Monday, October 6, 2014

Cromtober, Part I: "The End of the Story," by Clark Ashton Smith



Hile, traveler! I bid you, please come out of the storm. Here... Have a hot meal and some tasty wine before we retire to the library to discuss 'many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.' What's that, you ask? Pay no mind to that parchment! 

"It is better not to ask.. . There is a curse on the pages that you hold in your hand: an evil spell, a malign power is attached to them, and he who would venture to peruse them is henceforeward in dire peril both of body and soul." 


In our first Cromtober episode of 2014 we tackle a Clark Ashton Smith story! It's The End of the Story, first published in 1930 in Weird Tales. If you don't have a copy of it, read it here for free!

And we had some spooky 'One Things' as we prep ourselves for Halloween....

Jon: Reader's Digest's Mysteries of the Unexplained
Josh: Colin Wilson's The Occult: A History
Luke: Ray Bradbury's The October Country

Don't forget that you can support The Cromcast (we need to eat too) by signing up for your free trial of Audible at audibletrial.com/thecromcast. We recommend trying out the CAS Anthology, "The End of the Story," which includes the eponymous tale.

Finally... Jonesin' for some additional CAS discussion? Don't forget to check out The Double Shadow!

Our episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ The spooky organ intro comes from (we think) the public domain (via the YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2RP1GivOqo). The ending music is a portion of Type O Negative's "Blood and Fire" (Out of the Ashes Remix). Used without permission. RIP Peter Steele! All music was obtained legally (Oh yeah.... Who remembers the Mortal Kombat OST)?!?! We hope our discussion of this content makes you want to go out and purchase their work.

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