The Double Shadow: A Clark Ashton Smith Podcast

A transcription of this episode is available.

This week covers “A Rendezvous in Averoigne,” the second story in Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne Cycle. Rendezvous was first published in the April/May 1931 issue of Weird Tales, alongside Robert E. Howard’s “The Children of the Night” and H.P. Lovecraft’s poem “Alienation” (#32 from Fungi from Yuggoth).

The Ray Bradbury quote was from the intro to Arkham House’s 1988 collection A Rendezvous in Averoigne: The Best Fantastic Tales of Clark Ashton Smith. The title is a trifle misleading, as this contains stories from throughout Smith’s career, not just his Averoigne works (nor all of them).

The film The Fearless Vampire Killers was released in 1967 and was written by and co-stars a young Roman Polanski.

And shout out to the Podcast to the Curious, about the works of M.R. James. We’re fans of more than their accents.

Join us again on May 30th as we read “The Maker of Gargoyles.”

You can subscribe in iTunes or via RSS.

Music by: Kevin MacLeod

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (40.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

A transcription of the episode is now available.

(and now available on iTunes!)

The very first episode of The Double Shadow, a podcast that will explore the life and works of 20th Century weird fiction author Clark Ashton Smith. Episode One talks about Ashton Smith’s importance as a Weird Fiction author, his place in history and an overview of what the show will cover.

Show Notes:

Intro & Outro music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod.

The Averoigne stories in the order in which we’ll cover them (publication order) (revised 6/17/12 because of an ordering issue):

• The End of the Story
• A Rendezvous in Averoigne
• The Maker of Gargoyles
• The Colossus of Ylourgne (published after Azédarac but we accidentally got it out of order)
• The Mandrakes
• The Beast of Averoigne (published) and the original version rejected by Weird Tales
• The Holiness of Azédarac
• The Disinterment of Venus
• Mother of Toads
• The Enchantress of Sylaire
• The Satyr (written in 1931 but published in 1948)

A map of Averoigne (click to expand):

The map was created by Tim Kirk and posted on the Eldritch Dark website.

Phil’s quoted interview with Clark Ashton Smith came from Conversations with the Weird Tales Circle. The interviewer was George Haas. Phil notes:

Haas seems to have been kind of an interesting figure, very involved in Fortean activities throughout CA and San Francisco in particular.   He wrote two accounts of meeting CAS, in one of them he notes that they got together with Anton Szandor LaVey for a cook out.  I find that idea amazing. 

The book Ruth mentioned is Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith, published by Arkham House, 2003.

More biographical information about Clark Ashton Smith is available on the Eldritch Dark website and on Wikipedia.

Join us next time for The End of the Story!

Music by: Kevin MacLeod

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (28.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS