C. L. Moore

Im looking forward to read it too, should get my copy of that book start of next week.
 
Having read the first story in Northwest of Smith, the famous Shambleau CL Moore surprised me a little with her writing. Yeah you know her history in SFF but there are others who are that important who are more dated and dont have the timeless writing feel of her writing. I truly forgot i was reading stories from golden days of pulp era. Usually the writing style are so typical and purple.

I felt Smith came out so vividly from that doorway in his first scene. Also i felt her ability to write creepy,wierd part of the story was so good like the best S&S writers and you know who i mean.

CJ Cherryh introduction wasnt hyperbole about the timelessness of the writing and i cant help but feeling excited about reading Jirel and her other rated works now, already added to top my buy list.
 
Kuttner was, by most accounts, a primary influence on Roger Zelazny in writing the Amber cycles. The book is THE DARK WORLD and it's available online for free. I won't post the link at this point as I'm not sure of the site policy or if this is a bootleg copy... if you put in the title and author you'll find it easily enough... interesting to compare with the first book of Amber.
 
I have seen The Dark World in Planet Stories it did sound interesting in the vien of science fantasy that i like. But next i will focus on Moore,Kuttner more pure SF stories. There are a couple of interesting collections like that.

Have you read his Robot stories ? Planet Stories have it too and i wonder if its really among Kuttner finer works. I liked that it was an amusing series, i like it when they blend in humour.
 
Have you read his Robot stories ? Planet Stories have it too and i wonder if its really among Kuttner finer works. I liked that it was an amusing series, i like it when they blend in humour.

ROBOTS HAVE NO TAILS was a great book.
 
Having read the first story in Northwest of Smith, the famous Shambleau CL Moore surprised me a little with her writing. Yeah you know her history in SFF but there are others who are that important who are more dated and dont have the timeless writing feel of her writing. I truly forgot i was reading stories from golden days of pulp era. Usually the writing style are so typical and purple.

I felt Smith came out so vividly from that doorway in his first scene. Also i felt her ability to write creepy,wierd part of the story was so good like the best S&S writers and you know who i mean.

CJ Cherryh introduction wasnt hyperbole about the timelessness of the writing and i cant help but feeling excited about reading Jirel and her other rated works now, already added to top my buy list.

Moore was one of the best prose stylists for WT and her dark, nightmarish imagination tops even that of CAS's... but a lot of her stories suffer from repetitiveness and a certain simplicity of plot, things I only became aware of after reading a glut of her NW Smith tales whilst on holiday last year. Her stories can also be extremely intense, both emotionally and visually, and it can be easy to become oversatiated... For those reasons, I'd recommend you space your reading of Moore out with other writers, perhaps try to sample them monthly as the original readership would have done. I echo your comments though. Her best work (and that, in my opinion, includes Shambleau and Black God's Kiss) remains among the finest weird fantasy ever written.
 
Simple plot are no problem for me when its a story so intense,nightmarish imagination. I also liked her descriptive writing, i saw Venus,Mars and co so vividly.
I thought a female REH which is a great thing to me ;)

I didnt read the hole NW Smith collection at once but read 4-5 stories because they were so intense,creepy i thought to save them for other nights when i have less new books and can enjoy the series for a longer time.

Smith himself is legendary. A great prototype, a larger than life character you cant help but be fascinated by. Every time she described him and his eyes,rough looks i thought thats so ice cool... :)

Good to know you rate Jirel that highly, weird fantasy is why there is few things i like more than S&S.
 
I can recommend The Two-handed Engine. An excellent collection of stories by Moore and Kuttner in a beautifully produced HB edn. I've only read some of the stories from this collection but talk here has moved me to plan time to read some more from this collection.
 
Do you have The Last Mimsy and other Stories ?

It says its a best of stories by Kuttner but i know atleast the title story is co-written with CL Moore.

I wonder if its as much collection of both writers or if The Two-Handed Engine is the best collection for both of them.

I wouldnt want to get a Kuttner solo collection when i want more of CL Moore.
 
Not that Kuttner collection specifically Conn.

Two-handed engine is the biggest collection of Moore/Kuttner collaborative work although it does also feature their first ever published solo works as well re: the early days.

You'll get a good idea of how they performed in a collaborative sense with this collection. I probably should have said this book isn't that cheap and I don't know how easy it is to get now. LOL!

Ok, have to bid you good night.
 
Okay good to know. Two Handed Engine sound very good.

I will get it and finding it second hand shouldnt be too hard im used to that now. Unless its sick cost like 200 dollars or something.
 
Wow! they're flogging the HB edn. on amazon for $10 New. That's really good value. I think I bought mine in mint condition when it was first released for like $50 Australian.

You won't have a problem getting it then.
 
Several years down the line, a tardy 'student of the classics' pokes his head in. :eek:

I greatly enjoy the few stories I've read from the many that Moore co-wrote with Kuttner, and whether or not the stories collected in Robots Have No Tails are examples of these, they're great SF comedy stories.

As to Jirel, the flame-haired warrior lady of Joiry...I first read these stories at a time when I was fresh from a happy season spent under the spell of Leiber's tales of Fafhrd & Grey Mouser. Whatever Moore's strengths are, they seemed to pall after the wit, whimsy and many other wonders of Leiber's sly thieves and the fantastic world of Nehwon.

Following a thread on Kuttner in the Lovecraft sub-forum, I decided to give Moore another try.

I do in fact have the Gollanz Masterworks title that includes her Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry tales, but I decided to have a second crack at the Jirel tales, even though comments here make the Smith ones seem more appealing.

Moore's style here is breathless, visionary, intense...undisciplined. Sometimes it's like wading through a haze of kinetic excess waiting for Jirel to pull out her sword, stab someone and advance the plot. Jirel seems cast from the same gung-ho, 'a good sword in my hand and a wall to my back and I shall take on the world' mould as Conan, a character I often endure rather than admire, because Howard's breathless way with plot and fantasy makes the ride worthwhile.

Similarly, the visions of magic and the fantastic in Moore's tales of Joiry are often breathtaking in that way in which only weird tales written in the first half of the last century seem to be; before all our imaginations somehow became a lot more homogenized, perhaps precisely because of the success of writers like Moore in carving out new subgenres from the literary substrata of fantastic fiction. The aspects of plot and characterisation are...about as much as you'd want to advance the wild action and dark magic that the ride is essentially about. The fact that these are short stories, and of a certain vintage, makes it likely that I shall continue re-visiting the Jirel stories although this thread shows me that I should investigate other aspects of Moore's work as well.
 
Welcome back....:)

That's a fairly neat summary of Jirel you've laid down there imbued with quite a degree of wild energy of its own it would appear Sir.. perhaps Jirel and Moore are beginning to grow on you a little?..;) You must, I guess, have taken a peek at that link I posted.

Moore has definite talents as a writer but I think Howard and Fritz Leiber are both her superiors when it comes to S&S fiction.

Very goods news to see you do own that VG edn....I thought you had LOL!

It will be interesting to read your comments on Northwest Smith...:)
 
BTW, that link draws a distinction between Jirel and Conan that I think may be so fine a point as to vanish on closer examination, but does reflect the fact that the source of Jirel's power is never shown to be raw strength but sheer willpower...however that is not to say that Conan is not depicted as such as well, perhaps just with more emphasis on steely thews and the like.

These are the words I refer to:

The focus in the six stories of Jirel is on the heroine’s emotional willpower instead of her sword skill or muscle-power. The reader does see Jirel in action as a warrior and a fierce leader, but her ultimate success usually depends not on her fighting prowess, but on a combination of her fortitude and emotional receptivity.
 
Indeed.

I'm going to read through that link properly...I've been out most of today.

Just don't take as long to discover Shambleau. You can thank me for it later...;)
 
Shambleau is fantastic the first sword and planet i read that felt like weird tales S&S, but in space.

Jirel with all due respect i want to read Kuttner and Moore's SF stories next. Nortwest Smith is great read.

Knivesout:

Robots Have No Tails
dont have CL Moore stories, the collection is credited only to Kuttner according to Planet Stories site.
 

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