Clark Ashton Smith is a favorite of mine. This little collection of 14 shorts (previously published in magazines) is a dandy. The real gems here for me are the haunting and biblically reminiscent (slightly) "Xeethra"; in which a young boy becomes part of the past in a most demonical way (I promise this story will haunt you for a long while), and "The Empire of the Necromancers" where 2 necromancers raise hell. heh heh. Lots of other great stuff here like "The Witchcraft of Ulua". The stories are grouped into their respective worlds; those being of "Zothique", "Vulthoom", "Hyperborea", and " Lost Worlds. I believe the most disturbing characters here are to be found in "The Charnel God". O, such a horrid picture Smith paints for us; I can literally envision Mordiggian's priesthood without their silver skull masks, enjoying their dinner of corruption. ( )

A Voyage of Sfanomoe (Poseidonis, Beautiful imagery, cool exotic world but not much of a surprise ending. I can think of 2 or 3 better alternative endings.)
-
Master of the Astroid (Other Worlds (only in this book), Very cool but ending could have been better. I love the insainity of floating in space thing and the bodies following the ship.)
-
Monsters in the Night (also called A Prophecy of Monsters) (Other Worlds (only in this book), werewolf thins he's the hunter but becomes the hunted when he attacks a robot.)
-
The Charnal God (Zothique:Kind of like a Conan novel without Conan)
-
The Coming of the White Worm (Hyperborea, Very original, not that great, but incredibly strange)
-
The Empire of the Necromancers (Zothique:Obvious plot, but still cool)
-
The Gorgon (Other Worlds (only in this book), Fiend tempts people in to see the Gorgon's head and then try's to make them look at it and turn to stone. Creepy and cool.)
-
The Immesurable Horror (Other Worlds (only in this book) Giant blobs moving around eating everything and it's so fertile it all just grows back in a couple hours. The creepy thing is that the blobs followed the space ship.)
-
The Monster of the Prophecy (An alien takes a human to his planet to fulfill a prophecy that will make him the king. Then the alien is chased away by a coup and the man is left behind to fall in love with an alien beast. Bad ending.)
-
The Seven Geases (Hyperborea, too repetitive but some cool ideas.)
-
The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan (Hyperborea, greedy guy chases rolling gems into a cave with a monster. Fun and exotic.)
-
The Witchcraft of Ulua (Zothique:More like a fragment, needed more development)
-
Vulthoom (Two guys on mars meet the devil of mars and try defeat him, at least for 1000 years.)
-
Xeethra (Zothique:Doomy and Picturesque) ( )