Musings From Oblivion's Vault

Saraband of Sable is now up for pre-order from the publisher, Egaeus Press . The volume is a highly pleasing production in their Keynote Series: the format is pocket-sized, a delightful elegance in a mournful black and gold that you can journey anywhere with and be the envy of everyone you meet. Of the eight titles that go to make up the contents of Saraband of Sable , two have never been published before. One of them, 'Protector of Thieves' , is a Clark Ashton Smith pastiche set in his Hyperborea series. This piece was originally written several years ago for a collection of new Hyperborean tales, but it wasn't used. On reflection, I'm quite pleased it was never accepted for its proposed destination because the stories used in the anthology were, barring the odd one or two, generally uninspiring fare. The second unpublished tale,  'In the Palace of the Lost Winter Stars', grew out of two phrases that I suddenly thought of  - "the rose-opal twilight