Atlantean Prayerbook

After running some errands and eating a gut-busting lunch at a local Indian restaurant with a buffet special, I headed over to the local brick-and-mortar bookstore and picked up a copy of the newly released Penguin Classics edition of The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, a collection of the prose and poetry of the Atlantean High Priest Klarkash-Ton.

"You silly Bastard", you might say, "All of that literature is available at the excellent website The Eldritch Dark- a website you've linked to a number of times!" You might also point out the fact that I have produced cut-and-paste documents of a lot of the material on that website, converted them to PDF, and arranged them into folders with the pertinent groupings, such as "The Averoigne Tales" and "The Commoriom Myth Cycle"... and you'd be correct. Why? Why? Why, did you buy a copy of this book?

There are two main reasons for my purchase, one noble and one kingly. The noble reason for buying the book is that steady sales will guarantee that it stays in print, and on the shelves of the few bookstores that remain standing, so that an individual browsing the shelves may happen upon it and buy it. The kingly reason for making this purchase is because it's a lot easier to read a paperback book than it is to read a PDF file when I am cogitating on my porcelain throne in my tiled inner sanctum. Can't be booting up the laptop every time nature calls.


Postscript: I was somewhat surprised that The Seven Geases, one of Smith's best known tales, and a major inspiration for Bastard fave The Eyes of the Overworld, isn't in this book. It's just as well, though, that tale has been anthologized numerous times... nice to see some of the more obscure works make it back into print.