The End of the Story Audiobook By Clark Ashton Smith cover art

The End of the Story

Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Book 1

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The End of the Story

By: Clark Ashton Smith
Narrated by: Fleet Cooper, Allan Robertson, Joe Knezevich, Bernard Setaro Clark, William Neenan, Chris Kayser
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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. Anthologies & Short Stories Classics Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Sword & Sorcery Scary Short Story

Editorial reviews

Clark Ashton Smith’s unique take on science fiction, fantasy, and horror is given life by a chorus of voices, performing 25 of his earliest works, including "The Abominations of Yondo", "The Monster of the Prophecy", "The Last Incantation", and the title story. This first of five volumes of edited and curated "preferred texts" of Smith’s work serves as justification for a re-appreciation of this master of speculative fiction, the third member of the Weird Tales unholy horror trinity, the other two being H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Smith’s appreciation for human sexuality, fondness for ribald humor, and strong female characters are all on display in mind-engaging, goose bump-inspiring short and unsettling stories.
Fantastical Worlds • Creative Storytelling • Multiple Narrators • Diverse Genres • Morbid Plots • Elaborate Descriptions
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I was completely drawn into these wonderful fantasies the narrations made them come alive loved it

This is a treasure

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

Campaigner

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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.

Wonderful collection of Ashton's tales.

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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.

Phoney baloney

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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

If you love lovecraft and howard you'll love this

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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.

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

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

fabulous fantastics

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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.

Mostly wonderful.

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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

Enthusiastic narrators; dubious quality control

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

Outstanding fantasy short stories

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