#c. l. moore

[oliverbrackenbury]

New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2024 only launched on Backerkit yesterday and it's already 75% funded! Be a part of literary history when backing this project by helping us publish the first new Jirel of Joiry story in 85 years! There's also an obscure Elric reprint paired with new art, an S&S tale by Harry Turtledove, and scads of crowdfund exclusive rewards. Check out the campaign page to learn more!

[imsupposedtobestudying-whoops]

I couldn't decide which flavour of lines for her... Jirel of Joiry, warrior Queen from the 1930's - created by the great C. L. Moore.

[tromroan]

Jirel ☀️

[weirdlookindog]

"From a world like a jewel we come"

Virgil Finlay (1914-1971) - Illustration for C. L. Moore's 'Lost Paradise'

(Weird Tales - July, 1936)

[misforgotten2]

Lewis Padgett is the pen name of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.

Cover by Hubert Rogers

[aristocraticelegance]

Reading for February 2024. This was a Tanith Lee heavy month, because as I try to make my way through my backlog of books purchased at secondhand book stores I have been forced to confront the fact that I own far more Tanith Lee than I've actually read. This is because I don't come across her books that often, so when I do I buy them all and hoard them.

The Secret Books of Paradys I & II, Tanith Lee, 1988. I started reading this several years ago, because the first half is 2 novellas, so I would read one and then go do other things, and then come back. The second part is a novel, but it is organized in such a way that it reads similarly to a collection of novellas, but more clearly interconnected. The thing about Tanith Lee's writing is that she presents you with any number of fantastic, horrible, or fantastically horrble things and doesn't blink once. In one story a character is buried alive and then comes back a different gender. Another one starts off with sexual assault AND THEN SOMEHOW GETS WORSE. There were regularly parts throughout this collection where I had no idea where it was going next, but it was great. If a collection of horror-fantasy stories set between ancient Roman and 1920's pseudo-Paris sound like a good time to you, it's worth reading.

Cordelia's Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold, 1986-1996. Technically this is two books, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, but I had already read the first one and while I thought it was fine, I wasn't really interested in reading more. However, I've heard enough good things about the rest of the series that I decided to read the second half, and I'm glad I did. Technically sci-fi, but set on a planet that's late 18-early 1900s coded, it's an interesting look at pregnancy and motherhood through that specific lens. There's not a lot of pregnancy in sci-fi; you'd kind of think there'd be more by now. Still not my favorite of McMaster Bujold's (the Chalion books are great), but I feel motivated to read more of this series now.

3. The White Serpent, Tanith Lee, 1988. I have no idea how she published all of this in one year. I assume it was not all written in one go. Anyways, in a bold move I chose to read the third book of a trilogy without having read the previous two books. This is because I found this one at Half Price books, saw it was by Tanith Lee, and thought the cover looked cool. This wasn't a huge issue, because this seems to be a series of stories set in different generations in the same world, so events from the previous books are mentioned as historical details. I really liked this one; Lee is great at telling big, sweeping stories in a relatively small space. I also like her approach to rendering deeply sexist societies, simultaneously blunt in the way the characters are confronted with the reality of their situation and nuanced in how they manage to navigate it. Also? She can describe a sunset like no one's business. This is what's wrong with fantasy today: no one describes the sunsets or the trees. I want to know about the trees!! (Also weather plays a weirdly important part in this book. Like a major plot point hinges on some really bad weather). I realize I've said nothing about the plot, and that's because it A. doesn't matter and B. is impossible to summarize. At the core of it is a guy who is a gladiator in a kind of fantasy Rome-type city, but a lot happens before and after that. There are also some white people (literally white) who might be aliens. I'll probably go back and read the first two books, since this one was pretty weird. Modern readers might take issue with the way race is handled (see above RE: bluntness and nuance) but I can't really say much on that front.

4. Black God's Kiss, C. L. Moore, 1930s. A collection of the Jirel of Joiry stort stories from the 30s, which I only learned existed about a month ago. There was a lady protagonist in sword and sorcery! Written by a woman! Amazing. I did generally like these; the titular story was great (except for the very end, which I did not like, but the sequel story kind of made it better). I've seen these stories described as female Conan meets Alice in Wonderland, but the wonderland bits reminded me more of Arthur Machen's work. Some great descriptions overall, even if some parts felt dated in an annoying way. Also, this particular cover is ridiculous, but she is described as running around in a chain mail shirt with her thighs out, for some reason. Presumably because sword & sorcery abhors a pair of pants.

Link to January's books

[bookmaven]

SHAMBLEAU AND OTHERS by C.L. Moore. (New York: Gnome Press, 1953) Cover art by Ric Binkley.

Announced by Arkham House but never published by them. This collection of stories about Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry originally appeared in Weird Tales. 4,000 copy edition.

"Black God’s Kiss" (October 1934) [Jirel of Joiry]

"Shambleau" (November 1933) [Northwest Smith]

"Black God’s Shadow" (December 1934) [Jirel of Joiry]

"Black Thirst" (April 1934) [Northwest Smith]

"The Tree of Life" (October 1936) [Northwest Smith]

"Jirel Meets Magic"(July 1935) [Jirel of Joiry]

"Scarlet Dreams" (May 1934) [Northwest Smith]

Weird Tales (October 1934) Cover by Margaret Brundage. Story illustrated by H.R. Hammond.

(New York: Galaxy Novel #31, 1957)

“Shambleau”

“Black Thirst”

“The Tree of Life”

[deepdarkspaceblog]

'Earth's Last Citadel' Searches For Hope And Redemption

'Earth's Last Citadel' is a perfect example of how Golden Age SF can still lead the way into superior storytelling without wasting time or words. #sf #scifi #books #bookreview

Earth’s Last Citadel (1943) by C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner treads a fine line between high action and bleak melancholy. Using the raging war as a leaping off point, husband and wife team Kuttner and Moore give something darker while not straying far from their pulp fiction roots. What we end up with is a thrilling story that weighs heavy on the heart and soul. Alan Drake has one mission. Get…

[dirtyriver]

Fun fact: Microwave Man's civilian identity, Lewis Padgett, was the joint pseudonym of pulp greats C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner.

BHOC: ACTION COMICS #488

I was into picking up this next issue of ACTION COMICS thanks both to the impending showdown between Superman and Microwave Man–a costumed villain from the past who’d spend decades off in space–and the start of the Air-Wave back-up series. I knew Air-Wave from over in GREEN LANTERN and had liked him a bunch as a young would-be super hero in training. So the whole package worked for me–though it…

[vintagerpg]

This is the Paperback Library collection Jirel of Joiry (1969), which collects (like most Joiry collections) all but one of C. L. Moore’s Jirel stories (omitted is her collaboration with her husband, Henry Kuttner, “Quest of the Starstone”). The cover artist, unfortunately, is unknown.

These stories are alarmingly modern in sensibility, and starkly undercut a lot of escapist power fantasy that folks assume is baked into the genre — doubly shocking considering Jirel is the first female hero of sword and sorcery. The first details Jirel’s first dangerous brush with magic. This underscores the action of the second story, “Black God’s Kiss,” an acknowledged classic. That one see’s Jirel’s kingdom conquered. Rather than submit to the conqueror, who roughly tries to "kiss” her, Jirel attempts to tear his throat out with her teeth. Failing at that, she slips out of her cell and embarks on journey to a dark land accessed through a trap door beneath her castle, a phantasmagoric landscape of forests and mountains that somehow exist underground (in a wonderfully sinister bit, Jirel is initially enclosed in impenetrable darkness until she removes her crucifix). Horrible creatures live there. She seeks out the statue (is it a statue, though?) of the titular god and gives it a kiss, which she carries back and passes along to the conqueror, killing him.

“Black God’s Shadow” forces Jirel to reckon with the consequences of her actions in the previous story in ways that are honestly surprising now, let alone when the story was first published in 1934. “The Dark Land,” probably the weakest of the stories, involves another unwanted suitor. “Hellsgarde,” the final story, is a sinister treasure hunt.

And that’s it, unfortunately. Still, Jirel looms large. Her stories imply a much richer history beyond the events they present, though, even if we can only perceive them through a fog of imagination.

[comic-sans-chan]

Sometimes I think about the fact that Q is canonically in love with Picard, like it is baked into the very foundation of his character, and it drives me absolutely batshit

[imsupposedtobestudying-whoops]

"As he stared into the diamond glitter he saw its brilliance slowly melt and darken, until the pinpoints of light had changed to pools that dimmed, and he was looking into black evil as elemental and vast as the space between the worlds, a dizzying blankness wherein dwelt unnameable horror . . . deep, deep . . . all about him the darkness was clouding.

[tromroan]

Another Jirel with gold lines, because I think it looks... quite cool.... (Jirel of Joiry is a medieval warrior queen, and fantastic original character by the great C. L. Moore - one of the pioneer women writers of sci fi and fantasy!)

[weirdlookindog]

Virgil Finlay - Hellsgarde

(Weird Tales - April, 1939)

[misforgotten2]

Cover by William Timmins  --  1947

[cantsayidont]

December 1934. A Margaret Brundage cover announcing that this issue of WEIRD TALES features a Robert E. Howard novelette, along with a short story by Bassett Morgan ("The Vengeance of Ti Fong"); the novelette "Xeethra" by Clark Ashton Smith; and the novelette "Black God's Shadow" by C.L. Moore. Other contents include a translation of the Jean Ray story "Le gardien du cimetière"; a chapter of the serial "The Trail of the Cloven Hoof" by Arlton Eagie; short stories by Brooke Byrne, August Derleth, and Frank Owen; and interior art by H.R. Hammond.