The Book of Eibon Horror Book Review

The Book of Eibon, the creation of Clark Ashton Smith, ranks behind Lovecraft’s Necronomicon as a shunned repository of mystical horrors surviving blasphemously from elder eons. Not content with his own and Lovecraft’s citations of the Book, Smith actually wrote two chapters of it, his famous stories “The Door to Saturn” and “The Coming of the White Worm.” Lin Carter knew a good thing when he saw it and decided it would be fun to write and to read the remaining Eibonic chapters. So he took in hand to write a number of them, intending to finish the book one day. This he did not live to do, but others took up the fallen banner, supplying more of the droll yet frightening episodes, as well as various liturgical and magical arcana the Book of Eibon was said to contain. The result is truly impressive, much more so than any previous attempt to compose such a Mythos grimoire, a work of horror, humor, and genuine poetic power. Many will be seriously tempted to use this volume as a working occult resource.