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Episode 546 - Empire of the Necromancers (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-06 16:10:47
Imported:
2021-07

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Content

A month of sword-and-sorcery stories kicks off with Clark Ashton Smith's Empire of the Necromancers!

Special thanks to reader Levi Nunez - check out LOOT THE BODY at Bandcamp!

Next up: The Sunken Land by Fritz Leiber

Comments

Andrew M. Reichart

So glad y'all are covering this gem. Can't wait to listen.

Anonymous

Come on guys, the name is staring you in the face! You MAY call it; Clark-Ashton Smithber!

Jamie Brittain

‘If I Was A Necromancer’ is my second favourite Beyoncé song

Anonymous

I got the impression that you missed the part where the necromancers found the least withered of the female corpses to have sex with.

Anonymous

"Chamberlains and princes of old time were their cupbearers, and stringed instruments were plucked for their delight by the slim hands of empresses with golden hair that had come forth untarnished from the night of the tomb. Those that were fairest, whom the plague and the worm had not ravaged overmuch, they took for their lemans and made to serve their necrophilic lust." Lemans is old timey for mistress.

Richard Horsman

May-ty Thews? Also Greig Johnson was on an episode of Beef and Dairy Network recently, a weirdass podcast that is very much worth everyone's time.

Richard Horsman

No wait: Might and May-n! Eh? Eh??

Anonymous

Great episode guys! I must say that I was also really feeling the Evil Dead 2 discourse that got going for a bit. Perhaps Evil Dead 2 could be a bonus episode sometime down the line? Hint hint nudge nudge.

Anonymous

Fun fact: an archaic word for spell is "gramarye." (Pronounced "grammary," pretty much.) Why do I bring this up? Instead of a play on Sword & Sorcery, you could opt for linguistic fabulosity by calling this month "Glaives & Gram-May-ries!"

Anonymous

Moral of the story? Cremation is the only insurance for a peaceful afterlife.

Anonymous

Danse MAYcabre

Anonymous

I'm with you on R2-D2 and his bartending job on Jabba's barge. He's a droid who clearly gets on with the task at hand and does it to the best of his ability. Taking pride in your work, R2, that's the way. If it had all gone South for the heroes at that point we could have had a sequel where twenty years later he was still there, best damn bartender on Tatooine.

Anonymous
>>59321551

My love for ED2 is boundless, so I agree. Maybe an aside about ED: The Musical, which I worked on in its home base of Toronto, before and after it went off-Broadway.

Anonymous

Monster Manual MAYhem Massacre? This story further proves what a solid call Aragorn made at Pelennor Fields. Armies of the Undead are always good in a pinch, but too much ruins the flavor.

Anonymous

You can't have a sword-and-sorcery month without Robert E. Howard! How about some more Solomon Kane? Also, why not just "Sword-and-SorcerMay"?

Anonymous

A great Manly Wade Wellman “Silver John” story I recall with a bit of warlockery is One Other. Recommended!

Anonymous

I definitely love post Apocalyptic Sword & Sorcery!

Anonymous

Chris wasn’t too far off with his guess at the translated subtitle of Nekromantik 2 - according to Wikipedia, it’s Die Rückkehr der Liebenden Toten (The Return of the Loving Dead). I guess ‘2 Nekro, 2 Romantik’ and ‘Nekromantik Boogaloo” just didn’t make the cut.

Anonymous

Though not at the top of my list of stories by Smith, this is a good one. There are similar themes in his "Necromancy in Naat" story. As you two point out, there is a common theme in many Smith stories, which is that the living take some envy in the simple peace of the dead. I wouldn't begin to presume what that has to say about Smith's psychology, but it was a trope he liked to use, especially for the characters that fall morally on the darker shade of grey. Related to Smith, I've started to go back through and read some of Shea's Dying Earth / Nifft the Lean books as well recently, and they would be an entertaining detour to consider. One a tangental note, another more thought-provoking story about being haunted by the undead (perhaps through a more sci-fi kind of necromancy) is Solaris. The novel is a fascinating look into the psychology of its crew members, and has a healthy dose of the strange and unexplained. It is a little slow, but in this case it's a good quality for the story. Not nearly the same as the swashbuckling and sorcery of Howard, Smith, and others, but perhaps worth considering?

Anonymous

Not sure what you have in the pipeline but as this is a Smith story I figured this would be a good place to put these recommendations. Metamorphosis of the Earth - This is an amazing Smith story that would be great for a sci-fi or venus themed month. In it a group of Venusians come to earth and begin to terraform the plant. It has a real apocalyptic view as its told in a global perspective and really shows humanity banding together to fight these invaders. Murder in the Fourth Dimension - This is a simple but fun story and with a title like that try to tell me your not curious. This is basically Cask of Amontillado + From Beyond and its horrifying and pulpy in every sense of the word

Anonymous

One thing that I’ve been reminded of is how many times civilizations have moved into “abandoned’ lands. North America is the most obvious to us here in the US - but the Arab conquest in the Near East was definitely enabled by massive plagues that swept through the Eastern Roman Empire, and even the barbarians in Western Empire, Italy was wracked with massive plagues... Also many regions after the Mongols and many parts of Far East Angkor Wat and so forth. I’m sure Smith was super aware of these histories.

Anonymous

It's not suitable for the podcast, as the author is still alive and writing, but the Kyle Murchison Booth stories by Sarah Monette are horror/mystery short stories about a reclusive curator in a museum who, when he was younger, unwisely dabbled in necromancy for a friend and ended up cursed with the ability to see ghosts. They ghosts don't communicate effectively, but they do follow him around and wear on his nerves until he finds out what their deal is and addresses it. A recommended necromantic fave.

I Like the Cut of Your Gibbering

You know, Chad was talking about Smith being sleepy when writing these stories as how Ylourne, but can we talk about his obsession with being cut up? You have Satampra Zeiros (Olympia Dukakis for those listening at home) losing an arm to the Formless Spawn The flopping spawn of Abhoth sometimes being just straight appendages limping about. You have Knygathin Zhaum from Athammaus being beheaded several times before turning into the ooze monster to end them all. Plus the titular mage in Return of the Sorcerer. In fact, didn't that one have a WICKED SORCERER BEING RESURRECTED FROM SEVERAL DISMEMBERED APPENDAGES?! Now that you guys were talking about time loops, how do we know these necromancers didn't flop back in time?

Anonymous

While Chad works on his Colossus of Ylourgne movie, I will be working on my adaptation of Empire of the Necromancers

feedergoldfish
>>59316704

Wow, just noticed this comment. I'm a big fan. Benjamin Partridge also did a hilarious podcast mini series called Ray Moss: No Stone Unturned, where he plays a podcast detective and truth seeker. It's part of a BBC Radio 1 podcast called Kench (I'm not a fan of Kench). You can listen to the Ray Moss episodes here: https://www.benjaminpartridge.com/Ray-Moss-No-Stone-Unturned