THE DEEP ONES: "The Dead Will Cuckold You" by Clark Ashton Smith

"The Dead Will Cuckold You" by Clark Ashton Smith.

Discussion begins on August 28, 2024.

First publication In Memoriam: Clark Ashton Smith (1963).



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57662

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
Tales of Zothique
The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith

ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/prose-poetry-plays/9/the-dead-will-cuckold-...

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

No online audio versions found to date.

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zothique_(collection)
https://www.blackgate.com/the-fantasy-cycles-of-clark-ashton-smith-part-iii-tale...
http://www.eldritchdark.com/
https://tinyurl.com/ydmuutwt

It's too bad Smith didn't do more short dramas set in Zothique. It's wonderfully decadent with Natanasna, a smelly necromancer, being more sympathetic than King Smaragad.

It's sort of impressive for a piece that announces its central conceit in the title to end on a cliffhanger.

I wonder if anyone's ever performed this?

Canopus still being a prominent star implies the story takes place a few million years into our future at most.

>3 AndreasJ:
I'm not sure I'd call that a cliffhanger. The outcome seems certain.

It doesn't seem like it would be difficult to stage. It has a comfortable cast of about a dozen.

The piece is replete with Smithian verbiage, of course, and I gasped at "asphalt-colored ingle."