Smith contemplated a sequel, “Vizaphmal in Ophiuchus,” for which he prepared a plot synopsis in April 1930:
I. Tsandai, a savant of Zothique, a world of one of the suns of Ophiuchus, has fallen foul of the local scientific fraternity in general; and they are about to turn him, by the use of a transforming-ray, into a low, brainless type of monster. Vizaphmal, the Antarean wizard-scientist, using his space-annihilator at random, for the sake of adventure, appears in the chamber where the transformation is about to take place. Comprehending the situation telepathically, he rescues Tsandai and carries him away to the uninhabited equatorial zones of the planet.
II. Here Vizaphmal brings the space-annihilator to rest, while Tsandai explains the ideas that had brought him into disrepute with his confreres. While they are conversing, the annihilator is surrounded by a forest of night-growing vegetable organisms, which attack and try to devour it, though unsuccessfully . Vizaphmal is about to start for one of the moons of Zothique, where Tsandai has expressed a desire to be taken, when the mechanism of the annihilator refuses to work.
III. In the meanwhile, the annihilator has been televisually located by the savants of Zothique, who follow and capture it, blasting with zero-rays the exuberant vegetation that has surrounded it. The annihilator, with Tsandai and Vizaphmal inside, is carried like a cage to Mlair, the city from which Vizaphmal had rescued Tsandai. Here the savants try to break it open in vain, since the material of which it is made resists every force or element of which they are masters.
IV. At last they drop the annihilator into a bottomless pit in their insane rage; Vizaphmal and Tsandai are stunned by the shock of the fall. When they recover, the annihilator is floating in a subterranean sea of burning bitumen. Vizaphmal finds that the fall has restored the mechanism to working-order; and they re-ascend to the surface of the world.
V. Here they find that the persecution of Tsandai, who is immensely popular with the people in general, has brought about an uprising against the authority of the scientists, who had virtually ruled Zothique. Tsandai and Vizaphmal are received with acclamations; and leaving Tsandai in a position of impregnable power, the Antarean departs for other worlds.
7
This synopsis was never utilized, although Smith would later use the name “Zothique” to refer to the last continent of earth under a dying red sun.
1. CAS, letter to HPL, November 26, 1929 (SL 104).
2. Steve Behrends, “Introduction.” The Monster of the Prophecy by Clark Ashton Smith, ed. Steve Behrends (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1988): 5.
3. CAS, letter to HPL, December 10, 1929 (SL 105-106).
4. HPL, letter to CAS, December 19, 1929 (ms, JHL).
5. FW, letter to CAS, January 18, 1930 (ms, JHL).
6. CAS, letter to HPL, January 27, 1930 (SL 109).
7. SS 143-144.
The Metamorphosis of the World
This story is referred to exclusively as “The Metamorphosis of the World” in CAS’s correspondence and “Completed Stories” log until the fifties. The title change to “The Metamorphosis of Earth” was made by AWD when he solicited the story for a science fiction anthology that became Beachheads in Space (Pelligrini and Cudahy, 1952) and marketed it on Smith’s behalf to Dorothy McIlwraith, Wright’s successor at WT, who accepted it for the September 1951 issue.1 Despite its late appearance, the story was written in late 1929, although CAS wrote that he was still “dragging on at present” with it in early 1930, noting gleefully how he was “engaged in killing off an odious bunch of scientists.”2 The typescript at JHL is undated. By late January he could write to HPL that “I finished ‘The Metamorphosis of the World’, and am trying it out on the ‘scientifiction’ magazines. I don’t know that you would care for it: probably the best element is the satire.”3 Smith submitted it to Science Wonder Stories, only to see the story rejected because his explanation and description of the scientific processes involved was overly technical, something which came as a great surprise to him since “I was afraid I didn’t know enough about scientific technicalities to hit their requirements! And lo, I’ve overshot the mark!”4 It was then rejected by Amazing Stories.
CAS did not think highly of the story, referring to it as “about the nearest I have come to” hack work.5 Several years later he called the tale “passably written, but suffers from triteness of plot: this because I wrote it at a time when I had not read enough science fiction to avoid the more obvious plot-ideas.”6 However, he did regard the story as being “based on a far from bad idea, that of the atomic transformation of our planet by people from Venus, into a replica of Venus with all of the latter’s atmospheric, geologic and climatic conditions: this in order that it might become inhabitable for the overcrowded Venerians.”7 It was collected posthumously in OD.
1. AWD, letter to CAS, August 23, 1950 (ms, JHL).
2. CAS, letter to HPL, January 9, 1930 (SL 107).
3. CAS, letter to HPL, January 27, 1930 (SL 109).
4. CAS, letter to HPL, March 11, 1930 (ms, JHL).
5. CAS, letter to DAW, January 24, 1930 (ms, MHS).
6. CAS, letter to RHB, May 16, 1937 (SL 301).
7. CAS, letter to RHB, February 5, 1936 (ms, JHL).
The Epiphany of Death
Inspired by a re-reading of Lovecraft’s story “The Statement of Randolph Carter” (WT February 1925), Smith wrote “The Epiphany of Death” in about three hours on January 25, 1930.1 He presented HPL with a copy on January 27 that bore the present dedication, of which the latter remarked
I can’t say how flattered I feel by the dedication of “The Epiphany of Death”! That is the most haunting & fascinating thing I have read anywhere in aeons—& the style is full of a grave, stately music which makes me think of Poe as he first impressed me long decades ago. I have always dreamed of the rare delight of finding something
new
by Poe—something I have never read, but which will furnish the same pristine thrill that Poe furnished back in 1897 & 1898. “The Epiphany of Death” comes the closest to realising that ideal of anything so far—& to have it inscribed to me heightens the pleasure of the perusal. If a reading of “Randolph Carter” bore such fruit, I shall feel at last the existence of that tale is justified!
2
Smith remarked to August Derleth that the story “ may remind you a little of Lovecraft’s ‘Outsider’—but it was written before I had read this latter.”3
Smith apparently did not do anything with the story for some time. However, when a new competitor to WT arose in the form of the Clayton Magazine Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror (seven issues were published between September 1931 and January 1933), paid two cents a word upon acceptance as opposed to the one cent or less that WT paid upon publication (sometimes several months after publication), Smith submitted several stories to its editor, Harry Bates. CAS reported that Bates liked “The Epiphany of Death,” but returned it “on account of its brevity” and the acceptance of several other Smith stories, adding that Bates remarked “that he finds it hard to get atmospheric stuff.”4 He then submitted the story to Wright, who also rejected it: “I like [“The Epiphany of Death”], but I fear our readers would find it lacking in plot and left somewhat up in the air.” Smith then donated the story, along with several others that he was unable to sell, to Carl Swanson, a fan from Washburn, North Dakota who planned to bring out a magazine called Galaxy. Swanson never published the story, but Charles D. Hornig did when CAS let him have the some of the same stories for his fanzine The Fantasy Fan, which published the tale in the July 1934 issue. Dorothy McIlwraith accepted the story for twenty dollars, publishing it as “Who Are the Living?” in the September 1942 issue.6 It was included in AY under the original title. The current text generally follows the January 25, 1930 typescript.