Randolph "Dilda" Carter

This last volume in the Collected Fantasies loses a point for the weakness in Smith's latter tales, especially those after the early 1930's. It is clear that Smith just didn't have the spark anymore once he was not financially bound to getting stories published. A strange situation, opposite probably to what most authors feel about themselves when they crave the budgetary freedom to be able to write what they want. A couple of the stories are embarrassingly bad.

Even the earlier sections of this volume are mostly stories Smith wrote from old ideas he had sketched out and the sameness of the stories stands out at times. Still there are plenty of good stories about Zothique, Hyperborea, and Averoigne here, enough to satisfy even the casual Smith fan.

Nightshade Books did a great job with these 5 volumes. The story notes are in depth and interesting and the bibliographies are great. Unlike earlier Nightshade collections (Jorkens, Hodgson, Wellman), they jacketed these and that is a real plus.