Zothique (collection)

Zothique

Cover of Zothique
Author	Clark Ashton Smith
Cover artist	George Barr
Language	English
Series	Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
Genre	Fantasy
Published	1970 (Ballantine Books)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	xiii, 273 pp
ISBN	0-345-01938-5
OCLC	427117
Followed by	Hyperborea

Zothique is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the sixteenth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1970. It was the first themed collection of Smith's works assembled by Carter for the series. The stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines in the 1930s, notably Weird Tales.

Summary

The book collects one poem and all sixteen tales of the author's Zothique cycle, set on the Earth's last continent in a far distant future, with an introduction and map and epilogue by Carter.

Contents

• "Introduction: When the World Grows Old", by Lin Carter
• "Zothique" (poem)
• "Xeethra"
• "Necromancy in Naat"
• "The Empire of the Necromancers"
• "The Master of the Crabs"
• "The Death of Ilalotha"
• "The Weaver in the Vault"
• "The Witchcraft of Ulua"
• "The Charnel God"
• "The Dark Eidolon"
• "Morthylla"
• "The Black Abbot of Puthuum"
• "The Tomb-Spawn"
• "The Last Hieroglyph"
• "The Isle of the Torturers"
• "The Garden of Adompha"
• "The Voyage of King Euvoran"
• "Epilogue: The Sequence of the Zothique Tales", by Lin Carter

Reception

The collection was reviewed by Charlie Brown in Locus no. 59, July 16, 1970, Glen Cook in Science Fiction Review, November 1970, Douglas Menville in Forgotten Fantasy, December 1970, Fritz Leiber in Fantastic, February 1971, L. Sprague de Camp in Amra v. 2, no. 54, April 1971, Gahan Wilson in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1971, Robert A. W. Lowndes in Bizarre Fantasy Tales no. 2, March 1971, and James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books.