Yesterday, I posted about Lin Carter's proposed volume, "Averoigne," and (in that same subject thread) about his plans for "Malnéant," too. These were books that Carter hoped to produce for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which unfortunately ceased publishing in 1974.

Today I will present Carter's plans for the three other Smith collections he hoped to see published by Ballantine. This information, like the details in yesterday's post, is from the article "Projected Clark Ashton Smith Collections by Lin Carter," published in "The Dark Eidolon" #3 from 1993. The article is taken from a list or lists provided by the academic and author Robert M. Price, Carter's literary executor.

As with Carter's published Smith volumes, these three books are all identified by a setting and place-name. Unlike "Zothique" or "Hyperborea," however, there is not a substantial series of stories for these settings. In this way, the proposed volumes are more like "Xiccarph" or "Poseidonis," where a few stories set the stage, as it were, and the volumes were rounded out with similarly-themed tales.

The three books are "Kalood" (centered upon the story "The Chains of Aforgomon"), "Ydmos" (from "The City of the Singing Flame" and its sequel), and "Sadastor" (from the story of the same name).

Carter's list offers the projected years of publication as well as detailed tables of contents. Some entries are given but crossed out. This could represent meticulousness - Carter knew Smith's work well and his plans seemed to be well-defined. An example of this is shown in his table of contents for "Ydmos." In the third section for the proposed volume, Carter first lists The Crystals, then crosses it out and places it last in the section. This surely indicates careful planning.

On the other hand, there are occasional duplicate entries, too. Many of the entries for the section "Weird Fables" in "Sadastor" are duplicated in the table of contents for "Malnéant." Carter could sometimes play fast and loose with details (Peter S. Beagle was very critical of mistakes he found in Carter's seminal work "Imaginary Worlds"). These duplicated stories or poems in Carter's plans surely would have been addressed and changed as the books approached actual publication.

I am interested in Carter's plans because (Beagle aside) he was such a talented editor. I also hope to hear from other CAS readers about these proposed volumes - do they seem well-planned? Do they seem consistent in tone and subject matter? Might they have been volumes of quality, like Carter's published Smith books? To my less-trained eye, Carter seems to be over-reaching a bit. The books seem more centered upon intergalactic science fiction and horror than fantasy, although of course Smith's work could often undercut such genre expectations.

I know this is a strange corner of Smith scholarship - the proposed contents of Smith volumes that never were published! But I can imagine there might be some lively discussions about Carter's plans, or at least some significant interest from the readers of this forum.

Here are the contents.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Kalood (1975)

A Phantasy
An Invocation by Car Aston Smith

Strange Journeys:
The Chain of Aforgormon
An Adventure in Futurity
The Visitors from Mlok
The Hashish-Eater

Strange Realms:
The Primal City
The Seed from the Sepulchre
The Root of Ampoi
The Invisible City
The Venus of Azombeii
A Dead City
The City of the Titans
In the Desert

Orient Tales:
Zulkais and Kalilah
The Ghoul
The Kingdom of the Worm
Told in the Desert
Chinoiserie
Arabesque
Beyond the Great Wall
To Omar Kh.

Fables of India:
The Malay Krise
The Ghost of Mohammed Din
The Mahout
The Raja and the Tiger
The Justice of the Elephant
The Kiss of Zoraida

= = = = = = = = = = =

Ydmos (1976)

Through the Dimension-Gates:
An Introduction by Lin Carter

The Traveller
An Invocation by Clark Ashton Smith

Journeys to Ydmos:
The City of the Singing Flame
Beyond the Singing Flame

Weird Voyages:
The Crystals
The Light From Beyond
The Plutonian Drug
The Eternal World
The Letter from Mohaun Los
The Crystals

Visions of the Future:
A Phantasy
The Dimension of Chance
The Metamorphosis of Earth
The Dark Age
The Great God Awto
A Prophecy of Monsters
Schizoid Creator
Phoenix

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Sadastor (1978)

Sadastor
An Invocation by Clark Ashton Smith

The Voyage of the "Alcyone":
Marooned in Adnromeda
The Amazing Planet

Other Strange Uncanny Voyages
The Infernal Star
The Immeasurable Horror
In Saturn
Master of the Asteroid
The Immortals of Mercury
Murder in the Fourth Dimension
Seedling of Mars

Weird Fables:
The Forbidden Forest
The Flower-Devil
The Black Lake
A Dream of Lethe
The Caravan
The Touchstone
The Princess Almeena
The Mirror in the Hall of Ebony
Ennui
In Cocaigne
The Demon, the Angel, and Beauty
The Shadows
Chinoiserie
Ennui

And the essays of Clark Ashton Smith

= = = = = = = = = = = =

There you have it! While these books will never be published, it would perhaps be possible for an enterprising reader to put together a personal e-book using these lists - or even to create a printed volume. The results might be considered some of the most rare of all volumes of Smith's work!