Jirel of Joiry
By C. L. Moore

I really love the cover to this book. Unfortunately, the contents are not nearly as good.

C. L. Moore, Catherine Moore, is not a well known author today, perhaps fading into some obscurity if it were not for some keeping knowledge of the "Golden Age" of Science Fiction alive (a period that started in the 1930's). I recently watched a YouTube talk by Jeet Heer where he talked about The Best of C. L. Moore, which he liked, and that encouraged me to pick this up. These are old stories, first published in Weird Tales magazine, the most famous American pulp. The first story in Jirel of Joiry is "Black God's Kiss" from 1934.

I had to push myself through the first, then the second story here. I reminded myself that I originally found Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth hard going because it seemed "pulpy" and written in quite a "basic" style. But by the end of the first book it had found its footing and I was enjoying it a lot. "Jirel" didn't get better for me though and did not seem to improve. I found it dull and repetitive. Too many descriptions of landscapes and feelings that got a bit boring and turgid after a while. I groaned when I hit the word "skyey". From Black God's Shadow :

A cloud floated across its face, writhed for an instant as if in some skyey agony then puffed into a mist and vanished, leaving the green face clear again.

Jirel is a bit of a female Conan and that should be interesting, but there is almost no fighting or sword play, excitement or world building, let alone character. She gets emotional, with lots of anger, hate, love - but that's about it. I don't often drop a book I'm reading but I gave it up after three stories and decided to move on to something better. I have a big pile of books to read, supposedly good ones. I will give Moore another chance in the future: either Doomsday Morning or Northwest of Earth.