This collection of short stories is part two of a reprint of the first collection of Smith's work, published by Arkham House in 1941. These stories are less linked by their setting than in volume 1 and instead an attempt has been made to group them by theme, such as 'Judgments and Dooms'. Only the middle section stories share a setting of Smith's: in this case the mythical land of Hyperborea.

In some respects, I found the stories less satisfying than those in volume 1, as some are a bit 'so what' such as 'The Last Hieroglyph' - the sequence of events play themselves out to a long foreseen conclusion, and I wondered why the god had seen fit to summon those characters to their ends prematurely. 'Sadastor' is unusual in being a story told by a demon to cheer up a young lamia! 'The Death of Ilalotha' is a tale of the attractions of a woman, exerted sorcerously beyond the grave. 'Return of the Sorceror' provided some genuinely creepy moments until the reason why the narrator has been employed by a nervous recluse in an old house is revealed and I think over-egged: I would have found it more unsettling if the "noises off" which the narrator kept hearing were really caused by oversized rats.

The three stories in the Hyperborean section were the least successful for me as two of them had the 'so what' conclusions I had noted earlier. Only 'Ubbo-Sathla' provided more interest with its twist ending that the method used by a sorcerer to travel back in time to read certain stone carvings has the ironical result that the viewpoint shared by himself and his 1933 incarnation causes him to lack the intellectual capacity to even realise the original goal has been reached.

I enjoyed the stories in the last part of the book most. Under the heading 'Interplanetaries' is firstly 'The Monster of the Prophecy', a longer tale about a man who is taken to Antares by a being who has been living on Earth in the guise of a human. The alien society and eventual fate of the man, who is not told the real reason for his being saved from a suicide brought on by depression, has an interesting twist and - rarely for Smith - a happy ending.

I especially liked 'The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis' which is set on Smith's version of Mars, encountered in other collections: a Mars with just breathable air and the remnants of ancient civilisations, including a still-existing race. Two members of this race act as guides to a team of human archaeologists who want to explore a remote ruined city left behind mysteriously by an earlier Martian race. Being a modern reader rather than the 1930s readership who would originally have read these tales, one particular aspect acted as a spoiler as soon as the narrator described a mural found in subterranean tunnels beneath the ruin, because of its partial similarity to a famous film trope, but this story benefits from a driving plot, the building of suspense, action scenes, and less of Smith's tendency to overdo the purple prose and the use of a Thesaurus. The book finishes with a couple of two-page vignettes which are descriptions rather than stories.

The more enjoyable read of the final section brought up the rating for me to a solid 3 star read. ( )

This collection of short stories seems to have been a reprint of the first collection of Smith's work, published by Arkham House in 1941. In this first volume, his first ever published story, 'The End of the Story' appears and a couple of other stories set in Averoigne, his imaginary province of France which I've encountered in collections read previously. In that first story a scholarly young man at the end of the 18th century has left behind an account which explains his disappeance after he was lost in the woods travelling to his father's house and was put up by a hospitable monastery. Unfortunately, the very select library, shown to him by the abbot, included a manuscript which the abbot warned him not to read because it was accursed and this acted on the young man's curiousity until the inevitable happened.......

In 'The City of the Singing Flame' Smith's imagination is given full rein, in an account of a man who inherits a manuscript left behind by his friend who has vanished, and who follows him through a gateway to another dimension. Strange wonders and creatures abound in this tale, but unlike some similar stories by Smith, this one has more of a proper plot and is less of a travelogue/description of odd lifeforms.

On the whole I liked the stories in the first part of the book better. One in the second half, 'The Dark Eidolon', was reminiscent of some of the very over the top tales of evil sorcerors which I have previously encountered in this writer's work. The last story, however, told by the apprentice of a wizard, has a creepier effect. Altogether, given the mix of effective and not so effective tales I rate this as a mid-range 3 star read. ( )

I didn't really enjoy this one as much as I did the first volume. In the first volume, I was struck by the fact that I really picked up on the time/space distortion and dislocation that came through loud and clear in Clark Ashton's Smith's work. In Volume 2, the theme didn't really carry through as well, but there were some really great stories in here.

Out of 11, there were 6 that I very highly recommend; you'll see a lot of mythos-related themes in these. These are

The Return of the Sorcerer (very Lovecraftian)
The Last Hieroglyph
The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan
The Testament of Athammaus (in which we meet Tsothaqqua)
Ubbo-Sathla (a really creepy story)
and The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis (archaeology on Mars)

The others were good, but this anthology is like any other...there are always some you like much more. I am so fortunate to have found these two volumes at a price I could afford; an incredibly valuable addition to my mythos collection.

If you want some really good horror (that you have to think about!) don't miss this one or Volume I. ( )