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The Best of C.L. Moore
Forty Years of C. L. Moore '75 essay by Lester del Rey
Shambleau [Northwest Smith] '33 novelette by C. L. Moore
Black Thirst [Northwest Smith] '34 novelette by C. L. Moore
The Bright Illusion '34 story by C. L. Moore
Black God's Kiss [Jirel of Joiry] '34 novelette by C. L. Moore
Tryst in Time '36 novelette by C. L. Moore
Greater Than Gods '39 novelette by C. L. Moore
Fruit of Knowledge '40 novelette by C. L. Moore
No Woman Born '44 novelette by C. L. Moore
Daemon '46 story by C. L. Moore
Vintage Season '46 novella by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore
Afterword--Footnote to Shambleau & Others '75 essay by C. L. Moore
Shambleau [Northwest Smith] '33 novelette by C. L. Moore
Black Thirst [Northwest Smith] '34 novelette by C. L. Moore
The Bright Illusion '34 story by C. L. Moore
Black God's Kiss [Jirel of Joiry] '34 novelette by C. L. Moore
Tryst in Time '36 novelette by C. L. Moore
Greater Than Gods '39 novelette by C. L. Moore
Fruit of Knowledge '40 novelette by C. L. Moore
No Woman Born '44 novelette by C. L. Moore
Daemon '46 story by C. L. Moore
Vintage Season '46 novella by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore
Afterword--Footnote to Shambleau & Others '75 essay by C. L. Moore
368 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1975
About the author
C.L. Moore
304 books195 followersExcerpted from Wikipedia:
Catherine Lucille Moore was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, as C. L. Moore. She was one of the first women to write in the genre, and paved the way for many other female writers in speculative fiction.
Moore met Henry Kuttner, also a science fiction writer, in 1936 when he wrote her a fan letter (mistakenly thinking that "C. L. Moore" was a man), and they married in 1940.
Afterwards, almost all of their stories were written in collaboration under various pseudonyms, most commonly Lewis Padgett (another pseudonym, one Moore often employed for works that involved little or no collaboration, was Lawrence O'Donnell).
Catherine Lucille Moore was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, as C. L. Moore. She was one of the first women to write in the genre, and paved the way for many other female writers in speculative fiction.
Moore met Henry Kuttner, also a science fiction writer, in 1936 when he wrote her a fan letter (mistakenly thinking that "C. L. Moore" was a man), and they married in 1940.
Afterwards, almost all of their stories were written in collaboration under various pseudonyms, most commonly Lewis Padgett (another pseudonym, one Moore often employed for works that involved little or no collaboration, was Lawrence O'Donnell).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
June 2, 2020
2020 Summer Clearance Special
My summer reading project will be the unread books on my shelves and rereading books that I’ve had for a long time to see if they still warrant a place in my home.
I first read this collection of short fiction at least 30 years ago. I was impressed, but never realized that the stories were written in the 1930s and 1940s! Yet they still have that special sauce.
First, there is Northwest Smith. Could there be a better name for a space outlaw? Based on the bad guys of the old westerns or on pirates, this handsome antihero brandishes his ray gun and is steady as a rock. You have to love him. As they say, women want to sleep with him and men want to be him. (Although the Alendar in Black Thirst is quasi-male and seems to be attracted to NW too.)
There is a definite horror overtone to most of the stories. Moore had to be familiar with Lovecraft, but to my mind she is the more skillful writer. Lovecraft goes over the top, while Moore’s work simply oozes black dread. For example, in The Black God's Kiss, she takes the fairy tale trope of the reviving power of the handsome prince's kiss and turns it inside out, all the while giving us a remarkable female main character, Jirel of Joiry. Still, there are no happy endings here—relief maybe, in some stories, but no unalloyed happiness.
I had to snicker at the end of Greater Than Gods, when the main character, Bill, makes an unexpected life choice. When I originally read the story, I was impressed with the surprising twist. Now, as a more experienced reader, this ending entertains me.
Now the true challenge begins. I want to find more of Moore's writing and that of her husband, Henry Kuttner. They collaborated once they were married and wrote under several pseudonyms. This stuff is old enough that I am afraid that it won't be easy to find. This is ironic, as Moore's writing is still relevant and has aged well. She explores the nature of love, of beauty, of humanity. I wish she had written more.
My summer reading project will be the unread books on my shelves and rereading books that I’ve had for a long time to see if they still warrant a place in my home.
I first read this collection of short fiction at least 30 years ago. I was impressed, but never realized that the stories were written in the 1930s and 1940s! Yet they still have that special sauce.
First, there is Northwest Smith. Could there be a better name for a space outlaw? Based on the bad guys of the old westerns or on pirates, this handsome antihero brandishes his ray gun and is steady as a rock. You have to love him. As they say, women want to sleep with him and men want to be him. (Although the Alendar in Black Thirst is quasi-male and seems to be attracted to NW too.)
There is a definite horror overtone to most of the stories. Moore had to be familiar with Lovecraft, but to my mind she is the more skillful writer. Lovecraft goes over the top, while Moore’s work simply oozes black dread. For example, in The Black God's Kiss, she takes the fairy tale trope of the reviving power of the handsome prince's kiss and turns it inside out, all the while giving us a remarkable female main character, Jirel of Joiry. Still, there are no happy endings here—relief maybe, in some stories, but no unalloyed happiness.
I had to snicker at the end of Greater Than Gods, when the main character, Bill, makes an unexpected life choice. When I originally read the story, I was impressed with the surprising twist. Now, as a more experienced reader, this ending entertains me.
Now the true challenge begins. I want to find more of Moore's writing and that of her husband, Henry Kuttner. They collaborated once they were married and wrote under several pseudonyms. This stuff is old enough that I am afraid that it won't be easy to find. This is ironic, as Moore's writing is still relevant and has aged well. She explores the nature of love, of beauty, of humanity. I wish she had written more.
March 22, 2016
I don't know if it's a fact that Catherine Lucille Moore published under her initials to downplay her womanhood to the pulp audiences of the 1930s and '40s. Certainly she was among some esteemed male company in doing this: H. P. Lovecraft, C. M. Kornbluth, R. A. lafferty, and so on. Nevertheless, I have to admit that it is probable that a predominantly young male audience in 1933 would not have been predisposed to look as kindly on the debut story of this remarkable woman, not because it compares unfavourably to the work of her male counterparts, but simply because of the ethos of the time and because, well, without meaning to condescend in the slightest, you can tell there's something different about this: A direct connection between science fiction and myth, not a true stranger to the pages of Weird Tales, but told with such passion, such almost discomfitingly raw emotion. I don't think Moore was "passing" as a man when she wrote any of this stuff. I think she was aware of her audience, and gave them what they wanted, and imbued it with a certain aura that I can sometimes describe as challengingly feminine.
And Moore does burst right out of the gate, fully formed. The book begins with "Shambleau", one of her most notorious pieces, and believe it or not, her first published story. Lovecraft praised it. Indeed, it's been compared with his work. But I'm reminded more of his lesser known contemporary, Clark Ashton Smith, in both content and form. Lonely lamiae on a dark frontier, in this case, the old, vast cities of Mars. This is a story about Northwest Smith, a wanderer of the solar system, a hard man who is often on the wrong side of the law, and his encounter with a mysterious, silent woman. I've read a whole bunch of these Northwest stories now, and I'll grant you that mostly they follow the same pattern: Northwest is wandering somewhere, alone and maybe on the run, and encounters some kind of alien demigod/outcast/hybrid plant thing/beautiful woman, usually with vampiric tendencies, though often of the more soul-destroying rather than blood-sucking variety. What's really striking about these tales though is their huge, pervasive melancholy. The atmosphere and moodiness just seems to blow from the pages like a dusty Martian wind redolent of unknowable, terrible secrets that were old before man learned to stand upright. The rich, almost flowery prose helps with this, again calling some of Clark Ashton Smith's tales of Zothique (or indeed, old Mars) to mind. Both "Shambleau" and "Black Thirst" deliver on their promises of vampiric thrills, but there's definitely something more going on here. The way Moore describes sensations so sharply, with such depth of feeling, and also the most alien mental impressions, is something really powerful to behold. It's almost sensory overload at times, and I'm sure that's a part of what she was going for. The sensations depicted are so strong that you almost feel uncomfortable reading about them, but at the same time it's all oddly compelling and, even, beautiful.
This all comes to an apotheosis in "The Bright Illusion". Imagine you become enslaved by an unfathomable godly presence, who sets you a horrible task. Then you fall in love with one of those Lovecraft-style amorphous being from Beyond Time and Space, whose mere sight would drive you to absolute insanity. But we're not talking love here, this is LOVE, an all-pervading limitless thing that is greater than gender or time or space or dimensions beyond mortal ken. OH yes, Moore asks us to accept some pretty far-out stuff here on face value. But don't you want to? I mean yes, it'd probably all be a bit much for some; the sensory overload thing is turned up to maximum here, and Moore's aliens are really alien. If you liked David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus as much as I did, you should be able to appreciate this, though. Indeed, the almost gnostic idea of a spiritual purity beyond all mortal experience is even a bit similar here, though I get the idea that Moore's not quite as grim as Lindsay. The ending is so appropriate and again we're traversing territory that sings of intense melancholy feeling laced with an aching wonder at the cosmos and the beings both vast and small who dwell within.
That LOVE theme recurs in quite a few of the stories here, although of course there's much more to Moore than this. It's true that "A Trist in Time" reads like a science fiction romance, but it's short, feels ahead of its time, and the ending just adds more to the sense of mystery. I liked it.
"The Black God's Kiss" is a Jirel story and it's also great, but I didn't care for the ending. Don't let that faze you though; it's possible you will like the ending very much in fact, particularly if Moore's LOVE theme really resonates with you. It's also true that I haven't read the other Jirel stories Moore wrote (not in this volume) yet, and they might help to put this one into some perspective. Jirel is Moore's stab at sword and sorcery. You could almost describe her as a female Conan, but I don't think that would quite be doing her justice. Of course the setting is faux-medieval, and the world reads like fantasy, only there are science fiction elements present: portals to other dimensions, beings that are clearly aliens and not dragons or gods or whatever. But Jirel is a person of her time, so she still sees all that stuff as magic and sorcery, even if the raeder draws different conclusions. It's pretty neat
"Fruit of Knowledge". Lilith, Adam, Eve and Satan, and the Garden of Eden. Yes, it's a biblical retelling/reimagining, with subversive tendencies. I was impressed by this story, but in a somewhat aloof way, perhaps because everyone does this sort of thing nowadays. I've no doubt though that for 1942 this was really fresh ground (although of course the real antecedent is Paradise Lost), and I'm really glad that she wrote it because it again proves how ahead of her time this writer was. And if you really like this sort of thing, as I know many do, it's entirely possible this will be a favourite in the collection.
Now we are moving away from the fantastic and horrific elements that characterized the older stories, and into more science fiction. If you thought the language of the 30s stories was a bit overwrought and excessive, I guess you'll have an easier time with these. You could say Moore's concerns are becoming more contemporary, and she's really starting to think about technological and social ramifications in unique and clever ways. "Greater than Gods" reads in many ways like so much old SF, in that much of it consists of guys in a room talking ideas passionately at one another. But the ideas! I think you'll be really surprised at just how far Moore is willing to take things, and this is a consistent strength of her work. She thinks big, but she's not afraid to start small, with the seed of in intriguing idea, as she does here, and turn it into something that will change the world forever. It's a story with a vast, broad scope, and immensely impressive.
"Daemon" is a brief return to a somewhat more fantastic milieu, and the only story in the book told in first person. It's not as heavy as some of the stories here but it's intensely atmospheric; very much in a "weird fiction" style. That emotional, heady melancholy is everpresent.
"No Woman born" seems so modern to me. What's it mean to be human? What makes us human? What's consciousness, really? Oh come on, he said, these questions are old hat in SF now. You get this on Star Trek every other week! But hang on a second..Moore was doing this in the early 40s! There are just a few characters here, and any synopsis would reveal that not much actually happens. A famous actress dies in a terrible accident, her body burned beyond recognition, but her brain is saved and downloaded into a robot body. But she is the same person she always was! Isn't she? And she wants to perform again, for an audience..an audience used to seeing a beautiful star image with her name attached to it. It's all in the dialogues. Such astute psychological observation. I would hesitate to call Moore an overtly feminist writer, yet here she is, before just about anyone else in the field, questioning the concept of the female image and identity.
And even with all the praise I've given this collection so far, it's possible they saved the very best for last. "Vintage Season". My god, what a story! It was published in 1946, but I swear to you that if it were written in 2016 more-or-less exactly as it is, it would pack just as much of a punch. It has the universal appeal of a classic Richard Mathetson story, or at least that's how it starts. Petty domesticity's world intruded on by something strange and outré that is fascinating before it's disturbing. But I promise you won't predict quite where it goes. Once you get there, the ending is one of those ultimate game-changing revelations that will make you completely re-assess what you read previously and realize that things that didn't seem significant were in fact loaded with ominous meaning. The last couple of pages are so very, very haunting. What a way to end the book. If Moore had only written this one story, people would be perfectly justified in talking about her over seventy years later. There's so much in this one piece, so much to think about, so many haunting strange images that you'll never forget. I realize all I've done is shout vague praise and haven't really said a thing about it, but this one I really don't think you should have spoiled even a little. Come to it fresh and unprepared. Trust me, it's the best way.
And with that we close the book and sigh. I don't often say this but, I wish there were more! Ten stories just doesn't seem like enough, sensory overload and all. I hate to sound reprimanding, but the truth is that Moore just didn't write enough! There are of course other short stories collected in other places (though not very many), many shorts and several novels written in collaboration with her husband Henry Kuttner (their life together was tragically cut short when he died young of a heart attack)
, and, I think, a scant two or so novels of her own. She lived well into the 1970s but didn't write any fiction after Henry died. When I think about it, the two of them were actually perfect for each other as a writing team, complimenting each others styles and approaches rather than one coming out more strident than the other. It must have been amazing for them.
And Moore does burst right out of the gate, fully formed. The book begins with "Shambleau", one of her most notorious pieces, and believe it or not, her first published story. Lovecraft praised it. Indeed, it's been compared with his work. But I'm reminded more of his lesser known contemporary, Clark Ashton Smith, in both content and form. Lonely lamiae on a dark frontier, in this case, the old, vast cities of Mars. This is a story about Northwest Smith, a wanderer of the solar system, a hard man who is often on the wrong side of the law, and his encounter with a mysterious, silent woman. I've read a whole bunch of these Northwest stories now, and I'll grant you that mostly they follow the same pattern: Northwest is wandering somewhere, alone and maybe on the run, and encounters some kind of alien demigod/outcast/hybrid plant thing/beautiful woman, usually with vampiric tendencies, though often of the more soul-destroying rather than blood-sucking variety. What's really striking about these tales though is their huge, pervasive melancholy. The atmosphere and moodiness just seems to blow from the pages like a dusty Martian wind redolent of unknowable, terrible secrets that were old before man learned to stand upright. The rich, almost flowery prose helps with this, again calling some of Clark Ashton Smith's tales of Zothique (or indeed, old Mars) to mind. Both "Shambleau" and "Black Thirst" deliver on their promises of vampiric thrills, but there's definitely something more going on here. The way Moore describes sensations so sharply, with such depth of feeling, and also the most alien mental impressions, is something really powerful to behold. It's almost sensory overload at times, and I'm sure that's a part of what she was going for. The sensations depicted are so strong that you almost feel uncomfortable reading about them, but at the same time it's all oddly compelling and, even, beautiful.
This all comes to an apotheosis in "The Bright Illusion". Imagine you become enslaved by an unfathomable godly presence, who sets you a horrible task. Then you fall in love with one of those Lovecraft-style amorphous being from Beyond Time and Space, whose mere sight would drive you to absolute insanity. But we're not talking love here, this is LOVE, an all-pervading limitless thing that is greater than gender or time or space or dimensions beyond mortal ken. OH yes, Moore asks us to accept some pretty far-out stuff here on face value. But don't you want to? I mean yes, it'd probably all be a bit much for some; the sensory overload thing is turned up to maximum here, and Moore's aliens are really alien. If you liked David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus as much as I did, you should be able to appreciate this, though. Indeed, the almost gnostic idea of a spiritual purity beyond all mortal experience is even a bit similar here, though I get the idea that Moore's not quite as grim as Lindsay. The ending is so appropriate and again we're traversing territory that sings of intense melancholy feeling laced with an aching wonder at the cosmos and the beings both vast and small who dwell within.
That LOVE theme recurs in quite a few of the stories here, although of course there's much more to Moore than this. It's true that "A Trist in Time" reads like a science fiction romance, but it's short, feels ahead of its time, and the ending just adds more to the sense of mystery. I liked it.
"The Black God's Kiss" is a Jirel story and it's also great, but I didn't care for the ending. Don't let that faze you though; it's possible you will like the ending very much in fact, particularly if Moore's LOVE theme really resonates with you. It's also true that I haven't read the other Jirel stories Moore wrote (not in this volume) yet, and they might help to put this one into some perspective. Jirel is Moore's stab at sword and sorcery. You could almost describe her as a female Conan, but I don't think that would quite be doing her justice. Of course the setting is faux-medieval, and the world reads like fantasy, only there are science fiction elements present: portals to other dimensions, beings that are clearly aliens and not dragons or gods or whatever. But Jirel is a person of her time, so she still sees all that stuff as magic and sorcery, even if the raeder draws different conclusions. It's pretty neat
"Fruit of Knowledge". Lilith, Adam, Eve and Satan, and the Garden of Eden. Yes, it's a biblical retelling/reimagining, with subversive tendencies. I was impressed by this story, but in a somewhat aloof way, perhaps because everyone does this sort of thing nowadays. I've no doubt though that for 1942 this was really fresh ground (although of course the real antecedent is Paradise Lost), and I'm really glad that she wrote it because it again proves how ahead of her time this writer was. And if you really like this sort of thing, as I know many do, it's entirely possible this will be a favourite in the collection.
Now we are moving away from the fantastic and horrific elements that characterized the older stories, and into more science fiction. If you thought the language of the 30s stories was a bit overwrought and excessive, I guess you'll have an easier time with these. You could say Moore's concerns are becoming more contemporary, and she's really starting to think about technological and social ramifications in unique and clever ways. "Greater than Gods" reads in many ways like so much old SF, in that much of it consists of guys in a room talking ideas passionately at one another. But the ideas! I think you'll be really surprised at just how far Moore is willing to take things, and this is a consistent strength of her work. She thinks big, but she's not afraid to start small, with the seed of in intriguing idea, as she does here, and turn it into something that will change the world forever. It's a story with a vast, broad scope, and immensely impressive.
"Daemon" is a brief return to a somewhat more fantastic milieu, and the only story in the book told in first person. It's not as heavy as some of the stories here but it's intensely atmospheric; very much in a "weird fiction" style. That emotional, heady melancholy is everpresent.
"No Woman born" seems so modern to me. What's it mean to be human? What makes us human? What's consciousness, really? Oh come on, he said, these questions are old hat in SF now. You get this on Star Trek every other week! But hang on a second..Moore was doing this in the early 40s! There are just a few characters here, and any synopsis would reveal that not much actually happens. A famous actress dies in a terrible accident, her body burned beyond recognition, but her brain is saved and downloaded into a robot body. But she is the same person she always was! Isn't she? And she wants to perform again, for an audience..an audience used to seeing a beautiful star image with her name attached to it. It's all in the dialogues. Such astute psychological observation. I would hesitate to call Moore an overtly feminist writer, yet here she is, before just about anyone else in the field, questioning the concept of the female image and identity.
And even with all the praise I've given this collection so far, it's possible they saved the very best for last. "Vintage Season". My god, what a story! It was published in 1946, but I swear to you that if it were written in 2016 more-or-less exactly as it is, it would pack just as much of a punch. It has the universal appeal of a classic Richard Mathetson story, or at least that's how it starts. Petty domesticity's world intruded on by something strange and outré that is fascinating before it's disturbing. But I promise you won't predict quite where it goes. Once you get there, the ending is one of those ultimate game-changing revelations that will make you completely re-assess what you read previously and realize that things that didn't seem significant were in fact loaded with ominous meaning. The last couple of pages are so very, very haunting. What a way to end the book. If Moore had only written this one story, people would be perfectly justified in talking about her over seventy years later. There's so much in this one piece, so much to think about, so many haunting strange images that you'll never forget. I realize all I've done is shout vague praise and haven't really said a thing about it, but this one I really don't think you should have spoiled even a little. Come to it fresh and unprepared. Trust me, it's the best way.
And with that we close the book and sigh. I don't often say this but, I wish there were more! Ten stories just doesn't seem like enough, sensory overload and all. I hate to sound reprimanding, but the truth is that Moore just didn't write enough! There are of course other short stories collected in other places (though not very many), many shorts and several novels written in collaboration with her husband Henry Kuttner (their life together was tragically cut short when he died young of a heart attack)
, and, I think, a scant two or so novels of her own. She lived well into the 1970s but didn't write any fiction after Henry died. When I think about it, the two of them were actually perfect for each other as a writing team, complimenting each others styles and approaches rather than one coming out more strident than the other. It must have been amazing for them.
October 1, 2013
This is a review of only one of the stories in the book.
I take this liberty because No Woman Born is such a masterpiece, it must not be overlooked, and I cannot wait until I have finished reading every story to praise this amazing piece of fiction.
This is a truly memorable classic short story spanning a range of issues from ethics of resurrecting the dead with the help of technology, the ensuing dilemma of what is meat and what is machine, the delicate ramifications of transhumanism, not just from the perspective of humans, but from the perspective of the humanoid itself (itself?), the explicitly painful issue of what makes us women, to how our bodies are appropriated and pigeonholed into what Judith Butler so correctly summarized in three words ”Gender is Performance”.
This is an immensely rich, layered complex work with minimal plot and extensive social, biological and ethical dilemmas – all written in a deceptively simple narrative. It is an unparalleled critique of the limited ways in which we perceive the idea of transhumanism, how narrowly we construct the ideological arguments about the “essential nature” of a human mind in a new metal body, without for once speculating the issue from the perspective of the humanoid itself (see? I’ve already labelled humanoids as “it).
The story begins with Harris coming, with palpable concern, to the lab of his friend Maltzer, who has, after a year’s hard work, succeeded in recreating Deirdre, a theater icon beloved among the masses, after she died in a fire. Her body was burnt, but her brain was retrieved, now caged in a metal body. Deirdre is still what she was before, and now wants to go back onstage to perform, to the horror of her creator. She does go, however, and performs. There is only this much plot.
But the verbal exchanges that take place between Harris, Deirdre and Maltzer in between all this forms the real crux of the work – it is through these dialogues that we see what each of the three think about the nature of life and death, and about the resurrection of Deirdre in particular. Far from being didactic or preachy, the exchanges are food for thought – they stretch our sense of what we consider human, how we perceive womanhood and how we view ourselves, finally.
Maltzer’s apprehensions about how she will be received by people reminded me of Emiko, the windup girl in Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl - heechy-keechy, as she was derisively referred to. Deirdre’s combination of meat and metal often brought back memories of Andrew from Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man - agreed, both Emiko and Andrew are robots that gain consciousness, while Deirdre is a human mind that gains a metal body, but the complex emotions that they face are reminiscent of each other.
The narrative style too, is reminiscent of Asimov – of course, they were both contemporaries, and it is astonishing, given the immense popularity of Asimov and the obscurity of C. L. Moore today, how similar their concerns were, how excellent their works and themes (I now find The Bicentennial Man a pale shadow of No Woman Born) and yet how different their fates!
Along with Tiptree's The Girl Who Was Plugged In and Kurt Vonnegut's 5-minute story 2BR02B, this story figures on the top of my favorite fiction - SF or otherwise.
"No Woman Born" online (not infringing the copyright, it has expired) - Read it here online - http://www.thepit.org/books/Science%2...
"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (Same as above) - http://hell.pl/agnus/anglistyka/2211/...
"2BR02B" (Same as above) - http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book...
I take this liberty because No Woman Born is such a masterpiece, it must not be overlooked, and I cannot wait until I have finished reading every story to praise this amazing piece of fiction.
This is a truly memorable classic short story spanning a range of issues from ethics of resurrecting the dead with the help of technology, the ensuing dilemma of what is meat and what is machine, the delicate ramifications of transhumanism, not just from the perspective of humans, but from the perspective of the humanoid itself (itself?), the explicitly painful issue of what makes us women, to how our bodies are appropriated and pigeonholed into what Judith Butler so correctly summarized in three words ”Gender is Performance”.
This is an immensely rich, layered complex work with minimal plot and extensive social, biological and ethical dilemmas – all written in a deceptively simple narrative. It is an unparalleled critique of the limited ways in which we perceive the idea of transhumanism, how narrowly we construct the ideological arguments about the “essential nature” of a human mind in a new metal body, without for once speculating the issue from the perspective of the humanoid itself (see? I’ve already labelled humanoids as “it).
The story begins with Harris coming, with palpable concern, to the lab of his friend Maltzer, who has, after a year’s hard work, succeeded in recreating Deirdre, a theater icon beloved among the masses, after she died in a fire. Her body was burnt, but her brain was retrieved, now caged in a metal body. Deirdre is still what she was before, and now wants to go back onstage to perform, to the horror of her creator. She does go, however, and performs. There is only this much plot.
But the verbal exchanges that take place between Harris, Deirdre and Maltzer in between all this forms the real crux of the work – it is through these dialogues that we see what each of the three think about the nature of life and death, and about the resurrection of Deirdre in particular. Far from being didactic or preachy, the exchanges are food for thought – they stretch our sense of what we consider human, how we perceive womanhood and how we view ourselves, finally.
Maltzer’s apprehensions about how she will be received by people reminded me of Emiko, the windup girl in Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl - heechy-keechy, as she was derisively referred to. Deirdre’s combination of meat and metal often brought back memories of Andrew from Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man - agreed, both Emiko and Andrew are robots that gain consciousness, while Deirdre is a human mind that gains a metal body, but the complex emotions that they face are reminiscent of each other.
The narrative style too, is reminiscent of Asimov – of course, they were both contemporaries, and it is astonishing, given the immense popularity of Asimov and the obscurity of C. L. Moore today, how similar their concerns were, how excellent their works and themes (I now find The Bicentennial Man a pale shadow of No Woman Born) and yet how different their fates!
Along with Tiptree's The Girl Who Was Plugged In and Kurt Vonnegut's 5-minute story 2BR02B, this story figures on the top of my favorite fiction - SF or otherwise.
"No Woman Born" online (not infringing the copyright, it has expired) - Read it here online - http://www.thepit.org/books/Science%2...
"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (Same as above) - http://hell.pl/agnus/anglistyka/2211/...
"2BR02B" (Same as above) - http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book...
May 20, 2017
Satisfying... lived up to the hype. A couple of stories I knew already, but most were new to me. For shame - I must read more. These stories only cover 13 years of work, primarily before her partnership with Kuttner... surely there's more. I def. hope to find more Jirel of Joiry.
One story alone is worth the price of admission: Daemon. I feel confident that Pullman (His Dark Materials) and Martel (Life of Pi) and many others were influenced by it.
To think these were being written back in the 1930s and early '40s just blows my mind.
"There's a really great profile of Moore by io9 contributor Andrew Liptak, over in Kirkus Reviews. When her first ever story arrived at the offices of Weird Tales, they were so blown away they closed their office for the day in celebration. Moore's early work won the admiration of H.P. Lovecraft. And both her early solo stories and her later collaborations with husband Henry Kuttner were instrumental in helping to shape the face of early science fiction from the 1930s onwards. The Best of C.L. Moore is out of print but easy to get in paperback, and it includes pioneering stories about femme fatales seeking revenge, time travel, and cyborgs. As one Amazon reviewer notes, "The classic early SF/fantasy tales by Catherine Moore were so far ahead of their time that the extent of her influence is mind-boggling. In fact, many modern authors may consider themselves heavily influenced by other authors who were themselves heavily influenced by Moore."
One story alone is worth the price of admission: Daemon. I feel confident that Pullman (His Dark Materials) and Martel (Life of Pi) and many others were influenced by it.
To think these were being written back in the 1930s and early '40s just blows my mind.
"There's a really great profile of Moore by io9 contributor Andrew Liptak, over in Kirkus Reviews. When her first ever story arrived at the offices of Weird Tales, they were so blown away they closed their office for the day in celebration. Moore's early work won the admiration of H.P. Lovecraft. And both her early solo stories and her later collaborations with husband Henry Kuttner were instrumental in helping to shape the face of early science fiction from the 1930s onwards. The Best of C.L. Moore is out of print but easy to get in paperback, and it includes pioneering stories about femme fatales seeking revenge, time travel, and cyborgs. As one Amazon reviewer notes, "The classic early SF/fantasy tales by Catherine Moore were so far ahead of their time that the extent of her influence is mind-boggling. In fact, many modern authors may consider themselves heavily influenced by other authors who were themselves heavily influenced by Moore."
October 12, 2015
The book review
Will someone please explain to me why C.L. Moore is not a household name like Heinlein, or Asimov?? Okay, okay, she was obviously not nearly as prolific as those other Sci-Fi greats, and she is more known for her short stories than for her novels (as far as I can tell), but still, this collection has been a real eye-openener for me.
"She was so like a woman - an Earth woman... if he could forget the three-fingered claws and the pulsing eyes..."
First off, is the writing, which is lush and passionate and makes these stories of science leap off the page with a color and vividness that seems lacking in most other sci-fi of the era (these stories span 1933-1946). Moore's patient, decadent descriptions recall the atmosphere of an Edgar Allan Poe, or an H.P. Lovecraft, especially in the first four stories, which seem a demonic blend of sci-fi and horror.
"Bowled over, blinded and dumb and deaf, drowning in utter blackness, he floundered in the deeps of that nameless hell where thoughts that were alien and slimy squirmed through his brain."
Second, is the clever way she has inserted female characters into the heart of her science fiction stories. This is the 1930's, remember. The U.S. doesn't realize yet that women will be the unsung heroes of WWII, and sci-fi authors aren't doing much more than sketching women in on the sidelines as secretaries or wives of the main characters. In this collection, C.L. Moore doesn't break tradition in an obvious way - there are still wives and secretaries, though she adds a doctor and a warrior to the mix - but she also manages to make a woman (or women) central to each story, almost with sleight of hand. Male adventurers make the discoveries and explore the universe, but a woman shows them unexplored worlds, or turns out to be an alien being, or becomes a bridge across alien species, or rewrites the story of Adam and Eve. The female characters in this collection (usually) embody familiar tropes - the seductress, the adoring helpmate, the beauty, the lover - but she places them central to the plot and as a focus for her speculative musings on science and philosophy. It seems like she is tricking the typical adolescent male sci-fi fan into discovering that women are indispensable to the exploration of the world at large. This is no small feat.
"... it seemed to her obscurely that they led into deeper darkness and mystery than the merely physical, as if... the peculiar and exact lines of the tunnel had been carefully angled to lead through poly-dimensional space as well as through the underground - perhaps through time, too."
Finally, it is the fact that these two revolutionary (at the time) approaches - lush storytelling and female-centric sci-fi - do not sacrifice varied and fantastic speculation one iota. Her tales explore time travel, and space travel, and ruminations on alien life and future Earth life, all with equal ease and enthusiasm. These stories have made me feel a bit like a kid again, though I admit it might be partly because science fiction is so young during this time period. In any case, I have now experienced C.L. Moore's indelible imprint, and I will do my best to make sure her name rings out alongside the other great founders of early science fiction.
"It was boneless and writhing, livid with creeping color. Its single great eye, lucid and expressionless, stared from an unfeatured, mouthless face, half scarlet and half purple, between which two shades a wedge of nameless green broadened as he looked away."
The story ratings
Introduction by Lester del Rey - 4 stars - Has some enlightening information in here, but because it describes many of the stories I would recommend waiting until after you've read them (that's what I did) if you don't like spoilers or want to form your own impressions. The only thing that seemed a little strange was how he speculated on why her writing style seemed to change after 1938. He cites biographers, who don't seem to agree, and it made me wonder why he didn't just ask Ms. Moore, instead of speculating out loud. He is the editor of this collection, after all, so surely he is consulting with her? (And del Rey's intro and Moore's concluding essay are both stamped "1975", the year this was published.)
Shambleau - 4 stars - Wonderfully horrific and tantalizing, my only complaint was that I experienced a strange woman-objectifying aftertaste by the time it ended.
Black Thirst - 4 stars - A fascinating idea, reminds me a bit of the old Star Trek plots. Again somewhat objectifying, and let's face it, racist, in how beauty is described, but with a hint of rebelliousness (and even a surprise ). It felt a bit like a simple hero/villain tale by the end, though.
The Bright Illusion - 5 stars - A startling treatise on what it means to be an individual, what it means to love. If you spun this just so, it could be a shout-out for LGBTQ equality.
Black God's Kiss - 4 stars - I really wanted to give this 5 stars: what a great protagonist! But the ending had a final barb that derailed it for me, not completely, but just enough to harsh my buzz.
Tryst in Time - 4 stars - And so she invents the Time Traveller's Wife! This one is a lot less complicated, though! But I found the ending to be... not quite comprehensible.
Greater Than Gods - 4 stars - A great rumination on free will, time travel, and the momentum of social forces. (Reminded me a bit of The Time Machine actually.) It's a bit dated, and promotes some stereotypes, but it was cleverly fleshed out, and challenged some stereotypes, too. I thought this was a great story to highlight how marriage affects men: what kind of people they are, what type of future they choose. Many men (including many authors!) seem to think (heterosexual) marriage is a woman's game and it's just a sideline for men. But they are just fooling themselves.
Fruit of Knowledge - 5 stars - I guess I am a sucker for Adam and Eve retellings. I have to nitpick and call this Fantasy, not Sci-Fi, but it was rich and engaging. Reminded me that I read another brilliant (although brief) Adam and Eve retelling, called "Sister Lilith", in this collection.
No Woman Born - 5 stars - Haunting and poignant. The characterization of the three principles in this one and their responses to the situation are just extraordinary. The descriptions are vivid and surreal and complement the psychological unfolding. I really would have liked to have seen a novel version of this.
Daemon - 5 stars - A frightful tale with a taste of Robinson Crusoe; the fantasy element gives it both horror and religious aspects. The narration is organic and captivating, told in a reflective, reverent tone that keeps you glued to the page, eager, and terrified, as events unfold.
Vintage Season - 5 stars - A great mysterious piece, which again overlays a curious scientific premise with an atmosphere of decadence and fantasy, to haunting effect. This one I thought was particularly successful, because of the musings at the end. She is making an interesting sociological observation here, behind all the speculative elements, that I thought was quite profound.
Afterword by C.L. Moore - 4 stars - Nothing earth-shattering here, but it was nice to hear from the author. She shares some tidbits about where her ideas come from and how she does her work. She downplays the certainty of her success in the field, which may be humility, or it may be sober realism, but in any case the world is fortunate to have her stories.
Will someone please explain to me why C.L. Moore is not a household name like Heinlein, or Asimov?? Okay, okay, she was obviously not nearly as prolific as those other Sci-Fi greats, and she is more known for her short stories than for her novels (as far as I can tell), but still, this collection has been a real eye-openener for me.
"She was so like a woman - an Earth woman... if he could forget the three-fingered claws and the pulsing eyes..."
First off, is the writing, which is lush and passionate and makes these stories of science leap off the page with a color and vividness that seems lacking in most other sci-fi of the era (these stories span 1933-1946). Moore's patient, decadent descriptions recall the atmosphere of an Edgar Allan Poe, or an H.P. Lovecraft, especially in the first four stories, which seem a demonic blend of sci-fi and horror.
"Bowled over, blinded and dumb and deaf, drowning in utter blackness, he floundered in the deeps of that nameless hell where thoughts that were alien and slimy squirmed through his brain."
Second, is the clever way she has inserted female characters into the heart of her science fiction stories. This is the 1930's, remember. The U.S. doesn't realize yet that women will be the unsung heroes of WWII, and sci-fi authors aren't doing much more than sketching women in on the sidelines as secretaries or wives of the main characters. In this collection, C.L. Moore doesn't break tradition in an obvious way - there are still wives and secretaries, though she adds a doctor and a warrior to the mix - but she also manages to make a woman (or women) central to each story, almost with sleight of hand. Male adventurers make the discoveries and explore the universe, but a woman shows them unexplored worlds, or turns out to be an alien being, or becomes a bridge across alien species, or rewrites the story of Adam and Eve. The female characters in this collection (usually) embody familiar tropes - the seductress, the adoring helpmate, the beauty, the lover - but she places them central to the plot and as a focus for her speculative musings on science and philosophy. It seems like she is tricking the typical adolescent male sci-fi fan into discovering that women are indispensable to the exploration of the world at large. This is no small feat.
"... it seemed to her obscurely that they led into deeper darkness and mystery than the merely physical, as if... the peculiar and exact lines of the tunnel had been carefully angled to lead through poly-dimensional space as well as through the underground - perhaps through time, too."
Finally, it is the fact that these two revolutionary (at the time) approaches - lush storytelling and female-centric sci-fi - do not sacrifice varied and fantastic speculation one iota. Her tales explore time travel, and space travel, and ruminations on alien life and future Earth life, all with equal ease and enthusiasm. These stories have made me feel a bit like a kid again, though I admit it might be partly because science fiction is so young during this time period. In any case, I have now experienced C.L. Moore's indelible imprint, and I will do my best to make sure her name rings out alongside the other great founders of early science fiction.
"It was boneless and writhing, livid with creeping color. Its single great eye, lucid and expressionless, stared from an unfeatured, mouthless face, half scarlet and half purple, between which two shades a wedge of nameless green broadened as he looked away."
The story ratings
Introduction by Lester del Rey - 4 stars - Has some enlightening information in here, but because it describes many of the stories I would recommend waiting until after you've read them (that's what I did) if you don't like spoilers or want to form your own impressions. The only thing that seemed a little strange was how he speculated on why her writing style seemed to change after 1938. He cites biographers, who don't seem to agree, and it made me wonder why he didn't just ask Ms. Moore, instead of speculating out loud. He is the editor of this collection, after all, so surely he is consulting with her? (And del Rey's intro and Moore's concluding essay are both stamped "1975", the year this was published.)
Shambleau - 4 stars - Wonderfully horrific and tantalizing, my only complaint was that I experienced a strange woman-objectifying aftertaste by the time it ended.
Black Thirst - 4 stars - A fascinating idea, reminds me a bit of the old Star Trek plots. Again somewhat objectifying, and let's face it, racist, in how beauty is described, but with a hint of rebelliousness (and even a surprise ). It felt a bit like a simple hero/villain tale by the end, though.
The Bright Illusion - 5 stars - A startling treatise on what it means to be an individual, what it means to love. If you spun this just so, it could be a shout-out for LGBTQ equality.
Black God's Kiss - 4 stars - I really wanted to give this 5 stars: what a great protagonist! But the ending had a final barb that derailed it for me, not completely, but just enough to harsh my buzz.
Tryst in Time - 4 stars - And so she invents the Time Traveller's Wife! This one is a lot less complicated, though! But I found the ending to be... not quite comprehensible.
Greater Than Gods - 4 stars - A great rumination on free will, time travel, and the momentum of social forces. (Reminded me a bit of The Time Machine actually.) It's a bit dated, and promotes some stereotypes, but it was cleverly fleshed out, and challenged some stereotypes, too. I thought this was a great story to highlight how marriage affects men: what kind of people they are, what type of future they choose. Many men (including many authors!) seem to think (heterosexual) marriage is a woman's game and it's just a sideline for men. But they are just fooling themselves.
Fruit of Knowledge - 5 stars - I guess I am a sucker for Adam and Eve retellings. I have to nitpick and call this Fantasy, not Sci-Fi, but it was rich and engaging. Reminded me that I read another brilliant (although brief) Adam and Eve retelling, called "Sister Lilith", in this collection.
No Woman Born - 5 stars - Haunting and poignant. The characterization of the three principles in this one and their responses to the situation are just extraordinary. The descriptions are vivid and surreal and complement the psychological unfolding. I really would have liked to have seen a novel version of this.
Daemon - 5 stars - A frightful tale with a taste of Robinson Crusoe; the fantasy element gives it both horror and religious aspects. The narration is organic and captivating, told in a reflective, reverent tone that keeps you glued to the page, eager, and terrified, as events unfold.
Vintage Season - 5 stars - A great mysterious piece, which again overlays a curious scientific premise with an atmosphere of decadence and fantasy, to haunting effect. This one I thought was particularly successful, because of the musings at the end. She is making an interesting sociological observation here, behind all the speculative elements, that I thought was quite profound.
Afterword by C.L. Moore - 4 stars - Nothing earth-shattering here, but it was nice to hear from the author. She shares some tidbits about where her ideas come from and how she does her work. She downplays the certainty of her success in the field, which may be humility, or it may be sober realism, but in any case the world is fortunate to have her stories.
April 28, 2024
Absolutely magnificent. Best of the classic sci fi compilations I’ve read outside of maybe Sheckley.
Full review here:
• https://lanceschaubert.org/2024/04/28/the-best-of-cl-moore-catherine-moores-empathy/
Full review here:
• https://lanceschaubert.org/2024/04/28/the-best-of-cl-moore-catherine-moores-empathy/
March 24, 2015
C. L. Moore is one of the greats. She is also, as far as I know, the only female science fiction writer of note in the first decades of the 20th century. I will review the stories individually:
Shambleau: A moody and memorable beginning. It relies on setting and tone - a frontier town on Mars, a mob, a mysterious woman - and on one particular, extremely striking scene of Northwest's friend stumbling into Northwest's room and discovering him in a dark corner, helpless. This story is textured and well-paced. Justifiably famous, I think.
The Black Thirst: More Northwest, another frontier town, another mysterious woman. Overwritten in spots, and clearly following a formula. It feels longer than, but not as good as, the first one.
The Bright Illusion: Fascinating! Did nobody in the 30's and 40's realize that Moore was already, at this early stage in her career, questioning normative sexuality, and offering reasons for alternatives? Don't get fooled by the "love at first sight" trope - this is really a powerful metaphorical argument against the necessity for heterosexuality, among other interesting things. It's also another moody and textured piece, this time on a rather more cosmic stage, brought down only slightly by what seems to have still been a problem for Moore at this stage - overwriting, occasionally of the repetitive and purple variety.
Black God's Kiss: Feels like Lovecraft, in a good way; a passage in the dungeon leading to another dimension, angles that are all wrong, dark temples and one-eyed snakes....what makes this one stand out is the surprising intensity and complexity of Jirel's quest, her reason for being there, and especially her relationship to the usurper, Guillaume, the man who planted on her an unwanted and unforgotten kiss. Her realization at the end surpasses in interest and humanity what we normally find in the sword and sorcery genre at this point. Jirel's emotional state, her rage, her conflicted emotions, her regret, these are the things that make this story work.
Tryst in Time: Meh. The girl throughout time, found everywhere...the mysterious girl...what is it, anyway, with C. L. Moore and mysterious girls?
Greater Than Gods: Wonderful. Epic. Heartbreaking. And yet hopeful. Filled with so many things, so many ideas, and absolutely gripping from start to finish. It has that schematic structure that so much "Golden Age" science fiction has, that Asimovian tendency to have characters represent ideas, so you can feel those ideas being played out and put into conflict in, perhaps, somewhat mechanical and intellectual ways, but who cares? The concept is awesome. The choice faced by the main character is impossible, and haunting. The solution is the only right one. If you're a parent, this might bring tears to your eyes. And either way, it will stick with you.
Fruit of Knowledge: I didn't really care for this one. It's a perceptive re-imagining of the events between Lilith, Adam, Eve, and Lucifer in the Garden of Eden, but it was all just too silly and allegorical for me. It did, however, showcase Moore's continuing exploration, begun in "The Bright Illusion," of the problems of embodiment, and the contrast between ideals and reality, ideas which will culminate in "No Woman Born."
No Woman Born: A masterpiece. This is one of the best science fiction stories ever published, and it is an essential text in the genre. Read it, slowly, and then think about the many implications.
Daemon: Like "Fruit of Knowledge," this is a pure fantasy involving mythological elements. Again, I was indifferent. It's well-written, and shows Moore's progress as a writer, the tightening of her prose, but I can't seem to connect emotionally with these fantasy stories of hers. Strangely, they seem more distant, less "real" to me, than her science fiction does.
Vintage Season: And, another knock out of the park. This is wonderful - an incredible premise, loads of suspense, mystery, beauty, and terror. I love it. It's probably the best story in this collection.
So...at least 6 excellent stories; certainly worth the time, I'd say. And I also need to say that the best stories here (Shambleau, The Bright Illusion, Black God's Kiss, Greater Than Gods, No Woman Born, and Vintage Season) have not aged a day. They are still excellent science fiction, and excellent literature.
Shambleau: A moody and memorable beginning. It relies on setting and tone - a frontier town on Mars, a mob, a mysterious woman - and on one particular, extremely striking scene of Northwest's friend stumbling into Northwest's room and discovering him in a dark corner, helpless. This story is textured and well-paced. Justifiably famous, I think.
The Black Thirst: More Northwest, another frontier town, another mysterious woman. Overwritten in spots, and clearly following a formula. It feels longer than, but not as good as, the first one.
The Bright Illusion: Fascinating! Did nobody in the 30's and 40's realize that Moore was already, at this early stage in her career, questioning normative sexuality, and offering reasons for alternatives? Don't get fooled by the "love at first sight" trope - this is really a powerful metaphorical argument against the necessity for heterosexuality, among other interesting things. It's also another moody and textured piece, this time on a rather more cosmic stage, brought down only slightly by what seems to have still been a problem for Moore at this stage - overwriting, occasionally of the repetitive and purple variety.
Black God's Kiss: Feels like Lovecraft, in a good way; a passage in the dungeon leading to another dimension, angles that are all wrong, dark temples and one-eyed snakes....what makes this one stand out is the surprising intensity and complexity of Jirel's quest, her reason for being there, and especially her relationship to the usurper, Guillaume, the man who planted on her an unwanted and unforgotten kiss. Her realization at the end surpasses in interest and humanity what we normally find in the sword and sorcery genre at this point. Jirel's emotional state, her rage, her conflicted emotions, her regret, these are the things that make this story work.
Tryst in Time: Meh. The girl throughout time, found everywhere...the mysterious girl...what is it, anyway, with C. L. Moore and mysterious girls?
Greater Than Gods: Wonderful. Epic. Heartbreaking. And yet hopeful. Filled with so many things, so many ideas, and absolutely gripping from start to finish. It has that schematic structure that so much "Golden Age" science fiction has, that Asimovian tendency to have characters represent ideas, so you can feel those ideas being played out and put into conflict in, perhaps, somewhat mechanical and intellectual ways, but who cares? The concept is awesome. The choice faced by the main character is impossible, and haunting. The solution is the only right one. If you're a parent, this might bring tears to your eyes. And either way, it will stick with you.
Fruit of Knowledge: I didn't really care for this one. It's a perceptive re-imagining of the events between Lilith, Adam, Eve, and Lucifer in the Garden of Eden, but it was all just too silly and allegorical for me. It did, however, showcase Moore's continuing exploration, begun in "The Bright Illusion," of the problems of embodiment, and the contrast between ideals and reality, ideas which will culminate in "No Woman Born."
No Woman Born: A masterpiece. This is one of the best science fiction stories ever published, and it is an essential text in the genre. Read it, slowly, and then think about the many implications.
Daemon: Like "Fruit of Knowledge," this is a pure fantasy involving mythological elements. Again, I was indifferent. It's well-written, and shows Moore's progress as a writer, the tightening of her prose, but I can't seem to connect emotionally with these fantasy stories of hers. Strangely, they seem more distant, less "real" to me, than her science fiction does.
Vintage Season: And, another knock out of the park. This is wonderful - an incredible premise, loads of suspense, mystery, beauty, and terror. I love it. It's probably the best story in this collection.
So...at least 6 excellent stories; certainly worth the time, I'd say. And I also need to say that the best stories here (Shambleau, The Bright Illusion, Black God's Kiss, Greater Than Gods, No Woman Born, and Vintage Season) have not aged a day. They are still excellent science fiction, and excellent literature.
Read
January 9, 2022god i loved this. i love 30s pulp sff writing, i love its vibrancy and drama. theres a clear stylistic divide between the writing before her marriage to kuttner and her writing after it and i prefer the former. shambleau, black thirst, black god's kiss, and the bright illusion are all incredible, vibrant, and engaging.
Shelved as 'dnf'
September 23, 2023I made it through 2 stories, the 3rd was my stopping place. I wanted to be more invested in this. One of the more prevalent female authors in the Grand Master era of science fiction. While there is some characterization here (which is lacking significantly among the grand masters, I just can't with the rampant sexism, and misogyny. Disappointing that it's coming from a female author. Smacks of internalized systemic self-hatred. Aarg. Another book published in the 1970s to substantiate my theory that 70s was a really bad decade for books. No rating. Dnf
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May 6, 2009
C. L. Moore never fails to surprise. This collection of her work, The Best of C. L. Moore, contains ten of her signature stories: "Shambleau" and "Black Thirst" (both part of her Northwest Smith cycle), "The Bright Illusion," "Black God's Kiss" (part of her Jirel of Joiry cycle), "Tryst in Time," "Greater Than Gods," "Fruit of Knowledge," "No Woman Born," "Daemon," and "Vintage Season," that last story one of the most powerful science-fiction stories ever written. While C. L. Moore is remembered and cherished mostly for her Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry cycles, her other stories, including those cited here, are every bit as good as or even better than those of her story-cycles.
"The Bright Illusion," for example, is the story of Dixon, a man rescued from certain death by a God determined to take over a world ruled by a rival God, who, used by the one God in an attempt to dislodge and kill its rival, falls in love with a member of the followers of the rival God on that other world, who reciprocates his love. Dixon's entry into that alien world opens the door for the intrusion of the first God into that world. But IL, the God of the alien world, wins the battle between the two Gods. Finding that Dixon has somehow convinced the priestess of its own people to help him try to enable the first God to kill IL and take over that world, IL asks Dixon and the priestess what they will do now, given the priestess's betrayal of IL. They tell IL they wish to be together forever, and since neither can live in the other's proper environment, only in death can that be possible, and they ask IL for death together. IL grants their petition -- and then is left all alone after both Dixon and the priestess have vanished from its realm, wondering what came afterwards for both of them. So far, it sounds like a typical boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-reciprocates-and-betrays-her-God-to-help-her-lover story -- but it's anything but. The priestess's world -- IL's world -- is so alien to Dixon that the mere sight of it would drive him mad in minutes had not the God that took him as its tool provided a shield of illusion between Dixon and that alien world, including that world's inhabitants. The "priestess" has a form vaguely like a one-eyed snake -- except that that eye wanders all over "her" body, and "her" actual gender is nothing like any Earth has ever known. Dixon's physical form is just as weird to the "priestess" as "hers" is to him. Yet they have fallen in love with each other, because each has perceived the mind, the soul of the other, and it is that that each loves in the other. The physical form means nothing to either of them -- and the soul means everything. And it is that around which this story was written -- soul-deep love, love that ignores the body as the shell it is, and concentrates on the psyche of the beloved.
Her other stories in here are just as compelling. "Vintage Season," the story of time-travelers who visit Earth in what is to them the far past, but to us our own time, taking rented lodgings in a house whose owner also occupies at the time, have to come to witness one of several "vintage seasons," seasons of overwhelming beauty which, however, immeidately precede some of the greatest tragedies of all human history, from the Black Death to the impact of an asteroid that brings down our modern civilization. It offers a view into some of the darkest and most sinister aspects of the soul of mankind -- and of our descendants, who may or may not be absolutely human, who live safely in decadent splendour in the far future and come as tourists to view some of the most terrible disasters in history in all their horrifying lethality and destruction.
This book is worth tracking down and reading. Amazon.com usually has used copies in excellent condition -- I got my current copy of this anthology about five years ago from amazon.com (the first time I read it was around 1978, and I've worn out several copies of it since). Edited and with an introduction by Lester del Rey, and with an afterword by Moore herself, this collection contains some of the finest written work both in the genre of science-fiction and outside it.
"The Bright Illusion," for example, is the story of Dixon, a man rescued from certain death by a God determined to take over a world ruled by a rival God, who, used by the one God in an attempt to dislodge and kill its rival, falls in love with a member of the followers of the rival God on that other world, who reciprocates his love. Dixon's entry into that alien world opens the door for the intrusion of the first God into that world. But IL, the God of the alien world, wins the battle between the two Gods. Finding that Dixon has somehow convinced the priestess of its own people to help him try to enable the first God to kill IL and take over that world, IL asks Dixon and the priestess what they will do now, given the priestess's betrayal of IL. They tell IL they wish to be together forever, and since neither can live in the other's proper environment, only in death can that be possible, and they ask IL for death together. IL grants their petition -- and then is left all alone after both Dixon and the priestess have vanished from its realm, wondering what came afterwards for both of them. So far, it sounds like a typical boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-reciprocates-and-betrays-her-God-to-help-her-lover story -- but it's anything but. The priestess's world -- IL's world -- is so alien to Dixon that the mere sight of it would drive him mad in minutes had not the God that took him as its tool provided a shield of illusion between Dixon and that alien world, including that world's inhabitants. The "priestess" has a form vaguely like a one-eyed snake -- except that that eye wanders all over "her" body, and "her" actual gender is nothing like any Earth has ever known. Dixon's physical form is just as weird to the "priestess" as "hers" is to him. Yet they have fallen in love with each other, because each has perceived the mind, the soul of the other, and it is that that each loves in the other. The physical form means nothing to either of them -- and the soul means everything. And it is that around which this story was written -- soul-deep love, love that ignores the body as the shell it is, and concentrates on the psyche of the beloved.
Her other stories in here are just as compelling. "Vintage Season," the story of time-travelers who visit Earth in what is to them the far past, but to us our own time, taking rented lodgings in a house whose owner also occupies at the time, have to come to witness one of several "vintage seasons," seasons of overwhelming beauty which, however, immeidately precede some of the greatest tragedies of all human history, from the Black Death to the impact of an asteroid that brings down our modern civilization. It offers a view into some of the darkest and most sinister aspects of the soul of mankind -- and of our descendants, who may or may not be absolutely human, who live safely in decadent splendour in the far future and come as tourists to view some of the most terrible disasters in history in all their horrifying lethality and destruction.
This book is worth tracking down and reading. Amazon.com usually has used copies in excellent condition -- I got my current copy of this anthology about five years ago from amazon.com (the first time I read it was around 1978, and I've worn out several copies of it since). Edited and with an introduction by Lester del Rey, and with an afterword by Moore herself, this collection contains some of the finest written work both in the genre of science-fiction and outside it.
September 3, 2021
When the depression hit, Catherine Lucille Moore left college and took a job as a typist; she published using her initials to conceal her writing from her employer. Her wordy descriptions and superlative vocabulary are in some ways typical of the golden age of pulp genre fiction. All the stories in this collection were first published in the digest-sized science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazines of the 1930s and 1940s. But her writing can be distinguished from most of that era, in that it deals with emotions and the nature of erotic love (in a very traditional dominant male/submissive female context). After marrying fellow science fiction writer Henry Kuttner in 1940, almost all of their stories were collaborations. This retrospective collection of her most famous work was put together with her consent by Lester del Rey in 1977. I’ve read a few of these before, but not curated like this into the sequence of her writing career.
Shambleau (Moore’s first publication, in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales) **** - Northwest Smith, a legendary criminal planning a heist on Mars falls under the spell of a female humanoid alien he rescues from a lynch mob. Her exotic beauty attracts him, and entraps him through the strength of his emotions, allowing her to feed off him psychically. This is one of Moore’s most famous stories, and became the first of a series by her featuring Northwest Smith.
Black Thirst (originally published in the April 1934 issue of Weird Tales) ** - In a follow-up to Shambleau, a beautiful woman on the shipping quarter of town pays Northwest Smith to come to the palace where she is kept with other women who have been bred and trained for beauty for ages. There he must confront her master, a primordial being who psychically feeds off humans. There are extended and repetitive passages describing the indescribably beauty of successive women in the palace. These two Northwest Smith stories, at least, concern psychic vampirism, and take more a tone of dread/horror than science fiction or fantasy.
The Bright Illusion (originally published in the October 1934 issue of Astounding Stories) **** - Dixon, dying in the desert, is transformed by an alien mirage into an existence he can only comprehend through a transformative wrapping. There he finds that love transcends physical attraction. I had previously read the story in 1989, in 18 Greatest Science Fiction Stories.
Black God’s Kiss (originally published in the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales) *** – Joiry has been conquered, and Jirel travels to a terrifying underworld to seek a weapon to use against Joiry's conqueror, Guillaume. This high fantasy, unusual only in that the protagonist is a woman, is the first of a series of Jirel of Joiry stories.
Tryst in Time (originally published in the December 1936 issue of Astounding Stories) *** - Eric has seen it all, done it all, except fallen in love. He embarks on a journey through time, stopping every now and then seeking an elusive woman he has seen. The stops in time make little logical sense, but she also has some existence across time that is never explained. Written only 40 years after H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, there is some shared perspective about how time travel works.
Greater Than Gods (originally published in the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction) * - Bill Cory must choose which of two women he will marry. His far-descended offspring speak to him through photo cubes of each woman, and reveal the consequences to him personally, but more importantly to the future of humanity, the consequences to his research in gender determination of children. Note this story was written before the biochemistry of DNA was understood. The whole conception of the story hinges on biologically predetermined gender roles, and I have seen male writers of the period excoriated for less. I will just say that this has not aged well into the twenty-first century.
Fruit of Knowledge (originally published in the October 1940 issue of Unknown) *** – A retelling of the biblical Garden of Eden story, with Lilith the Queen of Air and Darkness, and strong sexual overtones. In the end, the theme of knowledge and immortality is more or less the same as in the original.
No Woman Born (originally published in the December 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction) ***** - The surviving brain of a beautiful actress has been given a cybernetic body, and she must convince her manager and the scientist who developed her body of her humanity. Moore’s writing is so in touch with Diedre, that I sensed what it must be like for her. What will be her eventual fate under these circumstances? I feel this may be the most effective story in the collection.
Daemon (originally published in the October 1946 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries) *** - A simpleton has the capability of seeing the good or evil demons that accompany all humans. Through his battered life, he learns to see all manner of pre-Christian spirits, and is witness to their conflicts realized through men.
Vintage Season (originally published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, as by Lawrence O’Donnell) ***** - Lawrence O’Donnell is actually a pen-name for a collaboration of Catherine L. Moore and her husband Henry Kuttner. C. L. Moore was the primary author, and it is sometimes credited solely to her. In it, Oliver Wilson is a 1940s American man, curious about the three mysteriously perfect people temporarily renting his old mansion. He finds that one of them, Kleph, has advanced technology in her room, and concludes that they are time travelers from the future. The time travelers move on just as a meteorite crashes to Earth nearby, initiating a plague. Can Oliver change history and avert disaster? The story features characters that are more identifiable and emotional than much of the SF of that era. I had previously read the story in 1990, in Tor Double #18: Vintage Season/In Another Country, together with Robert Silverberg’s 1989 companion story. In 1992, a film version of the story, was released under the title Timescape.
Shambleau (Moore’s first publication, in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales) **** - Northwest Smith, a legendary criminal planning a heist on Mars falls under the spell of a female humanoid alien he rescues from a lynch mob. Her exotic beauty attracts him, and entraps him through the strength of his emotions, allowing her to feed off him psychically. This is one of Moore’s most famous stories, and became the first of a series by her featuring Northwest Smith.
Black Thirst (originally published in the April 1934 issue of Weird Tales) ** - In a follow-up to Shambleau, a beautiful woman on the shipping quarter of town pays Northwest Smith to come to the palace where she is kept with other women who have been bred and trained for beauty for ages. There he must confront her master, a primordial being who psychically feeds off humans. There are extended and repetitive passages describing the indescribably beauty of successive women in the palace. These two Northwest Smith stories, at least, concern psychic vampirism, and take more a tone of dread/horror than science fiction or fantasy.
The Bright Illusion (originally published in the October 1934 issue of Astounding Stories) **** - Dixon, dying in the desert, is transformed by an alien mirage into an existence he can only comprehend through a transformative wrapping. There he finds that love transcends physical attraction. I had previously read the story in 1989, in 18 Greatest Science Fiction Stories.
Black God’s Kiss (originally published in the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales) *** – Joiry has been conquered, and Jirel travels to a terrifying underworld to seek a weapon to use against Joiry's conqueror, Guillaume. This high fantasy, unusual only in that the protagonist is a woman, is the first of a series of Jirel of Joiry stories.
Tryst in Time (originally published in the December 1936 issue of Astounding Stories) *** - Eric has seen it all, done it all, except fallen in love. He embarks on a journey through time, stopping every now and then seeking an elusive woman he has seen. The stops in time make little logical sense, but she also has some existence across time that is never explained. Written only 40 years after H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, there is some shared perspective about how time travel works.
Greater Than Gods (originally published in the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction) * - Bill Cory must choose which of two women he will marry. His far-descended offspring speak to him through photo cubes of each woman, and reveal the consequences to him personally, but more importantly to the future of humanity, the consequences to his research in gender determination of children. Note this story was written before the biochemistry of DNA was understood. The whole conception of the story hinges on biologically predetermined gender roles, and I have seen male writers of the period excoriated for less. I will just say that this has not aged well into the twenty-first century.
Fruit of Knowledge (originally published in the October 1940 issue of Unknown) *** – A retelling of the biblical Garden of Eden story, with Lilith the Queen of Air and Darkness, and strong sexual overtones. In the end, the theme of knowledge and immortality is more or less the same as in the original.
No Woman Born (originally published in the December 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction) ***** - The surviving brain of a beautiful actress has been given a cybernetic body, and she must convince her manager and the scientist who developed her body of her humanity. Moore’s writing is so in touch with Diedre, that I sensed what it must be like for her. What will be her eventual fate under these circumstances? I feel this may be the most effective story in the collection.
Daemon (originally published in the October 1946 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries) *** - A simpleton has the capability of seeing the good or evil demons that accompany all humans. Through his battered life, he learns to see all manner of pre-Christian spirits, and is witness to their conflicts realized through men.
Vintage Season (originally published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, as by Lawrence O’Donnell) ***** - Lawrence O’Donnell is actually a pen-name for a collaboration of Catherine L. Moore and her husband Henry Kuttner. C. L. Moore was the primary author, and it is sometimes credited solely to her. In it, Oliver Wilson is a 1940s American man, curious about the three mysteriously perfect people temporarily renting his old mansion. He finds that one of them, Kleph, has advanced technology in her room, and concludes that they are time travelers from the future. The time travelers move on just as a meteorite crashes to Earth nearby, initiating a plague. Can Oliver change history and avert disaster? The story features characters that are more identifiable and emotional than much of the SF of that era. I had previously read the story in 1990, in Tor Double #18: Vintage Season/In Another Country, together with Robert Silverberg’s 1989 companion story. In 1992, a film version of the story, was released under the title Timescape.
March 26, 2012
Once upon a time when I was a little girl, before Buffy and Xena before the likes of Tamora Pierce in the YA section, I yearned for heroines, and found little beyond Wonder Woman comics. Then as a teen, I found Jirel of Joiry, a kickass sword and sorcery heroine in an anthology and was entranced. C.L. Moore was a pioneer among women in modern science fiction and fantasy who isn't as well-known as she should be today, so I'm glad I found this anthology of her pulp era short works in a used book store. She only wrote one novel, Doomsday Morning, which I haven't read and have heard doesn't represent her at her best. She's best known for her shorter stories--stories that don't tend to anthologize well as the introduction explains, since they all tend to be over ten thousand words, at the long end of the spectrum for short fiction. Besides her Jirel of Joiry, Moore was known for her stories about Northwest Smith, a kind of space opera Sam Spade more than a little reminiscent of rogues with a heart of gold such as Han Solo and Mal Reynolds. The stories were written from 1933 to 1946, and the earliest ones have a bit of a purplish pulp age tinge, but are sensuous and just great yarns.
The first two stories are ones featuring Northwest Smith, and "Shambleau" for all it's science fiction trappings (it's set on Mars) reads more like a classic horror story with a Lovecraftean feel. Her first published story, it's deliciously creepy with a truly alien character. I was less enamored of the other Northwest Smith story, "Black Thirst," another story with a horror feel set on Venus, I thought it was a bit too reminiscent of the earlier story, while being more than a little bit cheesy. "Black God's Kiss" is the Jirel of Joiry story, and yes I still love it. I wasn't crazy about "The Bright Illusion" or "Tryst in Time"--I find love at first sight eye-rolling. Although I have to say, both had truly striking premises, especially the first. "Greater Than Gods" is...interesting. Published in 1939 it anticipates DNA, a theory of multiverses I've heard connected with quantum physics--and concerns sex selection. Some might consider the premise at its base dated, but I'm not so sure. There's a strain even in some kinds of feminism today that sees matriarchy and the female gender connected to environmentalism and pacifism and patriarchy with war and crime. I even saw a recent book arguing that the growing gender ratio favoring boys may lead to a more aggressive culture. So I found it in the end surprisingly still relevant. The following stories take us into the 40s and a strengthening of style and vigor of ideas that commentators have connected with her marriage and collaborations with her husband. "The Fruit of Knowledge" is a delightfully subversive tale of Adam, Eve, Lucifer--and Lilith. "No Woman Born" is a story about a cyborg that asks what it is that makes us human. "Daemon" is the one first person story in the anthology--and I can see why she chose that form, because in this one the voice is so important. And finally there's the story many consider her best, "Vintage Season," a chilling and powerful tale about vacationing time-travelers.
The first two stories are ones featuring Northwest Smith, and "Shambleau" for all it's science fiction trappings (it's set on Mars) reads more like a classic horror story with a Lovecraftean feel. Her first published story, it's deliciously creepy with a truly alien character. I was less enamored of the other Northwest Smith story, "Black Thirst," another story with a horror feel set on Venus, I thought it was a bit too reminiscent of the earlier story, while being more than a little bit cheesy. "Black God's Kiss" is the Jirel of Joiry story, and yes I still love it. I wasn't crazy about "The Bright Illusion" or "Tryst in Time"--I find love at first sight eye-rolling. Although I have to say, both had truly striking premises, especially the first. "Greater Than Gods" is...interesting. Published in 1939 it anticipates DNA, a theory of multiverses I've heard connected with quantum physics--and concerns sex selection. Some might consider the premise at its base dated, but I'm not so sure. There's a strain even in some kinds of feminism today that sees matriarchy and the female gender connected to environmentalism and pacifism and patriarchy with war and crime. I even saw a recent book arguing that the growing gender ratio favoring boys may lead to a more aggressive culture. So I found it in the end surprisingly still relevant. The following stories take us into the 40s and a strengthening of style and vigor of ideas that commentators have connected with her marriage and collaborations with her husband. "The Fruit of Knowledge" is a delightfully subversive tale of Adam, Eve, Lucifer--and Lilith. "No Woman Born" is a story about a cyborg that asks what it is that makes us human. "Daemon" is the one first person story in the anthology--and I can see why she chose that form, because in this one the voice is so important. And finally there's the story many consider her best, "Vintage Season," a chilling and powerful tale about vacationing time-travelers.
January 27, 2010
C.L. Moore is on my feminist history of science fiction reading list, but the role of women in her stories is not exactly liberated. In fact, it is pretty disturbing, even when considered within its own cultural context. Despite this, she turns out to the author of stories I've never forgotten after reading them once during childhood. Vintage Season is timeless, despite having been written in 1946. Still, her particular kind of horror--dark, wet, clinging, and feminine--is not mine.
Shelved as 'on-hold'
August 26, 2011A collection of some of the best work from pulp-era SF writer C. L. Moore.
"Shambleau" - a very good introduction to her work that is also a variation on the old medusa myth. The main character, Northwest Smith, is very much in the mould of Han solo (or more accurately Han Solo was very much in the mould of Northwest Smith) - he's a rougish starfarer who lives in the criminal underbelly and has various adventures that showcase just how badass he is. This is an interesting tale about erotic desire, addiction and the dangers of what lurks in the great vastness of space. There's sort of a Lovecraftian edge to this story about what can happen when man goes out to space and meets creatures that have existed far longer than his own race and whose hungers and desires may prove dangerous to both body and soul.
"Black Thirst" - Another Northwest Smith tale that takes on another old world myth and turns it into a science fiction morality tale. Another one with a neat Lovecraftian vibe, though perhaps not quite as strong as "Shambleau".
"Bright Illusion" - A pretty good SF story about loving the alien with a valiant attempt at creating truly alien aliens (as opposed to humans in rubber suits), but they are mostly alien because the author says so than because of any exemplary job of description. Ok story, but I like Northwest Smith better.
"The Black God's Kiss" - The first tale of Jirel of Joiry, one of the the ur-Warrior-Princesses (Moore seems to have had a hand in moulding a fair number of archetypes for the genre), in which she follows a quest for vengeance when her demesne is conquered by a rival lord, the overbearing Guillaume. In order to enact her vengeance Jirel enters a tunnel in her castle dungeons which proves to contain a portal to another world. Given that the story takes place in a faux-medieval setting Jirel views this place as a version of Hell, but Moore's vivid depiction of it allows the reader to see the place just as easily as another dimension as presented by Lovecraft, or another planet in the mould of Clark Ashton Smith. Jirel gains an unorthodox weapon with which to defeat her enemy and brings it back to her world, only to find the taste of revenge bitter in her mouth. I'm not quite sure I fully 'get' the ending of the tale, but it's another morality fable in sword & sorcery guise. Not bad, but I wasn't blown away by it.
"Shambleau" - a very good introduction to her work that is also a variation on the old medusa myth. The main character, Northwest Smith, is very much in the mould of Han solo (or more accurately Han Solo was very much in the mould of Northwest Smith) - he's a rougish starfarer who lives in the criminal underbelly and has various adventures that showcase just how badass he is. This is an interesting tale about erotic desire, addiction and the dangers of what lurks in the great vastness of space. There's sort of a Lovecraftian edge to this story about what can happen when man goes out to space and meets creatures that have existed far longer than his own race and whose hungers and desires may prove dangerous to both body and soul.
"Black Thirst" - Another Northwest Smith tale that takes on another old world myth and turns it into a science fiction morality tale. Another one with a neat Lovecraftian vibe, though perhaps not quite as strong as "Shambleau".
"Bright Illusion" - A pretty good SF story about loving the alien with a valiant attempt at creating truly alien aliens (as opposed to humans in rubber suits), but they are mostly alien because the author says so than because of any exemplary job of description. Ok story, but I like Northwest Smith better.
"The Black God's Kiss" - The first tale of Jirel of Joiry, one of the the ur-Warrior-Princesses (Moore seems to have had a hand in moulding a fair number of archetypes for the genre), in which she follows a quest for vengeance when her demesne is conquered by a rival lord, the overbearing Guillaume. In order to enact her vengeance Jirel enters a tunnel in her castle dungeons which proves to contain a portal to another world. Given that the story takes place in a faux-medieval setting Jirel views this place as a version of Hell, but Moore's vivid depiction of it allows the reader to see the place just as easily as another dimension as presented by Lovecraft, or another planet in the mould of Clark Ashton Smith. Jirel gains an unorthodox weapon with which to defeat her enemy and brings it back to her world, only to find the taste of revenge bitter in her mouth. I'm not quite sure I fully 'get' the ending of the tale, but it's another morality fable in sword & sorcery guise. Not bad, but I wasn't blown away by it.
August 12, 2016
I'd never heard of this author until she was recommended in an io9.com column. I managed to find a 1975 used hardcover and was thoroughly impressed.
The material within is definitely not your typical SF or fantasy fare and far more mature and accomplished than many works published at the time, or even now. At times it is reminiscent of old school space opera, modern Lovecraftian SF, the broadsword-wielding epics of Conan, the far futures of Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance, and some of PKD's more insightful psychological dramas. I hope she wrote more stories because these are effin gold.
The material within is definitely not your typical SF or fantasy fare and far more mature and accomplished than many works published at the time, or even now. At times it is reminiscent of old school space opera, modern Lovecraftian SF, the broadsword-wielding epics of Conan, the far futures of Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance, and some of PKD's more insightful psychological dramas. I hope she wrote more stories because these are effin gold.
September 30, 2023
Shambleau - 5/5 - Incredible science fiction horror novel that shows off Moore's brilliant prose while also hitting one of my sweet spots, scientifically explaining an origin of a mythological/supernatural creature
Black Thirst - 4/5 - Another adventure of the Northwest Smith protagonist from the above story. I know Moore is linked to the science fiction genre, but these stories have been more sensual horror than anything else. They just happen to take place on Venus and the big bads are aliens that could easily just have been supernatural beings. I’m not complaining, as this was also very good
The Bright Illusion - 4/5 - Somehow Moore wrote a cosmic horror love story that actually works. It might be the most impressive successful mashing of genres I've ever read
Black God's Kiss - 4/5 - A story in Moore's Jirel of Joiry series. Pretty good high fantasy. She brings some horror elements and quality of prose I haven't often seen in the genre
Tryst in Time - 3.5/5 - A man of adventure who feels like he is missing something in his life teams up with a scientist to test his recent discovery on time travel. He will be the guinea pig but will probably never be able to return to his time. The idea is cool but then it turns into him seeking out a woman whose consciousness or something is continually reborn. He interacts with a version of her often but is searching for the perfect situation where they can be together. I would have preferred it didn't go into the fantastical but it was still pretty good
Greater Than Gods - 4.5/5 - Excellent parallel universe story. A scientist is on the verge of choosing which woman to propose to when he receives transmissions from the future with descendants from either decision. Depending on which woman he marries it would end up having negative world altering consequences. Third act is a bit of a let down from the brilliance of the premise and the ending itself seemed pretty predictable. I still loved it overall but it just missed being perfect
Fruit of Knowledge - 3/5 - Basically the story of Adam, Eve, Lilith, and Lucifer. I only have a vague notion of the biblical stories so I’m not sure what she added or embellished or if she just decided to write the story like it was historical fiction with dialogue
No Woman Born - 4.5/5 - A famous dancer who died tragically in a fire has her brain transplanted into an android body. It’s not the inspiration for Robocop, but it is a pretty great Frankenstein-like story
Daemon - 4/5 - A simple man can see the souls of people as daemons (evil, good, or indifferent). He lacks one himself, but being soulless allows him to interact with Pan, a unicorn, and other various fantasy creatures. In theory I wouldn’t have much interest in a story like this but I enjoyed the ride
Vintage Season - 5/5 - Damn, this story is what I read science fiction for. Don't want to spoil anything as it's a bit of a slow burn reveal but it's a very fresh take on a standard science fiction theme while also exploring the way humans view history in an emotionally detached way
Black Thirst - 4/5 - Another adventure of the Northwest Smith protagonist from the above story. I know Moore is linked to the science fiction genre, but these stories have been more sensual horror than anything else. They just happen to take place on Venus and the big bads are aliens that could easily just have been supernatural beings. I’m not complaining, as this was also very good
The Bright Illusion - 4/5 - Somehow Moore wrote a cosmic horror love story that actually works. It might be the most impressive successful mashing of genres I've ever read
Black God's Kiss - 4/5 - A story in Moore's Jirel of Joiry series. Pretty good high fantasy. She brings some horror elements and quality of prose I haven't often seen in the genre
Tryst in Time - 3.5/5 - A man of adventure who feels like he is missing something in his life teams up with a scientist to test his recent discovery on time travel. He will be the guinea pig but will probably never be able to return to his time. The idea is cool but then it turns into him seeking out a woman whose consciousness or something is continually reborn. He interacts with a version of her often but is searching for the perfect situation where they can be together. I would have preferred it didn't go into the fantastical but it was still pretty good
Greater Than Gods - 4.5/5 - Excellent parallel universe story. A scientist is on the verge of choosing which woman to propose to when he receives transmissions from the future with descendants from either decision. Depending on which woman he marries it would end up having negative world altering consequences. Third act is a bit of a let down from the brilliance of the premise and the ending itself seemed pretty predictable. I still loved it overall but it just missed being perfect
Fruit of Knowledge - 3/5 - Basically the story of Adam, Eve, Lilith, and Lucifer. I only have a vague notion of the biblical stories so I’m not sure what she added or embellished or if she just decided to write the story like it was historical fiction with dialogue
No Woman Born - 4.5/5 - A famous dancer who died tragically in a fire has her brain transplanted into an android body. It’s not the inspiration for Robocop, but it is a pretty great Frankenstein-like story
Daemon - 4/5 - A simple man can see the souls of people as daemons (evil, good, or indifferent). He lacks one himself, but being soulless allows him to interact with Pan, a unicorn, and other various fantasy creatures. In theory I wouldn’t have much interest in a story like this but I enjoyed the ride
Vintage Season - 5/5 - Damn, this story is what I read science fiction for. Don't want to spoil anything as it's a bit of a slow burn reveal but it's a very fresh take on a standard science fiction theme while also exploring the way humans view history in an emotionally detached way
May 8, 2021
Although I knew the name CL Moore, I was unfamiliar with her work and thought she was a New Wave writer, not Golden Age, so it's been interesting to read these stories, all written in the 1930s and 40s. We think of much of the work of that era to be very plot-oriented, with little in the way of emotional underpinning or characterisation. I don't think that can be said of Moore's work, judging by this sample. Although the characters perhaps aren't emotionally developed in the modern sense, they are much more vividly drawn than in much of the work of Moore's peers of the era.
Shambleau is the work that made Moore's name, introducing the character of Northwest Smith and the woman that he saves from an angry mob who turns out to be more dangerous than he thought. My favourite story in the collection is probably the final one, Vintage Season, in which a man rents out his house to a group of strange foreigners. This story is based around a trope that modern readers will readily identify, but which was startlingly original at the time (the author notes in the afterword that she thinks it may be have been the first story use this particular trope). It's handled well, with a little sting in the tail.
There's a surprising (to me, at least) amount of theology in the book. Not only is there the very direct Fruit of Knowledge about those first days in the Garden of Eden, but Daemon discusses the concept of the soul and The Bright Illusion has two gods fighting on an alien world, and a man who wonders about an afterlife.
So a fascinating look back into a different era of the genre, and to see how Moore's writing contrasted with that of the men around her. She brought emotion into a genre that was, at that time, staid and with mostly cardboard characters. The stories themselves, while coloured by their time, are well worth reading.
Shambleau is the work that made Moore's name, introducing the character of Northwest Smith and the woman that he saves from an angry mob who turns out to be more dangerous than he thought. My favourite story in the collection is probably the final one, Vintage Season, in which a man rents out his house to a group of strange foreigners. This story is based around a trope that modern readers will readily identify, but which was startlingly original at the time (the author notes in the afterword that she thinks it may be have been the first story use this particular trope). It's handled well, with a little sting in the tail.
There's a surprising (to me, at least) amount of theology in the book. Not only is there the very direct Fruit of Knowledge about those first days in the Garden of Eden, but Daemon discusses the concept of the soul and The Bright Illusion has two gods fighting on an alien world, and a man who wonders about an afterlife.
So a fascinating look back into a different era of the genre, and to see how Moore's writing contrasted with that of the men around her. She brought emotion into a genre that was, at that time, staid and with mostly cardboard characters. The stories themselves, while coloured by their time, are well worth reading.
April 28, 2021
To give this collection of Catherine Moore's fiction from 1933-1946 less than 4 stars would be a crime. Closer to 5. She is a pioneer of a woman writing in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres. She also brought depth and a sensuality that was usually lacking in stories of that era. I have never read a bad story by her over the years and one of the stories in this book, the last one, 'Vintage Season' is a longtime favorite of mine. It is a strange story of travelers from the future visiting the past to witness disasters. It was made into a film starring Jeff Daniels in the early 90's. The opening story in here, “Shambleau” is certain to give you the creepy crawlies. It was the author's first sale and appeared in a 1933 issue of Weird Tales magazine. What a debut! Not a planetary romance, but a planetary nightmare.
The author had quite an imagination and there are some great stories here. Several of these have an element of 'horror' to them. That is not my go to genre but I had to admire the skill of these well written stories, artifacts from another age. Here is the cover from one of the included stories when it came out in Weird Tales.
These are longer stories, novella or novelette length and so are richer in the story than a typical short story would be. Among the many good ones I especially enjoyed 'Fruit of Knowledge' a retelling of the Garden of Eden creation and fall of Man myth. I doubt I have ever read a story like this before that really brought the Garden of Eden, and Adam and ... surprise, Adam's first woman Lilith, to life.
The included material was:
Introduction: Forty Years of C. L. Moore • (1975) • essay by Lester del Rey
Shambleau • [Northwest Smith] • (Weird Tales, November 1933) • novelette
Black Thirst • [Northwest Smith] • (Weird Tales, April 1934) • novelette
The Bright Illusion • (Astounding Stories, October 1934) • shortstory
Black God's Kiss • [Jirel of Joiry] • (Weird Tales, October 1934) • novelette
Tryst in Time • (Astounding Stories, December 1936) • novelette
Greater Than Gods • (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939) • novelette
Fruit of Knowledge • (Unknown, October 1940) • novelette
No Woman Born • (Astounding Science Fiction, December 1944) • novelette
Daemon • (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 1946) • shortstory
Vintage Season • (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1946) • novella by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
Afterword: Footnote to "Shambleau"... and Others • (1975) • essay by C. L. Moore
The author had quite an imagination and there are some great stories here. Several of these have an element of 'horror' to them. That is not my go to genre but I had to admire the skill of these well written stories, artifacts from another age. Here is the cover from one of the included stories when it came out in Weird Tales.
These are longer stories, novella or novelette length and so are richer in the story than a typical short story would be. Among the many good ones I especially enjoyed 'Fruit of Knowledge' a retelling of the Garden of Eden creation and fall of Man myth. I doubt I have ever read a story like this before that really brought the Garden of Eden, and Adam and ... surprise, Adam's first woman Lilith, to life.
The included material was:
Introduction: Forty Years of C. L. Moore • (1975) • essay by Lester del Rey
Shambleau • [Northwest Smith] • (Weird Tales, November 1933) • novelette
Black Thirst • [Northwest Smith] • (Weird Tales, April 1934) • novelette
The Bright Illusion • (Astounding Stories, October 1934) • shortstory
Black God's Kiss • [Jirel of Joiry] • (Weird Tales, October 1934) • novelette
Tryst in Time • (Astounding Stories, December 1936) • novelette
Greater Than Gods • (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939) • novelette
Fruit of Knowledge • (Unknown, October 1940) • novelette
No Woman Born • (Astounding Science Fiction, December 1944) • novelette
Daemon • (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 1946) • shortstory
Vintage Season • (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1946) • novella by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
Afterword: Footnote to "Shambleau"... and Others • (1975) • essay by C. L. Moore
December 13, 2022
I'm a fan of this series of anthologies that collect the "best" of a particular science fiction/fantasy author over their career. Two stories here are superlative: "No Woman Born" and "Vintage Season," the latter I have read many times due to its popularity in being anthologized. With this collection, I saw the craft of Moore improve with each story. The second half of the book is worth triple the first half, but all together I got a sense of Moore's development and maturation as an author. Even with "Shambleau," the first story (and her first publication), there's a great deal of promise and erudition in the prose. In addition to "No Woman Born" and "Vintage Season" I really enjoyed "Daemon," which is more of a fantasy story told in first person monologue (which is a stylistic departure from the other stories collected here), and "Fruit of Knowledge," a retelling of the biblical Genesis from the perspective of Lilith. In both of these stories I enjoyed Moore tackling myth and spiritual concerns in a way that pays tribute to perspectives different from the strong white heroic male that dominated at the time these stories were published.
February 15, 2019
I had heard of Catherine Lucille Moore, but this was my first exposure to her work. I saw this collection of her short stories come on sale on Amazon, so I decided to give it a try.
In my typical fashion for a short story collection, I’ll do a short review of each story, and then look at the collection as a whole.
Shambleau *****
Not only is this story my introduction to Moore’s work in general, it is my introduction to one of her most famous characters, Northwest Smith. N.W., as his partner-in-crime Yarol calls him, is very much the anti-hero. I call him an anti-hero insofar as he doesn’t particularly demonstrate the chivalry of other nearly contemporaneous characters like the Geste brothers. However, I think you could almost as accurately call him a hero, if the hero you have in mind is someone like Odysseus.
Northwest Smith is a pirate and a smuggler, a desperado of renown. Like Odysseus, he is cast adrift from his home. He definitely shoots first and then neglects to ask any questions. He is happy to lie to your face and then rob you blind. He is not, however, a force of random destruction, he just is wholly out for himself. In the pre-Christian moral universe of the Homeric Greeks, N. W. would have fit right in. However, he does not actually live in that moral universe, but in one whose foundation is Christianity, which is a thematic element we will return to later.
In addition, the story itself is a re-working of Greek legend, but with an eldritch horror element that feels quite natural here. Greek myth itself doesn’t have the existential dread of living in a universe that contains many things older than, more powerful than, and also indifferent at best to man, but it readily compatible with it. The Greek Gods were anthropomorphic, but often cruel and indifferent. However, the real monsters do not even rise to that level.
“Shambleau” uses the venerable conceit that old stories often contain a gem of truth. Stories in this vein treat their subjects as not at all metaphorical. With suspension of disbelief, such a story can be strange and frightening because you can imagine it to be mostly true. Many of my favorite authors have recycled myth and history to great effect, and Moore does an excellent job here. Even more remarkable, since this was her first commercial sale. “Shambleau” is one of the stories almost everyone talks about when speaking of C. L. Moore’s work, and I think it a remarkable piece. I can see why Moore had such a long career and so much influence on other authors.
Black Thirst ***
Whereas “Shambleau” had a touch of eldritch horror, “Black Thirst” is quite simply Lovecraftian. This is the second Northwest Smith tale, and in typical planetary romance fashion, it is set on a young and torrid Venus, whereas “Shambleau” was set on an old and dusty Mars.
This story gave off a pretty strong Tim Powers vibe for me. Powers’ early novel, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, in particular. The antagonist of “Black Thirst”, the Alendar, has a likeness to Powers’ Norton Jaybush. Most of Powers’ protagonists are nothing like Northwest Smith however.
Unfortunately, while this possible connection is intriguing to me, I started to lose steam on the collection here. “Black Thirst” is very much in the vein of Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. I liked the John Carter stories well enough, but not enough to read again, so I found more of the same unispiring. Not even the Lovecraftian element was good enough, since it was more of a mood than a repetition of Lovecraft’s peculiar way with words.
The Bright Illusion **
“The Bright Illusion” is the weakest story in this collection. I might actually have given up here, but I am glad that I did not. My best description of this is Lovecraft in spaaaace! It features a human coerced into serving as an agent in a titanic battle between two beings so great in power and majesty they are worshiped as gods, although they are nothing of the sort.
Except, this story ends on a curiously hopeful note, which in the hands of lesser author would have been merely schmaltzy. We get “Love conquers all” mixed up with “There are fates worse than death”, but I am most fascinated by the way in which this is used to illustrate the fundamental inadequacy of the victor of the titanic battle of the “gods”, who is forced to admit that the worst it can actually do is kill you.
This is curiously not like Lovecraft, and piqued my interest despite the overall weakness of the story compared to the rest.
Black Kiss *****
“Black Kiss” was the story that rescued the whole collection for me. It helped that I stumbled upon a recently written blog post, Fandom: An Illustrative History (Part I: Origins and Tales From the Crypt). This blog post illuminated Moore’s work in particular, and my love of science fiction in general.
The blog post has a lot of sci-fi inside baseball that need not detain us here, but this part stuck out to me:
The Gothic is the beating bloody heart in any good traditional romance story and is what gives it the universal core so needed in fiction. White against black. Dark against Light. Hero against Villain. Eternal Life against Endless Death. Temptation against Virtue. It goes beyond the surface into weighty themes of the Ultimate, God, and True Justice. The knowledge of a battle between forces beyond both parties at play that haunt the scenery and the overall world behind the story. It underpins every action and decision, and the thought that salvation or damnation is a stone throw away is the most nail-biting experience of them all. Now those are stakes, and they were an integral part of all fiction until the second half of the 20th century where the worst thing that can happen to you is that a monster might kill you in the dark where you can't see it.
The term romance, as used here and in my own musings above, echos the sense in which J. R. R. Tolkien insisted that The Lord of the Rings was a romance, by which he, and I, means a story of heroism and adventure and wonder. This was a development of the earlier chanson de geste, such as the Song of Roland. Not a bodice-ripper, although you might actually be confused if you search of images of Jirel of Joiry. I picked the one image I found that matched the story best.
The moral universe of Jirel is explicitly a Christian one. Defeated, and in extremis, Jirel seeks the possibility of a weapon beyond mortal ken in the bowels of her castle. She has previously explored the forbidden passage with her chaplain, but now she disregards his entirely sensible advice to turn back and she descends into a strikingly imagined Hell to exact vengeance. Jirel reaches a point where she can progress no further without discarding the Crucifix she wears about her neck. She proceeds.
I have no idea what Moore’s beliefs, or personal life, were really like. But at the distance of 85 years, what struck me was she simply assumed her readers would understand the peril in which Jirel was placing herself. If you don’t think there are fates worse than death, this story won’t make any sense at all. The stakes are not death, but damnation.
Jirel finds that which she seeks in that mysterious tunnel under her castle. But what we seek, and what we really want, often aren’t truly the same things. Moore’s denouement is so characteristically feminine that I don’t know how to properly do it justice, other than to say that the image I selected for this short story is simply perfect, and all the others are irrelevant cheesecake.
I am also almost certain that Tim Powers lifted parts of this story into his works, particularly The Drawing of the Dark. There is a scene in “Black Kiss” with a spiral tunnel that Jirel transits, and Powers wrote of a spiral staircase under a brewery in Vienna that his protagonist descended to seek power, claustrophobically close. Once I saw the similarity here, I couldn’t unsee it in other places too.
A Tryst in Time ***
A time travel/reincarnation/love story. I was impressed with how well Moore blended the masculine adventure elements with star-crossed lovers. Not exactly my thing, but well-imagined.
Greater than Gods ****
This short story feels to me like something written much later, for example Ballard’s work, with its elements of science run amok and managerial expertise turning into despotism. On the other hand, Heinlein’s first published story came out the same year as this, 1939, and Heinlein’s work is often similar to “Greater than Gods”.
Due to an accident in converging time streams, a scientist finds himself thrust upon the horns of a dilemma. In one future, his choice of a wife means that a pacifist, matriarchal, and quite stagnant society will occur. There is no more war, but no more technology or drive either, and that society’s grip on prosperity is slowly slipping away. In the other future, the other woman he is considering proposing to will bear him a son, who will beget a long line of sons who will dominate the Earth, and far, far beyond. This society is militaristic and regimented, but also capable of genuinely great things.
At this distance in time, I am fascinated by the dilemma Moore gives us. Today, no one could possibly propose this as a genuine dilemma in literature. I don’t think it could be done, because even I feel like maybe the peaceful but incompetent society is clearly better. However, the story makes no sense at all if you cannot truly feel that heroic deeds and exploring the universe and inventing new things are genuinely good things, which counterbalance the very very topical jingoism of this late 1930s tale.
Also, Moore superficially presents us with the thought that future history depends on whether each woman bears a daughter or a son first, but on another level, what really matters is the character of the mother, and what kind of child that union will create. I won’t spoil the choice the man makes in the end, which is what makes this story really transcendent.
Fruit of Knowledge *****
A dramatic retelling of the Fall of Man and the Temptation of Eve. Of Biblical stories, the sin of Adam and Eve retains popular currency even now, while other stories have begun to fade from our memories.
”Fruit of Knowledge” is perhaps a typical expression of the West in the twentieth century, insofar as the sin that truly separates Man from God is not simply disobedience, but sexual desire. On the other hand, if this story had been written today, Adam would have had sex with Lilith, not simply spoken to her and enjoyed her company for a brief time before the creation of Eve.
Like “Jirel of Joiry”, “Fruit of Knowledge” is set within a Christian moral universe. Moore sets the Fall shortly after the rebellion of Lucifer, an act which does not appear in the Hebrew tradition, but is instead from the Revelation to John. Also, there are hints that the Fall of Man was in some sense a happy accident, an event that was allowed to happen, because a greater destiny was in store. This is a speculation that goes back to Augustine of Hippo, so far as I know.
Finally, the children of Lilith, referenced by Moore here, were used by Tim Powers in his novels The Stress of Her Regard and Hide Me Among the Graves.
No Woman Born *****
Moore explicitly links this to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, through the dialogue of her characters. This is a tale of the creation of a monster by means of good intentions, and also truly terrifying to me.
Daemon ****
I think I can trace this short story to two Tim Powers novels. First, the setting, Atlantic sailing in the age of the buccaneers tinged with Vudun, is much like On Stranger Tides, the book that was optioned for Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Next, The Drawing of the Dark, Powers’ contribution to the Arthurian legend, which hinges upon the titanic change in the world wrought by the first Christmas.
No, three, because the influence of the Grait God Pan, who was the center of Powers’ Earthquake Weather.
This was a fantastic little story, from near the end of Moore’s career. Poignant and well-crafted, with acute psychological insight. Not as striking as “Shambleau”, but far better written.
Vintage Season ***
A sad tale of time-traveling voyeurism, but a well-executed one.
Ben’s final verdict *****
I almost gave up on this collection, but I am glad I didn’t. Moore wrote some great stories, of a kind I don’t think you can find anymore. I can’t find any interviews or essays where Powers talks about Moore, but after reading this, I have a hard time imagining he didn’t read her works and find inspiration in them. Highly recommended.
In my typical fashion for a short story collection, I’ll do a short review of each story, and then look at the collection as a whole.
Shambleau *****
Not only is this story my introduction to Moore’s work in general, it is my introduction to one of her most famous characters, Northwest Smith. N.W., as his partner-in-crime Yarol calls him, is very much the anti-hero. I call him an anti-hero insofar as he doesn’t particularly demonstrate the chivalry of other nearly contemporaneous characters like the Geste brothers. However, I think you could almost as accurately call him a hero, if the hero you have in mind is someone like Odysseus.
Northwest Smith is a pirate and a smuggler, a desperado of renown. Like Odysseus, he is cast adrift from his home. He definitely shoots first and then neglects to ask any questions. He is happy to lie to your face and then rob you blind. He is not, however, a force of random destruction, he just is wholly out for himself. In the pre-Christian moral universe of the Homeric Greeks, N. W. would have fit right in. However, he does not actually live in that moral universe, but in one whose foundation is Christianity, which is a thematic element we will return to later.
In addition, the story itself is a re-working of Greek legend, but with an eldritch horror element that feels quite natural here. Greek myth itself doesn’t have the existential dread of living in a universe that contains many things older than, more powerful than, and also indifferent at best to man, but it readily compatible with it. The Greek Gods were anthropomorphic, but often cruel and indifferent. However, the real monsters do not even rise to that level.
“Shambleau” uses the venerable conceit that old stories often contain a gem of truth. Stories in this vein treat their subjects as not at all metaphorical. With suspension of disbelief, such a story can be strange and frightening because you can imagine it to be mostly true. Many of my favorite authors have recycled myth and history to great effect, and Moore does an excellent job here. Even more remarkable, since this was her first commercial sale. “Shambleau” is one of the stories almost everyone talks about when speaking of C. L. Moore’s work, and I think it a remarkable piece. I can see why Moore had such a long career and so much influence on other authors.
Black Thirst ***
Whereas “Shambleau” had a touch of eldritch horror, “Black Thirst” is quite simply Lovecraftian. This is the second Northwest Smith tale, and in typical planetary romance fashion, it is set on a young and torrid Venus, whereas “Shambleau” was set on an old and dusty Mars.
This story gave off a pretty strong Tim Powers vibe for me. Powers’ early novel, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, in particular. The antagonist of “Black Thirst”, the Alendar, has a likeness to Powers’ Norton Jaybush. Most of Powers’ protagonists are nothing like Northwest Smith however.
Unfortunately, while this possible connection is intriguing to me, I started to lose steam on the collection here. “Black Thirst” is very much in the vein of Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. I liked the John Carter stories well enough, but not enough to read again, so I found more of the same unispiring. Not even the Lovecraftian element was good enough, since it was more of a mood than a repetition of Lovecraft’s peculiar way with words.
The Bright Illusion **
“The Bright Illusion” is the weakest story in this collection. I might actually have given up here, but I am glad that I did not. My best description of this is Lovecraft in spaaaace! It features a human coerced into serving as an agent in a titanic battle between two beings so great in power and majesty they are worshiped as gods, although they are nothing of the sort.
Except, this story ends on a curiously hopeful note, which in the hands of lesser author would have been merely schmaltzy. We get “Love conquers all” mixed up with “There are fates worse than death”, but I am most fascinated by the way in which this is used to illustrate the fundamental inadequacy of the victor of the titanic battle of the “gods”, who is forced to admit that the worst it can actually do is kill you.
This is curiously not like Lovecraft, and piqued my interest despite the overall weakness of the story compared to the rest.
Black Kiss *****
“Black Kiss” was the story that rescued the whole collection for me. It helped that I stumbled upon a recently written blog post, Fandom: An Illustrative History (Part I: Origins and Tales From the Crypt). This blog post illuminated Moore’s work in particular, and my love of science fiction in general.
The blog post has a lot of sci-fi inside baseball that need not detain us here, but this part stuck out to me:
The Gothic is the beating bloody heart in any good traditional romance story and is what gives it the universal core so needed in fiction. White against black. Dark against Light. Hero against Villain. Eternal Life against Endless Death. Temptation against Virtue. It goes beyond the surface into weighty themes of the Ultimate, God, and True Justice. The knowledge of a battle between forces beyond both parties at play that haunt the scenery and the overall world behind the story. It underpins every action and decision, and the thought that salvation or damnation is a stone throw away is the most nail-biting experience of them all. Now those are stakes, and they were an integral part of all fiction until the second half of the 20th century where the worst thing that can happen to you is that a monster might kill you in the dark where you can't see it.
The term romance, as used here and in my own musings above, echos the sense in which J. R. R. Tolkien insisted that The Lord of the Rings was a romance, by which he, and I, means a story of heroism and adventure and wonder. This was a development of the earlier chanson de geste, such as the Song of Roland. Not a bodice-ripper, although you might actually be confused if you search of images of Jirel of Joiry. I picked the one image I found that matched the story best.
The moral universe of Jirel is explicitly a Christian one. Defeated, and in extremis, Jirel seeks the possibility of a weapon beyond mortal ken in the bowels of her castle. She has previously explored the forbidden passage with her chaplain, but now she disregards his entirely sensible advice to turn back and she descends into a strikingly imagined Hell to exact vengeance. Jirel reaches a point where she can progress no further without discarding the Crucifix she wears about her neck. She proceeds.
I have no idea what Moore’s beliefs, or personal life, were really like. But at the distance of 85 years, what struck me was she simply assumed her readers would understand the peril in which Jirel was placing herself. If you don’t think there are fates worse than death, this story won’t make any sense at all. The stakes are not death, but damnation.
Jirel finds that which she seeks in that mysterious tunnel under her castle. But what we seek, and what we really want, often aren’t truly the same things. Moore’s denouement is so characteristically feminine that I don’t know how to properly do it justice, other than to say that the image I selected for this short story is simply perfect, and all the others are irrelevant cheesecake.
I am also almost certain that Tim Powers lifted parts of this story into his works, particularly The Drawing of the Dark. There is a scene in “Black Kiss” with a spiral tunnel that Jirel transits, and Powers wrote of a spiral staircase under a brewery in Vienna that his protagonist descended to seek power, claustrophobically close. Once I saw the similarity here, I couldn’t unsee it in other places too.
A Tryst in Time ***
A time travel/reincarnation/love story. I was impressed with how well Moore blended the masculine adventure elements with star-crossed lovers. Not exactly my thing, but well-imagined.
Greater than Gods ****
This short story feels to me like something written much later, for example Ballard’s work, with its elements of science run amok and managerial expertise turning into despotism. On the other hand, Heinlein’s first published story came out the same year as this, 1939, and Heinlein’s work is often similar to “Greater than Gods”.
Due to an accident in converging time streams, a scientist finds himself thrust upon the horns of a dilemma. In one future, his choice of a wife means that a pacifist, matriarchal, and quite stagnant society will occur. There is no more war, but no more technology or drive either, and that society’s grip on prosperity is slowly slipping away. In the other future, the other woman he is considering proposing to will bear him a son, who will beget a long line of sons who will dominate the Earth, and far, far beyond. This society is militaristic and regimented, but also capable of genuinely great things.
At this distance in time, I am fascinated by the dilemma Moore gives us. Today, no one could possibly propose this as a genuine dilemma in literature. I don’t think it could be done, because even I feel like maybe the peaceful but incompetent society is clearly better. However, the story makes no sense at all if you cannot truly feel that heroic deeds and exploring the universe and inventing new things are genuinely good things, which counterbalance the very very topical jingoism of this late 1930s tale.
Also, Moore superficially presents us with the thought that future history depends on whether each woman bears a daughter or a son first, but on another level, what really matters is the character of the mother, and what kind of child that union will create. I won’t spoil the choice the man makes in the end, which is what makes this story really transcendent.
Fruit of Knowledge *****
A dramatic retelling of the Fall of Man and the Temptation of Eve. Of Biblical stories, the sin of Adam and Eve retains popular currency even now, while other stories have begun to fade from our memories.
”Fruit of Knowledge” is perhaps a typical expression of the West in the twentieth century, insofar as the sin that truly separates Man from God is not simply disobedience, but sexual desire. On the other hand, if this story had been written today, Adam would have had sex with Lilith, not simply spoken to her and enjoyed her company for a brief time before the creation of Eve.
Like “Jirel of Joiry”, “Fruit of Knowledge” is set within a Christian moral universe. Moore sets the Fall shortly after the rebellion of Lucifer, an act which does not appear in the Hebrew tradition, but is instead from the Revelation to John. Also, there are hints that the Fall of Man was in some sense a happy accident, an event that was allowed to happen, because a greater destiny was in store. This is a speculation that goes back to Augustine of Hippo, so far as I know.
Finally, the children of Lilith, referenced by Moore here, were used by Tim Powers in his novels The Stress of Her Regard and Hide Me Among the Graves.
No Woman Born *****
Moore explicitly links this to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, through the dialogue of her characters. This is a tale of the creation of a monster by means of good intentions, and also truly terrifying to me.
Daemon ****
I think I can trace this short story to two Tim Powers novels. First, the setting, Atlantic sailing in the age of the buccaneers tinged with Vudun, is much like On Stranger Tides, the book that was optioned for Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Next, The Drawing of the Dark, Powers’ contribution to the Arthurian legend, which hinges upon the titanic change in the world wrought by the first Christmas.
No, three, because the influence of the Grait God Pan, who was the center of Powers’ Earthquake Weather.
This was a fantastic little story, from near the end of Moore’s career. Poignant and well-crafted, with acute psychological insight. Not as striking as “Shambleau”, but far better written.
Vintage Season ***
A sad tale of time-traveling voyeurism, but a well-executed one.
Ben’s final verdict *****
I almost gave up on this collection, but I am glad I didn’t. Moore wrote some great stories, of a kind I don’t think you can find anymore. I can’t find any interviews or essays where Powers talks about Moore, but after reading this, I have a hard time imagining he didn’t read her works and find inspiration in them. Highly recommended.
May 2, 2020
I've read many C. L. Moore-adjacent authors, but never Moore herself. So let's go.
Warning: spoilers abound.
Shambleau
A space explorer rescues a female alien from a pitchfork-wielding mob, gives her shelter, and becomes entangled with her—quite literally.
There's a lot to, ahem... disentangle in this story, and I'm not simply referring to all those tentacles. This reads like a subversion of the typical pulp sci-fi yarn. Yes, hardy space explorers tend to get the girl in the end, but usually the tales center on action and adventure, and don't feature steamy passages that read like H. P. Lovecraft trying to write a sex scene (HPL liked the story when it came out btw). Here the space adventures are mentioned in passing, the focus is on the affair and the explorer's growing infatuation with the alien.
She is given some decidedly non-human aspects; this is no James T. Kirk's green-skinned girfriend of the week:
In the afterword to the collection, C. L. Moore mentions that she started with the idea of the persecuted alien, while the explorer came into existence to serve as a suitable foil.
Black Thirst
The aforementioned space adventurer is contracted to kill the monstruous owner of a space harem (some second cousin of Nyarlathotep?) by a space odalisk who wants to free herself.
This story features women purposefully bred for beauty and beauty alone, up to such an incandescent level that it clouds the mind and the will of the protagonist, Ayesha-like.
Much like in Shambleau, the space adventurer doesn't drive the plot here, he mainly serves as our point of view, and to apply some brute force at the behest of the rebellious odalisk, who sacrifices herself in order to take down the monster.
The Bright Illusion
A desperate man is rescued from certain death by a an alien god on the condition to serve as his spy into an incomprehensible otherworldly realm, with the aim of deposing a rival alien god and gaining the worship of a civilization of extradimensional snakelike aliens. Ah, and the man falls in love with one of the snakelike beings, because the mechanism that translates the incomprehensible realm back into human concepts and perceptions happens to map the snakelike being to a beautiful woman. She mistakenly assumes that the human spy is an emissary from her true god and...
The emphasis on the mismatch between the translated perceptions and the true reality beneath is fascinating:
Not least when your love life hinges on it:
This is a wildly imaginative and absurdly romantic story. Possibly my favorite story in the collection.
Black God's Kiss
A warrior-maiden is defeated in battle, a kiss forced upon her. She escapes into a strange netherworld in search of a suitable weapon for revenge, which happens to be... a kiss. Under the strange light of the alternate dimension she encounters female bodies without minds, and blinded animal bodies housing a human consciousness. That reminded me a bit of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation.
The scant clothing in the Weird Tales cover doesn't match the chain mail she wears in story.
Tryst in time
A reincarnation romance. Pretty unremarkable IMHO.
Greater than gods
A scientist at the fulcrum of history has two competing premonitory visions, and has to choose between two girlfriends. Marrying each of them will bring about one of the futures.
Oddly sexist tale which includes the following passage:
Another galling detail is that the future depends wholly on the actions of the male protagonist, and the two candidate wives will only hinder him, each in her own way. The dilemma is resolved when... the protagonist chooses a third spouse out of the blue, one who will prove largely subservient!
The anguish of each future's inhabitants at realizing they are mere potentialities who might as well drift into complete nonexistence is effectively exploited for pathos. The competing futures—densely populated world, but a totalitarian nightmare vs. scarcely populated garden world of happy people—remind me a bit of Derek Parfit's repugnant conclusion, a dilemma of population ethics. (I'm on the garden world camp.)
Fruit of knowledge
Enjoyable retelling of the myth of Lilith. Her introduction to the story was pretty clever!
Loved this passage:
Includes a special guest appearance by (Milton's) Satan. One aspect I didn't like was the ending, mentioning Cain seems forced and doesn't add anything to the tale.
No woman born
A world-famous female performer, severely burned in a fire, is given a robot body. She has to fend off the genius creator of her new body, who believes he has the right to set the limits of her personhood, and resents her attempts at self-definition.
At several points he compares her to Abelard. Which I guess means Peter Abelard, though no explicit mention of Abelard's testicles is made.
This tale is quite prescient about the concept of "uncanny valley". More precisely, it's prescient about how to avoid it by not aiming for perfect, excessively literal recreations.
Daemon
A Robinson Crusoesque story, only with a protagonist who is actually sympathetic and doesn't spend the whole tale playing Factorio in the island. Also featured: oreads, unicorns, and visible souls (?) hovering over people's bodies.
Vintage season
This tale features some delectable imagery:
One tiny mystery: is the "Golconda" some of the characters are fans of a veiled reference to some real actor?
A final complaint: the collection should have included the original publication date for the stories, specially given that some of them were quite ahead of their time.
Warning: spoilers abound.
Shambleau
A space explorer rescues a female alien from a pitchfork-wielding mob, gives her shelter, and becomes entangled with her—quite literally.
There's a lot to, ahem... disentangle in this story, and I'm not simply referring to all those tentacles. This reads like a subversion of the typical pulp sci-fi yarn. Yes, hardy space explorers tend to get the girl in the end, but usually the tales center on action and adventure, and don't feature steamy passages that read like H. P. Lovecraft trying to write a sex scene (HPL liked the story when it came out btw). Here the space adventures are mentioned in passing, the focus is on the affair and the explorer's growing infatuation with the alien.
She is given some decidedly non-human aspects; this is no James T. Kirk's green-skinned girfriend of the week:
He turned to face her [...] and stared [...] in the entirely frank openness with which men regard that which is not wholly human. For she was not. He knew it at a glance, though the brown, sweet body was shaped like a woman’s and she wore the garment of scarlet—he saw it was leather—with an ease that few unhuman beings achieve toward clothing. [her eyes] were frankly green as young grass, with slit-like, feline pupils that pulsed unceasingly, [...] There was no hair upon her face—neither brows nor lashes, and he would have sworn that the tight scarlet turban bound around her head covered baldness. She had three fingers and a thumb, and her feet had four digits apiece too, and all sixteen of them were tipped with round claws that sheathed back into the flesh like a cat’s. She ran her tongue over her lips—a thin, pink, flat tongue as feline as her eyes—and spoke with difficulty. He felt that that throat and tongue had never been shaped for human speech.
In the afterword to the collection, C. L. Moore mentions that she started with the idea of the persecuted alien, while the explorer came into existence to serve as a suitable foil.
Black Thirst
The aforementioned space adventurer is contracted to kill the monstruous owner of a space harem (some second cousin of Nyarlathotep?) by a space odalisk who wants to free herself.
This story features women purposefully bred for beauty and beauty alone, up to such an incandescent level that it clouds the mind and the will of the protagonist, Ayesha-like.
They were contented faces, unconscious of beauty, unconscious of any other existence than their own—soulless.
Much like in Shambleau, the space adventurer doesn't drive the plot here, he mainly serves as our point of view, and to apply some brute force at the behest of the rebellious odalisk, who sacrifices herself in order to take down the monster.
The Bright Illusion
A desperate man is rescued from certain death by a an alien god on the condition to serve as his spy into an incomprehensible otherworldly realm, with the aim of deposing a rival alien god and gaining the worship of a civilization of extradimensional snakelike aliens. Ah, and the man falls in love with one of the snakelike beings, because the mechanism that translates the incomprehensible realm back into human concepts and perceptions happens to map the snakelike being to a beautiful woman. She mistakenly assumes that the human spy is an emissary from her true god and...
The emphasis on the mismatch between the translated perceptions and the true reality beneath is fascinating:
A mask had been set for him over the realities of the place, but it was not a living mask.
Not least when your love life hinges on it:
Lovely body, lovely face, sweet, warm mouth upon his—was this all? Could love rise from no more than a scrap of beautifully shaped flesh? [...] Good heaven, was he doomed to love an empty body, soulless, the mirage masking a sexless being who could not return any emotion he knew?
This is a wildly imaginative and absurdly romantic story. Possibly my favorite story in the collection.
Black God's Kiss
A warrior-maiden is defeated in battle, a kiss forced upon her. She escapes into a strange netherworld in search of a suitable weapon for revenge, which happens to be... a kiss. Under the strange light of the alternate dimension she encounters female bodies without minds, and blinded animal bodies housing a human consciousness. That reminded me a bit of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation.
The scant clothing in the Weird Tales cover doesn't match the chain mail she wears in story.
Tryst in time
A reincarnation romance. Pretty unremarkable IMHO.
Greater than gods
A scientist at the fulcrum of history has two competing premonitory visions, and has to choose between two girlfriends. Marrying each of them will bring about one of the futures.
Oddly sexist tale which includes the following passage:
Of course, some things suffered under the matriarchy. Women as a sex are not scientists, not inventors, not mechanics or engineers or architects.
Another galling detail is that the future depends wholly on the actions of the male protagonist, and the two candidate wives will only hinder him, each in her own way. The dilemma is resolved when... the protagonist chooses a third spouse out of the blue, one who will prove largely subservient!
The anguish of each future's inhabitants at realizing they are mere potentialities who might as well drift into complete nonexistence is effectively exploited for pathos. The competing futures—densely populated world, but a totalitarian nightmare vs. scarcely populated garden world of happy people—remind me a bit of Derek Parfit's repugnant conclusion, a dilemma of population ethics. (I'm on the garden world camp.)
Fruit of knowledge
Enjoyable retelling of the myth of Lilith. Her introduction to the story was pretty clever!
Loved this passage:
“Look,” said Adam, sweeping a long-armed gesture. A low hillside lay before them, starry with flowers except for a scar in its side where the raw, bare earth of Eden showed through. The scar was already healing over with a faint mist of green. “That’s where I was made,”
Includes a special guest appearance by (Milton's) Satan. One aspect I didn't like was the ending, mentioning Cain seems forced and doesn't add anything to the tale.
No woman born
A world-famous female performer, severely burned in a fire, is given a robot body. She has to fend off the genius creator of her new body, who believes he has the right to set the limits of her personhood, and resents her attempts at self-definition.
At several points he compares her to Abelard. Which I guess means Peter Abelard, though no explicit mention of Abelard's testicles is made.
This tale is quite prescient about the concept of "uncanny valley". More precisely, it's prescient about how to avoid it by not aiming for perfect, excessively literal recreations.
Daemon
A Robinson Crusoesque story, only with a protagonist who is actually sympathetic and doesn't spend the whole tale playing Factorio in the island. Also featured: oreads, unicorns, and visible souls (?) hovering over people's bodies.
I gathered shellfish and fruit, and drank of the little stream that fell from the mountain pool. And as I leaned to drink, two white dripping arms rose up to clasp my neck, and a mouth as wet and cold as the water pressed mine.
Vintage season
This tale features some delectable imagery:
She wore something like gossamer buskins of filmy net, fitting her feet exactly. The bare soles were pink as if they had been rouged, and the nails had a liquid gleam like tiny mirrors. He moved closer, and was not as surprised as he should have been to see that they really were tiny mirrors, painted with some lacquer that gave them reflecting surfaces.
One tiny mystery: is the "Golconda" some of the characters are fans of a veiled reference to some real actor?
A final complaint: the collection should have included the original publication date for the stories, specially given that some of them were quite ahead of their time.
December 29, 2015
If you crossed Lovecraft with Bradbury, you might end up with a writer as strange and lyrical as C. L. Moore.
Her first story in this book is her first story sold, Shambleau, a ground-breaking short from 1933. There’s definitely a Lovecraft influence there, and by 1933 Lovecraft had been published in the magazine Moore was aware of and submitted to, Weird Tales.
I think my enjoyment of Shambleau was partially marred by the introduction, which gave some of it away. What it gave away was hinted at toward the beginning of the story, but combined with the introduction those hints were more conclusive than they otherwise would have been.
That said, the introduction is odd for another reason, too: it is reminiscent of the introduction for the later Battlestar Galactica series.
There are two Northwest Smith stories here, and both are weird. He appears to be the combination of generic space fantasy heroes—and Moore goes out of her way to evoke the space opera hero—with Lovecraftian weird and horrid fantasy. It’s a surprisingly great combination, though by the end of four or five stories Northwest Smith must be insane and maimed beyond recognition.
The other stories except the final are also quite strong, especially when you consider they came from the beginning of the fantasy/science fiction genre.
If man could see all the possibilities of the future, would it bring a new purpose, or indecision and insurmountable doubt? And there’s a Genesis retelling that is perhaps the best Biblical retelling I’ve read in fiction. No surprises are sudden reveals, just really good writing and characterization.
The Jirel of Joiry story is among the strongest, and I’m definitely going to be looking for a good Jirel collection.
The final story, which I think I’ve read before, is, not really a spoiler, a time-travel story; time travel is very, very difficult. Time travel necessarily means non-linearity when viewed outside the system, and often when viewed inside the system; that is, there is no requirement that things happen in the same order for more than one individual. There is the problem of sheer quantity, when popular destinations are open to all of time moving forward (oddly, or not so oddly given the writer’s quality, Elliott S! Maggin addressed this nicely in Superman: Miracle Monday). There are problems of free will and/or individuality galore, especially when, as in Vintage Season, time is portrayed as self-correcting. Vintage Season falls afoul of all of these, and is in my opinion the weakest of all the stories.
Her first story in this book is her first story sold, Shambleau, a ground-breaking short from 1933. There’s definitely a Lovecraft influence there, and by 1933 Lovecraft had been published in the magazine Moore was aware of and submitted to, Weird Tales.
I think my enjoyment of Shambleau was partially marred by the introduction, which gave some of it away. What it gave away was hinted at toward the beginning of the story, but combined with the introduction those hints were more conclusive than they otherwise would have been.
That said, the introduction is odd for another reason, too: it is reminiscent of the introduction for the later Battlestar Galactica series.
There are two Northwest Smith stories here, and both are weird. He appears to be the combination of generic space fantasy heroes—and Moore goes out of her way to evoke the space opera hero—with Lovecraftian weird and horrid fantasy. It’s a surprisingly great combination, though by the end of four or five stories Northwest Smith must be insane and maimed beyond recognition.
The other stories except the final are also quite strong, especially when you consider they came from the beginning of the fantasy/science fiction genre.
If man could see all the possibilities of the future, would it bring a new purpose, or indecision and insurmountable doubt? And there’s a Genesis retelling that is perhaps the best Biblical retelling I’ve read in fiction. No surprises are sudden reveals, just really good writing and characterization.
The Jirel of Joiry story is among the strongest, and I’m definitely going to be looking for a good Jirel collection.
The final story, which I think I’ve read before, is, not really a spoiler, a time-travel story; time travel is very, very difficult. Time travel necessarily means non-linearity when viewed outside the system, and often when viewed inside the system; that is, there is no requirement that things happen in the same order for more than one individual. There is the problem of sheer quantity, when popular destinations are open to all of time moving forward (oddly, or not so oddly given the writer’s quality, Elliott S! Maggin addressed this nicely in Superman: Miracle Monday). There are problems of free will and/or individuality galore, especially when, as in Vintage Season, time is portrayed as self-correcting. Vintage Season falls afoul of all of these, and is in my opinion the weakest of all the stories.
January 26, 2011
Library books always go to the head of the "currently reading" line!
Well, in reading this, I realized that I'd read many of them before back in days of "callow youth". They were better when I was a callow youth...
Some pretty good stories here, some not so good ones, at least one bad one. The stories are part of the "pulp tradition" which they carry on. There are the adventurous heroes like Northwest Smith (I actually think that ought to be "North West Smith" because he gets addressed as "N.W."), there are the thinly veiled yet somewhat "guilt ridden" sexual references, there are the science "fantasy" stories and strange aliens (an odd number of whom seem to be "almost" omnipotent).
I found that the stories were a lot more strained and a lot more juvenile than they seemed back in my teens and possibly early 20s and while they are readable, they didn't/don't hold up as well as some pulp writers have. I liked them pretty well when I was young, not so much now. I clearly remember the Smith stories from earlier. This time around as I trod the familiar ground, it just didn't do the job. I remember Shambleau and Black Thirst specifically. I recalled Jirel of Joiry's "adventure" in Black God's Kiss. They were okay, but not what I remembered the supernatural not being so dark and powerful as they were when I was young. I didn't recall Fruit of the Kingdom which I found silly and shallow nor did I recall Greater than the Gods which I thought an interesting story. There were stories that I found weak and others not so bad.
These are short stories so much detail will give unavoidable spoilers, but I think you get my take here. If you like the pulp era, which I do you might want to check this out. It pretty much runs hot and cold, good stories and poor, but you can sort of pick you own preferences (as I have LOL).
Well, in reading this, I realized that I'd read many of them before back in days of "callow youth". They were better when I was a callow youth...
Some pretty good stories here, some not so good ones, at least one bad one. The stories are part of the "pulp tradition" which they carry on. There are the adventurous heroes like Northwest Smith (I actually think that ought to be "North West Smith" because he gets addressed as "N.W."), there are the thinly veiled yet somewhat "guilt ridden" sexual references, there are the science "fantasy" stories and strange aliens (an odd number of whom seem to be "almost" omnipotent).
I found that the stories were a lot more strained and a lot more juvenile than they seemed back in my teens and possibly early 20s and while they are readable, they didn't/don't hold up as well as some pulp writers have. I liked them pretty well when I was young, not so much now. I clearly remember the Smith stories from earlier. This time around as I trod the familiar ground, it just didn't do the job. I remember Shambleau and Black Thirst specifically. I recalled Jirel of Joiry's "adventure" in Black God's Kiss. They were okay, but not what I remembered the supernatural not being so dark and powerful as they were when I was young. I didn't recall Fruit of the Kingdom which I found silly and shallow nor did I recall Greater than the Gods which I thought an interesting story. There were stories that I found weak and others not so bad.
These are short stories so much detail will give unavoidable spoilers, but I think you get my take here. If you like the pulp era, which I do you might want to check this out. It pretty much runs hot and cold, good stories and poor, but you can sort of pick you own preferences (as I have LOL).
August 23, 2010
I grabbed this volume from the library when I was researching early fantasy a few months back, and have to return it soon, so I had to read it now. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I may not have come to this book with a wholly charitable attitude.
Catherine Lucille Moore was one of the leading lights of early sci-fi and fantasy, and her prose is lovely. However, I was never quite blown away by the stories. I think I was expecting too much.
According to the introduction, Moore was one of the first (or the first) to write sci-fi from a more emotional perspective. "Her early stories were notable for their emphasis on the senses and emotions, which was highly unusual at the time." -Wikipedia Also she is lauded for her very alien aliens and her use of romance.
While I appreciate the stories for how groundbreaking they were, I must admit I was not that impressed by what they are. I've read too much that took her work as inspiration and spun off into further realms. I find these stories good, even very good, just not amazing. And I was really hoping for amazing.
Read more at The Blue Fairy's Workshop.
Catherine Lucille Moore was one of the leading lights of early sci-fi and fantasy, and her prose is lovely. However, I was never quite blown away by the stories. I think I was expecting too much.
According to the introduction, Moore was one of the first (or the first) to write sci-fi from a more emotional perspective. "Her early stories were notable for their emphasis on the senses and emotions, which was highly unusual at the time." -Wikipedia Also she is lauded for her very alien aliens and her use of romance.
While I appreciate the stories for how groundbreaking they were, I must admit I was not that impressed by what they are. I've read too much that took her work as inspiration and spun off into further realms. I find these stories good, even very good, just not amazing. And I was really hoping for amazing.
Read more at The Blue Fairy's Workshop.
January 3, 2016
Five stars for the smooth, layered writing but only two for the storylines themselves. Shambleau was supposedly the shining star of Moore's work, but I found it repulsive. For a writer in the 1930s, Moore's themes tended to be surprisingly dark, and as a result, I skipped over quite a bit of the content of this book. I did read "Tryst in Time" and found it poignant, although the ending was rather lost on me. Vintage Seasons was remarkable. This is the single work that both introduced me to and fascinated me with Catherine Lucille Moore's writing - I find her prose reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's in its quality of texture; many of the sci-fi concepts of time travel and alien life predate Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars, although the latter may well have heavily borrowed from Moore. It is interesting that she gained comparatively little notoriety in her genre, despite what is generally believed to be superior craftsmanship in her characters, descriptions, and tales.
April 5, 2011
Moore's Northwest Smith reminds me of Spaceman Spliff in Calvin and Hobbes. :-) This collection is pleasant, but I'm not sure nostalgic enjoyment will last long enough for me to finish it. Some science fiction doesn't age well. I may dip into it in future just to make sure I haven't missed something really good, but can't recommend it except for its historical value.
Several weeks later, I'd reexperienced the joys of No Woman Born and read Moore's afterword. I take it all back. Some of this is timeless, and it's instructive to see the development of Moore's craft over her career; from Jirel to Deirdre. It's also interesting to read Moore's own thoughts on her work and Lester del Rey's account of her place in the field.
Not just historical value. :-)
Several weeks later, I'd reexperienced the joys of No Woman Born and read Moore's afterword. I take it all back. Some of this is timeless, and it's instructive to see the development of Moore's craft over her career; from Jirel to Deirdre. It's also interesting to read Moore's own thoughts on her work and Lester del Rey's account of her place in the field.
Not just historical value. :-)
August 27, 2014
Not my type of preferred science fiction. The plots may be SF in the armature underneath - woman damaged rebuilt in metal, voyeuristic time travelers, alien Medusa - but the execution is fantasy. Maybe romance. The attention to garments and accessories reads like a red carpet review, including the metallic drape of Deirdre's costume, swishing its clinking way through the paragraphs. Enough seduction, trilling laughter, significant glances and attention to beauty to fill a bookstore's Women's Interest magazine section. Allure as trickery, practiced artifice; although in the case of Black Thirst, bred. Not sure how that breeding is accomplished, which would make for a more interesting SF story. Moore can write definitely, and I liked very much her afterword about the creation of her first story. The sidekick Yarol in Shambleau is an acronym for the typewriter she typed the story with.
May 5, 2012
A college prep classics teacher offered "Shambleau" as an optional short story because she'd found it so compelling and disturbing. I took the book home and read it cover to cover, which I don't often do with short story collections.
Like Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom work, these stories set baselines that changed the worlds of fantasy and science fiction. I find the writing much better, more emotional, and far more appealing to the modern reader than is Burroughs work. Several of the stories stuck with me, and I eventually found them again in other C.L. Moore collections.
Moore was one of those authors who couldn't sell as a woman, so wrote speculative fiction between the early 30s and the early 60s under male sounding pseudonyms.
Like Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom work, these stories set baselines that changed the worlds of fantasy and science fiction. I find the writing much better, more emotional, and far more appealing to the modern reader than is Burroughs work. Several of the stories stuck with me, and I eventually found them again in other C.L. Moore collections.
Moore was one of those authors who couldn't sell as a woman, so wrote speculative fiction between the early 30s and the early 60s under male sounding pseudonyms.
October 26, 2011
What I'm getting out of Moore's writing is that it is very internal, wrapped in the impressions, thoughts, and emotions of the characters. While this effectively conveys the power of the situations these characters get into, it sometimes tips over into a swamp of language that makes forward progress difficult. I suppose the best approach is not to expect a certain page count after an hour of reading.
I'm dissatisfied with the selections from the Jirel and Northwest Smith collections: "Shambleau" was so deeply internal that it turned me off, and I think that a second Jirel story would have been worthwhile.
I'm dissatisfied with the selections from the Jirel and Northwest Smith collections: "Shambleau" was so deeply internal that it turned me off, and I think that a second Jirel story would have been worthwhile.
September 16, 2011
Being a woman who broke into science fiction in the early thirties and then proceeded to introduce female protagonists, Catherine Lucille Moore rarely employed her own name, but is most commonly known as C.L. Moore. Additionally, after marrying another science fiction writer in 1940, Henry Kuttner, the two of them often hid the fact of their joint authorship of many stories, using one or the other's name or even a pseudonym.
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