Tag Archives: C. L. Moore

“Heir Apparent” by C. L. Moore

Leave a reply

Today is January 24, as I write this, and it’s the birthday of C. L. Moore (1911-1987). She’s a favorite around here.

Being cooped up in the house most of the day due tot eh weather, I was able read one of her stories. I chose “Heit Apparent” from the collection Judg,ment Night. That’s the cover of the original Gnome Press edition there on the left with a great cover by Kelly Freas.

It’s one of two stories in this volume that the ISFDB calls the Threshholders. The other is “Promised Land”.

Judgment Night was published in 1952.It contains five novellas that Moore was  the primary author on. Her husband Henry Kuttner didn’t collaborate much if at all on these stories. They were all published under the pen name of Lawrence O’Donnell.

I read this book in the DCell paperback edition when I was in high school. I remember very little about it, which is why I chose a story from it for this post I wanted to look at some of her work that doesn’t get a lot of attention. There’s a slight C. L. Moore reviavl going on at the moment. At least it looks like it to me. While Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry are her best known works and my favorites of her stories, there’s more to the work of C. L. Moore than jsut those two characters. Continue reading →

Ruminations on Merritt

2 Replies

Today, January 20, is the birthday of Abraham Merritt (1884-1943). At one time, Merritt was arguably the priemere writer of fantastic fiction in the United States, if not the world. For a while there was a fantasy magazine named after him. Sadly, outside of a small number of aficianados of fantasy, he pretty much forgtotten today.

Not entirely, though. Centipede Press as reprinted some of his novels in nice hardcover editions. Paperback copies of his works are available on the secondary market. Continue reading →

The Science Fiction of C. L. Moore

3 Replies

Today, January 24, is the birthday of C. L. Moore (1911-1987). I’ve been doing birthday post in honor of her for more eyars than I can count off the top of my head. For a while I was posting about the Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith stories, her two major works of fantasy. And yes, Northwest Smith is fantasy. It just happens to be set in space.

But Moore did write science fiction. Judgement Night and “No Woman Born” come to mind. “Vintage Season”, a masterpiece of time travel and tragedy, is usually attributed to her, even though her husband Henry Kuttner contributed to the story.

C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

And that’s the rub. Once Catherine and Hank married, nearly everything they wrote was a collaboration.

Supposedly, one could sit down at the typewriter and pick up where the other left off, even if the first one stopped in mid-sentence. I’m still not sure how that works. Moore is on record as saying she wasn’t sure who contributed what to different stories. She said there were a few differences in spelling, such as “gray” and “grey”.

I think they each brought a strength to their work that was different than the others. That’s easy to see if you read some of their solo work that was published before they married.

Moore was the better stylist. Her porse was lush and rich whereas Kuttner’s was more utilitarian. Kuttner on the other hand, tended to come up with more ideas, some of them pretty screwball, such as the Gallagher stories or the Hogben stories.

Together, though, I think what they produced was generally superior to what they could do individually. After all, their best-known science fiction tended to be collaborations. For example, Fury, “Mimsy were the Borogoves”, “The Twonky”, “We Kill People”, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, and “A Gnome There Was”.

Much of their work was published under Kuttner’s byline because, as Moore has gone on record saying, he got a better word rate than she did. So much of her contribution has been lost  to time as a result of the apparent sexism of pulp editors.

That’s a shame, because I don’t think we’d  have any of those stories if it hadn’t been for Moore. At least not in the form they are now.

Kuttner

7 Replies

Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was born today, May 5. He’s been my favorite science fcition and fantasy writer ever since I read “Mimsy were the Borogoves” in The Best of Henry Kuttner the summer before I started high high school.

I was going to read and review Lands of the Earthquake (thanks for sending me a copy, Deuce), but I’ve been on the road with one of the dayjobs most of the past week. It took me all week to read “The Brood of Bubastis” for the Robert Bloch post, and I was falling asleep over the keyboard as I wrote it. So, obviously, I didn’t get to it. I’ll try to read it and post something in the next few months. Continue reading →

C. L. Moore, Pioneer of Fantasy and Science Fiction

4 Replies

Catherine Lucille (C. L.) Moore (1911-1987) was born in Indianapolis on this date, January 24. She is the third of three major fantasy writers whose birthdays are every other day in January. The first was A. Merritt, and the second was Robert E. Howard.  She is someone whose work should not be forgotten. If you haven’t read her work, or if it’s been a while, do yourself a favor and do so.

Like Howard, I’ve written about Moore so many times over the years that it’s becoming a challenge to come up with something  new. Work and some travel have kept me from doing much reading for the last week, so there won’t be a review of any particular story.  Forgive me if I rehash things from older posts. Continue reading →

Blogging Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry: “Quest of the Starstone”

3 Replies

C. L. Moore

Today, January 24, is the birthday of C. L. Moore (1911-1987). She was one of the best practitioners of the weird tale, and later, mostly with her husband Henry Kuttner, of science fiction.

Today for her birthday, I’m going to look at “Quest of the Starstone”, in which Northwest Smith and Jirel meet. This story was a collaboration with her future husband, Henry Kutner. This story was originally published in the November 1937 issue of  Weird Tales. Catherine and Hank didn’t marry until 1940.

His his introduction to the story in Echoes of Valor II, Karl Edward Wagner says it was a collaboration by mail. I’m going to rely heavily on that volume and a couple of others when I look at the two remaining stories in the Northwest Smith series. “Quest of the Starstone” is the final Jirel story. Continue reading →

C. L. Moore’s PS – A Guest Post by Will Oliver

3 Replies

Yesterday was Robert E Howard’s birthday, and tomorrow is C. L. Moore’s. Will Oliver provides another guest post about their correspondence. Thanks will.

C.L. Moore’s P.S.

By Will Oliver

C.L. Moore (Catherine Lucille Moore, January 24, 1911—April 4, 1987) was a fan of Robert E. Howard’s writing. As she once explained to R. H. Barlow in an April 1934 letter, “I’d like to read everything Robert E. Howard has ever written. The first story of his I read was WORMS OF THE EARTH, and I’ve been a fanatic ever since.” Moore had a brief correspondence with Howard toward the end of his life and one of the early extant letters is dated January 29, 1935. She addresses a wide array of topics, praises Howard’s writing, and then signs-off. However, she added an interesting postscript that read:

P.S. I just wanted to remark that

‘We pinned our hope

To a rotten rope

And the Man from Galilee.’

In the faint hope that you’ll recognize it. Those three lines are another of my pet ha’nts, and absolutely anonymous so far as I’m concerned.

Continue reading →

Kuttner’s “Line to Tomorrow”

2 Replies

One of the things Henry Kuttner excelled at was the dark, sardonic twist at the end of many of his stories. Another thing he excelled at was time travel stories. Often in the same story. We’ll look at one of these today that he wrote in collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore that was published under their pen name Lewis Padgett.

Speaking of today, it’s Kuttner’s birthday, April 7, as this post goes live. I wasn’t able to read something for the birthday of Kuttner’s friend Robert Bloch. I wasn’t going to make that mistake for Kuttner.

“Line to Tomorrow” begins with Jerry Fletcher answering the phone way too early in the morning. He can only hear one voice. It seems to be a call between two people, but much of what they’re talking about doesn’t make sense. Continue reading →

Third Brief Shoutout: C. L. Moore

Leave a reply

While I made my deadline for submitting to the anthology I was trying for, I still haven’t had a chance to read anything by the birthday girl for today (Jan. 24), C. L. Moore (1911-1987). I blame labs starting today and another writing assignment I had due.

She’s no stranger to regular readers of this blog. I fell in love with her writing way back in middle school, and she’s been a favorite ever since.

I’ve read pretty much all of her solo work, and most of what she wrote in collaboration with her husband Henry Kuttner. But it’s been a while since I’ve read some of it.

Maybe I’ll revisit some of those stories.

If you’ve not read her, give her work a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Blogging Northwest Smith: “The Tree of Life”

7 Replies

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. Continue reading →