poseidon master of atlantis delete quarry pits

And the field for imaginative fiction, both scientific and non-scientific, is, it seems to me, wholly inexhaustible. Science has discovered, and will continue to discover, an enormous amount of relative data but there will always remain an illimitable residue of the undiscovered and the unknown. Smith’s attitude toward science fiction made this blend natural for him, as he mentioned in a short essay published in 1973: Smith’s adept melding of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in these two planetary settings offers a fascinating view of his genre-blurring style. Smith did pen a number of straight science-fiction works like “The Master of the Asteroid” and “An Adventure in Futurity,” but the tales of Mars and Xiccarph have more in common with dark fantasy than the space opera of the early 1930s. The other two mini-cycles take place in interplanetary settings that would normally fall under the aegis of science fiction.

The Poseidonis stories resemble the style of the Zothique cycle in their doomed terrestrial environment.

The three most important mini-cycles occur on a remnant of sinking Atlantis called Poseidonis, a human-colonized Mars containing ancient horrors from its primordial past, and the mysterious planet of Xiccarph. Internal references in this handful of tales, such as the recurring figure of Malygris in the Poseidonis stories and Maal Dweb in both Xiccarph chronicles, indicate that their creator was attempting to weave a unified backdrop for further works - except that the later works never emerged. Smith may have planned to expand these series into full cycles large enough for book publication, as he attempted with Zothique and Hyperborea. The lands of Averoigne, Hyperborea, and Zothique comprise the bulk of the Northern Californian author’s fantasy stories, but a few “mini-cycles” of two to five tales each also emerged during his most active period of fiction-writing in the early 1930s. Smith’s dark ironies and bleak fates made continuing characters unlikely, and his writing style cleaved more to the sensations a setting could evoke than the deeds of the people within it. Where most continuing fantasy sagas center on the adventures of specific heroes, such as Conan, Tarzan, and Imaro, Smith elevated milieu over character.

Location, location, location…that might have been Clark Ashton Smith’s motto for fantasy writing.

Poseidon master of atlantis delete quarry pits