The Double Shadow

On my diurnal commute, shortly after the hour when I am accustomed to delivering my one decade-old young progeny to her institute of learning this very morn, I had the pleasure of listening--not to the desultory hum of the expressway along which I sped with all dispatch--but rather to the modulating and hypnogogic tones of one William L. Hahn, as he read aloud a bleak tale that has darkened my horizons on more than a single, fateful occasion. It has been said of Smith that he, "is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer dead or living" and that should you, "Take one step across the threshold of his stories ... you plunge into color, sound, taste, smell, and texture -- into language." I find those statements, for me, to be true. The Double Shadow, which has now been so expertly narrated by Mr. Hahn, has long for me been a favorite of Smith's yarns. The novice might be warned, however, that to immerse oneself into Smith is to dive into the use of language that a neophyte might find a scintilla overwhelming. But quail not before the masterful artistry of Smith's when it comes to assembling phrases and yarns; rather, persevere. And should you have to look more deeply into the meaning of a word, why--you'll only be the richer for it, not the poorer. As to the chronicle itself, it is one of the best-told horror-narratives ever penned, detailing as it does a wizard's conjuration and the many necromantic things that gang aft agley in the course of the evocation of runic sorcery. Smith really dialed up the atmosphere for this story of his, which is a member of his Poseidonis cycle, with strong, descriptive passages like this: "...in my master's marble house above the loud, ever-ravening sea, I write this tale with a hasty hand, scrawling an ink of wizard virtue on the grey, priceless, antique parchment of dragons..." For those familiar with both CAS and The Double Shadow, the thing to look for here is the element that I feel that Smith--who was fond of roaming out-of-doors, reading aloud his prose to test its meter--would enjoy were he still with us today: Hahn's equally masterful narration. I enjoyed it immensely, from that first utterance to that final denouement. I think anyone would. Alas, poor Oigos.