Introducing The Double Shadow: A Clark Ashton Smith Project

…because the world needs more weird fiction podcasts. Obviously there's the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. Last fall, a couple of awesome British guys started an M.R. James “Podcast to the Curious.” And this week, a couple of weird-fic loving friends and I started “The Double Shadow: A Clark Ashton Smith Podcast.” You can subscribe via iTunes or through our regular feed. We also have a Twitter account and a Facebook page for those active on social media.

Why am I Doing It?

Why not Lovecraft? Why when I have grad school? Why with Tim and Phil?

Well, I'm not sure what to say about Lovecraft that isn't being done on the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and YSDC. I could talk about Lovecraft & Cthulhu, but I'd really rather do a literary-style podcast about something I enjoy that's related to my love of Lovecraft.

This is also something I can enjoy doing without an immense time commitment (Tim does the editing) and it doesn't take a toll on my hands so I can continue getting better. I'm not ready to get back into crafting and I want to keep being a contributing part of the weird fic-loving community.

I first met Tim on Twitter and he invited me to the Delta Green game he was GMing for a group that included Phil. We've played Delta Green and D&D a fair amount since. Both guys are as knowledgable or more knowledgeable about weird fic as/than I am (depending on the specific topic), and we started talking about doing this podcast. We're already used to talking with each other online because that's how we role-play and I'm really enjoying our recording sessions!

Why Clark Ashton Smith?

Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft are the three major weird fiction writers of their era. Lovecraft's being done already, Howard's mythos work isn't freely available, but Smith is a fascinating writer whose stories can be found freely on the Eldritch Dark website.

Some of Smith's work connects to Lovecraft's mythos, but Smith wrote in his own settings. We're starting with Averoigne, a medieval France with a supernatural element. Then we plan to do Zothique (a future-Earth with a dead sun and single continent) and Hyperborea (an ancient Greenland before the ice age). After that, we'll do Poseidonis (his Atlantean continent) and his stories set in his own time or random times and places.

We've put more information about Smith's life and a list of his Averoigne stories, where we're starting, on our website, and there's plenty more about his life (and why him) in the first episode of the podcast!

I have been excited about this for a while now and am really happy with how it's turned out so far. I hope that some of you who are interested in Lovecraft or who've become interested in Lovecraft will consider checking Smith out. And for those already familiar with Smith, perhaps this will give you a chance to become more familiar with his complete works.

(If you're interested in buying actual editions of his works, Night Shade books has put out some excellent complilations. My only quibble with the e-version is that they don't have great Table of Contents.)