Northwest Smith
Aug. 15th, 2008 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowOne of the books I picked up at Denvention was an old used paperback anthology, Northwest Smith by C. L. Moore. I'd heard of it, of course; those stories, together with Jirel of Joiry, made Moore's reputation back in the 1930s. I'd never read any of her solo work, though; Vintage Season and "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" were joint work with Henry Kuttner. I'm about halfway through the collection now.
I don't quite know what I was expecting, but this isn't it.
First point: the stories remind me just how strong the link between pulp SF and pulp Westerns was. Smith is a gun-toting semi-outlaw; that the gun is a "ray-gun" makes little difference. His milieu is one of flop-houses and saloons, smugglers and lawmen. (That link isn't dead; "Firefly" is, for the most part, a throwback, and much of Mike Resnick's work is in the same vein.)
Second point: Smith is strong and resourceful (and a good shot), but as often as not it is someone else who saves him - his Venusian cohort Yarol, or any of several doomed and beautiful women (of several races) who sacrifice their lives for his.
Third point: Moore's work, despite its space-operatic elements, is much more like that of Clark Ashton-Smith than that of Doc Smith. The cosmological background isn't quite as bleak as Lovecraft, but Elder Gods and similar monstrosities abound. Beings with strange hypnotic powers, shapes and colors that can't quite be described or focused on, lost planets and their lost gods, all the Cthulhuesque paraphernalia appear.
It's entertaining, and I certainly can't grouse over the two bucks it cost me. It's just... not what I expected.
That's probably a good thing.
I don't quite know what I was expecting, but this isn't it.
First point: the stories remind me just how strong the link between pulp SF and pulp Westerns was. Smith is a gun-toting semi-outlaw; that the gun is a "ray-gun" makes little difference. His milieu is one of flop-houses and saloons, smugglers and lawmen. (That link isn't dead; "Firefly" is, for the most part, a throwback, and much of Mike Resnick's work is in the same vein.)
Second point: Smith is strong and resourceful (and a good shot), but as often as not it is someone else who saves him - his Venusian cohort Yarol, or any of several doomed and beautiful women (of several races) who sacrifice their lives for his.
Third point: Moore's work, despite its space-operatic elements, is much more like that of Clark Ashton-Smith than that of Doc Smith. The cosmological background isn't quite as bleak as Lovecraft, but Elder Gods and similar monstrosities abound. Beings with strange hypnotic powers, shapes and colors that can't quite be described or focused on, lost planets and their lost gods, all the Cthulhuesque paraphernalia appear.
It's entertaining, and I certainly can't grouse over the two bucks it cost me. It's just... not what I expected.
That's probably a good thing.
