yet more '...daemonic strangeness...'
"In sheer daemonic strangeness he [Clark Ashton Smith" is unexcelled", so said H.P. Lovecraft. He ought to have known, since he based his career on the same kind of subject matter. Some of Mr Smith's tales, short stories, novellas, are execrable; abominable; heinous; loathsome; odious; obnoxious. Consider, for example, "The Death of Ilalotha", in which witchcraft inveigles the unwary. Another of his offerings, "The Testiment of Athammaus", is a sort of Science Fiction horror tale, with its delineation of not- of-this-world loathsomeness.
Other of his stories are implacable; unmitigatable; objurate; intransigent; truculent; and just plain of the evil persuasion.
Nevertheless, there are 'The Monster of the Prophesy"; 'The Weird of Voosl Wuthoqquan"; "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" ; which fall into the category of unrelieved horror. While to some degree in other cases, action takes place in 'the fields we know.' Inversely, other-worldly connivance is either suspected or named. Howsoever, two conditions I must note: 1. My senses were not twanged by the repulsivenesses; rather, my intellect looked upon the happenings with a cool eye. 2. For the flavor of words, have a staunch dictionary, and/or thesaurus by your side; Mr Smith uses many, many synonyms for 'deviltry'.
