User:DoctorWho42/A Voyage to Sfanomoë

"A Voyage to Sfanomoë" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Poseidonis cycle, and first published in the August 1931 issue of Weird Tales.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "A Voyage to Sfanomoë" was first published in the August 1931 issue of Weird Tales. It was included in the books Lost Worlds (1944), Beyond Time and Space (1950), and Poseidonis (1973).

Plot
Hotar and Evidon have been studying the effects of earthquakes on the Atlantean continent. However, they conclude they cannot reverse the effects. In Lephara, Poseidonis, they instead work on building a spaceship to travel to Venus which is the nearest planet supporting human life. To the Atlanteans, Venus is called Sfanomoë. Hotar and Evidon use deaf-mutes to help build their spaceship since they cannot tell others about their secret project. As the spaceship is completed, they make ready their voyage and set out. As they float on, they see Poseidonis engulfed in waves. The journey takes many years but they finally arrive to Sfanomoë. They cruise along its atmosphere to see if the planet is inhabited but find no denizens. Finally, they touch down and encounter the local flora. However, as they leave the spaceship, they begin turning into flowers.

Reception
In the 1977 book The Weird Tales Story, Robert Weinberg called it "another of his exquisite fantasies, completely unclassifiable but extremely popular with all Weird Tales fans."