“It was because there was only one Phoenix.
Only one in the whole world.”
Time flies. It really, really does.
Case in point, “this” post, dating back to 2017, pertaining to Ballantine Books’ 1976 anthology “The Best of C.L. Moore”. Now in 2022 (one hell of a year it’s turning out to be, and what of the future?), it’s time for a rewrite…
As one of my several posts presenting Ballantine Books’ Classic Science Fiction series “The Best Of…” (insert appropriate author’s name [here]!), the time arrived to revisit and refine the post’s text and images. Partially…because I like to improve my existing posts. Partially … especially … because Catherine Moore is among my favorite science fiction authors, her writing displaying remarkable levels of depth, richness, and substance, all presented through a singularly distinctive literary style.
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First things first … C.L. Moore’s portrait, from Tellers of Weird Tales, where the caption is given as follows: “Catherine L. Moore (1911-1987) — The date of the photograph is unknown, but the author-to-be is quite young, perhaps still a student. Look upon this and other pictures of her, read her stories, and you’ll not wonder why Forrest J Ackerman called her “Catherine the Great,” why E. Hoffman Price confessed his love for her, and why Henry Kuttner proposed to her shortly after their first meeting. From the collection of Julius Schwartz and reprinted in Locus, March 1988.” (For this post, I’ve used Photoshop to slightly enhance the image.)
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Here’s the paperback edition of The Best of C.L. Moore, with cover art by The Brothers Hildebrandt.
The worn-around-the-edges and not-so-pristine-quality of my copy is evidence less of its forty-four year age than my several (!) readings of it over the intervening decades. Even without the painters’ signature, the cover is immediately distinguishable as a Hildebrandt work, by virtue of the richness, texture, and brightness of side elements (in this case, curtains and stairway) set around a central brightness, illumination, or backlighting. Though not evident in this cover by virtue of the subject matter (the protagonist Deirdre from the story “No Woman Born” having become a cyborg), there’s an extremely distinctive muscularity to some – not all – of the characters in Hildebrandt art, inspired by and reflecting the influence of comics.
From Pinterest, here’s the Hildebrandt cover art in its pre-publication form: sans title, publisher’s logo, and boring stuff like price and Ballantine book number. Even with having been tweaked via Photoshop Elements (yeah, I did that), the colors here are less saturated those displayed on the book, suggesting that Ballantine brightened the colors and shifted the tones towards yellow, red, and orange to make the cover art more noticeable; more catchy. Accompanying this, the right and left sides, and, top edge were slightly cropped to allow Deirdre’s figure to occupy more of the cover area.
And, to return to the beginning, here’s illustrator Frank Kramer’s depiction of Deirdre, as it (well, she) originally appeared, in the December, 1944, issue of Astounding Science Fiction: The inspiration for Hildebrandts’ art is unmistakable.
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As in my other posts about science fiction and fantasy anthologies, the book’s contents are listed below. But this time, I’ve done things a little done differently: Each title is linked to a PDF version of the listed story. These PDFs were created from the digital version of the pulp magazine in which the story itself originally appeared, as accessed through the Internet Archive’s Pulp Magazine Archive, through which digital copies are available in a variety of formats. In this case, relevant issues were downloaded in Comic Book Zip format, and, using CBR Reader, the pages comprising the story were converted to JPGs, along with tables of contents. The individual pages – files – were then combined to create a single PDF of the story, after lots of adjustment for color, and, brightness and contrast.
Of the stories listed below, the original scanning and uploading to the Internet Archive was done for eight by Sketch the Cow, and for two (“Black Thirst” and “The Black God’s Kiss”) by zatoichi01.
For two stories (“No Woman Born” and “Vintage Season”) the magazine covers were scanned from my own copies of Astounding, while other covers are from the Internet Archive issue, or, some-random-else-where on the Internet. (I don’t yet own a copy of the singularly significant July, 1939 issue of Astounding!) In all cases, page numbers are identical to and correlate with those in the original magazine, while interior art associated with the stories is naturally included.
Though these stories are obviously – by definition! – immediately present in “this” Ballantine volume, and certainly have been anthologized many times elsewhere, after viewing them at the Pulp Magazine Archive, I thought it’d be an interesting endeavor to make them available – digitally – in the (purely visual, not physical!; purely visual, not digitized text) format in which they first appeared. While I’m sure that some visitors to this blog, and particularly this post, may already be more than familiar with “Golden Age” science fiction and fantasy, perhaps stories might ignite a spark (and perhaps an ember, and maybe a flame?!) of interest in a wider audience.
And so, The Best of C.L. Moore:
Shambleau, Weird Tales, November, 1933
Black Thirst, Weird Tales, April, 1934
The Bright Illusion, Astounding Stories, October, 1934
The Black God’s Kiss, Weird Tales, October, 1934
Tryst In Time, Astounding Stories, December, 1936
Greater Than Gods, Astounding Science Fiction, July, 1939
Fruit of Knowledge, Unknown, October, 1940
No Woman Born, Astounding Science Fiction, December, 1944
Daemon, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October, 1946
Vintage Season, Astounding Science Fiction, September, 1946
As for C.L. Moore’s overall body of work, two of the stories – “Shambleau” (Moore’s first published work) and “Black Thirst” (her second published story) are tales of Northwest Smith, while “The Black God’s Kiss” is the first story (and her fifth published tale) featuring Jirel of Joiry. Notably, “Vintage Season” the last listed (and chronologically last published) story in the anthology is by Lawrence O’Donnell, the pen name for collaborative authorship by Moore and her husband, Henry Kuttner.
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This (undated) well-known image of the husband-and-wife writing team otherwise known (!) as “Lawrence O’Donnell” (or, “Lewis Padgett”) is from James Gunn’s 1975 Alternate Worlds – The Illustrated History of Science Fiction.
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Aside from the above-mentioned stories, Jirel of Joiry was Moore’s protagonist in the following stories, all published in Weird Tales…
“Black God’s Shadow” – December, 1934
“Jirel Meets Magic” – July, 1935
“The Dark Land” – January, 1936
“Hellsgarde” – April, 1939
…while Northwest Smith was the central character in these stories, also in Weird Tales…
“Scarlet Dream” – May, 1934
“Dust of Gods” – August, 1934
“Julhi” – March, 1935
“The Cold Gray God” – October, 1935
“Yvala” – February, 1936
“Lost Paradise” – July, 1936
“The Tree of Life” – October, 1936
“Nymph of Darkness” – December, 1939 (Co-Authored with Forrest J. Ackerman)
…with Jirel and Northwest appearing in only one story in Moore’s oeuvre, “Quest of the Starstone”, in the magazine’s November, 1937 issue.
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As for the quality of Moore’s writing, it’s outstanding. Stylistically, her use of language is utterly remarkable in depicting changing mental states, perceptions, and thoughts of her characters – or action and activity – even if this only spans, in the context of an actual tale, a limited amount of time, or, a brief event. This skill likewise applies to her ability to create and describe the physical nature of imagined worlds, and the psychological and emotional impact of these places; these lands; these settings, upon men and women; upon individuals and groups; upon peoples and civilizations.
Her work lies upon the intersection of science fiction and fantasy, for while it certainly includes elements and tropes of science fiction (space travel, genetic engineering, time travel, aliens, extraterrestrial intelligence, parallel universes, cybernetics, dystopias, as well as physically decayed or morally degenerate cultures and civilizations, as in “Judgement Night”), these largely serve as background points or foundations for tales that in reality are character driven, and founded in elements of myth and legend.
In this, Moore’s work is the antithesis of “hard” science fiction, and, had her greatest years of productivity occurred from the 40s through the 60s, her writing would, I think, have found a ready home in Galaxy Science Fiction, or, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Coupled with this is Moore’s sense of realism about human nature and “life” (the final paragraph of “The Black God’s Kiss” is quite stunning, and – by being utterly un-“woke” in the world of 2022 – reveals her understanding of human nature). Not all; not necessarily most, or her stories have upbeat, optimistic, happy endings, many of her tales concluding, at best, on notes of uncertainty and ambivalence. For example, “Greater Than Gods,” a tale of the intersection and conflict between parallel universes and, the implications of this for humanity’s future, ends with a successful resolution, but not an entirely happy one. Likewise the superb “Shambleau”: The threat is confronted and ultimately destroyed, but at the tale’s end, hero Northwest Smith’s mindset is one of ambivalence, for though he has survived (and this only because of his rescue, at the last moment, by his friend), he is not the same man he was before the tale began, and may never be again.
With all this, and more, many of Moore’s tales could be readily adapted for for the cinema (or streaming video). As to that eventuality, now, nearly a century after the appearance of her first story? Who knows. But, it’s nice to think about.
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There are numerous depictions of Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith, ranging from book covert art, to interior illustrations, to simple imagined images. So while we’re at it, here’s Hervé Leblan’s depiction of an encounter between Jirel and Northwest, as a single image created from the cover art of Jirel de Joiry, and, Les Aventures de Northwest Smith, both published in Paris in late 2010. The fact that you can’t actually see Jirel’s face lends a touch of intrigue to the composition!
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Titles of Moore’s four other pulp fiction works – listed at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database as having been written specifically by her, as opposed to collaboration with Henry Kuttner (the latter by far representing the bulk of her work) – follow:
Astounding Stories
“Greater Glories” – September, 1935
Astounding Science Fiction
“There Shall Be Darkness” – February, 1942
“Judgement Night” (Parts 1 and 2) – August and September, 1943, respectively
Famous Fantastic Mysteries
“Doorway Into Time” – September, 1943
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An excellent take on C.L. Moore’s body of work can be found among the (thus far!) 60-odd videos comprising Dr. Gregory B. Sadler’s “Worlds of Speculative Fiction Series“, an overview of which follows…
…in which Dr. Sadler’s 2017 discussion of the works of C.L. Moore, entitled C.L. Moore’s Fantastic Worlds, is lecture 21 of the series…
Particularly valuable in Dr. Sadler’s discussion is the focus paid to “Vintage Season”. And, like all of Dr. Sadler’s Speculative Fiction videos, the feedback, commentary, and (yes!) speculation by attendees of his lectures (not visible in the video) is invaluable.
Then again, then again…
Eric Rosenfield, at Literate Machine, takes an entirely different approach, for instead of focusing upon Moore in the context of the literary, philosophical, and symbolic aspects of her writing, his video is instead a study of Catherine L. Moore herself, as a writer; simply a person, in “Vintage Season – C.L. Moore and the “Golden Age of Science Fiction“. Mr. Rosenfield’s insightful video discusses Moore’s life, her husband Henry Kuttner, and other twentieth century science fiction and fantasy writers in the context of the straightforward challenges inherent to making a nominal living as a writer of pulp fiction; the effect of mid-twentieth century technological, economic, and cultural changes upon the worlds of writing and publishing; the psychological and (quite literally) physical toll incurred by at least some writers (think Henry Kuttner, Cyril K. Kornbluth, and perhaps H. Beam Piper) from the demanding nature of their vocation. Stepping “back” – far back; say, from an allegorical altitude of twenty-thousand-feet – what emerges from Rosenfield’s retrospective is a tale of struggle, accomplishment, and eventually, sad irony.
Particularly valuable at Mr. Rosenfield’s video is this comment by viewer Hollis Ramsey: “I waited in vain for some pithy comments on “Vintage Season” as well as on the tendency of Kuttner and Moore’s collabs to have the unhappy endings that I remarked upon in my comments on your video about “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” (not “Borogroves”). One of the things I find attractive in Kuttner and Moore’s short fiction IS their ability to refuse conventional “once upon a time … happily ever after” summations. Not only do “Vintage Season” and “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” end with death or separation, but “When the Bough Breaks” also ends with death, albeit the death of their horrible child being a great relief to his parents. In addition, my favorite C. L. Moore story, “The Bright Illusion,” ends in the deaths of 3 of the 4 characters … BUT for the 2 lovers we can’t be certain that their deaths are the finale to their love. Now THAT’S a real kicker!”
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To close, an excerpt from “No Woman Born”, the inspiration for Hildebrandt’s cover art:
“Could you ever duplicate this body?” she asked.
Maltzer glanced down at his shaking hands.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. I – ”
“Could anyone else?”
He was silent.
Deirdre answered for him.
“I don’t believe anyone could.
I think it was an accident.
A sort of mutation halfway between flesh and metal.
Something accidental and … and unnatural,
turning off on a wrong course of evolution that never reaches a dead end.
Another brain in a body like this might die or go mad, as you thought I would.
The synapses are too delicate.
You were – call it lucky – with me.
From what I know now, I don’t think a … a baroque like me could happen again.”
She paused a moment.
“What you did was kindle the fire for the phoenix, in a way.
And the phoenix rises perfect and renewed from its own substance.
Do you remember why it had to reproduce itself that way?”
Maltzer shook his head.
“I’ll tell you,” she said.
“It was because there was only one Phoenix.
Only one in the whole world.”
References
…Catherine L. Moore, at Internet Speculative Fiction Database
…Unknown, at Wikipedia
…Weird Tales, at Wikipedia
…Famous Fantastic Mysteries, at Wikipedia
…”Shambleau”, at Wikipedia
…Northwest Smith, at Wikipedia
…Jirel of Joiry, at Wikipedia
…”Vintage Season”, at Wikipedia
So, here’s a book…
Gunn, James E., Alternate Worlds – The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975
July 15, 2017 – 261