Clark Ashton Smith was a colleague of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard, and his small but rich bibliography reads like a mix between the two: Swashbuckling dventures in nightmarish fantasy realms filled with ancient evils and dead gods. I'll be real, I've barely cracked into this. I've read, at best, a tenth of this compilation's stories, and poetry. But the dense, luscious prose conjures such jaw-dropping imagery that I already know it will be a favorite read of the year.

Clark Ashton Smith never had a formal education. He learned to write by reading and memorizing the dictionary from cover-to-cover. As such, Smith will confidently use some truly bonkers turns of phrase to craft his dreamscapes. But despite their unfamiliarity, I don't find them disorienting. They make sense in context, and help inundate the reader in Smith's arcane worlds. (Any Book of the New Sun fans would love this, and I am among them.) I find myself cackling from delight every time I read another one of Smith's archaisms. So this will be the meat of my review: These are all of the words I learned so far from reading a mere 30 pages of The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. Enjoy.

Pecuniary
Chary
Cressets
Purpureal
Leathern
Cupolas
Coeval
Quinquangular
Liquescent
Ebullition
Celerity
Exerable
Porphyritic
Insuperable
Sonorous
Meseemeth
Adumbrations
Diddering
Puncheons
Oftensith
Tunfuls
Corporosity
Optimate
Discommodation
Fain
Mysteriarch
Ophidian
Venefic

Clark Ashton Smith is a Master of Prose