The Return Of The Sorcerer: The Best Of Clark Ashton Smith Paperback – October 26, 2009

Clark Ashton Smith, along with Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, was considered one of the three great authors who wrote for Weird Tales in the 1930's. This collection reprints 18 of Smith's best stories for that magazine and other publications of the period. While Howard and Lovecraft have been reprinted innumerable times, Smith has been mostly forgotten or published in expensive hardcover collections aimed at the hard-core collector. This edition from Prime Books contains a great sampling of Smith's work and an introduction by noted SF/fantasy author, Gene Wolfe. It's edited by life-long Smith fan and weird fiction expert, Robert Weinberg (me). And it's priced right, available from Amazon.com for little more than $10.00.It's hard to single out any one story as being the star of this collection as all of the stories in the book are top notch. Still, "The City of the Singing Flame" is hard to match as a science-fantasy classic. This novelet is one of Smith's masterpieces and is one of the finest and most imaginative stories ever written. I read "City" fifty years ago, when I was thirteen years old, and I still remember every detail of the story today. Having read thousands of fantasy and science fiction stories, and having edited over a hundred books in the field, I consider "The City of the Singing Flame" one of the four or five best science-fantasy stories I ever had the pleasure of reading.Nearly entertaining, but evoking an entirely different mood, is "The Isle of the Torturers." The last line of this finely written story is worth the price of the book alone. Smith was a writer with a diabolical sense of humor and a taste for the ironic and this story delivers.This book is a treasure. If you never have read Clark Ashton Smith, this collection will serve as a good introduction to a great fantasy author. Buy it. Read it. You won't be disappointed.

From this collection, there was more than one story which seemed familiar to me. "The Return of the Sorceror", bore a theme borrowed by Brian Lumley in one of his tales I recently read. But of course, this was the inspiration for Lumley. Then there is "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis", which must have been the inspiration for sections of the recent mummy movies. But again, here is the original in it's shocking descriptive beauty. Other stories were entirely surprising to me, with nothing I could really think of for comparison, which made them a real delight. I definitely enjoy Smith's writing style and descriptive language, which another reviewer complained about. I think this might be a matter of taste. Some of the words are somewhat out of date and although I have a decent vocabulary, I found myself unfamiliar with some terms, but I was always able to surmise the meanings from the contexts. Also, contrary to the other reviewer, I found his open-endings enjoyable, though sometimes a bit abrupt. I was also very pleased to find some pretty modern social thought in his stories. While others, even more modern writers of this genre often come across as somewhat biggotted or ignorant in terms of racial sensitivity (Lumley especially), the ending to the story "The Monster of the Prophecy" makes it clear that Smith was a very independent, ahead of his time thinker in terms of social acceptability and tolerance. I really cannot think of anything bad to say about Clark Ashton Smith's work here. He was truely inspired and gifted. It's not easy to find dark horror which leaves one feeling uplifted and lightly amused.

I ordered this copy of The Return of the Sorcerer in hardback because I wanted to add it to my bookshelf collection. I've previously already read the collection of stories through library loan. My book arrived sooner than Amazon expected, which was great! Alas, I expected it to arrive with dust jacket -- no such luck. This is a disappointment because the cover artwork is excellent and it was intended to be part of my library collection with that artwork.This doesn't detract from the content of the work, which is a superb collection of CAS stories that you're sure to appreciate if you are interested in Lovecraft's stories or Conan the Barbarian. Just buyer beware that your purchase of a used book may not include the bells & whistles.

If you are looking for some heavy reading of Smith's work, sure, his Zothique cycle is the way to go. However, if you've never read his work and feel like testing the waters first, here's your starting point. With this you'll have a fair share of his short stories from his different sagas, bit of Zothique, bit of Hyperborea, etc.Now, the book's design is just awesome. I have about 200 books or so in my personal library, and I must admit this is the best looking one I own. The cover is incredibly cool and the quality is A+. The introduction by Gene Wolfe is nice, although somewhat short.Personally, I wouldn't call this book a "must own" if you're already too familiar with Smith, but if you are looking to expand your collection with a fashionable piece, or want to get acquainted with this author, then it's for you.

“The Return of the Sorcerer” is a welcome compilation of some the best writing by one of the finest writers of the era of pulp fiction. The stories are densely atmospheric and packed with action; thrilling tales of extraordinary adventure, told in an almost-forgotten style. A bit melodramatic by modern standards, but still great fun.

Great collection of stories from an old master. If you like sumptuous writing, it is hard to do better than Ashton Clark Smith.I only take off 1 star for the deteriorating binding; perhaps to be expected with a used edition.

I approached this volume as a complete newcomer to the writer. Some how, I must have missed him in my education that is horror reading.Sometimes over-shadowed by his friend and fellow Weird Tales writer HP Lovecraft - Clark Ashton Smith's work has the same depth of quality, broad vocabulary and immense imagination of Lovecraft but veers more towards the sci-fi horror genre.This is a collection of short stories & short novels - well-laid out & not really spoilt by the occasional typo which is in the volume. There is a neat little introduction & this is an ideal starting place for Smiths work.The tomes are various, from creepy vaults on Mars to mystical hell stories, from classic horror to real 19030's sci-fi terror. I think the tales have aged very well & this is a credit to the writer. For a work completed so long ago, there are still some real scary/yuck moments - the text can still shock the unsuspecting reader - particularly in the story of a pair of necromancers who decide to rebuilt a dead city....So, in a nutshell, we have a collection of pioneering sci-fi tales, many with other planet themes. I would suggest that if you love Lovecraft, you should venture in to sample this author as well. They are different authors with different themes but there is a connection apart from the fact that they were great friends. Both are clearly brilliant writers & very original.

On the cover of the book, Gene Wolfe's famous words have been quoted, which begin with, "No one imitates Smith."I agree. It’s difficult if not outright impossible to find out someone writing in such sensuously fantastic manner.This book contains some of the finest specimens of Smith's fantastic fantasies.It would be difficult to try to shortlist some of my favourites here. All that I can say is, these eighteen short stories and novellas cover a vast territory. They talk about adventure, fate, destiny, pathos, love and vengeance. But above all, they are grimply poetic, adding a dimension to fantasy that's very rare and very-very special.Recommended.

I had a hard time deciding between 3 or 4 stars for this book. Like the other reviewer, I'm a big Howard and HPL fan, so I thought that CAS might be a good author to read up on. While some of the stories were good (I thought the last half was better than the first half), a number of them fell flat for me. Frankly, I found that the pacing was slow, the action was virtually non-existent, and the horror was definitely not as good as HPL's. So what is there to recommend about Smith's writing? Well, it's definitely unusual. He also uses very florid descriptions of strange and outre things and places. That made it interesting to read, but nothing that special. The intro was by Gene Wolfe, another author who doesn't do much for me. I can see why Wolfe liked CAS, as I find the two's writing styles to be very similar. Some horror, less action, more boring, and lots of just weird. Overall, this is an OK-good read if you like HPL and Howard, but I'd recommend either of them 1,000x more than reading CAS. So a very modest 4 stars, really 3.5, from me.