The City of Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith Episode #234

Clark Ashton Smith | July 9, 2024

The City of Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith Episode #234
Clark Ashton Smith

THE CITY OF SINGING FLAME

Episode #234 · Written by Clark Ashton Smith · Narrated by Scott Miller

A lonely stretch of stone in the Sierras conceals a passage no geologist could chart. Step between two weathered boulders and the world falls away, replaced by violet fields, towering monoliths, and a city of red ramparts rising beneath a sunless amber sky.

At the heart of that impossible city, something sings. The sound is piercing and sweet, almost unbearable in its beauty. It does not merely echo through corridors of colossal stone. It threads itself into the nerves, brightens the blood, and promises a moment of triumph so intense that nothing afterward could compare. Pilgrims arrive from unknown realms, drawn by the same irresistible call. Some watch. Some waver. Some move forward when the green flame climbs toward its peak.

The city’s inhabitants do not interfere. They stand like carved deities and observe as visitors choose their fate. Each return to the shrine makes the music harder to resist. Each step closer narrows the distance between wonder and annihilation. When the melody rises and the flame burns highest, the choice becomes simple and terrible.

First published in 1931 in Wonder Stories, “The City of Singing Flame” quickly distinguished itself as one of Clark Ashton Smith’s most enduring works. It was later nominated for Hall of Fame recognition in fan publications that sought to preserve the finest early science fiction and fantasy. Even decades later, its imagery of alien architecture and fatal ecstasy retains undiminished force.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) was a leading contributor to Weird Tales during the 1920s and 1930s and a close correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. His fiction cycles set in Zothique, Hyperborea, and Averoigne established him as one of the most distinctive stylists in imaginative literature. Stories such as “The Dark Eidolon,” “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,” and “The Uncharted Isle” demonstrate the same ornate precision and vast sense of scale found in “The City of Singing Flame.” A published poet before he turned to pulp magazines, Smith brought a sculptor’s attention to language and atmosphere. This story stands among his finest achievements, a work that helped define the strange and exalted possibilities of early science fiction and fantasy.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to The City of Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith — a vintage science fiction short story of a hidden city and a deadly, hypnotic flame beyond our world.

ABOUT THE LOST SCI-FI PODCAST

The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.8 million listens.

Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.

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