This is the second to last Retro Hugo post on the novelette category and the last of the stories.  I’ll do a summary post on the novelettes before moving on to the short stories.

“No Woman Born” was first published in the December 1944 issue of Astounding. It is the story of a dancer and singer named Deidre who has been badly burned  in a fire. The story opens a year later, when everyone thinks she is dead.

Only she isn’t dead. Her brain has been transplanted in a robot body by a man named Maltzer. Her press agent, Harris, is the only other person in on it. Her new body is human in shape, but instead of having joints, her limbs are flexible metal rings. This allows her to move in a much more sinuous way than she could before the fire. Entirely new dance forms are possible with her new body. She can also modulate her voice so that it sounds exactly the way it did, husky and distinct.

When the story opens, Deidre is ready to make her first public appearance. She’s done this behind the backs of Maltzer and Harris. Harris has just seen her for the first time.

The performance is a success. Then Deidre tells the men that she is going to spend two weeks at her private farm. While she’s gone, Maltzer concludes that he has done her irreparable harm, that because of his work, she will never be fully human but will drift further and further from humanity. Barring some accident that destroys her body, Deidre will only die when her brain wears out.

Illustration from “No Woman Born” by Frank Kramer.

This is the central theme of the story. Is Deidre human? If so, will she gradually, or not so gradually, lose her humanity? Has Maltzer done Deidre irreparable harm, or has he saved her life and opened a door to a new life of artistic expression?  Will the acclaim she has experienced from the public turn to derision and disgust?

These are the questions Moore wrestles with. I’ll not tell you how she answers them, or even if she does. I first read “No Woman Born” in high school. I liked the story, but it didn’t have the impact of “Vintage Season”, “Jirel of Joiry”, or “Shambleau”. I never got around to rereading it until this past weekend.

I liked the story, but I can say that it will never be my favorite C. L. Moore story. It’s too slow. I like quiet and thoughtful fiction, but it’s not my main type of reading. That being said, “No Woman Born” is an excellent story, one that deserves it reputation and its place on the Retro Hugo ballot.