Hi

I am currently considering buying "Red World of Polaris" but EUR 25,50
seems like a lot of money for a 115-pages book. Do you think it's worth the investment from a literary point of view or is it more of a collector's item similar to "The Black Diamonds" ?

Yours
Stefan

Absolutely buy this one - the adventures of captain Volmar are great fun, and prefigure Star Trek by many years. Highly recommend.
Dr. Farmer
Cost is related to the limited issue - and you might check ebay.
Dr. Farmer

If you search the forum there are few reviews that may help you make up your mind. Also check out abe.com for copies.

I have just got the trade edition of this book in the mail, and so far I can only agree with calonlan and others. It's a very nice, generously bound book. Solid and sturdy. Cover illustration in rich saturated colours, against black background (I think CAS would have approved); surrealistic, it teases and stimulates the imagination, rather than presenting a definite vision that blocks the reader's own imaginaton.

I have started reading the first two stories of the three (Marooned in Andromeda, A Captivity in Serpens), to get coherence. Here is certainly some "ekshun", after the E. R. Burroughs formula: Land on planet, Become captured, Enslaved, Struggle for freedom, (minus marry princess). But inside this predictable shell there is much room for imagery. The first story perhaps doesn't have Smith's sharpest writing, although it contains some novel and interesting details. The second story is far superior I think: The cacti forest is more interesting than the ophidian-plant forest in the first; and when the alien abduction starts, the story takes interesting turns, and presents beautiful and dynamic visions. Here Smith is in top form! (I don't know what elements science fiction stories in the early part of the last century contained, but maybe this story is the original source to todays reputed abductee reports of alien medical experiments.)
I first read these two stories in Other Dimensions many years ago, and I just can't believe that I don't remember anything from them. Maybe it's because back then I had the impression that Other Dimensions was a "scrap" collection, putting together Smith's lesser and least interesting stories, and therefore rushed through it. Or else I was too young and didn't have enough reference to visualize what I was reading.

The book has an informative foreword by Ronald S. Hilger and Scott Connors. Thanks to their work with the book.

Now onward, to The Red World of Polaris ...

Did you find the line, "boldly go where no man had gone before?

Yes, I did see that line, and reacted to it. Something seemed very familiar! Later I read the foreword and about the Star Trek connection.

I will leave a report later about The Red World of Polaris. I am still aboard the ship! Standing at captain Volmar's side, looking out the bridge window at the approaching Pole Star. Sharing his exhilaration.

My body had to leave our country-side house with my books, and go to the city. So far I have only read the first page. But what a page! Brilliant! It was relieving to see "action drama" take a stand-back to inner drama and cosmic reflection (I can understand why the pulps hesitated in publishing). And it seems a fine self-portrait of Smith's own philosophical outlook.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 18 Feb 06 | 05:26AM by Ludde.

Stark Trek and CAS? Is this comparison for real? Anyway, it least this publication seems orginal. I would be very surprised though, if you could demonstrate any similarities with the writing style of CAS. After all, his work was so special and unique.


Julian (aka Raven10)

Julian L Hawksworth

I'm confused now. Could one of your explain for certain, whether or not CAS wrote some or all of the works in this book? I have never seen it any shops. Was it recently published? I have a copy of the CAS compilation, "Other Dimensions", which Ludde refers to. I have the rather old Panther edition (in paperback).


Cheers

Julian (aka Raven 10)

Julian L Hawksworth

Raven10 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm confused now. Could one of your explain for
> certain, whether or not CAS wrote some or all of
> the works in this book?

Yes, CAS wrote all of it. The title story was published for the first time in this book.

> I have never seen it any
> shops. Was it recently published?

In 2003.

> I have a copy of
> the CAS compilation, "Other Dimensions", which
> Ludde refers to. I have the rather old Panther
> edition (in paperback).
>

I suspect that the Panther editions are not textually sound, but others know this better than I.

Martin

Quote: "Stark Trek and CAS? Is this comparison for real?"

Raven10, the only connection here is a thing of rhetoric association in one single sentence. In one of the stories CAS wrote something like "to go boldly where no man has gone before", and it is suggested by some readers that the makers of Star Trek picked up this line, making it famous through the TV-series.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Feb 06 | 12:05PM by Ludde.

Ludde Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Quote: "Stark Trek and CAS? Is this comparison for
> real?"
>
> Raven10, I don't see any similarities between CAS
> and Star Trek. The only connection here is a thing
> of rhetoric association in one single sentence. In
> one of the stories CAS wrote something like "to go
> boldly where no man has gone before", and it is
> suggested by some readers that the makers of Star
> Trek picked up this line and then used it in the
> TV-series.

I suggested the parallel in the introduction, "The Magellan of the Constellations," that Ron and I wrote for RED WORLD OF POLARIS:

"Of Volmar himself, we are told "there was a spirit of mad adventure, a desire to tread where no man had been before [. . .]" (PAGE) (emphasis added).
"It is precisely instances like this that makes us realize just how much influence Clark Ashton Smith had on modern science fiction, since here we have an uncanny echo of the basic concept for one of the most phenomenal and lucrative series in television and motion picture history. We are of course referring to the Star Trek phenomon; one can easily imagine Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise having just such an adventure as Captain Volmar and the crew of the ether-ship Alcyone in "The Red World of Polaris." Yet we cannot seriously suggest that producer Gene Roddenbury stole the idea for the show he pitched to television executives as "Wagon Train in space" from Smith. After all, space opera had been invented by another Smith, E. E. Smith, Ph.D., two years previously in Amazing Stories, and in his austere monomania Volmar owes more to the traditional conception of the "mad scientist" of the pulps or movies than he does to Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. And yet, when one watches such classic Trek episodes as "The Way to Eden,"where an apparent paradise is revealed to be totally--and actively-- incompatible with human life, or "Operation: Annihilate!," (so suggestive of "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis"), or the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Far Point," one realizes that the cold, non-anthropocentric universe described by Smith still resonates in the imaginations of a select few."

Of course, despite these similarities, CAS differs from Roddenbury in his rejection of the myth of the Space Age that WONDER STORIES editor David Lasser first promulgated. This is basically an extension of the idea of Manifest Destiny to the stars: "Space, the Final Frontier." It is clear from CAS's stories that he believed that man would find outer space and other worlds totally alien and unsuitable for human life, and had little faith in our ability to adapt to the new condiitons.

For more of CAS's sf, check out the collection STAR CHANGES from Darkside Press, which has an introduction wherein I discuss in greater detail CAS's position in science fiction.

Best,
Scott

Also recall, that much of Clark's SF is a vehicle for satire, as in
The Monster of the Prophecy.

Please note that I edited my post. I have really not spent enough time with Star Trek to make a valid comparison.

Scott wrote: Qoute: "...the cold, non-anthropocentric universe described by Smith still resonates in the imaginations of a select few."

Perhaps Gene Roddenbury got ideas from CAS, and from the other writers in Amazing Stories. Probably he did.

Without saying that he didn't get the idea from CAS, it may be interesting to mention that some ideas, like that of a cold universe, unhospitable Eden, perhaps form separately more than once. Observations of Nature can spring similar mental conclusions, both among scientists and artists alike. And, for a far fetched comparison, just like organic life independently evolves the same solutions more than once: Legs. One-lensed eye (in octopus, and land animal).

I just finished "The Red World of Polaris". Although the alien abduction episode in "A Captivity in Serpens" is a favorite, overall "...Polaris" is the greatest of the three in the book. A masterpiece.

Of all Smith's stories, this is the most weirdly feverish I have read. It could possibly be compared with the poem "The Hashish-Eater", as a parade of endless marvels and nightmares. Beautiful. Very very creepy. Some things are so far away strange and extreme that they are hard for the mind to grasp, and fade as an elusive dream once I put the book down.
Also there is good analogy between Tloongs and mankind, in the way man also manipulates the elements and how this ultimately can lead to mass madness and loss of control.
Curious that this story has remained hidden for so long.

It was only a slight disappointment that the transplant was not completed*, and what personal experiences of unbearable tension this would have led to for the men. Maybe they would have become used to it as they gathered wisdom, happy as eternal beings, like the Tloongs said. Any other opinions on this?

*(I think Smith opposed his own ideal in literature when the guns were drawn.)

Donald Sidney-Fryer, in his afterword to THE RED WORLD OF POLARIS, gives much praise to "The Red World of Polaris" and describes it as very interesting and imaginative, but at the same time establishes for a fact that it is not a masterpiece because it is experimental.

How do you define a masterpiece? Is there a definite way by which you can measure it? Can a writer's (or any artist's) work be called masterpiece only late in his career when he has refined his craft to balanced harmonics and a polished prose style? (It can also be said here that some of Smith's most famous and favoured tales were written before or around the same time as these three.) Is masterpiece writing only defined by the overall story composition, how good its separate parts are and flow into each other, its beginning, how it develops, and how expertly it is wrapped up by the end? Or can a writing also be defined as masterpiece simply for its imaginative qualities alone and the intensity of the detailed visions it evokes? I think so. Perhaps it depends on where you focus your preferences.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 1 Mar 06 | 09:08AM by Ludde.