KUDOS to Ron Hilger and Scott Connors and Night Shade Press -
Red World is a beautifully printed book, the Dust Jacket is great.
For serious collectors, the missing pages of "Black Diamonds"
will be included in "Sword of Zagan" I have learned, and made
available on line for those who purchased the book before these
pages had been found.
I look forward to having you sign my copy of Red World Scott -
Outstanding job!!!
Dr. Farmer

Thanks Dr. Farmer,
I may be partial, but I agree that Red World turned out very nice indeed. The DJ and interior drawings are my favorites of all Jason Van Hollander's artwork, tho I'm also quite fond of the cover he did for "New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos". Looking forward to 'Zagan'; should be out sometime next year, right?
Had several folks over last weekend to celebrate the new books and Scott was kept busy signing the books he was unable to sign earlier because of his broken arm, so he is getting in some practice!
I've also gotten back to work on the 'Boulder booklet' which was put on the back burner during the rush to get 'Polaris' out. Gahan Wilson recently sent me his very nice drawing which will eventually grace the cover.
Thanks again!
Ron

I can't wait to pick up my copy of Red World. Since my apartment doesn't accept packages, I have stuff shipped to my parent's house, so I'll be picking it up over Thanksgiving break, along with Tales of Zothique and The Book of Hyperborea, which I procured copies of at long last (I've been dying to read "Xeethra" unexpurgated :-D ). I'm eagerly anticipating reading Red World of Polaris as well, it sounds quite intriguing from some of the references that CAS makes to it in his letters. A hearty thanks to all those who have recently been unearthing and making available so much wonderful CAS stuff.

I look forward to signing your copy as well, Herr Doktor.
I signed a few last weekend, and my arm didn't fall off, although I did have to take a nappie because I tired easily. Scott

Daniel-
Hope that you (and others) who will be reading 'Red World' in the near future will keep in mind that this tale is not on the same level as, say, "Xeethra" or "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis." If you have been intrigued by all the hints dropped by CAS about this tale I don't think you will be disappointed. Just keep in mind that if this story was of the same quality as CAS' best work then surely it would have been published rather than lost in the back of a fanzine editor's closet all these years.
The main point is that 13,000 words of previously unpublished CAS is finally available! I'm very much looking forward to future posts regarding the various reactions to "Red World of Polaris."
-Ron

Ron, Scott, et al,

"Red World", as you suggest, is not up to Clark's best as a story,
though it does hold you - but his descriptive powers are rampant
(I am only partly through it, savoring the language at late night).
The book contains some of his more far-reaching vocabularly usage,
stretching and bending even common usages into new, but accurate,
applications - it is almost as if I could hear him saying, rather
irate at publishers as a sub-class, "Ok, you want outerspace adventure,
here it is in spades - if you have the intelligence to read it!"
And, he's got some neat little barbs of social satire tucked away
here and there for a little added spice. What fun!

The "Red World," as a story, is pretty dang good. Yeah, Volmar and crew are static characters, and the ending (at least the fate of the crew) is predictable. But the imagined world of planet (purple seas, and plant life marked by "the grotesque, the ornate, and the recherche," etc) is definitely outre, at least to me, an admitted enthusiast. And the Murms are sufficiently scary bizarre and the Tloongs other-worldly weird enough to keep the story going. Plus, having read the story aloud to my sweethear, I can attest that the story never lags too much, and has a nice surge of energy in the last few pages, both for a reader and a listener.

A few details I liked alot: for example, the projection of thought as film. There's a nice surreal touch.

Plus the idea of a civilization threatened and ultimately doomed from within by something created via over-reaching by the civilization's most characteristic (and in some ways admirable) trait fits pretty well, it seems to me, with what's happening in our contemporary America. The prophetic CAS, perhaps.

Then of course there's CAS's use of words, a treat as always.

Thanks Ron, Scott, and all the rest (and sorry I couldn't make the party -- Scott I need your signature!).

-- S. Fama

I'm very pleased to hear these positive comments. I liked the tale quite a bit myself but recognized that the plot had serious flaws; however, the wealth of descriptive material and the thrill of exploring the Red World carried the tale easily for me. I much prefer Red World to the other Volmar tales because Smith gives us this wealth of information about the aliens and their world as opposed to the tiresome "situation, escape, capture, escape, rescue, escape . . " sort of 'action' so prevelant in the others. I guess this is the sort of "Space Opera" type of tale that Wonder Stories editor David Lasser was looking for.
Too bad though, one wonders what sort of tales CAS might have written if he had been encouraged to follow his own inclinations with these early Science Fiction tales . . .
-Ron

Ron, again, many delights in the book - all readers need to know
a little tid-bit I shared with you and Scott during your visit;
I'm afraid it is easy to forget - a little altered quotation that
Clark devised, and used often in conversation should be kept in
the back of the mind whenever reading his works (I think it actually\
appears in "Spells an Apothegms" in "Spells and Philtres") -
"Sweet are the uses of obscurity" - I've lived with this quote
running in my head for more than 40 years and I can assure the
range of its implications is (so far) unlimited.
Dr. F

Dr. F
Interesting quotation, it reminds me a bit of another- "Strange pleasures are known to one who flaunts the immarcessible purple of poetry before the color-blind." Or something very similar to this.
You mention this is an altered quotation, do you recall the original?
-Ron

I could probably track it down, but it's something like, "sweet are
the uses of poetry" (poesy, art, something like that) and it's
Tennyson, Longfellow, or Lamb (possible Pepys), or one of that
ilk.
Dr. Farmer

Sweet are the uses of adversity. -Shakespear (As You Like It).

Quote:

Sweet are the uses of adversity Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Ron's CAS quote is letter perfect and from the Black Book.

Quote:

125
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcesible purple of poetry before the color-blind. ((He remembers and takes for his motto the line from Timon of

Athens: "Tis well with every land to be at odds."))
The ((romanticist in an age of)) free spirit in life or literalism should take for his motto the line from Timon of Athens: "Tis well with every land to be at odds."

Timom of Athens is the oly Shakespear play i seen preformed live.

As to the threads subject, my copy is in transit.

Sorry to nit-pick, but: when Boyd P. says Ron's quotation is "letter perfect" I must demur: the odd word "immarcesible" is spelled with but one "s," not two. So Ron was a letter from being "letter perfect."ff by a letter.

I know the quotation cited by Ron ("Strange pleasures are known to one who flaunts the immarcesible purple of poetry before the color-blind") from "The Devil's Notebook," in which it appears on page 78. I can't find the quotation in "The Black Book," but then things can be hard to find in that book.

-- Steve F.

As long as we're nit-picking, I also wrote "ONE who flaunts" rather than "HIM who flaunts" which is the correct quote. As for
"immarcesible," good luck finding this one in your average dictionary! Marcescent means "to wither or droop" so Smith's immarcesible purple is a color which cannot fade or wither.
The quote is from item [125] on page 45 in "The Black Book" and DSF points out this concept made it into lines 73 and 74 of "Soliloquy in an Ebon Tower." Another great line from this poem (one of my personal favorites) is "Our ironies, like marbled adders creeping on through time, shall fang the brains of poets yet to be." lines 90-92.
It is lines such as these that provide endless food for thought from CAS' amazing intellect. Speaking of food, Happy Turkey-day!
-Ron

Ron, sorry to be remiss in getting to this -
The original is from Shakespeare - "Sweet are the uses of of
adversity."

Dr. Farmer