Tag Archives: C. L. Moore

Henry Kuttner at 101

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Kuttner pensiveToday, April 7, 2016, marks the 101st birthday of author Henry Kuttner.

I was going to read and review one of Kuttner’s longer works and had chosen The Fairy Chessmen.  That review will come in a few days.  I’m not quite halfway through it and won’t be able to finish it before tomorrow.

Since Robert Bloch’s birthday was a few days ago, I though I would share a few photos of Kuttner and Bloch.  Bloch and Kuttner were friends and collaborated on a few short stories.  Those stories were “The Black Kiss“, “The Grip of Death“, and “The Grab Bag“. Continue reading →

Blogging Jirel of Joiry: Black God’s Shadow

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weird_tales_193412“Black God’s Shadow”
C. L. Moore
First published in Weird Tales, December 1934

“Black God’s Shadow” is the second Jirel of Joiry tale, a direct sequel to “Black God’s Kiss“.  The story opens while Jirel waking from a dream in which Guillaume is calling her named.  She’d sent Guillaume to his death with a kiss from the Black God she had encountered in a strange world she’d entered through a tunnel beneath her castle.

Now she realizes that she’s doomed him to an eternity of torment.  Overwhelmed by guilt, Jirel returns to that strange otherworld to seek some way of freeing Guillaume’s soul so he can go to his eternal rest. Continue reading →

C. L. Moore Turns 105

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C. L. MooreToday marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of science fiction and fantasy author C. L. Moore.  I wrote last year about what a pioneer she was on both her birthday and later in the year.

This year I’m going to mark that anniversary differently.  Rather than repeat myself, this will be a short announcement, a reminder if you will.  Before her marriage to Henry Kuttner, at which point everything they wrote became a collaboration to a greater or lesser degree, Moore had established herself as one of the premiere writers in both the science fiction and fantasy fields.  Her iconic characters Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry became the template of numerous characters to come.

I’ve blogged about both Smith and Jirel over the last couple of years, but those projects have gotten stalled.  I’m going to reboot them and finish those stories.  Look for a new Jirel post soon.

Until then, raise a glass in Catherine Moore’s memory and read some of her stuff.  You’ll be glad you did.

Blogging Kuttner: A Gnome There Was

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A Gnome There WasA Gnome There Was
Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)
Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 276 pg., $2.50
Cover drawing by Ed Cartier

I’ve got about half a dozen posts I need to write, including one for another blog, but with the blizzard, we’ve been cooped up in the house.  That means between my wife watching TV with the volume up too loud and my son monopolizing the laptop everytime I have to do something responsible, I’ve not gotten much done as far as reading, blogging, or writing is concerned.  I’m typing this after everyone else has gone to bed.

I started A Gnome There Was just before Thanksgiving.  I tracked down a copy some years ago simply because I was trying to find a copy of the short story “Jesting Pilot”, and this was the easiest way.  Turns out there is another story in it that I discovered last night has never been reprinted since this book was published.  At the time I thought “Jesting Pilot” was the only story I hadn’t read.

Anyway, I was getting tired of some of the stuff I was being sent to review, something I’ll discuss in my year end post in a day or so.  I decided to revisit some of my favorite Kuttner stories (something like literary comfort food).  Since many of them are in this book, that’s the one I chose.   Continue reading →

The Women Other Women Don’t See

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Trigger Warning:  Humor, Snark, Truth, Thoughts That Might Be Different Than Yours.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the title of this post is a riff on the James Tiptree, Jr., story “The Women Men Don’t See”.  And yes, there is a book review buried in here.  I’ll provide the pertinent information about the book later.  First, though, some context.group of men

I’ve heard for years that there were virtually no women writers in science fiction and fantasy before [insert date du jour here] because they were discriminated against by all the men in the field and had to use masculine pseudonyms or initials if they wanted to write sf/f.  The actual date when this began to change is something of a moving target and depends loosely on the age of the person making the statement.

This belief is pretty widely held in the field, to the point that it’s almost holy writ.  And while men have spread this myth, women tend to be the loudest in voicing it. Continue reading →

Henry Kuttner at 100

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kuttnerOne of my all-time favorite writers was born 100 years ago on this date.  Henry Kuttner was a prolific author who wrote in multiple genres.  Kuttner started out writing Lovecraft pastiche for Weird Tales.

Kuttner mentored Ray Bradbury and wrote the ending to Bradbury’s “The Candle” when Bradbury got stuck.  In the introduction to the Ballatine/Del Rey edition of The Best of Henry Kuttner (there was a 2 volume British edition by the same name with more and different stories), Bradbury says in reference to “The Graveyard Rats” that Kuttner didn’t want to be remembered as a minor league Lovecraft.  That’s a paraphrase, as I don’t have the book here with me.  I looked at “The Graveyard Rats” on Kuttner’s birthday last year. Continue reading →

Reading Other People’s Mail

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GardnerLettersCovMedLetters From Gardner
Lou Antonelli
The Merry Blacksmith Press
Trade Paper, 238 p., $14.95

Full disclosure time. I’ve known Lou Antonelli for nearly a decade. I met him because his wife was one of my students, although we had both attended a nearby convention a few months before but hadn’t met. I’m sure we would have eventually.

Lou was kind enough to give me a copy of his latest collection for review. (Thanks, Lou.) So far he’s only written short stories, but he claims he’s writing a novel. He tells lies for a living, so I’ll believe it when I see it. (Don’t tell him I said that.)

Anyway, this is an interesting collection. Lou shows us how his writing career got started. Each of the stories in this volume was submitted to Gardner Dozois during his last couple of years as editor of Asimov’s. In fact, the final story in the book is the last one Gardner bought. Immediately after buying it, Gardner left for vacation. When he came back, he announced his retirement. (Draw your own conclusions.) Continue reading →

Blogging Jirel of Joiry: Black God’s Kiss

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Black God's KissBlack God’s Kiss
C. L. Moore
Paizo
trade paperback $12.99

Shortly after she began chronicling the adventures of Northwest Smith, C. L. Moore created a second series character, one that would have an even greater impact on the genre. I’m talking, of course, about Jirel of Joiry.

Instead of setting these stories in space like she did with Northwest Smith, or in some age before the dawn of recorded history, like Howard did with Conan, Moore chose to place Jirel in the fictional French kingdom of Joiry, square in the Middle Ages.

There were only five Jirel stories, plus the Jirel and Northwest Smith team-up “Quest of the Starstone” that she wrote with her husband Henry Kuttner.  But for the first time in the history of the field, here was a female character who was worthy of her own series.  Note: the rest of this post will contain spoilers. Continue reading →

Blogging Northwest Smith: The Cold Gray God

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150px-Weird_Tales_October_1935“The Cold Gray God” adds a slight Lovecraftian element to the Northwest Smith saga.  First published in the October 1935 issue of Weird Tales, the story opens with Smith being accosted on the street of Righa, a city in the polar regions of Mars, by a fur clad woman.  Smith thinks she’s a Venusian, but she behaves in a way a Venusian woman wouldn’t.  Fro one thing, she touches him.  I couldn’t help but think of women in Islamic countries from the way she is describes.

Although he’s somewhat repulsed by her, there’s something familiar about her, too.  At her request, Smith accompanies her back to her house.  There he discovers she’s a famous singer who simply vanished a few years earlier.  She asks him to help her retrieve a box from a man who is frequently a notorious bar.  She tells Smith he can name his own price, hinting that he can have her it that’s what he wants.  Leery, Smith still accepts her offer, asking for ten thousand dollars. Continue reading →

Catherine Lucille Moore: Fantasy and Science Fiction Pioneer

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C. L. MooreNot to mention one of the most important writers of the past century.

Catherine Lucille Moore, better known as C. L. Moore, was born on this day in 1911.  She sold her first story, “Shambleau”, in 1933.  (review here)

In certain circles among science fiction and fantasy authors and fans, one can find a popular belief that women authors have been suppressed and had their voices silenced by The Patriarchy.  And That Has to Change.  While it is true that until recently more authors have been men than women, one has to wonder what parallel universe some of these people have fallen out of.  Either that or if what they’ve been smoking is home grown or Columbian imported.  Many of them act like they’ve never heard of Ursula K. Le Guin, Leigh Brackett, Kate Wilhelm, or Andre Norton, among others. Continue reading →