked your first Annal of the Jinns in fantasy fan. Thanks for your defense of my stories against Ackerman. So we come straight back on here we go. Now is is really loose in that. We're we're we're getting into some heavy slugging now. That fellow needs a visitation from poltergeist equipped with sledgehammers to knock a little scents into his head. And a few blood-sucking oopires and penagolans and galloping koshemars and murioshis might help to broaden his outlook.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Oh, that's amazing. Poltergeist for sledgeabbers.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

Yeah, I'm having I'm having to go to the notes here because you know, oopires we we had in one of the stories, right? So here we go. An oopyre is a vampire in Polish folklore. We we knew that one. Koshimar is French for nightmare, an incubus. Uh Muriosz is a water horse, a shapeshifter, usually seen in the form of a yearling colt, pig, cow, or sheep, often with a pair of muscular arms. And then it references another letter, C A S to R H B 15 regarding the Penagalan. And I haven't looked that one up yet, but uh full ball, both barrels.

SPEAKER_02 53:51

It's just I've just got the image now of some poltergeists with sledgehammers. Oh, I love it. I absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

So we get another paragraph uh talking about some more writing and sales. Then we get, I wonder how it would appeal to you to print the third episode of Vartec, which Beckford left unfinished and which I have continued and completed. And he goes into basically what he's brought to that story. Uh interestingly enough, Wright 2 was impressed by it and said he would use the episode in Weird Tales if times ever got better. So this is obviously when WT was in decline, and uh well, payment was always an issue, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:35

Yeah, not so much with Weird Tales, that was more um Hugo. Um, but what it was with Weird Tales was the the wait. Because as like some of the the recent stories, he was waiting uh a year and a half before they get published.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Right. As to Maze of the Enchanter, I didn't bother submitting it to Astounding after Hall wrote me about their new policy. I have, however, just received another letter from H slightly qualifying the first. He wants me to try my hand at something of the semi-weird type, based perhaps on the mysteries of psychology, but now purely fantastic. The idea seems to be that an occasional tale of this sort might be swallowed by the pseudo-scientific fiends. Evil emanation yeah, it's still going. It's not finished yet. Evil emanations, supernatural materializations, etc., are definitely out. The only hopeful thing is that Hall does not seem to feel a deficiency in the magazine as it stands at present. No denying that there's room for improvement. Several light years of room, in fact. And then we're back on it. It's it's popped up in his mind again. The chief objection to Ackerman is that he represents an all-too numerous type. He differs only in his degree of virulence from the average science fiction addict.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

And we we get a last little uh paragraph here, and I thought what what is this about? But I'll I'll she'll reveal. Tabasco's principal vice at the present season, as far as I have had occasion to observe, is gastronomy. His cubic capacity is a practical proof of the fourth dimension. However, it's winter time, an aboreal sort of winter at that. No doubt the activities of the Maltese Generalissimo will exhibit more diversity around Valpurgis Eve. As to the shat, well, so far I have not detected any infantile mulings under the cabin or in the woodshed.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Uh yes, so one of Smith's cats was named General Tomaso Tabasco, and La Chat was Simathia.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Nice. I just love that about the cubic capacity. Yeah, it's brilliant, isn't it? I was like, what's he talking about? And then it was like he's not about a cat, isn't he?

SPEAKER_00 57:10

Because it's just out of the blue that you know we switched from from Ackerman to that, and he signs off with yours for the sounding of the ultra geometric pits, Clark Ashdon, vertical ornamented. He was on it that day, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_02 57:27

Bloody hell.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Oh, and it marvelous, like we've said before, like Lovecraft and all of these guys. They speak how they write, and they write to each other how they write in their stories. You know, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 57:38

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Yeah, so I will be taking another delve into these, maybe for a bonus episode, and see if we've got any more FJA uh diatribes, because I I I really feel that he's really feeling that, isn't he?

SPEAKER_03 57:52

Yeah, I do actually want to do a whole episode maybe of the IBC on Forest J. Ackerman. Yeah, because I've got a load of stuff. I've I've got loads more since we did the boiling point thing up because I've been collating bits and pieces, I'm gonna have to get that bit.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

And again, to be fair, he was a pivotal figure, certainly into the the I mean, I remember growing up in Monsters of Filmland and all these kind of things. And he he was, I think, largely instrumental in all the old universal stuff being kept in the public consciousness and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 58:22

Oh, yeah, he was a definitely a pivotal figure in in weird fiction. It's so yeah, I think we should dedicate an episode to it because I think it, if nothing else, it'll be hilarious. Uh yeah. I take a little bit of a sharp turn here, and I'm gonna reference our sister podcast, the Innsmouth Book Club, because we recently did an episode over there uh where we're looking following on from King in Yellowy stuff, right? We covered Inhabitant of Carcosa and Haysha the Shepherd by Ambrose Beers. And during the conversation on that, we were talking about how some people have a real problem with Derlith's return of Haster. And I mentioned at the time that I was pretty sure that HPL not only knew about it being written, but encouraged it and helped. Now I I have found the confirmation when I was looking for something else this morning, looking for something completely different. I found the confirmation. It's in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith. And of course, one of the reasons I'm reading this tiny little excerpt is so we can have one of HPL's return addresses. Splendid. So here we go. The letters dated the 2nd of February 1933. Memory vortex of Ziff. Opening of the bronze gate in the unscalable basalt cliff of Nah.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Here Clark Ash on.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

Yeah. Oh, it's brilliant. Now that we've got a little bit of stuff that he's talking about Smith's work, so he's saying, like, glad the Dark Eyedolan landed, but confound right for rejecting the Vartec episode. Hope he'll change his mind later on. King Eurovan sounds attractive, and I hope it will make either weird tales or magic carpet. And he talks about that he hopes astounding tales will get back on its feet and that the Claytons uh get their act together and all this kind of business. But here we go. Durleth is developing a tale, The Return of Haster, in which he engrafts the Beersian mythology, also used by Robert W. Chambers, upon the Cthulhu Yogsathoth cycle. In one detail, I'm having to correct him, for he has, in ignorance of the well-known Arabic etymology of the star name Betelgeuse, Iban al-Jaza, apologies for my pronunciation, armpit of the giant I didn't know that, concocted a synthetic word, the easels, as an imaginary primal name for Betelgeuse. In inventing the unknown, one must be careful not to contradict the known. Ah, that's a nice point. That's a nice point. Isn't it? Isn't it? I really liked that. So yeah, he thought he read it, he was encouraging it, and he'd corrected him. So these people going, I ripped him off.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

Yeah, Lovecraft have full knowledge of what was going on. And exactly, as we said earlier, everyone's encouraging everyone else.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

Yeah. I like the ending of the signing off of this. Yours for the black heptagon of Yarrath.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Nice. Nice. So to conclude, we're gonna move from correspondence between members of the Lovecraft and Smith circles to correspondence of our own circle with uh a number of missives and mailings that have been coming in over the last few episodes, and uh they're sitting there in in our persistently pulsating mailbag over there in the corner.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

Also known as Dagon Sack.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Yes, yes. We had to stop calling it that because we we got hit with the copyright claim. Uh Dagon basically wanted a cut. And you know, do you really want to go into business with Dagon? Not really, it's the thin end of the wedge, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

Yeah, before you know it, you're how you're doing sacrifices and dancing naked on a reef.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

You mean you don't?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

Well, it's been a couple of weeks at least.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

I do live out in the countryside, so you know. So, episode 18, the weaver in the vault. Our old friend Mark Griffin of 30 plus minutes with HP Lovecraft Podcast writes, and it's always nice, Mark always gives us uh a good greeting. Greetings from the benignant terabinth at the conclamerated necropolis during the lull of the voting dead. The voting dead, I like that. That's nice, Mark. Gentleman of the Ghastly. Oh, we have another epithet, sir. Oh, I like that. I like that. Another great episode. The theory that the weaver is in fact atlaknacha is a good one. Since this story was published first before the official appearance of the spider god in the Seven Gaiches, this creature may be a proto-Atlak Natcher. Smith may have liked the idea of this type of monster so that he wanted to explore it more. The two are not so radically dissimilar that they could easily be one and the same. Remarkably, the commonality between these arachnid beings was never discussed by Lovecraft and Smith, so we are left to imagine Smith's intention, therefore becoming a Schrdinger's cat. Where one side can say it is, while another can say it's not. Or sort of Schrdinger's spider, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

Oh, I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Is it in the box or is it out of the box? I don't care. Either way, I'm throwing the box out. Personally, I side with you guys because it is fun to have another appearance of Atlaknat. Episodes such as these are the reason I enjoy your podcast the most. Creativity juices flow more and always inspire new story ideas. Your disobedient servant, Mark. Thank you, Mark.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

Nice, yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely firmly believer that it was proto at lag nature, and he was the sort of, yeah, you know. It is in my head. Alan Bignall writes from on Patreon, I recall seeing essence de terabinthine on sale in a French supermarket. It was puzzling and exotic until I realized it was just white spirit. Nice. The word terabinthine is connected etymologically to turpentine, and Mamia, you can buy this in our local health food shop under its Indian name of Shilajit. It seems to be some sort of tar-like substance found only at the top of Himalayan mountains. It's therefore extremely scarce and expensive, and hence must be good for you. Isn't that always the way, right? It's funny that, yeah. Funny that, isn't it? They sell it under the delightful slogan destroyer of weakness. That sounds like a Lovecraft story as well, doesn't it? Finally, another idle linguistic thought. Karnaki has always seemed an odd name to me, but I once met somebody with poles in the family whose name was Sarnachi. She had never heard of the psychic detective, but said her own name as Charnatsky. Have we all been mispronouncing poor old Carnaki? Hmm. Interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Very good point because Karnaki. Is not a name I've seen anywhere else, I don't think.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

I mean, you think Sherlock Holmes, Watson, etc., etc., these are names that crop up outside of the fiction, but yeah, Carl Mackie. So that'll be something to investigate. Did he get that from a Polish surname?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

Yeah. And while we're on the subject of strangely named occult detectives, why the hell did August Derleth call his solar ponds?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

I know it's always struck me as an odd name, isn't it? Is there some sort of pun going on there? Sun, Sun, something. There must be.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:37

Yeah, there must be.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

Were those the ones that were originally Sherlock stories that he had to change?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:42

Yes, they are, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

And uh yeah, thanks. I didn't know you could get Mumia or Mumia in health food shops. I'm gonna have a a look at look out for that now just to see what it is. Destroyer of weakness. Well, I'll do with some of that. So yeah, exactly. Now we move on to episode 19, The Flower Women, and friend of the show, Ralph Grasso, writes on Patreon, excellent show. Yes, this could have made an excellent series. Smith's Plant Monsters remind me of Doctor Who's Seeds of Doom and Steed and Emma's The Man Eaters of Surrey Green. Smith's use of botany as aliens and monsters were always interesting to me. The winged monsters being sorcerers as well was brilliant. Enjoyed the show. Thank you, Ralph.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

Yep, cheers, Ralph. Yeah, yeah, glad you enjoyed the show. Yes, I I got definite Seeds of Doom vibes, and later the Colin Baker story, the terror of the verboids, as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:45

Ah, right. And um what was the one with the gargoyles? I'm just thinking of winged creatures. There was a dot who like gargoyles come into life, gargoyle statue things.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

Oh, that was the Damons, the Demons with John Pertwee. Oh, yeah, John Pertwee. Which was essentially Devil Rides Out. That was the classic line from the brigadier. Chap with wings there, five rounds rapid.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

Now we've had a post in on the Innsmouth Forum from our friend Alta, and Alter has let us know they've been releasing some books in Poland, some Smith books. There was one on Averroin recently, and Alter writes, I'd like to share my thoughts on the Chronicles of Zothique with you, lads. There aren't really any major spoilers below. So the Zothic Chronicles of Clark Ashton Smith. This is a collection recently published in Poland for the very first time. I started reading with a general idea of the contents thanks to the Strange Shadows podcast, which had already discussed some of the stories. Yet, despite those detailed descriptions, the tales still managed to surprise me, but more on that below. This is a hardcover volume with an intriguing red cover showing a strange hooded figure, and it collects all of Clark Ashton's stories set in that magical world where the sun is beginning to fade over the earth. The book is printed in an octavo format with clear type and comfortable line spacing, making for a pleasant reading experience, where the pages turn quickly during a single sitting. A bookmark featuring the cover illustration was included with the book, always a nice touch. Unfortunately, unlike with the Averroyna Chronicles, there was no map of Zothy included. I consider this a real shame as it would have been nice to see where the characters are travelling, though perhaps it is just my RPG background that makes me appreciate having a map.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:50

The stories themselves are stunning in their beauty and subject matter. The language for which Clark Ashton Smith is renowned is rich, building atmosphere and worlds like no other. Add to this his incredibly fertile imagination, and you get a complete picture of what is contained within these 386 pages. One element that particularly captivated me was his disregard for linear time. The stories are set at various points in the mythical continent's existence. While they sometimes allude to one another, this is done casually. Connections are not forced, a practice that has become all too common lately. Here nothing feels contrived. Another point is the absence of elements relating to our own era. It may be a matter of personal ego, but one might expect remnants of our civilization to persist into the future, yet we find none. This renders the continent even more mythical than it might appear at first glance. The motif of the journey, a recurring theme in many of Smith's stories, appears here as well. It is vividly sketched yet distinct in every instance, ranging from Erovan to the protagonist of the final story, who is led by three Ciceroes towards his doom. Indeed. Doom and fatalism. I cannot say why, but the Hyperborean tales, those set in Avaroin, and even those contemporary to the author's own life, were not quite so steeped in that peculiar fatalism. A sense that lurks constantly just beneath the surface of every story, operating in the background almost as a secondary or tertiary layer. Although it is evident that the world is ending, the protagonists still strive to fight and alter their destiny. Yet this is denied them. And the decision once made by fate remains immutable. This feature sets these stories apart from a multitude of similar tales, for a distinct kind of fatalism hangs over the entire realm, much like a dying sun above the globe. As one slowly reads through the text and sequence, one gets the impression of a mounting, a grim doom that culminates in the last hieroglyph. That story serves as a fitting farewell not merely to the protagonist, but to the entire world, as if Sothik itself ceased to exist along with him. When I sat down to read this book, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, though I knew I would be encountering truly excellent stories by Clark Ashen Smith. As it turned out, I discovered remarkably thoughtful and mature works by an author capable of writing almost anything, and doing so with great originality and skill. The best proof of this is the profound sense of melancholy I feel now that I have finished the Chronicles. Yeah, yeah, brilliant. That's a really nice summation of that whole cycle, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

That is excellent. Yeah, some uh yeah, some great observations in there and mirroring some of the things we've said. That idea that whatever genre or time period or setting is working in, Smith is always on his game. That idea of there's nothing left of the modern world is interesting. I I saw a series a little while back, I think it was streaming somewhere, about what happens if humanity disappears tomorrow. And basically it was like almost like a time-lapse thing. So it looks at a city, it looks at uh some other places, yeah. And after something relatively short, like 15,200 years, all the concrete is gone. Nice, you know, it just crumbles away. We think of our present civilization as as probably something very strong and very enduring, but it it's like a leaf blown in the wind, really. Even on an earth scale, let alone a cosmic scale.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:50

Oh, yeah, ephemeral is the word. I would describe it as yeah, it's interesting because other authors go the other way. Like the Shinara Chronicles is probably the best example, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the whole point, like, you know, is really far in the future, there's magic and wizards and elves and all this kind of shit. But then they end up going in a subway and there's still portraying cars and all this kind of stuff. I always found that a real disconnect for me, it never really worked for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:23

No, well, that was well, we could say other things about that book, but yeah, it was one I read when I was younger and sort of enjoyed it at the time. But you know, if you go in post-apocalyptic, then it's got to be 50 hundred years, I think maybe anything beyond that is not it, it's oh technically, we live in a post-apocalyptic time from the great flood, right? Well, there you go. I think historians say now humanity was almost wiped out at one point. We went down to like 10 people or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

No, yeah, but ice ages and all that, right? I mean, one can't help but how bloody hot it's been that we're not heading towards something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:04

Yeah, well, perhaps who knows, who knows? Uh yeah, and I I do like that remote future setting. Smith uh is a pioneer, and of course, the baton was picked up by Jack Vance with the Dying Earth novels, which are immaculate, absolutely wonderful. It would be nice to cover those at some point somewhere. But the the problem is most of them are I think their novels are novellas. They are, yeah. A lot of people did short stories based on them after, uh including Michael Shea, of course. Uh, but yeah, it would be nice to get into some of that at some point, and he captures what Smith captures. Uh, and I like what Alta writes here about that fatalism because this is everything winding down, right? This is the end, you know. My beautiful friend, the end is in sight, the sun is literally dying before our eyes.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:56

Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:57

We're back to the doors, back to the doors, always back to the doors, man. Back to the doors. The the the sun is almost a representation of it's kind of a god, isn't it? That's where we get our life from. Oh, yeah. Without the sun, we're just a cold little cinder floating in space, you know. And here's Tim with the weather.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:18

I liked it better when it was Tim with the nudes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:22

And you can read that review in full on the Innsmouth Forum, and I'm going to be putting that in a summer edition of Innsmouth News, which will be out very shortly. As soon as I finished editing my book. There we go, then we reach our own ending, or at least the ending of another season, season four. We're gonna take a little bit of time off because of course we've got the ILF coming up and some summer holidays, and you're out, you're gonna be touring McGroovin in Green as well, I believe, in August. So, what we're gonna be doing before we launch into season five is putting out some readings and some bonus episodes. If you do have any requests for anything, of course, please do let us know.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

So, yes, what remains for us to say is thank you very much to everybody who listens to us, everybody who interacts with us, who comments, anything like that. Uh, especially a thank you to our patrons uh for keeping, you know, keep keeping us afloat. And with that in mind, we would like to welcome two new patrons on board. Uh, so it's a big old tentacle y hello to Bo Cribs and Forsaken City.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:35

Yes, thank you very much, everyone, for your support. And uh it's good to see we've been picking up a lot of new listeners and patrons this uh this season as well. It's very nice to see. And of course, if you want to join those patrons in supporting the show, head over to our Patreon page. When you sign up, you get access to bonus content for Strange Shadows and the Innsmouth Book Club. You get that quarterly copy of Innsmouth News. You also get the chance to come on the show and join us for a chat, or if you want to uh spend some time in the Gilman House, of course, if you dare. And of course, you get free entry to the Innsmouth Literary Festival. Remember that's September the 19th in oddly moist Bedford, and we're about two-thirds full at the moment, so don't hang around too much if you want to get into Innsmouth. Getting in is the easy part, getting out is a different story.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:28

That's it, and even if you do get out, will you be the same?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:33

Yes, check your check your neck for gills as you're leaving, right? And check your luggage for anything that might have uh you know hopped in and uh yeah, hopped in is the word any Batrachian horrors. All right, thanks very much for joining us for this season, folks. We'll see you soon. Hope you have a great summer. With that, it's goodbye from me, Rob Poynton. And it's goodbye from me, Tim Mendys.