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

Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

Campaigner

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

This is a treasure

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

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.

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.

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

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

Outstanding fantasy short stories

High adventure, creepy scares, and fantastic locations in this amazing collection of highly entertaining stories- i will look for more from this author.

Very enjoyable

The author is very creative and builds beautiful and elaborate worlds, and he describes them with fabulous adjectives. So many adjectives! It’s grand. This collection covers a lot of ground, from weird horror to science fiction. All of the stories were fun, and many were exceptionally good. A table or contents would have been nice, though.

The multiple narrators also did a great job. It was refreshing to switch between narrators story to story.

I certainly recommend this book, and I look forward to beginning volume 2.