Blogging Northwest Smith: “The Tree of Life”

C. L. Moore (1911-1987) was born on this date, January 24. Shen  was one of the greatest writers of the fantastic in the 20th Century.

For today’s post, I’m going to continue the series I’ve been doing on her character Northwest Smith. Smith is frequently regarded as a Han Solo prototype.

In “The Tree of Life” he’s on his own, without his Venusain partner Yarol.

The opening of the story could have been written by Leigh Brackett, and I had to remind myself that this story is set on a different Mars than the one Brackett wrote about.

Smith has been shot down by the Patrol and is hiding in the ruins of one of the most ancient cities on Mars. He’s in the temple where there’s a well. Behind the well is a image of the Tree of Life in a grillwork above the fountain. This image appears in the legends of Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Smith hears someone crying and finds a beautiful woman (wearing nothing but black hair that reaches her ankles.). The woman is blurry and out of focus except for her eyes, which glow red. She asks Smith for help. As long as he’s making eye contact with her, he can understand what she’s saying.

He takes her to the courtyard where the fountain is. The woman steps into the shadow of the Tree of Life. The shadow changes shape to conform to the woman’s body, and she disappears. Just then a patrol plane flies overhead. Smith realizes he’s in the open and exposed. Not having time to hide anywhere else, he steps into the shadow and disappears as well.

Smith finds himself in a strange land. From the light, it appears to be twilight there. There are trees, shrubs, and grass with little star shaped flowers. The woman is waiting for him. She is the priestess of Thag, and Thag wants Smith. The woman takes Smith by the hand and begins to lead him to Thag.

There’s some mild sexual imagery, such as when Smith sees how the Tree of Life responds to the presence of the priestess, but nothing like what we saw in “Scarlet Dream“.

“The Tree of Life” is a solid story, but you can see that Moore is starting to repeat some of the ideas she’d used earlier in the series. A portal to different land. Plants that drink blood. A woman who turns out to be something else, and a deadly something else at that.

“The Tree of Life” is worth your time, but it doesn’t really break new ground for the character. In some ways, I liked the opening sequence best because it reminded me of Brackett’s Mars and Eric John Stark.

“The Tree of Life” was first published in October 1936 issue of Weird Tales. It is currently available in electronic format in Northwest Smith. Be advised that this collection is not complete.

Speaking of complete, there are only two stories and on vignette about Northwest Smith that I haven’t covered. One of those, “Quest for the Starstone” was written in collaboration with Henry Kuttner and is a team-up between Smith and Jirel of Joiry. I’ll try to fit those in over the next few months.

7 thoughts on “Blogging Northwest Smith: “The Tree of Life”

  1. deuce

    “The opening of the story could have been written by Leigh Brackett, and I had to remind myself that this story is set on a different Mars than the one Brackett wrote about.”

    There is zero doubt in my mind that Brackett closely followed Moore’s “Solar System” template when creating her own (more famous) “Solar System”. The parallels go on and on.

    On a related note, I see far more of Northwest in Brackett’s Stark (and her other ‘damaged’ characters) than I do in Han Solo. Han is much more of a rogueish scoundrel than the ‘damaged loner’.

    Reply
    1. Keith West Post author

      I agree with you on both points, Deuce. I’ll take either lady’s solar system any day of the week. I prefer the damaged loner to the rogueish scoundrel in my fiction. Probably because I could identify more with the loner as a teenager than I could scoundrel, and those were the years my reading preferences were imprinted.

      One thing I did notice and failed to mention is that Moore did something Howard did in some of his stories. She put us down in the middle of some action (Smith hiding from the patrol after being shot down) that has nothing to do with the main conflict the hero will face. This practice serves to set the tone and pace without pages of backstory or worldbuilding. The hero is in a bind, and something happens that launches him into an adventures that moves the story beyond a generic adventure story.

      Reply
  2. Matthew

    I remember liking this one, but maybe not as much as Shamblaeu. The beginning did remind me of Brackett, though I don’t think Moore and Brackett were that different as authors. Not that they were identical but that they shared a lot in common. I think there vision of Mars was the same.

    Reply
    1. Keith West Post author

      It’s hard to top “Shambleau”. I agree with your assessment of Brackett and Moore. There’s a reason they are at the top of my list of favorite writer. Well, reasons, actually. Their similarities are only one reason.

      Reply
  3. H.P.

    Moore could be simply astonishingly brilliant with imagery and atmosphere and mood, but I found both the Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith stories repetitive, especially the Northwest Smith stories.

    Reply
    1. Carrington Dixon

      Almost every open-ended series will eventually become repetitive. Remember that they were not originally written to be read one story after another. Space them out with other stories.

      I wonder… The original Gnome Press hardcover editions of the Jirel and NWS stories interleaved the two. It is generally supposed that this was because the original plan was to include the cross-over adventure in the second volume. Just perhaps, it was also to mitigate the repetitiveness of the two series?

      Reply

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