Gateway Essentials: C L Moore
‘A true pioneer’
Asimov’s Science Fiction
‘Helped revamp the formulae of space opera and heroic fantasy’
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
‘A pure romantic whose science fantasies remain some of the most vivid and engaging of their kind. Jirel is arguably the first female protagonist in supernatural adventure fiction and she is certainly the most memorable’
Who are these people talking about? Who else but Catherine Lucille Moore.
One of the first women to rise to prominence in the male-dominated world of pulp science fiction, C L Moore was a mainstay of SF in the middle of the last century, moving with equal mastery between Sword & Sorcery and Planetary Romance. Moore made her first professional sale to Weird Tales while still in her early 20s: the planetary romance Shambleau, which introduced one of her best-known heroes, Northwest Smith. She went on to produce a highly respected body of work, initially solo for Weird Tales and then, in collaboration with her husband, fellow SF writer Henry Kuttner, whom she married in 1940, for John W. Campbell‘s Astounding Science Fiction.
Moore ceased to write fiction after Kuttner’s death in 1958, concentrating instead on writing for television, where she produced scripts for many of the hit shows of the late ’50s/early ’60s such as Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip.
So, where do you begin to explore C L Moore’s work? We’re glad you asked! The Gateway Essentials were selected for just such a function . . .
You can find these Gateway Essentials and more of C L Moore’s work via her Author page on the Gateway wesbite and read about her in her entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
