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A review by akemi_666
Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith
2.0
Orientalism 101.
While both Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance were introduced to the popular imaginary through D&D, Jack Vance gives his characters desires, emotions and rationals, within his rather absurd and chaotic world. In Clark Ashton Smith, evil dudes are just evil, vaguely Eastern and necromantic, and sometimes black and cannibalistic.
At this stage in my life, it doesn't even offend me, I'm just bored with it all. I feel like I'm trapped in an endless ketamine trip watching Indiana Jones shoot a sword spinning Arab.
Like, even though a lot of Jack Vance's characters and scenarios became fantasy tropes, their original incarnations were more fleshed out than their later replications. But with Clark Ashton Smith, his characters and scenarios are empty of any greater intimacy, complexity . . . thingliness or historicity.
The writing is very pretty at times, and there are small moments of poignancy and delirium that I do really like.
While both Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance were introduced to the popular imaginary through D&D, Jack Vance gives his characters desires, emotions and rationals, within his rather absurd and chaotic world. In Clark Ashton Smith, evil dudes are just evil, vaguely Eastern and necromantic, and sometimes black and cannibalistic.
At this stage in my life, it doesn't even offend me, I'm just bored with it all. I feel like I'm trapped in an endless ketamine trip watching Indiana Jones shoot a sword spinning Arab.
Like, even though a lot of Jack Vance's characters and scenarios became fantasy tropes, their original incarnations were more fleshed out than their later replications. But with Clark Ashton Smith, his characters and scenarios are empty of any greater intimacy, complexity . . . thingliness or historicity.
The writing is very pretty at times, and there are small moments of poignancy and delirium that I do really like.