SS4 19 The Flower Women

Our last story of Season Four sees us back in Xiccarph where Maal Dweb attempts to overcome his ennui by aiding The Flower Women. We talk Raymond Reddington,  writing a series, bored gods, Dr Who, Star Trek, Lorelei, wilting goths and mullets.
Reader:  Simon Frazier Nash
Favourite words: depredators, hodden, abnegation, matrass, psammite, canorous, concamerated, lucent.
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Raymond Reddington

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SPEAKER_04 0:10

Strange shadows.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Athle, said Maldweb, I suffer from the frightful curse of omnipotence. In all Zikaf and in the five outer planets of the Triple Suns, there is no one, there is nothing to dispute my domination. Therefore, my ennui has become intolerable. The girlish eyes of Athle regarded the enchanter with a gaze of undying astonishment, which, however, was not due to his strange avowal. She was the last of the fifty-one women that Marldub had turned into statues in order to preserve their frail, corruptible beauty from the worm-like gnawing of time. Since, through a laudable desire to avoid monotony, he had resolved never to repeat again this particular sorcery, the magician had cherished Athlai with the affection which an artist feels for the final masterpiece of a series. He had placed her on a little dais beside the ivory chair in his chamber of meditation. Often he addressed to her his queries or monologues, and the fact that she did not reply or even hear was to him a signal and unfailing recommendation.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Greetings, folks, and welcome to season four, episode 19 of Strange Shadows, the Clark Ashton Smith Podcast. And yes, we have reached the end of this season in terms of stories. We will be doing more bits and bobs after to wrap up. But yeah, for now, this is the final story of the season. I'm one of your hosts, Tim Bendies.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

And I'm the other one, Rob Poynton. Yes, doesn't time fly, doesn't it? Um seems like only uh a few months ago we were starting on season one.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, it's terrifying when you look back at the actual date. Um it's even worse with the IBC when we were looking up the Ambrose Bears damned thing the other day.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

2023 or something, I think was it?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

But before we get into uh today's flowery goodness, just a quick mention of the Innsmouth Literary Festival, of course, coming up on September the 19th in oddly moist Bedford. You may have noticed on social media we've just put out a latest trader announcement featuring just a few of the traders that are going to be joining us on the day, including, well, two of my favourites, Devin Bob, with his excellent and ever so tempting collection of uh weird towels, obscure Lovecraftian fanzines and all sorts of stuff. And also Boswellian artifacts, who I'll make it a point each year to buy a t-shirt from, because they're really such excellent designs. So those two I'm definitely look looking forward to. But we've got some new traders coming in as well. So do take a look at that, and of course, keep an eye out for future announcements as well. We'll be putting out our full guest list soon and listing all the other traders as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, I'm happy Boz is coming back because uh I tend to buy patches every year to augment my jacket. Ah. So yeah, yeah. And I've I've got I've got like an A, I've got an asymmetrical problem at the moment, and I need another design of his to balance it out.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Oh, he's your man. Yeah, I really do, I really do like his designs. Yeah, yeah. And of course, Boz is also gonna be doing a presentation for us at ILF on uh Lovecraft's UK family and ancestry. I won't say any more about that at the moment. Uh, we'll put details out pretty soon. But yeah, very interesting talk that is gonna be, I think.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So, the flower women, how are we on the publication of this one? Was it a hit or a miss? Uh, kind of both.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

It is this is a funny one. This uh, this one actually really did actually make me chuckle out loud, which was much to my partner's chagrin because it was in like two in the morning when it happened. We're both in bed, and I started laughing to myself. There you go. So Smith originally started writing this back in October of 1932, but shelved it for a while before going back to it around the same time he was finishing up The Weaver in the Vault. Uh so it basically was finished in mid-March 1933, around the 17th. Well, before the 17th, so we think 15th, 16th, something like that. So he first submitted it to Weird Tales, but Farnsworth Wright rejected it. Okay. This is an interesting point. Saying we've got a direct quote here from a letter dated March the 17th, saying that the Flower Women is well done, but seemed a fairy story rather than a weird tale proper.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

A fairy story. A fairy story with vampire plants and flying lizard men and being set on other planets and weird, yeah. Come on, Floundsworth. Come on, Farney, come on.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yeah. Weird, isn't it? Very strange. So around this time, William Clayton had contacted Smith about a proposed revival of astounding stories after the first run that had started in January 1930 had been shut down by Hugo Gernsbach earlier in the year. So basically, he asked Smith for any occult and weird stories for this proposed revival. Sadly, it never happened because Clayton quit due to ill health. Yeah. Astounding stories did get a revival in late 1933 under new editorship. But for now, that was not happening. So it's at this point that something really weird happened. And this is what made me laugh. Smith's old Remington typewriter died. And he replaced it with a brand new Underwood. Okay. To put it through his to put it through its paces, Smith retyped The Flower Women and the Death of Maligris. Now it's unknown if he did any revisions, but I'd suggest that they were minimal at best due to a letter that he sent to Donald Wondry on August 6th, 1933, after resubmitting both stories to Farnsworth Wright. Wright evidently liked them better when I retyped them on my new Underwood, since he has accepted the flower woman. So it's very much what way the wind is blowing with Farnsworth Wright, I feel.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, yeah, and you know, how many pages does he have to fill and all that kind of stuff, I imagine.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Yeah, but how weird is that? He basically retyped it, sent it again. Because he he doesn't mention doing any revisions, so if they were, they were minimal. Because he always he always mentions when he does revisions.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, yeah. Do you think he forgot that he'd read it before for Arnsworth? Probably. Did he even read it the first time, perhaps? Perhaps it was just a quick scan and he thought, oh, you know. Mmm, it's possible.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

You just don't know, do you? No, exactly. So there you go. The Flower Women was published in the May 1935 issue of Weird Tales.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Excellent. I believe that issue also had Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard in as well. I think it was Beyond the Black River, one of Howard's best Conan stories. Oh, nice. I think. But I'd have to double check that. So, yeah, so uh another classic issue. And as we have mentioned before, perhaps that is a future project. Going through weird tales and covering each issue, one issue per episode might be uh an interesting thing to do. And am I right in saying because of course we've met the well, we've got protagonist and antagonist, haven't we? He's actually been both, which is quite unusual. There's not many characters that you see uh can can play both roles, but this is a return to Zikarf and Maldueb, and of course, this is the follow-up to Maze of the Enchanter or Maze of Maldub. And again, I think I well stand to be corrected that Maze of Maldueb was published after this story in the magazines. Yes, yeah. So anyone who read this wouldn't have a clue that it was a sequel. And some people say maybe that accounts for the change uh from Maze of the Enchantment to Maze of Maldub, because then it clearly links the two together.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Very possibly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

So there's a double frustration because not only does is it going to be published, is it not, but then you're publishing them out of sequence. You know. I mean, I know it's not a major series or anything, it doesn't really matter, but nonetheless, from an author's point of view, it'd be nice to have your things published in order, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah, well, it's something that Lovecraft and Smith have moaned about together, because obviously the first published mention of Sarthocuba is in Lovecraft's The Mound, where his name checked, because it was that was published before the Taylor Satan Braziros.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, and people are thinking, Well, who's this Sarthocuba? What's that about? You know. Yeah, yeah. And I wonder if that's why, because I I think what we have here with Mould Webb is potentially the beginnings of a series of the adventures of Maldweb, you know, because it is such a good character. But I wonder if Smith and Lovecraft to an extent were put off putting out a series because of this uh erratic publishing sort of setup.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Uh it's very possible, isn't it? Because I mean, yeah, it must have been incredibly like how'd you plan how'd you plan a series if you don't know what order things are gonna be in?

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

And you you're gonna end up spoiling the first story, surely, if you you know, you'd have to be very careful not to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Exactly. And maybe this is why Robbie Howard, because with the Conan stories, they jump all over the place. Yeah. So the first published Conan story is Conan as King, then you go back to Tower of the Elephant or whatever it is, and they skip about. I wonder if that was a reason for that as well. Because if if you do your oh, next time Conan's gonna be in whatever, following on from this, then that could be published in five years' time.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Well, that's what I've done with I did with my Eugene Ango stories because there's about 15 of those now that are out there in various anthologies and things, and that I I just pick a pick pick a date, pick a period. I'm only now going back and filling in gaps to make a continuity because I'm thinking of doing collections. You're gonna put them to put them together. Excellent, yeah. That would be good. But up until that point, it was kind of just like oh well, right, it's August 1939, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I can see the pros and cons of of doing both from uh an author's perspective. Uh I mean, one does tie you into almost Tolkien-esque levels of detail, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

That's another reason they did like that, because I'm not a planner.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

I'd rather go back retrospectively and put them in order afterwards and then go, oh, there's a gap there, right? I'll just have to write something to fill it.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

You know, well it's your unreliable narrator, right? We can blame it on the unreliable narrator.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Absolutely, absolutely. He's a drunk. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

No, I said narrator, not the author. Oh, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Similar both applies. I'm not sure in our case, yeah, who's who's more unreliable than narrator or the author? That's a good question. Right, what you know, isn't it? That's what they say. Absolutely. I don't know who they are, but that's what they say. Right. So, speaking of writing, what have we got for favourite words? So we're in Zikh, but this was still very nice Smithian language, and a few words I've I definitely had to look up here.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah, they were and there was some like different they were obviously based on other words or sort of alternative versions of and things like that. Like the first one is depredators, not predators, depredators, which is a personal animal that plunders or destroys. And it's from the Latin predari, meaning to plunder. So it's not like a predator in terms of killing, it's a in terms of uh plundering, pillaging, that kind of business.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yes, new to me, that one. New to me. And something that was uh definitely new to me, in fact, I even thought, is this a typo when I first read it? Is Hodden H-O-D-D-E-N. Now we've got a little rabbit hole to go down here, so please bear with Hodden, sometimes spelt hodin, is a coarse undyed woolen cloth traditionally worn by peasants and working class people in Scotland. Typically woven from natural unsort unsorted sheep's wool, it often features earthy shades of brown or grey. The etymology is a little bit obscure, but historians suggest it may have evolved from the Low German and Middle Dutch words hourden or houden meaning to guard or protect. Historically it replaced the Gaelic term lachten for crude rustic homespun fabric as Gaelic usage declined in the Scottish lowlands. It did sort of get another meaning, uh probably because of its humble beginnings, the phrase Hodden Grey entered the Scottish lexicon as a symbol of the simple, unaffected or rustic lifestyle. It features prominently in Scottish literature, including the poetry of Rabbi Burns, to represent working class resilience and honest poverty. Totally unknown to me, that word. Yeah, no, I I had to look that one up as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Never heard that one myself. Yeah. And another one that's it kind of sounds similar to another word, but is a different word, is abnegation, which is similar to abstination, but it isn't. This is the act of not allowing yourself to like something. Not not allowing yourself to have something, it's not allowing yourself to like something.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

And uh here's another one that I thought was a spelling mistake at first. Mattresses. I could only find one reference to this because as soon as you put in mattresses to Google, you get a lot of adverts for local bed shops and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

But I found it's on a site called uh Galileo something or other, so you'll see why that's relevant, perhaps. A mattress is a spherical or flat bottomed conical vessel, generally made of glass, used in chemical operations. There is no standard capacity. The truncated cone mattress is also called a flask. Mattresses can also be teared, i.e., calibrated, to contain a given volume of liquid at a given temperature. If you see a picture, you'll know exactly it's a bit like a sort of an alembic or something like that. One of those real old good alchemy bits of kit that you you'll see in a DD scenario or something, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah, I know exactly what I can picture it in my mind's eye. Now the next one again is another word that sounds similar to another one but is different. It's samite, which sounds like samite, but it's not, it's different. It's a geological term referring to a type of metamorphic rock originating from sandstone, i.e., quartz, feldspar, and mica.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Ah, right. Yes, unfamiliar to me, that one. And so was this one as well. Caneris. Uh I I thought, is this something to do to with carnivorous or something? But no, totally not. It's a melodious, tuneful, or pleasing to the ear, typically used to describe beautiful singing voices, musical instruments, bird calls, or even naturally harmonious sounds in nature like a flowing stream. And that, of course, is derived from the Latin word canor, melody or song, and the verb canere to sing, which I guess is where canary comes from.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Well, I'm so glad you got that because I kept me he kept giving me definitions for cancerous, and I and I and I threw and I threw my toys at the pram. It kept do you mean this? No, I don't. I mean canaris. There's no C. Yeah. Oh yeah, I I had a real argument with Google about that. So finally, I'm gonna end with one we may have had before, but I like it. So we're having it again. Concamorated, which is arched or vaulted.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yes, very nice that one. And I think for my final choice, then I knew what this one means, but it's just such a lovely word. Lucent, glowing with light, shining or clear and translucent. Very nice. Nice. So, as you will have heard in our opening paragraph, expertly read by uh bass player supreme Simon Fraser Nash at the start there. We are back in the realm of Maldweb in Zikarf. And uh now, have you ever seen a series, sir, called Blacklist?

SPEAKER_02 18:16

No, I've heard of it, I've not actually got around to watching any of it.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Right, so this is a character who's uh an arch criminal, uh a sort of modern-day Mariarty called Raymond Reddington, played by James Spader. Yeah. Now, for anyone who's watched the series, this is my casting choice for Maud Webb because Spada's presentation and his voice as this character, I really heard this in Raymond Reddington's voice. For those who don't know, I'll put a little link up in the notes below, just a quick clip. He has a a very measured and uh malefluent way of speaking, and I can just see that character saying something that therefore my enui has become intolerable. It just fits the character perfectly. So that's my casting choice now for Mounds Webb. Of course, we've got the Vincent Prices and everything else as well, as possibilities, but that just struck me because it's rare on TV today to see a character who speaks in a Smithian way, I think.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, I've not seen the show, but I know what James Spader sounds like. So yeah, I've seen him doing that kind of thing in other things, so yeah, I can feature that. I'll be more intrigued to know what your casting choice would be for the seductive flower woman.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Oh, oh now there's a I'll have to think about that.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about that as well. Well, uh by the end of the thing, we'll have a see what we've come up with.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

One springs to mind, and unfortunately I can't remember her name, but I'm going back to Star Trek for this, was the Green Orion woman dancer.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Oh, right, okay, nice. I could I could see that.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I can't remember her name, but visually, I think, yeah, that yeah, you know, I can see that. Yeah, that's a good question, though. Good question. And uh the fair the very first word, the very first name we get is Athley, who of course was uh made an appearance not a happy ending for her, in the maze of Maldweb, where she was the last woman to be turned to stone by the evil sorcerer. And of course, in the maze of Maldweb, we had Tiglari the hunter, who was her in inverted commas fiance, trying to rescue Athle from well, the maze of Maldweb. One of the great things about that story was Tiglari was full of love for Athlai and she barely knew he even existed.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah, was a classic sort of unrequired love at the end, wasn't it? But sticking on that thing, I love this line here. It's from this the final bit of this sentence is just chef's kiss, if you ask me. She was the last of the 51 women that Maldeweb had turned into statues in order to preserve their frail, corruptible beauty from the worm-like gnawing of time. The worm-like gnawing of time. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Quintessential Smith, isn't it? That yeah. Just everything about that. Yeah, it it's like in a way he's doing them a favour. In in his mind, perhaps he is. Oh yeah. But that, you know, I mentioned before that protagonist antagonist thing. Yeah, he's a bad guy, but he's got his own sort of morality as well, isn't he? As we see in this story, that makes him uh uh much more than a sort of two-dimensional evil sorcerer type.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Well, we've discussed this before, haven't we? That the best villains are the ones whose motivations you get. You know, you kind of agree with, but not the way they go about dealing with it, you know. They're always the most interesting villains. One goes, you know what? He's actually right. But wiping out the planet was maybe not the way to go about it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah. And Maud Webb has a problem. And I this made me laugh because I can't help but think that this was in the back of Smith's mind or even the front. I suffer from the frightful curse of omnipotence. Omnipotence sounds very much to me like impotence as well. That's kind of how I heard it. And he decides, I mean, the only people he's got to talk to are his lady statues, and of course he's got his robotic metallic servitors as well with scythes for arms, who agree with everything he says because that's how they've been programmed. And he decides there is but one remedy for this boredom of mine, the abnegation at least for a while, of that all too certain power from which it springs. Therefore I, Maldub, the ruler of six worlds and all their moons, shall go forth alone, unheralded, and without other equipment than that which any fledgling sorcerer might possess. In this way, perhaps I shall recover the lost charm of incertitude, the foregone enchantment of peril. Adventures that I have not foreseen will be mine, and the future will wear the alluring veil of the mysterious. So he's done everything, he rules the local solar system. What do you do next?

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah. You see, the board god trope is one that you you often find in sci-fi, uh, especially TV sci-fi. I mean, various Doctor Who villains could fall under the the board god trope. You know, Omega, all that kind of stuff, they all fall under that Eldrad as well. They all fall under that sort of board god that they just got bored of ruling over things and decided to go on go out and destroy shit instead, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, yeah. I I suppose that draws on Greek myth to uh a large extent, well, you know, they come down to earth various times, and then also you you're into your Star Trek, the Squire of Gothos, and those kind of entities who are godlike beings, and uh oh, let's just get these humans in and almost play with them like mice in a maze or something like that, just for their entertainment. Yeah, yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Well then, I mean, as we we discussed on the last IBC episode, discussing Ambrose Bears' Inhabited of Carcosa, that Smith is obviously inspired a lot by Greek myth, because I mean a lot it crops up a lot, but yeah, that whole concept of like civilizations reaching a pinnacle and then just falling into ruin was part of all that. So, yeah, that whole this whole concept is gonna be again, if not the back of Smith's mind, then the front of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yes, back of us in the back.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

And here we get some lovely description of this um this this is one of those uh solar system models, right, that you might have had as kids with the bits of wire and the sun in the middle and the planets going round kind of stuff. Or even I think I remember it was um like a hanging one. At one time as a kid, I was really big into astronomy, had a little telescope and a big poster of the moon, and it was like a little hanging mobile with the planets and also this is that, but in uh Zicarfian terms, the room was walled, floored, and vaulted with a dark crystal full of tiny numberless fires that gave the illusion of unbounded space with all its stars. In mid-air, without chains or other palpable support, there hung an array of various globes that represented the three suns, the six planets, and thirteen moons of the system ruled by a maladweb. The miniature suns, amber, emerald, and carmine, bathed their intricately circling worlds with an illumination that reproduced at all times the diurnal conditions of the system itself. The poison worlds were at level with his shoulders as he passed among them, disregarding the globes that corresponded to Morloth, Zikh, Ulasa, Nuf, and Hul, he came to Voltalp, the outermost, which was then in a felion on the farther side of the room. So he's got this amazing sort of setup that at first it sounds like, yeah, it's just a reference, but this is actually a gateway, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Yeah, it kind of reminds me when I'm a kid and you went to Jodrell Bank on school trips and they had the big planetarium thing in there. Oh yeah. Like the big, you know, big curved room with all the they project the solar system onto the onto the roof, and you basically lie down in rows and look at look all. I wonder if they still do that.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

I I think so, because I remember going to the one in Baker Street next to Madam Two Swords. They had the planetarium and they used to do like a laser show as well. This was when the laser beam was um was amazing technology. Yes. And they do things like they play the whole album of Dark Side of the Moon and have this stuff going, and yeah, well, we don't need to go any further into that, do we?

SPEAKER_02 27:05

In fact, it's funny you mentioned that because that there's in in the in Dudley, in the Black Country, there's uh the Black Country Museum, and obviously there's the canals and everything that go underneath the town, and there's a bit in there that yeah, you went in on a boat and you sat there in basically a man-made cave, and they do the same thing like the light shows for Pink Floyd. It's always Pink Floyd, isn't it? It's always dark side of the moon. But yeah, I went on one of those. Yeah, brilliant. Oh, and just but just before we move on, you said Bacchus in the back a minute ago, and my brain won't let that go. But is that is that an ancient Greek mullet, Bacchus in the back and Zeus in the front?

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Oh nice, sorry, I like it. Yes, even the humble mullet can trace its roots back to ancient prince. I always think when you see like those old paintings of of like the Germanic tribes, and it's like the the Britons had the sort of spiky hair and the woad, and uh the German tribes have those sort of mullet haircuts and big moustaches kind of thing when they were fighting the Romans at the Battle of Tutoburg Forest and all that stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Perhaps I'm just misremembering something.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

You you've seen a scorpion's music video.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah, but so Voltalp, which is a uh a sort of unusual name, isn't it? And again, I think Smith, as we know, he designs good aliens. He he does good names as well. Mornoff, Zikharth, Ulasa, Noof, and Rul. Yeah, they're all interesting sounding names. It's that minimalist world building again, or uh solar system building in this case. Three sons as well. That's that's a bit of a mindfuck, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 28:55

I don't think I'd like that. I have enough trouble with one. This heat wave has nearly killed me.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

You're going out with factor 158 on yes, just think of your local neighbourhood goth in this weather, folks. Just pop round and check there, okay? Take round some uh snake bite for them or something, cider and black.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

That's it. That's it. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's almost like when you see a bumblebee and you need to give it sugar water. If you see a goth wilted, give it some snake bite and black. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

So we get a very nice description of Voltap now. It was mottled with strange hues like a great cloudy opal, and the mottlings were microscopic oceans, isles, mountains, jungles and deserts. Peering closer as if into a crystal, the enchanter saw the mimic planet swell and deepen. Fantastic sceneries leapt into momentary salience, taken on the definitude and perspective of actual landscapes, and then faded back amid the iridescent blur. Glimpses of teeming multifarious life, incredible tableau, and monstrous happenings were beheld by Maldub as he looked down like some celestial spy. So this this is great. It's almost like uh it's like a remote viewing device, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 30:15

It's got actually brought to mind House in the Borderlands and that kind of thing. It's uh the all-seeing eye thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Hmm. And uh one thing I noticed here, we get a mention of various things, withens and vegetable monsters, but also the remarkable spawn of certain polar glaciers. Uh, this is this idea again of a glacier being uh a sentient being almost, which of course we see in uh hyperborea, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

And then something catches his eye. Um we don't really get what it is at first because we we just get his little internal dialogue. Uh oh, there's a situation not without interest. In fact, the whole affair is quaint and curious enough to warrant my intervention. I shall visit Voltelp. And true to what he says, it is not gonna go down there fully armed. He basically leaves all his stuff behind. Uh he even changes out of his robe of magisterial sable and scarlet, puts on a hodden mantle, so he's looking very uh very ordinary. Yeah. And he takes off all of his charms and talismans, with the exception of two phylacteries acquired in the years of his novitiate. So he's got two amulets on them, but they're very sort of basic ones. He left no instructions with his many retainers who served him because they're all automatons and they're gonna do their duties anyway. It's like don't forget to feed the cat. The cat's probably got two heads and six legs or whatever. But yeah. Nice. And then we get into another wonderful Smithian journey.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Yeah, I like this because it it kind of it almost brings to mind the sort of rainbow bridge from Norse legend.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Oh yeah, yeah. And we've got that idea of the maze in as well, hasn't we? As well, because it's it's going through what's described as a curious labyrinth, and he can see Zikarf rolling out before him, and it walks to the edge of this uh well, an estrade of black Samite, till he reached a narrow prominent promontory around which there hung at all times a deep and hueless cloud obscuring the prospect of the lands below and beyond. It's it springs to mind that there's something in a Robert E. Howard story this reminds me of, but I can't quite put my finger on it. They're standing on the edge of a precipice, and there's a this sort of weird cloud that fills the chasm below. Uh, I'm sure someone out there can remind me. Yeah, and he's got a silver drawbridge. So that's that's part rainbow bridge, that's part silver machine. And he manipulates this drawbridge so that it will fall upon the particular terrain that he desires to visit. Uh this is nice because it's part mystical, it's part mechanical and mathematical. It's that nice mix of science and magic again, we see so often.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah, it just reminds me of the daughter Saturn as well, because it's a similar mechanic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah, yeah. And a little bit of dreams in the witch house here as well, with going through angles. Of course. And if you go through the wrong one, you're gonna come back looking like a sort of Escher drawing, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So he steps through and he knows what he's doing. All his calculations have been correct. So he finally emerges from the cloud. Before him was the scene that had lured his interest in Boltelp. It was a semi tropic valley, level and open in the foreground, and rising steeply at the other extreme, with all its multiform fantasies of vegetation towards the cliffs and chasms of sable mountains horned with blood red stone. The amber sun, freeing itself slowly from the occultation of the sun of Carmine, had begun to lighten the deep hues and shadows of the valley with strange copper and orange. The emerald sun was still below the horizon. Wonderful colours again.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

I like the fact that these all these suns sort of give off different colours at different times of the day and things like that. It's a it's a very psychedelic planet, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 34:23

That is, that is. Um and and three suns, three colours, three lots of shadows, and it yeah, it's like constantly shifting, I suppose, isn't it? Like one of those old uh oil light shows. Oh, yeah. That kind of feeling, isn't it? So he goes down at the the mossy knoll that he stands upon. Have you ever stood on a mossy knoll, sir?

SPEAKER_02 34:45

No, not for not recently, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

And uh we get something that's actually this has been uh a common thing in the last few stories we've covered here and on IBC. The sirens. Yes. The plaintive singing of the sirens. And these are the creatures that he's come to see. These are the things that caught his interest. The singing came from a sisterhood of unusual creatures, half woman and half flower, that grew on the valley bottom beside a sleepy stream of purple water. There were several scores of these lovely and charming monsters, whose feminine bodies of pink and pearl reclined amid the vermilion velvet couches of billowing petals to which they were attached. These petals were borne on single mattress like leaves and heavy, short, well rooted stems. The flowers were disposed in irregular circles, clustering thickly toward the centre. Maldweb approached the flower women with a certain caution, for he knew that they were vampires. I mean, how cool is that?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

It is, it is. And yeah, you mentioned earlier Smith's creatures, because they these are just absolutely brilliant. And yeah, remind me of the vervoids in uh Doctor Who. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, to remind me of the Vervoids. Their arms ended in long tendrils, pale as ivory, swifter and more supple than the coils of darting serpents with which they were wont to secure the unwary victims drawn by their singing. Yeah, so I I like this recurrence of sirens at the moment. It's a it's a theme with Smith. It makes one wonder whether he'd been similarly enticed by a local lady at the around this time, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Sneered by uh yeah, into her arms. It's that lovely mix of world, which is very typical of Smith, of the the charming and the feminine and the attractive with yeah, fangs and tentacle-like arms and other oddities, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 36:58

If my my if my monster in my bed podcast host were here, she would she would she would hypothesize that Smith was an OG monster fucker. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yes, well, I I think there's uh very little argument to be made against that. Yeah. Well, isn't that the the three, isn't it? Lovecraft faints, Howard fights, Smith. And he he sort of circles around this group. He's being a little bit furtive at the moment, and he notices as he saw in his vision that the turf was upheaved and broken where five of the blossoms growing apart from their companions had been disrooted and removed bodily. Now we get a word here that's very unpleasant. I'm just going to mention this very quickly. He had seen in his vision the rape of the fifth flower, and he knew that the others were now lamenting her. Now, I imagine there that Smith is using rape with the classical meaning, which uh originates from the Latin rapare, which means to snatch or to grab or to carry off, such as in the the rape of the Sabines. Yes. So of course that is no more pleasant than how we would use that word today. But it it is a it's a slight thing, but it is a slightly different meaning, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

It's the the whole raping the land. Yes, apparently that's where yeah, rape and pillage came from. It was that car carrying off stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yes, indeed. Yeah, which fits in with the the depredators as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah, and of course the the fate that we find out what happens to these flower women when they are taken. They do notice him, however, and we get this lovely phrase suddenly as if they had forgotten their sorrow, the wailing of the flower women turns to a wild and sweet and voluptuous singing like that of the Laurelai.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Indeed. Yes, I've got a little bit about the Lorelei here, because it it all stems from a rock in the Rhine, and the original folklore of the Lorelei, because the rock and the murmur it creates have inspired various tales. And an old an old legend, the uh the first envisions dwarves living in caves in the rock. Now, in 1801, a German author, Clemens Brent Brentano, composed a ballad, Zubaccharach am Rhein, as part of a fragmentary continuation of a novel that he'd already written that tells the story of an enchanting woman who, in the poem, the woman was known as Lorle, who betrayed her sweetheart and was then accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Rather than her being put to death for this, the bishop consigned her to a nunnery. On the way to this, she came to the Loreleye Rock, asks for permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. Basically, she does so, and thinking that she sees her lover in the Rhine, jumps to her death. This was then expanded on into the myth that we all know now, which comes from Heinrich Heiner's 1824 poem, DeLorelei, which describes the feet the eponymous female as a sort of siren who sits on the cliff above the Rhine, combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracting shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks. So there you go. And the Lorelei has been used loads of different it's one of those myths and legends that's been used a hell of a lot in media. Um, I can name at least five goth songs off the top of my head called Lorelei. Most notably Lorelei by Corpus Delecti. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

I've seen that rock. We we went on a school trip when I was about 14 to Germany, to Koblenz, and as part of that, we went down the Rhine to uh Cologne uh where we have a remarkable cathedral in it. And yeah, so there's a couple of things we we didn't stop and look, but they were pointed out as we were going past on the coach at a couple of amazing castles up on the banks and the Lorelei Rock. Uh lovely part of the world, very nice round there.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Yeah, there's actually a Lorelei fountain memorial in the Bronx in New York City. Which is that's random. There's a statue in Germany as well, but there's one in the Bronx in New York, which is very strange.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Strange, isn't it? Yeah, you don't associate the Bronx with Germany so much, do you?

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Not really, no. You're more the Midwest, really, with Germanic settlers.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Uh and of course, as we mentioned before, Lorelei, mermaids, sirens, universal in in absolutely every culture. So many variations on that theme. Uh and I like in this, we we get this tied in with the vampire as well. Which I mean, when Smith was writing, vampires were pretty high up in the public consciousness. Uh Dracula must have been out about this time. Oh yeah. Early when did it come out? Was it 32 or something like that? Certainly quite early 30s, wasn't it? And of course the book had been around for quite some time. And the Dracula stage play was very successful as well. That toured over in the States. Uh I wonder if Smith ever saw it. I wonder if they toured Sam Fran.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

1931.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Oh, 31, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Yeah, so two years before Smith wrote this.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah, yeah. We can only speculate. Does anyone know out there if uh did Smith ever talk about Bram Stoker or Dracula in any sense? Uh uh, we we shall investigate that. We'll have a look through the some of the letters.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

So despite his knowledge of the flower women and what they do, uh, despite being determined not to fall for their lures, he does. He gets drawn in despite himself, doesn't he? And this is nice because it's not often you get uh a sort of first person description because normally in most stories, I think of all your karnakis and that kind of stuff, it happens to the bosun, doesn't it? Yes, or yeah, Roger the Cabin Boy or whatever it is, you know, it's disappeared over the side, sir, you know. Oh god, we we need a Pugwash William Hope Hodgerson matchup now. Oh my god, oh that's epic, isn't it? That is absolute please Captain Pugwash on the Sargasso C. Please, someone do that, someone out there with the music. So we get the first person experience. Contrary to his intention, half forgetful of the danger, he found himself emerging. From the lee of the lichen crested rocks. By insidious degrees the melody began to fire his blood with a strange intoxication. It sang in his brain like some bewildering wine. Step by step with a temporary loss of prudence for which later he was quite unable to account, he approached the canarous blossoms. That's um that's why that word confused me, I think, canaris. I thought this is like carnivorous, but now is referring to the sound they're making. And we get this lovely close-up description of them now. Their weirdly slanted eyes, like oblong opals of dew and venom, the snakey coiling of their bronze green hair, the bright, baneful scarlet of their lips that thirsted subtly even as they sang, awoke within him the knowledge of his peril. A little bit sort of Medusa-like as well.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

I got that. I got that impression as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

And uh he wakes up too late, is in range, they grab him, and uh I like this. They all stop singing and start to utter little cries of triumph.

SPEAKER_04 45:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yeah. Murmurs of expectation, like the purrings of hungry flame, arose from the nearest, who hope to share in the gor good fortune of the sorcerer's captress.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Now, here's a question with these uh these creatures, the flower women. Do you think they're all connected to each other?

SPEAKER_02 45:28

This is an interesting one because they're all connected by like the flower bed kind of thing. Yeah. Well, I don't know, because they do seem to have some kind of gestalt consciousness, but uh yeah, I guess that but they're all like telepathic link or something. Well, they do seem to have individ individual drive.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Yeah, yeah. I I asked because I remember reading something a little while ago about trees, and I I looked this up. Uh, this is from the Smithsonian. Beneath the soil, a symbiotic relationship forms between tree roots and mycorrhizal fungi. The fungal threads, there's a band name, the fungal threads, mycelium, wrap around and connect the root systems of multiple trees, linking an entire forest together. And through this system, the trees share resources so that they can actually feed a tree if they need to and send warning signals. So they've just discovered this out this fairly recently with trees, they're all talking to each other. It just feels like that that would fit this exactly. Like you say, they're all separate beings, but that they've got this very strange link underground.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

That is very interesting and has to be the inspiration for Resident Evil Village, because the village under spoiler alert, underneath it is the mutamycite, which is a giant fungus, which um basically anybody who dies gets the consciousness is in it, but it's links everything in the village, the people, the place itself. It's yeah, there has to be the inspiration that has to be.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

See, this this is where like Lovecraft and Co. were so ahead of their time, weren't they? They were positing this kind of idea way back, you know. And I often think, well, things that live deep under the sea, you know, there's nothing more Lovecraftian than science, is there?

SPEAKER_02 47:26

No, absolutely not. I mean, like since his death, look at some of the things we have discovered in the ocean. He'd have been they'd have freaked him out something chronic.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Or clapping his hands with glee. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then you get that exact thing, the more you know about what's out there, the more you just want to stay at home and watch Netflix. I'm in my little cave of ignorance, man. Don't don't disturb me.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Yeah, I feel like that every time the news feed kicks in. I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

So let me get this nice little thing because obviously Maldweb is a very powerful sorcerer. And before he came here, he did take the precaution of learning the true occult name which this creature shared with all others of her kind. So that that's a very old occult idea, right? And again, that goes well probably way back to Greek. Yeah. If you know a being's true name, you can exert some sort of control over them.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Yeah. That's obviously that's how Nancy defeats Freddie Krueger in the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Ah, yes, yeah, that's because it's the origin and all that, isn't it? Discover, yeah. And I I I thought this was nice. This is a lovely scene in some ways of uh he says, Oh, oh, your name is Bump. And they all sort of go, Oh, oh, and they forget straight away, they just drop the idea of fees feasting on him. They go, Oh, well, you're an interesting chap, aren't you? He does say there's an element of fear. The flower woman, with fear and wonder in her strange eyes, drew back like a startled lamia. But Mal Dweb, employing the half articulate sounds of her own language, began to soothe and reassure her. In a little while, he was on friendly terms with the whole sisterhood. I I almost imagine Smith in a social situation or just chatting to someone on a and by the end of it, he's got this little group of ladies around him, going, Oh, Mr. Smith. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Very what they would call back then a charmer.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Yes, yes. And he was right, they are mourning the loss of five sisters, and he discovers that the missing flowers have been carried away bodily. The depredators were certain reptilian beings, colossal in size and wings like pterodactyls, who came down from their new built citadel among the red and sable mountains at the valley's upper extreme. These beings, known as the Ispazars, seven in number, had become formidable sorcerers, developing an intellection beyond that of their kind, together with many esoteric faculties. Now, wizard lizard winged beings. Wizard lizards, all of it. I only say that because I've got a song called Wizard Lizard with one of my bands, but uh nice. In fact, I think Simon played bass on that one. But uh but anyway, I I I thought this was great. We go from vampire plant women to lizard men are not uncommon at the time. Robert Howard uses winged lizard men quite a lot in uh Almeric. Uh I think there's a Solomon Kane story with uh winged lizard men coming into the village. So they're they're kind of around, but of course Smith makes them powerful sorcerers as well. And I can't help thinking that seven is a significant number as well.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Well, it very very much is going into various myths and legends and folklore, isn't it? Seventh sons of seventh sons and all that kind of thing. Seventh seals, you know, back to the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Yeah. As Mr. Barrett saying, a movement is accomplished in six stages and a seventh brings return. Little e ching quote, I believe. And uh Maldweb has been aware of these, but he's kind of ignored them because you know they're small fry compared to him. But now he sees that actually these things have grown to be quite powerful and could present a problem in the future. So he's gonna pit himself against them with nothing other than his own wit and will. This is his challenge he's set for himself, this is his antidote to boredom and ennui.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

It kind of reminds me it's a midlife crisis, isn't it? Because it kind of reminds me of those guys they hit they hit 45 and all of a sudden they wanted to get into MMA or something, and then probably get their asses handed to them and just did the training, you know.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Oh yeah, yeah. But buy buy a guitar and join the band.

SPEAKER_03 52:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Buy a sports car. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

I I suppose we we don't know what age mousewebb is, do we? We we don't get any indication of that. I presume he's extremely long-lived uh through his uh sorcerer's activities, but uh yeah, this this is where I miss not having more of these and having a little series of the adventures of mousewebb. Agreed. So we get a little bit more detail about these Ispazars who live up in these uh hidden peaks. Hidden peaks unscaled by man and void of portal or windows, save in the highmost ramparts where the flying reptiles went in and out. And they told him other tales concerning the ferocity and cruelty of the Ispazars. But old MD has a plan. Basically, he's gonna hang around for a few days as it happens and wait for these things to turn up, and then uh he's gonna hitch a ride, as we'll see, and follow them back to their lair. And part of doing this is to use one of these amulets he's got and reduce himself to the proportions of a pygmy. So he he sort of shrinks himself down. It's a bit Alice in Wonderland, that isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:15

It is very much so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

And he climbs into the petals of one of the flower women, one that he determines is likely to be grabbed by the lizards.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

Well, it's the one that snared him, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Yeah, oh yes, yes. And uh he has a little nap. Now, this one we often talk about uh adaptations. Granted, this one would present a little bit more of a challenge, I think, if you're on a low budget. You say that.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

I went many times to a Granada Studios tour in Manchester, and that it was where they filmed a lot of the stuff, like they had the Baker Street that they used in the Jeremy Brett series and things like that. They had the sets there, and they were obviously the Coronation Street set with all the facades and the pub. You could go in the pub. Um in fact I nicked an ashtray.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Of course you did. I'd be disappointed if you didn't. Uh that's what we do. You had a bit of a pillage.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

So um, but they actually had sets from some adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Ah like a sit like there was like a sitting room with the giant teacups and the right table legs and all that kind of stuff, and um you know, the garden and everything, and the like giant pots.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

It was really really cool, really cool. Nice. I wonder if it was it was there a Michael Horden one and Spike Milligan and all those at one time, wasn't there?

SPEAKER_02 54:46

May have been. May have been. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

I mean Jonathan Miller, I think, did it. Who did um I whistle and I come to you. I've got a feeling that might have been a 70s thing or something.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Uh well that that would add up. That would that would figure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

And I I guess I mean the other side of that for an adaptation. I can't help thinking of uh Bill and Ben and little weed, little weed in the middle. Indeed. Yeah. So yeah, it would be uh would be an interesting adaptation. So we've got this tiny MD asleep uh wrapped in the petals of uh one of the flower women, is woken by dawn, glowing as if through locent curtains of ruby and purple. He heard the flower women murmuring sleepily to one another as they opened their blossoms to the early suns. Their murmurs soon changed into shrill cries of agitation and fear, and above the cries there came a vibrant drumming as of great dragon wings. Nearer they drew, and he saw their cold and scarlet eyes beneath scaly brows, their long and undulant bodies, their lizard limbs with prehensile claws, and he heard the deep articulate hitting of their voices. Then the petals closed around him blindly, shuddering and constrictive, as the flower woman recoiled from the swooping monsters. So really nice creatures again. I mean, I suppose these are a little more conventional, sort of lizard dragon men, uh, but still very effective.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

I like this little bit here because obviously he's carried off and there's a flight. And it's just this little bit here, I something about it I really like. A moment more, and the ruddy gloom of the shut petals darkened and purpled about him, as if they had passed from the sunlight into a place of deep shadow. I like, you know, I like that. I kind of the colour of the plant and changing with the light and everything. It kind of reminds me of, you know, when you're in a tent, and at different times of the day you'd get different hues through the canvas, depending on the brilliance of the sunlight.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

It's a nice little sort of attention to detail, isn't it? And again, it's one of one of those little things that Smith drops in every now and again that just adds depth to the scene, doesn't it? Yeah. And I also like how he whispers words of comfort to the dying blossom, because of course she's been ripped out of the ground. He felt the petals relax about him. He crept forth very cautiously and found himself in an immense, gloomily concamerated hall whose windows were like the mouths of a deep cavern. And we're back in uh Colossus of Elon territory, right, that kind of thing. This is the the sorcerer's lair. We've got alembics, coupels, furnaces, mattresses. And the nice thing is, this is all from the perspective of a very, very small Miles Webb as well.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

It's interesting because it's almost parallel to his own setup, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 57:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

But obviously he's seeing it through completely different eyes because he's shrunken.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

So he gets his second amulet out and returns himself to normal size. Uh, and there's this large cauldron filled with an unholy mixture of ingredients, including finely shredded portions of the missing flower women, together with the ghoul of chimeras and the amber grease of Leviathans. So there's some there's some proper old stuff going on here.

SPEAKER_02 58:09

I personally want to see an episode of him trying to harvest the amber grease of Leviathans.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

But he knows this stuff, he knows his alchemic law, and he can work out what this is for and what's it what it's about. The conclusion to which he was driven appalled him slightly and served to heighten his respect for the power and science of the reptile sorcerers. He saw indeed that it would be highly advisable to arrest their evolution. I don't think it actually says what that conclusion is. It's left to the imagination. But it's got to be pretty bad if MD is concerned by it. It's got to be something rather terrible. Yeah. And uh he basically he basically spikes their sort of potion here, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02 58:56

He does, yeah. Well, basically right back at the start, one of the reasons he's got this a new eye is that he's basically he's got no threat, he's got no competition, he's above everything. Now he's come looking for competition, and in this you get the improvisation that he's found it. If they if they'd have, you know, if their plan had come together with this potion, would they have possibly maybe defeated him? Is that the implication, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 59:25

Yeah, yeah. And uh he has a quick look around, say, because he knows his stuff, he he he knows what to put in this in order to get the effects he wants rather than the effect they want. Uh and just a lovely little shopping list here of what we've got on the shelves. Disregarding the moon powder, the coals of Starfire, the jellies made from the brains of gorgons, the icor of salamanders, the dust of the lethal fungi, the marrow of sphinxes, and other equally quaint and pernicious matters. The magician soon found the essences that he required. Quaint and pernicious, the marrow of sphinxes.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

I love that because that like that sounds to me like uh like a street in Oxford or Cambridge, you know, you know, because you think the bridge's size and all this kind of stuff, right? All these you know, you can just see it. Come on, Tarquin, let's head uh head down the marrow of Sphinxes to the pub.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

Nice, nice. I thought I might go into Tesco with that shopping list and ask.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

You got any icor of salamanders? And they'll probably say, Yeah, they're over there by the butter.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

It'll be in the world foods section, surely.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Yeah, cooks ingredients.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

That's the one that's the one that always gets me. Oh, they all cooks ingredients for fuck's sake.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Now the poor old flower woman has passed away. She had folded herself to the face in her straightened petals, as if in a red and blackening shroud. He regarded her briefly, not without commiseration. So, you know, he has got some feeling in there, MD, despite what he is. And this is where the magnificent seven return, the return of the seven. They came toward him among the crowded vessels, walking erect in the fashion of men on their short lizard legs, their ribbed and sable wings retracted behind them, and their eyes glaring redly in the gloom. Two of them were armed with long sinuous bladed knives, and others were equipped with enormous adamantine pestles, to be employed, no doubt, in bruising the flesh of the floral vampire. The floral vampire I'm thinking of Terry Wogan now, the floral dance.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

This description brought to mind the the dark crystal, the Skexis. It's kind of similar to them, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:55

Yeah. And the other thing I get here is very much Howard's serpent men, the the King Cole stories. Yeah. Because when they see him, they get angered, their necks and torso began to swell like the hoods of cobras, and a great hissing rose among them like the noise of jetted steam. So yeah. MD is a dude. Not much that phases him, is there, really?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

No, no, I like how blase he is about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

And we get this really nice sort of battle now, which is part sort of physical, but also part magical. Because of course they rush him. This was nice. Some running along the floor with an undulant slithering motion, others rising on rapid beating bands to attack him from above. But he's created this false field around himself through the utterance of a word of power. They decide to fight sorcery with sorcery. This is great DD stuff now again, isn't it? This is the final battle, the boss battle.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

Yeah, it's roll a six time, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

We've got great bolts of livid flame, python shaped, which leapt and writhed incessantly, warring with the sphere of protective power, driving it back as a shield is ribbon by press of numbers in battle. Also, they chanted evil sibilant runes that were designed to charm away the magician's memory and cause him to forget his magic. I thought that was a that was very inventive. Yeah, you blast him with a sort of lightning bolt or something, but attack his mind and take his memory away. Very nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

Well, it's like he cast the spell of confusion, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

And he is struggling a bit here, right? This is by no means uh a walkov for him, as powerful as he is, but he manages to hold on to his word of power, and we start to hear the deep hiss of the cauldron, so that basically is getting ready to blow. And it starts giving off fumes, nicely described as dark as the steam of a primal fen. Soon the Ispazars were immersed in the fumes as in a cloud of darkness, and dimly they they began to coil and twist, convulsed with a strange agony. The python flames died out on the air, and the hissings of the Ispazars became inarticulate as those of common serpents. And this is um we are not lizards, we are devo, right?

unknown 1:04:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

D E V O because he he he sends them back to a sort of former evolutionary shape.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:25

Yeah, I like how they all like the thrilled one back to being a frilled lizard or almost like a bearded dragon or something, you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Uh except for one. Well, before the fall change, he allows one of them into his sphere and that protects him. The creature fallen at his feet like a tame dragon, acknowledging him for its master. And the others are basically just yeah, turn into little lizards and snakes. And um, well, that's it, they're done. Yep. MD's quite pleased with himself. He's uh won a little bit of fight, it'd been a difficult, even dangerous struggle. So that's sorted his boredom out, at least for now, for the nonce, as it says. And uh is ridding the flower women of their persecutors. He's done a good deed there for the lady vampire flowers, and also eradicated a possible future menace to his own dominion. So he's got the uh Ispazar that he spared, he gets on the back of that, spoke a magic word that was understood by the monster, and bearing him between its wings it rose and flew obediently through one of the high windows, leaving behind it forever the citadel that was not to be scoured by man nor by any wingless creature. And I thought the o the only thing that let this down, this story, was I thought the ending was a little bit kind of oh, as it happens in this edition, it finishes at the very bottom of a page, and I sort of turned it over, expecting a little bit more, and that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Yeah, and I I quite like the ending. What's he gonna do with this dragon? Going to turn it into a statue because it bears him back and they go across the bridge. And then we get this final paragraph. Midway in that peculiar transit, he heard a sharp, sudden clapping of wings. It ceased with remarkable abruptness and was not repeated. Looking back, he found that the Ispazar had fallen from the bridge and was vanishing brokenly amid irreconcilable angles in the gulf from which there was no return.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:31

Yeah, so did it throw itself off the bridge or did it just slip or what we we don't know, but that's that's gone into the uh the non-Euclidean space never to return.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

Yeah. Again, though, I mean it's that weird fiction thing of leave you leave and wanting more, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

But yeah, you are right, it is very abrupt. Yeah, it's a good little story. It's um what I find I found out something quite interesting about this is that HPL wasn't the biggest fan of it. He actually said in a he actually said in a letter to Robert Barlow that yes, Clark Ashen Smith's flower women is below par.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

Oh, that's interesting. I can't really see that in terms of language and and plot or anything else. No, strange. I don't really get that, especially compared uh to some of those that we haven't liked so much. I'd I'd still put this up in uh top tier.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:27

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's also another little quote here with Smith with um HPL talking to Robert Block. Lovecraft had basically agreed with Block when Block had said that Smith produces too much, that is the tragedy of economic necessity. He knows that much of his stuff is hack junk, yet has to keep grinding it out for the sake of cash. I don't think that applies to this story, because I I actually really like this story, but that does apply to some of the scientific because Smith's admitted as much.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

I I would say almost totally to the scientist fiction, particularly the um well, except in the Mars stories. Yeah, well, they're a different beast altogether. Yeah, yeah, they're they're not they're more horror stories, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

Oh yeah, they're they're almost pure survival horror before survival horror was a thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Yeah, yeah, bombis and and everything else. But yeah, I think when it comes to Averroy and Hyperborea, uh and even some of the Auburn cycle, that's very much what Smith enjoys writing, is the feeling I get.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

And some of those the adventures of Captain Arsenal and all that, yeah, yeah, a little more, and then and then and then and then uh and we'll picked up before on a lot of the same plot ideas used the day of smashing her and all that kind of thing. Yeah. Go to a planet, get captured, escape, press the big red button to destroy the planet, which they told you, don't press that big red button or it destroys the planet, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:56

Yeah, and you get the impression they were purely for pecuniary reasons because of the amount of action in them. Because there's always that bit when they after they've been captured, the escape, it always goes on and on and on, and you get the impression it's like, right, they want action, I'm gonna give them action, and let's get I'm being paid by the word, so let's get the coin out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Yeah, they're normally quite long, those stories as well, aren't they? They are amongst the longer ones. They are, yeah. And I don't know, we we I've not really been keeping score. I suppose we could go back and check through them all, but it'd be interesting to see the ones that Smith rejected first time or sometimes even second time against those scientific fiction ones. Were most of those accepted straight away, I wonder.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

That's interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

I I can't really think. My my instinct would be to say that the scientific fiction ones were accepted quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

Well, generally they were taken by astounding stories and things like that, because Gernsbach tended to go for that kind of thing. Uh in fact, it was working to order for a while. Clayton kept asking him for that's why you ended up with the Volmar stuff in the first place. And wasn't it wasn't it astounding stories where they did the Mar the Seed, the Martian seed, the competition one the competition one, yeah. I think that was astounding stories. It wasn't weird tales, I know that off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

I mean, looking back, there's a thing that this would be the equivalent of today. Um, there's gonna be a competition, and you're gonna pitch story ideas, and we're gonna take the best one, and Ramsay Campbell's gonna write a novella about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

And the one that wins, or I think it was second, wasn't it? I think, is uh they go to Mars, they find a rock. They come back again. It's a very sort of dull plot idea, wasn't it? Really? Yeah. What a what a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

I suppose he did what he could with it, but he was working within quite a uh a fixed remit, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

Oh yeah, he was heavily briefed. Yeah, it was heavily briefed.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

But there we go, if people at the time didn't know or didn't hear, or it it's just pulp fiction, it's just weird tale stuff, isn't it? So it wasn't uh throwaway stuff, basically, you know, and the fact that they these stories have survived so long and become increasingly popular and led to this huge uh outpouring of creativity across music and video games and art and writing is quite way beyond anything they could have imagined back then, I I would think.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Yeah, I would agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:41

So, the flower women, the final story in the collected fantasies volume four, The Maze of the Enchanter. Of course, Nightshade Press. That leaves us one volume to go. Now, to wrap up this season, next time we're actually going to put out a a bonus, a patron bonus episode because you may remember previously on the patron episode, we were talking about the Book of Jade by David Park Barnett's. This was a collection of poems published in 1901, and the author was anonymous at the time, it actually came out after his death. Well, there's various opinions around what happened to him very shortly after, and this is decadent and necromantic poetry to the nth degree. I managed to get hold of a copy uh just recently. So I'm gonna do uh an episode looking at the book of Jade, reading some of the poems, discussing something about the author's life and his family background as well. It's very interesting. Uh, following that, we shall do a season wrap-up as we normally do, as Tim mentioned at the start, chatting about some of our favourites across this season, uh, some of the things that have come up. And we would like, of course, to invite you, dear listener, to add your thoughts to that as well. Your favorite story from this season, your least favourite story, any little sidelines or rabbit holes that we may have missed, anything that we stand to be corrected on, which is generally most of it. Pronunciations, definitely. Yeah, and I'd expect we'll choose our favourite words out of our favourite words as well. I think we should do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:25

Yeah, and we're gonna have a roundup as well of uh any outstanding mail and correspondence that we may have missed or haven't had time to get in. So yeah, rest assured if you sent us something and you and we haven't read it out or reacted to it, we are gonna endeavour to do so in that episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

Absolutely. I'm pleased to say we've got a lot of correspondence coming in now. We've had quite a few new people sign up on the Insmith Forum, so we've got some great stuff going on there. We've got some comments on YouTube, of course, by email and on Patreon. Speaking of which, I'd like to welcome Ursula Quest as our latest patron. Thank you very much for signing up, Ursula. If you'd like to join her in supporting the show, check out the Patreon site, where of course, on signing up, you get access to bonus content for Strange Shadows and the Innsmouth Book Club. You get your quarterly PDF of Innsmouth News, which will be going out in probably two or three weeks' time, the summer version, and free entry to the Innsmouth Literary Festival. So there we go. Thank you very much for joining us, dear listener. Do hope you can join us for that bonus episode next time, and of course, send in your comments and questions for our season wrap-up. With that, hissingly as I beat my vans and rays into the air. It's goodbye from me, Rob Poyton.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:52

And it's goodbye from me as I curl up and pull my petals around myself to Mendies.