Usually when you mention Clark Ashton Smith you get a nod towards H. P. Lovecraft or Weird Tales. Certainly Smith did make his reputation in that publication with his ornate style of weird Fantasy, but he was not one of those authors who sold to Farnsworth Wright alone. Clark Ashton Smith took up Pulp writing to make money. He had no illusions about pumping out Cowboy yarns but he did make an interesting contribution to Science Fiction through Hugo Gernsback.
Smith appeared sixteen times in different Gernsback magazines. His first appearance was “Murder in the Fourth Dimension” in Amazing Detective Tales, October 1930. That periodical was doomed to fail but Smith moved onto Wonder Stories and Wonder Stories Quarterly. His editor was not Gernsback but a very young David Lasser, who struggled with filling magazines at the same time that Hugo was slow to pay. Lovecraft sold Gernsback only a few stories before dubbing him “Hugo the Rat” and taking his work elsewhere. Lasser worked hard with Smith but in the end he committed the ultimate insult to the Californian poet. Lasser revised “The Dweller in the Gulf” without consulting Smith. Though slow to pay, Smith had been willing to wait as long as his work was not mangled. Two last stories appeared, already purchased, and no more. The Smith-Gernsback days (October 1931-May 1933) were over. He did write more SF for other publishers but never again for Lasser and Gernsback.
As with all Gernsback products, the artist was usually Frank R. Paul. Paul’s strangely unimportant humans are off-set by startling building, monsters and planets. This weird talent was perfect for Smith’s tales, for he too was not overly concerned with human characters but the visual aspects of his tales. Smith was lucky enough to get six covers, all by Paul. Garish but again strangely appropriate for Smith and his tales of Super-Time and Space. Clark Ashton Smith left his mark on SF, inspiring such authors as Harlan Ellison and Jack Vance.
“Marooned in Andromeda” (Wonder Stories, October 1930)
“An Adventure in Futurity” (Wonder Stories, April 1931)
“The Amazing Planet” (aka “A Captive in Serpens”) (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Summer 1931)
“The City of the Singing Flame” (Wonder Stories, July 1931) Listen to Harlan Ellison read this story here.
“The Planet Entity” (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Fall 1931)
“Beyond the Singing Flame” (Wonder Stories, November 1931)
“The Eternal World” (Wonder Stories, March 1932)
“The Invisible City” (Wonder Stories, June 1932)
“Flight Into Super-Time” (Wonder Stories, August 1932)
“Master of the Asteroid” (Wonder Stories, October 1932)
“Dimension of Chance” (Wonder Stories, November 1932)
“Dweller in the Gulf” (Wonder Stories, March 1933)
“The Light From Beyond” (Wonder Stories, April 1933)
“Visitor From Mlok” (aka “A Star-Change”) (Wonder Stories, May 1933)
Clark Ashton Smith may have avoided Hugo Gernsback after 1933 but he wasn’t done with Science Fiction. He published at least a dozen more stories, though not with the regularity and verve he had for Wonder Stories. Several of pieces were reprinted in Startling Stories and Fantastic Story Quarterly.
“The Planet of the Dead” (Weird Tales, March 1932)
“The Vaults of Voh-Vombis” (Weird Tales, May 1932)
“The Demon of the Flower” (Astounding Stories, December 1933)
“The Plutonian Drug” (Amazing Stories, September 1934)
“Vulthoom” (Weird Tales, September 1935)
“The Dark Age” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1938)
“The Great God Awto” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1940)
“The Devotee of Evil” (reprinted Stirring Science Stories, February 1941)
“The Primal City” (Comet, December 1940, reprinted from The Fantasy Fan 1934)
“Flight Through Time” (Tales of Wonder and Super Science #16, March 1942)
“Dimension of Chance” (reprinted in Startling Stories, Spring 1946)
“The Amazing Planet” Reprint Fantastic Story Quarterly (Winter 1951)
“Schizoid Creator” (Fantasy Fiction, November 1953)
“Phoenix” (Time to Come, 1954) edited by August Derleth
“Monsters in the Night” (F&SF, October 1954)
