"Black God's Kiss" (CL Moore's Jirel of Joiry, at it again)

[dochermes]

Comments

Jirel of Joiry

[anonymous]

I said in a recent review:

“Quest of the Starstone,” written with husband Henry Kuttner, brings together her two most famous characters, Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry. Smith is transported back to Jirel’s time, supposedly to battle against the warriormaid. It’s not that successful a team-up and the
events feel forced.

You can find it in Karl Edward Wagner's ECHOES OF VALOR II...

Mike

Re: Jirel of Joiry

[dochermes]

Thanks! That kind of reminds me of Asimov's later books where he tied his various series together, the Robots and Foundation and so forth. It didn't seem natural.

[jhall1]

"Quest of the Star Stone" is in the collection of Catherine Moore stories that I was inspired to buy a year of so ago after your last post about Jirel. Its rather on the short and perfunctory side.

At this early point, C.L. Moore was writing on her own; after her partnership and marriage with Henry Kuttner began, it's pretty much guesswork as to which author contributed what in their stories, even when the byline went to one of them.I think I'd be able to tell in which stories Moore was a major contributor. Her sensual style is very distinctive

[dochermes]

According to the team, they themselves had trouble figuring out who had contributed what. A lot of plotting assists, I expect, plus Kuttner was a bit more versatile and could vary his style a bit according to the genre. Her biggest flaw (in my opinion) is that her stories tend to get bogged down at some point in a swirl of lovely images and word choices where you're not really sure what is supposed to be going on.

[skjam]

A classic indeed.

Over in another corner of the Internet, December is #readwomen month; in honor of which I've reviewed Andre Norton's "Storm Over Warlock."

http://www.skjam.com/2015/12/01/book-review-storm-over-warlock/

[dochermes]

Thanks for the link. I haven't tried Norton yet.

[skjam]

Andre Norton is consistently good, but does have the issue that she found a winning formula and stuck to it like glue, so you don't want to read her books too closely together. Also, because of the times in which she started writing, her books tend to be either "boy's stuff" or "girl's stuff" and it's really obvious which one you're reading. Storm Over Warlock is "boy's stuff."