GNYDRON AND ZOTHIQUE

What’s the difference? Perhaps a little bit of time, plus physical and political geography. At least that’s how I view the differences. Why? Because I’ve written fantasy tales set in both locales.

Alright. Starting at the beginning. Clark Ashton Smith’s beginning. Gnydron and Zothique are continents. The Last Continent. Both inventions of the master fantasist, the aforementioned CAS. Smith wrote a fragment set in what he called Gnydron, the last continent on earth. The story never got anywhere. Eventually, somewhere along the line (CAS scholars would knows this much better than I), CAS changed the name from Gnydron to Zothique, wrote a number of stories, and the rest is history.

Zothique became famous. Gnydron was relegated to the dust bin…until I decided to resurrect it. Wouldn’t it be fun to write a few Gnydron stories? [That thought came after my two Zothique chapbook trilogies published by Rainfall Books.] So, since Zothique was well established, and had been so for a number of decades, I decide to make Gnydron the Last Continent roughly 800,000 years before the time of Zothique. Before political and geological/geographic upheaval changed the face of the continent, and eventually its name.

Thus far I’ve out done my Zothqiue output in Gnydron stories. I’ve written three chapbook trilogies (Volumes 1, 2, and 3), all of them to be published by Rainfall Books. I’ve also been developing an extensive note file to write two novelettes (Volumes 4 and 5) that will be set 400,000 years after the first three trilogies (consequently, 400,000 years before Zothique).

Those last two novelettes should bring my Gnydron production to a close. Too many other projects going on to devote time to furthering the legends and history of Gnydron…of course, that doesn’t mean others can’t add to those legends and history.