User:DoctorWho42/The Planet of the Dead

"The Planet of the Dead" (or "The Doom of Antarion"') is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith and first published in the March 1932 of Weird Tales.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Planet of the Dead" was first published in the March 1932 issue of Weird Tales. It was included in Lost Worlds (1944), the September 1947 issue of Avon Fantasy Reader, and Xiccarph (1972) as "The Doom of Antarion".

Plot
Francis Melchior collects antiques and has an interest in astronomy. These passions are born of a predilection for far off things. As he eyes a star from his telescope, Melchior finds his surroundings changed and is instead Antarion a poet on the planet Phandiom. As Antarion, he is deeply in love with Thameera. However, their love is cut short as the sun will soon die. King Haspa also sees Thameera as a potential love interest. Thus, the couple plans to leave the city and spend the rest of their lives together. While they enjoy themselves, the sun finally turns dark. Meanwhile, Melchior awakens and find the star he saw through the telescope is gone.

Reception
Reviewing Lost Worlds in the 1983 book The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, E. F. Bleiler called it "Dunsanean." In the 2005 book Horror: Another 100 Best Books, author Storm Constantine said "I identified with the outsider in Smith and can remember the huge impact a particular paragraph from "The Planet of the Dead" had on me when I was fourteen."