Robert E. Howard may have invented Sword & Sorcery with the first King Kull tale, but he was not the only author working with the raw materials of heroic fantasy. We have already mentioned C. L. Moore and her Jirel of Joiry stories, which were published at the same time as Conan. There were other authors who penned stories that bordered on S&S but were not quite for one reason or another.
The first and most obvious of these quasi-S&S writers was Howard’s friend, Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote around 100 stories in his most productive years, some Science Fiction, but most his own ornate style of fantasy for Weird Tales. These include “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” (November 1931), “The Empire of the Necromancers” (September 1932), “The Isle of the Torturers” (March 1933), “The Death of Malygris” (April 1934) and “Necromancy in Naat” (July 1936) but my selection of the most S&S like would be “The Carnal God” (March 1934) which features two lovers torn apart by a weird death cult and their eventual escape. A rare happy ending for Smith. Another would be “The Black Abbott of Puthuum” (March 1936) which features two warriors, Zobal the Archer and Cushara the pikebearer. What keeps Smith from becoming Sword & Sorcery is an entirely different point, purpose or perspective than Robert E. Howard. Where Howard set his heroes against foes, Smith’s characters are closer to Lovecraft’s, victim-like protagonists. But unlike Lovecraft, Smith looks at them sardonically, like an evil god laughing at their futile and silly ways. We are never invited to share or empathize in their adventures.
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Love the artwork and the history lessons. I just started reading CAS. The Double Shadow was great, looking forward to reading some of his other stories.