Is "A Voyage to Sfanomoe" Better than "The Double Shadow"?
Posted by:
Kipling (IP Logged)
Date: 18 October, 2023 10:39AM
In a previous thread asking Smith fans to list their favorites, "A Voyage to Sfanomoe" was curiously absent from most submissions. It is at the very least one of his most poetic short stories, with a superb opening paragraph and exemplary style. Dealing as it does with the end of Atlantis and the escape from earthly concerns, it has the thematic depth that characterizes his best work. It reminds me of Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" in a way. The planet Venus, according to cosmological cycles and obscure laws of time and space, could be as Smith describes in the millennia before the doom of Atlantis. There is an implication of a before/after universe present that is almost unique to this one story, overlooked by what some may view as sheer extravaganza, missing the Huxley-esque philosophical richness of the tale. It certainly deserves a reevaluation. Between this and "The Double Shadow", I can't say which is the better Poseidonis tale.
jkh