Category: Review

“Greater Glories” (1935) by C. L. Moore

I wrote a story once, which I don’t believe you ever saw—starting out as my story “Greater Glories” started with a man lost in the interior of a giant body, being swept into its brain-chamber and finding himself in the presence of a god whose people have almost completed their race-goal. The people are of peculiar physical structure which permits their amalgamation into one immense and rather horrid-looking mass, like a great vine budded with individuals who by now have sunk their individuality into the whole, being drawn together by a common race-love which through the millennials [sic] of life has grown out of and taken the place of all other forms of attraction between individuals. The race has become a unit, but incomplete as the god is incomplete, because each lacks the essential attributes of the other. They are reaching their ultimate goal, which is the union of god and united people, into a perfect whole which is to go on, perhaps, as no more than an atom at the bottom of some tremendous scale of unknown evolution—somewhere. I didn’t sell the story, and finally cut it up into “Greater Glories” and “Bright Illusion” and another mass which I haven’t tried to recast. 
—C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 7 Dec 1935, Letters to C. L. Moore et al. 87-88

Did I ever show you that story I wrote called TO WHAT DIM GOAL? I think I did. Anyhow, it wouldn’t sell so I cut it up into gruesome little pieces and each piece grew into another story. GREATER GLORIES, BRIGHT ILLUSION and another yet unfinished were portions of that dead tale, and I found ideas out of it cropping up in SHAPE OF DARKNESS. No doubt that murdered story will haunt everything I write for years to come, coloring with its dismembered theme all sorts of tales that have no connection with it whatever.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 12 Dec 1935, MSS. Brown Digital Repository

Readers would be forgiven for not being familiar with C. L. Moore’s “Greater Glories.” It was first published in Astounding Stories Sep 1935, and only reprinted twice—an uncredited (probably unauthorized) translation in Los Cuentos Fantásticos, No. 25 (1950), and in the reprint volume Miracle in Three Dimensions (2008). For all of its obscurity, “Greater Glories” represents another important early step in Moore’s career, a science-fantasy story for Astounding that tiptoed on the line between science fiction and weird fiction.

The story opens much like “The Bright Illusion,” with a random man alone in a wild desolation, this time framed as a traditional castaway story. The familiar setup falls away to weirder fare as the unnamed protagonist finds something in the jungle, and falls into another, stranger place—and here we get the next piece of Moore’s lost story:

AND THEN it came to him what this great hall had been built to represent. A heart. That tube corridor along which he had come was shaped into an artery-this chamber was a ventricle of a mighty heart. Even that tumult which had flung him headlong into the place was the valve-action controlling the inflow.
—C. L. Moore, “Greater Glories” in Astounding Stories Sep 1935

The prose is lush with sensual detail, but also with the sense of unseen things beyond the normal senses. At one point, the protagonist remembers a bit of verse:

A being who hears me tapping
The five-sensed cane of mind
Amid such greater glories
That I am worse than blind.

This is a slightly inaccurate rendition of the final verse of “Blind” (1920) by Harry Kemp, and serves to give the story its name and theme.

There is a woman; again, many of Moore’s women at this stage of the career, she is a being devoted to or under the influence of some greater being. An ephemeral yet poignant focus of intense romantic focus. A microcosm of tragedy unfolds, between the desire of the unnamed male protagonist and the woman called up into existence before her time, not yet ready for life or love. It feels like that should be a metaphor, perhaps for Moore herself—who was still stuck in that limbo place between her day job and her career as a writer, engaged to a fiancé she dare not marry for fear of financial ruin.

Art by Elliott Dold

The denouement is not quite as romantic as “The Bright Illusion.” The nameless protagonist is still castaway; the implication is given that perhaps it was all a dream, a hallucination. It is not much of a science fiction story by the standards of the time, since there is little hard science in it; “Greater Glories” is a mood piece, a work of wonder, emotion, and sensations. Which is how many fans ultimately read it:

So few people can wrap a dream in star dust, breathe fairy life into it, and set it to the music of the spheres that C. L. Moore’s stories are always more than we dared hope. For sheer suggestive beauty and lingering memories of things that never were, this writer is equaled only by A. Merritt. Need I say I liked the story?
—Ramon F. Alvarez del Rey, ‘Brass Tacks’ in Astounding Nov 1935

Arch-fan Forrst J. Ackerman was uncharacteristically generous with his praise, possibly because he was still hoping she would collaborate with him on further stories:

Re paragraf four—a command from Moore: I shall clothe myself in a cloak of cosmic vibrations while reading GREATER GLORIES, so that none may disturb my marveling mind. Hail to Catherine, Queen of Queer-tales!
—Forrest J. Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 31 Jul 1935

Haven’t you read that story you wrote, GREATER GLORIES? How could ever just a girl write such! Why,  you make my English become just gibberish, trying to discuss it. Are you indeed not an Other World Entity, taken on a feminine form to come to earth and astound the senses of, say, a Scientifictionist? Cather, how could you write such a story as GREATER GLORIES? 

You don’t doubt I liked your dream-tale, do you? I graded it “A”, and rusht my rating airmail to FANTASY. But that is little. Perhaps this will better bolster your belief I thot it was awamzing: I quote, following, a note I dasht off to Gilbert Brown, columnist of the L.A. Evening Post-Record. The paper has 77,000 circulation and Brown has thirce in print published his praises of the works of A. Merritt. So, “Brown,” I wrote, “If you would read a manuscript marvelous as a Merrittale, step to the nearest newsstand and purchase the Sept. Astounding. The spell-binding story is GREATER GLORIES. A first-water fantasyarn, incredible, staggering, overwhelming—Dizzily, FJAckerman.” I hope you don’t think my “first-water fantasy” line is hokumn, because I have used it several times; I really don’t know any other way to describe those stories of yours that hit me so hard. SCARLET DREAM is still my favorite, but GREATER GLORIES comes very close. I shall, of course, by ultra-happy about Nyusa, the Nymph of Darkness whom we created together.
—Forrest J. Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 27 Aug 1935

Anyway, you deserve an extra “a” in your name for such outstanding and A-1 stories as SCARLET DREAM and GREATER GLORIES. That’s a swell title, I think, by the way, Crawford has chosen for the book form of your series “The Saga of Northwest Smith”. Right in the center of the book, about, I calculate, will be our co-creation, the nymph Nyusa. […] I don’t know whether the newspaper columnist read GREATER GLORIES, as per my recommendation, or not; I thot he might mention it in his column, but just after I wrote him, he left the paper on vacation, and hasn’t been back since.
—Forrest J. Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 2 Oct 1935

Lovecraft did not take Astounding regularly, and so apparently missed “Greater Glories,” though she described the story it grew from. Why it lay forgotten among some of her earlier stories for so many decades is unknown—perhaps it was too close to “The Bright Illusion,” or too slight a story in retrospect, and definitely much weirder than the usual “thought-variant” story taken for Astounding. Yet it is an outgrowth of that ur-story, that original idea that Moore had that was too big for any one tale to contain—and for that, at least, it has historical interest.

So too, while “Greater Glories” may seem out of place among Astounding, it does have a certain resemblance to the science fiction that would be published by Unknown in the 1940s. The emphasis on concept and emotion, wonder and the human element, are much more in line with the more humanistic science-fantasy of the 1940s than the space operas and gadget stories of the 1930s. In that sense, “Greater Glories” is something of a dry run for Moore’s later, more mature science-fantasies of that period, lacking a bit of the humor but with a poignant note that readers of her midcentury work will find familiar.

“Greater Glories” was published in the September 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. Scans of this issue are available on the Internet Archive.

For readers who want to read more about the origin of “Greater Glories” and its origins, Marcos Legaria has a detailed article: “C. L. Moore’s “To What Dim Goal” and Its Progeny” in Penumbra: A Journal of Weird Fiction and Criticism, 2023. Thanks to Marcos for his help with this one.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Jirel Meets Magic” (1935) by C. L. Moore

And WT is publishing in July either the Smith story which Wright has entitled THE COLD GREY GOD, all about a lovely Venusian named Judai, or else a Jirel story we have been revising for months. He hasn’t decided yet which to use.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 20 Mar 1935, MSS. Brown Digital Repository

Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, chose “Jirel Meets Magic,” the third published adventure of Jirel of Joiry, for the July 1935 issue. The story itself is a standalone adventure, making no direct reference to the previous episodes, “Black God’s Kiss” (WT Oct 1934) and “Black God’s Shadow” (WT Dec 1934), though Jirel notes that “She had met magic before.” It opens on an action-filled scene as Jirel invades a castle, seeking the wizard Giraud…who has fled in a most peculiar manner:

Feet had trodden in that blood, not the mailed feet of armed men, but the tread of shapeless cloth shoes such as surely none but Giraud would have worn when the castle was besieged and failing, and every man’s help needed. Those bloody tracks led straight across the room toward the wall, and in that wall—a window.

Jirel stared. To her a window was a narrow slit deep in stone, made for the shooting of arrows, and never covered save in the coldest weather. But this window was broad and low, and instead of the usual animal pelt for hangings a curtain of purple velvet had been drawn back to disclose shutters carved out of something that might have been ivory had any beast alive been huge enough to yield such great unbroken sheets of whiteness. The shutters were unlatched, swinging slightly ajar, and upon them Jirel saw the smeaar of bloody fingers.
—C. L. Moore, “Jirel Meets Magic” in WT Jul 1935

The idea of a massive piece of ivory recalls Lord Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann” and Lovecraft’s “The Doom That Came to Sarnath”; the overall plot of a sorcerer escaping through a door or window, followed by their avid pursuer into a strange world, strongly recalls Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Door to Saturn” (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror Jan 1932)—and it has to be admitted, fits a formula for the Jirel and Northwest Smith stories, which often see the protagonists head into other dimensions.

Yet Moore puts her own spin on things. For the first time, she gives Jirel a woman antagonist in the sorceress Jarisme, and the utter cattiness of the first encounter emphasize’s Jirel’s imp of the perverse.

“I am the sorceress Jarisme, and high ruler over all this land. Did you think to buy me, then, earth-woman?”

Jirel smiled her sweetest, most poisonous smile.

“You will forgive me,” she purred. “At the first glance at you I did not think your price could be high….”
—C. L. Moore, “Jirel Meets Magic” in WT Jul 1935

It is worth noting that while fans often refer to Jirel and Conan together, Jirel is not a barbarian. She is strong, obstinate, determined, vengeful, and bold, but not a barbarian, nor does Moore develop the themes in her stories in quite the way Robert E. Howard does. “Jirel Meets Magic” is simply a journey for vengeance in a magical land, swordswoman versus sorceress, but it is not couched as part of some greater conflict or some historical or philosophical clash, only a conflict of personalities.

Jirel’s quest for vengeance has the outlines of familiar quest-narratives from heroic fantasy, overcoming obstacles through cleverness, luck, a swift blade, and sheer bloody force of will. There’s also a prophecy, though that comes so late in the story as to be almost an afterthought. It is a competent enough story, and the many details of Jirel’s encounters with magic do much to make it an enjoyable one, though it lacks a touch of the originality of the “Black God’s Shadow,” being essentially yet another quest for vengeance, this one more bloody and less intimate.

Weird Tales readers seemed to appreciate “Jirel Meets Magic,” which placed as the #3 favorite story in the issue. One reader noted:

C. L. Moore, with a long line of successes already to her credit, certainly gave us the best to date in Jirel Meets Magic. Moore’s stories are following, more and more, a trend toward sheer fantasy, of which there is a pitiful lack in present-day fiction. Parts of this story were strongly reminiscent of A. Merritt’s imaginative descriptions, and I hardly believe a better compliment could be given a writer than to compare one with the incomparable.
—B. M. Reynolds, “The Eyrie,” WT Sep 1935

The comment is accurate; while Moore’s Northwest Smith stories were very much science-fantasy, with gods and magic impinging on an interplanetary setting, science fiction was not impinging on the adventures of Jirel of Joiry at all. She was not traveling to different planets, and the sorcerers and wizards were not using sufficiently advanced technology; this was sorcery more akin to something out of Bullfinch’s Mythology, with a healthy dose of imagination.

It is a distinction that arch-fan Forrest J. Ackerman probably appreciated, since he was usually disinclined to fantasy splashing over into science fiction:

Just liked your JIREL MEETS MAGIC. It is unfortunate I have to read a number of stories in snatches; so that I had to cut off, and continue later, about five times on MAGIC. As it was almost entirely strange-sensations and alien-vistas—little action—I found it rather hard to get into the story anew each time. but even at that, I completed it last nite and rate it Good.
—Forrest J. Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 6 Jul 1935

It is probably notable that in their future collaborations, the emphasis was on the sci-fi, not the magic. H. P. Lovecraft was also a bit more stinting in his praise:

Read July W T recently—a distinctively mediocre issue, even though Hectograph Eddie [Edmond Hamilton] does get hold of another old plot to run into the ground. The translation from Meyrink has a great idea—& the Moore item presents excellent dream material.
— H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 15 Jul 1935, Essential Solitude 2.704

July W T doesn’t amount to much, though the Moore item has its moments.
— H. P. Lovecraft to Emil Petaja, 31 Jul 1935, Letters with Donald & Howard Wandrei and to Emil Petaja 446

July W T is pretty mediocre—though it was refreshing to see Hectograph Eddie with a new plot. The Moore item was excellent—even though it seems to shew a tendency of C L M’s to drop into a rut.
— H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 4 Aug 1935, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin et al. 281

“Jirel Meets Magic” was written at a time when series characters rarely experienced much in the way of character growth, and plots were not always developed over multiple episodes. It is very much a story written that could have been Jirel’s last, if the reader response was weak, and C. L. Moore was obviously still plotting on a story-by-story basis, not looking ahead to long narrative arcs, or to develop a distinct setting in the way Howard was doing with his Conan tales. We never get the backstory of where Guichard is in relation to Joiry, or why Giraud decided to ambush her men, for example.

Which may be why “Jirel Meets Magic” seems, in hindsight, like an example of a very generic heroic fantasy story, years before these things became common. The story is a solid, enjoyable potboiler. It’s unfortunate we don’t have more information on why Wright sent it back for revision. Not enough plot? Too explicit, with the naked dryad dying? Something obviously didn’t click, the first time he read it. But the readers like it, and clamored for more. So C. L. Moore would give them more…and, in time, it would even inspire a bit of fan-art.

“Jirel Meets Magic” may be read online for free at the Internet Archive.

Thanks to Marcos Legaria for his help.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The Thing on the Cheerleader Squad” (2015) by Molly Tanzer

The friend whose daughter had gone to school with Asenath Waite repeated many curious things when the news of Edward’s acquaintance with her began to spread about. Asenath, it seemed, had posed as a kind of magician at school; and had really seemed able to accomplish some highly baffling marvels. She professed to be able to raise thunderstorms, though her seeming success was generally laid to some uncanny knack at prediction. All animals markedly disliked her, and she could make any dog howl by certain motions of her right hand. There were times when she displayed snatches of knowledge and language very singular—and very shocking—for a young girl; when she would frighten her schoolmates with leers and winks of an inexplicable kind, and would seem to extract an obscene and zestful irony from her present situation.
—H. P. Lovecraft, “The Thing on the Doorstep”

The most subtly pervy moment in all of Lovecraft’s fiction is near the end of this paragraph, when the reader realizes that the mind of an old man is trapped in a young woman’s body as she goes to high school. It’s the kind of body-swapping setup that could serve as the premise for bad porn…or, in the hands of a competent writer, for a particular kind of tongue-in-cheek horror story. But who would write such a tale?

Molly Tanzer.

There has been considerable discussion about whether or not “The Thing on the Doorstep” is a transgender story (see: Must I Wear This Corpse For You?: H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep” (1937) by Joe Koch ), but there is general agreement that Lovecraft deliberately avoided or elided any question of sexual attraction or the sex act itself in the tale. The pornographic possibilities went unrealized, but so did any potential interrogation of the character’s sexual identities with regard to gender. That has left a blank space on the Lovecraftian map for other writers more comfortable with such ideas to explore.

There’s a definite element of the quintessential queer film But I’m a Cheerleader! (1999) in the mix of influences Tanzer is drawing on, and the first half of the story plays it relatively straight when prudish, sheltered Victoria comes to terms with the complicated feelings aroused when her cousin Asenath reappears at Miskatonic High dressing like a boy and going out with girls. But Tanzer only plays out the high school melodrama and teenage angst so long, and even then, it’s with tongue-very-much-in-cheek.

Veronica rolled her eyes. “So what—you’re Laura Palmer now?”

“Maybe Bobby Briggs,” Asenath lowered her voice.
—Molly Tanzer, “The Thing on the Cheerleader Squad” in She Walks in Shadows 122

The plot in this story is very slight, Veronica’s treacle-sweet faith in Jesus and her utter frustration at how Asenath’s bad reputation is affecting her own showcase the kind of general ignorance, vapid insecurities, and rampant cruelty that are the hallmarks of high school. The story is told well; Tanzer keeps the pace ticking, doesn’t get too bogged down in secondary characters, or feel the need to jam a shoggoth out of left field into act three. The surprises, when they come, feel like they’ve always been there, waiting to be discovered.

What makes it work is the ending. Readers of “The Thing on the Doorstep” have their preconceptions of what is going on and how events will play out; those familiar with narratives of homosexual awakening might imagine that Tanzer is going to take the But I’m a Cheerleader! route with a Lovecraftian twist. The truth is, this was always a horror story, and the finale brings together all the elements in a way that readers probably won’t expect.

Is this a transgender story? When considering it in the context of Lovecraft’s original story, there’s a definite argument to make that it is more of a trans story than “The Thing on the Doorstep.” Asenath never comes out and makes the claim to be transmasculine directly, but that ambiguity is part of what makes the story work. The reader sees, through Veronica’s eyes, how Asenath acts and dresses and presents, and must make their own determination of which gender Asenath identifies with. That still leaves plenty of room for other authors to play with the unrealized possibilities of sex and gender in “The Thing on the Doorstep.”

“The Thing on the Cheerleader Squad” by Molly Tanzer was first published in She Walks in Shadows (2015) and its paperback reprints, and was also published in Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction (2016).

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Julhi” (1935) by C. L. Moore

Mr. Wright has accepted the new story, JULHI. (Pronounce it! I can’t.) All about a very peculiar one-eyed female of a hitherto unknown race, with an immovable mouth perpetually stretched open in a heart-shaped arch, thru which she speaks by humming in various keys and intensities. You’ve heard people make a violin talk, haven’t you? Saying “I don’t know,” and “What?” and that sort of thing, the way one does without opening the mouth. Well, anyhow, she lives on sensation, somewhat as the Alendar lived on beauty. Then there’s a city which exists simultaneously in two worlds thru some obscure sort of magic. Only in one world time moves faster than in the other, so , if you know the way, you can step out of crumbling ruins into the same city still standing in the other plane. All very complicated.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 10 Sep-9 Oct 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository

Weird Tales Feb 1935

By 1935, C. L. Moore was fairly well-established at Weird Tales, having placed 5 stories in 1934 and establishing two series characters, Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry, both of whom were well-received by both the general readership and among her peers. At the same time, Moore was now in contact with R. H. Barlow, Lovecraft, Forrest J. Ackerman, and others in pulp circles, and receiving conflicting advice. The Great Depression was still going, she still needed to bring in money with her writing, but Lovecraft and Barlow were talking about her development as an artist.

The fifth published adventure of Northwest Smith, “Julhi,” seems another concession to Farnsworth Wright’s demand for more Northwest Smith stories than a tale that demanded to be told. Moore even provided one of her own illustrations for the story:

 I’ve just sent in a drawing for JULHI which I really do think is good. Don’t know if he’ll take it, but darnit, it is one of the best I’ve ever done. She said modestly.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 10 Sep-9 Oct 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository

The story itself shows Moore’s continued flagrant flouting of any division between science fiction and fantasy. The opening is almost that of a hardboiled detective tale or Oriental adventure: back on Venus once more, Northwest Smith has been kidnapped and awakes, unarmed and with a local girl in the ancient ruins of Vonng, a city raised by sorcery. There is a distinct echo with “Black Thirst” and other Northwest Smith stories—the doomed young woman Apri; the supernatural alien Julhi with her strange, vampiric hunger; and Smith as the fly in the ointment.

Like every Northwest Smith story so far, this is a standalone episode; there is no reference to the events of “Shambleau” or “Dust of the Gods,” no comparison to Smith’s other weird adventures. There is a lot of exposition and little enough plot; long paragraphs of description and sensuous language, but not surfeit of characters and events. Names and details suggest a broader setting; perhaps not as coherent as Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age or Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne, but fairly consistent. And at the end, Smith has won the battle and lost the girl, so to speak.

There is a strong echo of stories like A. Merritt’s “The Metal Monster” (1920) in this comparatively brief tale—while Moore gets Smith into the action swiftly, once Smith crosses over to the other side, he acts as witness to something alien, beyond his understanding, and serves as the audience’s surrogate as he learns something of the secret of Julhi and ancient Vonng—the was Julhi’s vampiric qualities take on the shape of some new and unguessed cosmic sin or taboo. Even for readers who have already read similar confrontations in “Shambleau” and “Black Thirst,” it works:

And then — Julhi, by that writer of writers, C. L. Moore. The plot is terrible, yes — it smacks of his other stories — but oh ! the way in which Julhi is written! Of any stories of Mr. Moore’s I’ve read, Julhi — for its beautiful prose — certainly is a masterpiece. I’ve read it over several times, and every time I find more beautiftd phrases than before. Mr. Moore writes in such a quiet yet vivid style. One realizes that he is not showing off his use of an exceptional vocabulary, but that he writes naturally, easily and gracefully. I give Julhi my vote for first choice in the March issue of Weird Tales.”
—Michael Liene, ‘The Eyrie’ in Weird Tales May 1935

Reader response for “Julhi” was less universally positive than for previous tales, but all the more interesting for all that. Several readers had picked up on Moore’s use of ancient gods and alien terrors and made comparisons to the work of Lovecraft and other Mythos writers, such as Mrs. E. W. Murphy:

I have gotten so that I am even a little tired of the Old Ones, the whole family of them; and I am sincerely sorry, because so many of the best writers write about them. An exception is the Northwest Smith series; when Northwest encounters an elder race, it is not a formless, dark mind or a weird beast, but it is something unique.
—Mrs. E. W. Murphy, ‘The Eyrie’ in Weird Tales May 1935

One of the more interesting responses was from a young Henry Kuttner, who in 1936 would break into Weird Tales, and in five would marry C. L. Moore.

Best story was the shortshort, What Waits in Darkness by Loretta Burrough. Second best is C. L. Moore’s yarn. I note especially the great part adjectives play in Moore’s stories. Oddly, while they help achieve a weird effect, I chose Burrough’s story for the simple, direct manner in which the good story was told. […]
There is a wealth of top-notch material waiting to be converted into modern stories, as Cahill did with an old legend in his recent yarn, Charon, Maybe I’ll write one myself and send it to you. After all, C. L. Moore was your ‘find’ for 1934, and you’ll need a new find for the new year, won’t you?
—Henry Kuttner, ‘The Eyrie’ in Weird Tales May 1935

I also read “Julhi”, which is better than the B.I., though a bit sentimentalised, clogged by direct, continuous explanatory matter, & inclined to repeat the Shambleau formula. Klarkash-Ton isn’t greatly stuck on it, & expresses a fear that Catherine the Great may develop into a single-plot artist like Ed Ham, Ward, & Morgan.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, [16 Mar 1935], O Fortunate Floridian 218

Kuttner’s note of the difference between her style and Burrough’s would somewhat reflect the difference between Moore’s style and his own—though they would, as a writing team, learn to marry their personal strengths together as well.

In the Lovecraft circle, “Julhi” elicited several longer comments from H. P. Lovecraft than usual, who noted:

“Julhi” is pretty much a formula yarn, despite Miss Moore’s undeniable power to [evoke utter] strangeness, & to suggest monstrous ____________[. However,] Wright’s propaganda in favour of popular action stuff, plus the author’s own weakness for 1900-esque romantic slush, are combining with deadly effect—so that perhaps another single-plotter is to be added to the ranks already adorned by Messrs. Hamilton, Ward, Morgan, et al. Little Ar-E’ch-Bei—the premier Moore fan—is quite concerned about the slipping of the new luminary; & is urging the gang to find some excuse to shoot her tactful words of advice counteracting the tradesmanlike recommendations of Satrap Pharnabozus . . . . . & the philistinic suggestions of Prince Effjay of Akkamin, who has been volunteering collaboration!
—H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, [26 Mar 1935], Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 595

(The letter was somewhat damaged, henced the blanks.) Ar-E’ch-Bei is R. H. Barlow; Satrap Pharnabozus is Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales; Effjay of Akkamin is Forrest J Ackerman; and the authors are Edmond Hamliton, Harold Ward, and Basset Morgan. Farnsworth Wright did indeed appear to be leaning more into pulpish weird-adventure stories in 1934 and 1935, and Lovecraft and Barlow feared that Moore was following suit.

If “Julhi” is a formula yarn, however, it was Moore’s own formula, which even Lovecraft would admit:

Regarding “Julhi”—I wouldn’t tend to give it an extreme classification in either direction. It certainly displays very well the author’s peculiar power to evoke images & conceptions of utter strangeness, & to suggest monstrous gateways from the tri-dimensional world to other spheres of entity, yet somehow doesn’t have quite the concentrated explanation, & the central idea is largely a repetition of “Shambleau” & “Black Thirst”. There is too much literal & concentrated power of the Shambleau them. I would tend to rate it above “Black God’s Shadow”, but below “Black God’s Kiss”. It is hard to measure a story absolutely—there are so many points to consider. The real test is simply that of ability to awake & sustain a certain mood in the discriminating reader. “Julhi” falls short of certain other Moore yarns because there is something just the least expected about the various twists & touches—of course a sort of conventional romanticism hovers over the whole thing. However—the story of course rises miles above the lifeless, mechanical tripe forming the bulk of W T’s contents. As for the illustration—it is of course nothing notable, though it would have to go a long way to take the cellar championship from some of the other “Art” work in the magazine.
—H. P. Lovecraft to William F. Anger, 27 Mar 1935, Letters to Robert Bloch et al. 230

Even with Lovecraft’s reservations, he rated it one of the best stories in the issue, second only to Robert E. Howard’s Conan yarn “Jewels of Gwahlur”:

March W T is pretty fair on the whole—honours divided among “Jewels of Gwahlur”, “Julhi”, & “The Sealed Casket”.
— H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 16 Apr 1935, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin et al. 268

Because Moore was drawn into the circle of correspondents of Lovecraft and Weird Tales, we sometimes get details on her from other sources than her direct correspondence. E. Hoffmann Price, a friend of Lovecraft and Howard who had been trying to make ends meet as a full-time pulp writer, informed Lovecraft that Moore was considering joining the American Fiction Guild:

Also got a line from C.L. Moore in response to my solicitation in behalf of the American Fiction Guild. A very pleasant young lady, judging from her letter; and if she turned her talents to more profitable fields, I doubt not that she could do well—though I feel that a bit of discipline in plotting, in writing a “tighter” story would help. Still, I remember Shambleau as one of the outstanding weird tales, and N.W. Smith as one of the few interplanetary characters I can remember more than .0005 part of a second. And doubtless she knows what she is doing. But if she has any any [sic] ambitions to be a fictioneer—which I think she has—she would do well to make herself a few other markets to guard her against the day when the weird tales gods will boot her into the outer darkness and she will find out that writing and selling and living by the sweat of one’s typewriter is tough stuff, when one has become deeply rutted in the weird tales method of story telling. Somehow, one can’t very long do both kinds of fiction, and one can’t live on weird tales a-tall! Not unless some people get very much more “preferred” rates than I ever got!
—E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, 19 Apr 1935, MSS Brown Digital Repository

Price was at this point a bit sour on Weird Tales for personal and professional reasons, especially how little they paid and how late they were in paying it. To which Lovecraft responded, in exactly the opposite attitude.

And so Miss Moore is considering the A.F.G.? Young Bobby Barlow is afraid she’ll go commercial & lose the potency & freshness which come of spontaneous, non-formula writing—which may be so, especially since she uses stock romantic characters & situations anyhow, as a result of a womewhat unclassical taste. Her work seems to be like that of Two-Gun Bob in spirit—accidentally suited to the herd’s taste, yet motivated by a genuine self-expressive instinct. If she became a general fiction-factory she’d lose the distinctive merit she now has—though possibly turning out an acceptable grade of formula-junk. One can never tell in advance about any given case.
—H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 4 May 1935, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price etc. 179

Moore was being tugged in different directions by several well-meaning but philosophically antipodal friends. The interplay of influences—from Barlow and Lovecraft on one hand, and Price and Ackerman on the other—would help shape her subsequent fiction as she struggled to find her own path between commercial necessity and artistic expression.

Whatever else was going on, everyone wanted to see what C. L. Moore would write next.

“Julhi” may be read online for free at the Internet Archive.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The Yolo Wallpaper” (2025) by Sonya Vatomsky

“Are you depressed?” I asked her. My wife had a sleep mask over her eyes but I knew she was awake from the way she was breathing. She reached a pale hand out from under the duvet and scratched at her nose, then snatched the hand back. The gesture was vaguely reptilian. I picked the antidepressants up the next day.
—Sonya Vatomsky, “The Yolo Wallpaper” in Brave New Weird, Vol. III (2025) 182

Medicine evolves over time. This applies to both mental and physical health. We understand in a general way that those diagnosed with demonic possession or lycanthropy in antiquity or the medieval period may well have suffered from conditions we would call epilepsy or dissociative identity disorder today. Old theories are disproved or fall out of favor, new designations and treatments rise into popularity. Sometimes this a reflection of scientific advancement in our understanding of anatomy and chemistry, sometimes it is a reflection of cultural forces. Yet it is important to realize that even as diagnoses of shell shock have given way to diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, there is a great deal of ignorance of how and why medicine works.

Which gives rise a vast amount of magical thinking.

X-rays, chemotherapy, vitamins, enemas, juice cleanses, health supplements, herbs, exercise regimens, specialized diets, light therapy, dianetics, acupuncture, leeches, homeopathy, and exorcisms represent a range of medical treatments that range from the valid to the bullshit, but to the average individual, the distinction between legitimate medical treatment and medical woo can be unclear. Many people carry basic superstitions, misconceptions, and outdated ideas about health that influence their daily life. More desperate people, or those who cannot afford or distrust scientific medical care are more likely to be persuaded to try alternative treatments. With the placebo effect, sometimes they might even seem to work.

The internet has contributed greatly to the spread of alternative medicine, not just because of the spread of disinformation, but because it allows disparate individuals to connect and form networks sharing medical woo—and, perhaps most importantly, these groups become target market for various supposed health products, from copper mesh socks to the use of a horse dewormer to treat Covid 19. Heavy political polarization had fractured medical discourse and eroded hard-won trust in established science, leading to the anti-vaxxer movement. Something that would have been almost unthinkable a century ago.

Public standards have risen, so that no city administration, however corrupt, would dare to cut off the water supply, sewer connexions, and vaccination service, or allow relief applicants to starve. It is understood that such things must go on.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Robert E. Howard, 5 Nov 1933, A Means to Freedom 2.669

“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is often read as an expression on women’s mental health, and how medical theories and treatment at the time fundamentally misunderstood and failed to provide adequate care. “The Yolo Wallpaper” (2025) by Sonya Vatomsky is a riff off the idea, but filtered through the current complex medical information/disinformation landscape, with a surreal twist. The briskly-paced story follows the protagonist’s frustration at their wife’s illness—at first dismissed by the general practitioner as depression and to be treated with rest and pills—and their medical journey into internet forums seeking medical advice and a variety of purported health care products that promise relief.

The result feels like a case study from The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, but even if the tone is different from Gilman’s original story, the reflection on the failures of the medical establishment, the inability to actually see the patient and address their suffering, remains. While played for laughs, especially when the anatomy gets a little hairy, it ultimately shows what passes for a healthy relationship in the 2020s, or at least a healthier one than in Gilman’s story. Here, the spouse actively tried to help their wife, is a conscientious caregiver working themself to exhaustion and financial ruin in an effort to get through this illness and claw a way back to normal.

Which, in a way, they succeed at. A happier ending than Gilman gave to her afflicted.

“The Yolo Wallpaper” by Sonya Vatomsky was published in in Brave New Weird, Vol. III (2025).

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Black God’s Shadow” (1934) by C. L. Moore

I’m so glad you liked Jirel and the BLACK GOD’S KISS. You know, I never can tell when a story’s good or not. It never fails to surprise me when people are complementary. Jirel was considerable fun, but I hadn’t considered the story is very good. Somehow it seems—along with the rest of my later efforts, to lack the unity that SHAMBLEAU, BLACK THIRST and, in a smaller measure, SCARLET DREAM had. And I am awfully sorry, but I’ve already finished a sequel. I can hear you gritting your teeth, but please, mister, a girl has to live. You can shut your eyes and hold your nose, if necessary, when it comes out, but Mr. Wright was very much enthused about Jirel and wants more. And when he cracks the whip I’ve got to jump.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 5 Jul 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository

“Black God’s Kiss” (Weird Tales Oct 1934), the first tale of Jirel of Joiry, had been published a scant two months before. If Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, had already suggested C. L. Moore write a sequel, starting what was effectively a second series character in the magazine before the first episode had even been published, suggests he had great faith in both Moore and the character.

Unlike with Northwest Smith, whose subsequent stories so far have been largely disconnected episodes with no strict continuity, “Black God’s Shadow” was a direct sequel to “Black God’s Kiss.” Appropriately, the story begins with a brief recap of the first, as Jirel regrets her supernatural vengeance on Guillaume, who had sought to conquer her. Jirel is haunted by her decision—and Guillaume’s ghost. So Jirel resolves to return to the dark land and save his damned soul, if she can.

If “Black God’s Kiss” was an echo of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), then “Black God’s Shadow” is reminiscent of Through the Looking Glass (1871); sufficiently self-contained for new readers, but retreading familiar themes. There is no solid mythology here as in “Dust of the Gods” (1934) or Lovecraft’s Mythos, Jirel experiences these things and interpreted them through instinct as much as her rational mind, but there is no secret history, no account of forbidden names—but there is an elemental, spiritual struggle which is the hallmark of most of Moore’s stories so far, a contest of the human spirit against something inhuman.

If this be sword & sorcery, it was not quite in the same vein as Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian; Jirel’s sword avails her little during her trek to the underworld, but there is a certain similarity of character that the two share. For when Conan says:

Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
—Robert E. Howard, “Queen of the Black Coast” (Weird Tales May 1934)

It seems to presage when Jirel feels:

She remembered laughter, and singing and gayety—she remembered slaughter and blood and the wild clang of mail—she remembered kisses in the dark, and the hard grip of men’s arms about her body.
—C. L. Moore, “Black God’s Shadow” (Weird Tales Dec 1934)

At the end of the story, Jirel is content, much as Conan had somber satisfaction after meting out death to what killed his own lover, Bêlit. Yet there the parallels end; Conan does not replay the descent of Inanna, and Jirel’s quest is one of mercy—or at least, freedom from the memory of Gillaume that haunts her—and that supernatural adventure is as much an assuage to her grief as it is an exorcism.

While Roy Thomas & co. never say so explicitly, “Black God’s Shadow” may have another Conan connection, as one line in it strongly recalls the character of Red Sonja‘s insistence that no man shall have her unless she be beaten in battle:

For she had been the commander of the strongest fortress in the kingdom, and called no man master, and it was her proudest boast that Joiry would never fall, and that no lover dared lay hands upon her save in answer to her smile.
—C. L. Moore, “Black God’s Shadow” (Weird Tales Dec 1934)

Jirel is less than virginal, a point that C. L. Moore never lingers on but makes apparent, even in this second episode. Like Northwest Smith, she is presented neither as a slut or a nun, and shows no shame at sexual desire, but neither is she ruled by it, nor does any moral punish her for it. In an age of flappers who flaunted sexual norms, Jirel perhaps represents the kind of woman that many wished they could be.

Moore worried about how this second character would be received:

What did you think of BLACK GOD’S KISS? And B. G.’S. SHADOW? Jirel doesn’t seem to have gone over so well, though Mr. Wright thought B.G.’S. K. the best I had done up to that time. I’m working on another Jirel story now.—Oh, I was forgetting. You haven’t read all my stories, have you?
—C. L. Moore to Forrest J. Ackerman, 3 Dec 1934

This is especially true in Moore’s letters to R. H. Barlow, who was trying to gently nudge her from falling into the trap of pulp pap.

I am terrified every time I think about your warnings not to get hackneyed. You’ll have to let me know when I begin to show signs of it. You must, tho, give me a little latitude in the matter of continuing Smith and Jirel stories ad nauseam. I know how you hate it. Keen an eye on me, tho, and tell me all my faults. I get such an awful swelled-head when people flatter me that I do need someone to say flatly, “That’s awful!” sometimes. All of which I’ve remarked on before, of course. Not that I don’t enjoy the compliments you relay too.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 31 Dec 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository

There was enough support for Jirel in the ‘Eyrie’ to give Moore a swelled head, even if it was slightly less effusive than for Northwest Smith:

Jirel of Joiry

Gertrude Hemken, of Chicago, writes: “About C. L. Moore and The Black God’s Kiss: that Amazon, Jirel, is a gal after my own heart, by gum. Somehow I always preferred women of that type, to clinging vines, or sweet little ones who shudder at the thought of killing a fly. Of course, it isn’t supposed to be nice for women to curse a blue streak as Jirel did, but, shucks, it makes her all the more interesting (to me). And now we find Jirel again in this issue (December). Gosh, I could stand her for every issue, and keep yelling for more. She’s just that kind of a girl. What more can I say but that I am immensely fond of her, and stand a bit in awe of such a maid, although fictitious? Long live C. L. Moore, who has the ability to create such dynamic characters as Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith.[“]
—The ‘Eyrie’, Weird Tales Feb 1935

Lovecraft was slightly less effusive in his praise, though he wrote to several correspondents that the Jirel sequel was the second-best story in the issue, e.g.

The December W T is strikingly better than its mediocre predecessor. Klarkash-Ton’s fascinating “Xeethra” easily leads, with “The Black God’s Shadow” as a fair second.
—H. P. Lovecraft to F. Lee Baldwin, 7 Dec 1934, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin, etc. 114

In a later letter, Lovecraft expanded slightly:

“The Black God’s Kiss”, despite overtones of conventional romance, is great stuff. The other-world description & suggestions are stupendous. “Black God’s Shadow” not quite up to it.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 22 Dec 1934, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin, etc. 248

Which is fair. “Black God’s Kiss” had novelty on its side, and the romantic schmaltz that Lovecraft disliked never really came in until the end. In “Black God’s Shadow,” Moore starts out where she left off, and drags Jirel back down through the same passage. Twice, however, was enough. When next Jirel of Joiry returned, it would be with a new and more original adventure.

“Black God’s Shadow” may be read online for free at the Internet Archive.

Thanks to Marcos Legaria for his help.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu (2025) by Cynthia von Buhler

Eldritch Fappenings

The following review is of a work that contains cartoon nudity, and some images are reproduced.
Reader discretion is advised.

In 2017, writer-artist Cynthia von Buhler introduced the world to Minky Woodcock, private detective, in a 4-issue series The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini, published under the Hard Case Crime imprint of Titan Comics. The series was a clever mix of hardboiled detective themes with historical characters, with the bisexual and extraordinarily intelligent and adaptable Minky Woodcock often ending up in dangerous situations and/or sans her clothes—but also finding or fighting her way out again. The series was followed up with a sequel, The Girl Who Electrified Tesla (2021), and then The Girl Called Cthulhu (2024), which was lettered by Jim Campbell.

Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu (2025)

The plot is drawn from history, dealing with Lovecraft’s relationships with Harry Houdini and Aleister Crowley, slightly fictionalized for purposes of the plot, but in general faithful to the timeline—with careful reproductions of Weird Tales covers and effort made to reproduce real people, places, and events. There are a number of fun little Easter eggs for Weird Tales fans in the pages, captured in von Buhler’s own style, who favors a heavy line and stylized coloring that echoes noir and giallo films.

Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu (2025)

At its heart, Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu is a rather traditional detective/mystery story, tied up in a historical setting and with some added titillation thrown in. The depiction of H. P. Lovecraft and his wife Sonia are synthesized from various sources, notably The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft (1985) by Sonia H. Davis, but aren’t particularly cruel or inaccurate given the needs of the story. Buhler flaunts her artistic homages, such as Hokusai’s “Diver and Two Octopi,” and is one of the few artists not afraid to depict Howard’s penis. Whether that’s a warning or an enticement to read the book is something I leave up to the readers.

Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu (2025)

It is a fun book, and plays to both Lovecraft and Crowley’s particular legends. Cynthia von Buhler has obviously done a good bit of research, and she wears it on her sleeve, including a section at the rear of the collected edition (and in the individual issues) explaining some of the details:

The investigations portrayed in the Minky Woodcock series are grounded in fact, the result of my extensive research. I acknowledge that some of the details may seem peculiar leading to numerous questions. Here are my responses to them. – CvB

Is all the research correct? Well, there’s no evidence Sonia H. Greene heard Crowley at the Sunrise Club (though she did attend the club), and no evidence Crowley read Lovecraft. The comparison between Lovecraft’s fiction and Crowley’s magical writing is the stuff of wishful occultists, as shown in the opening of the Simon Necronomicon. But for fictional purposes, these are pedantic niggles, and certainly other authors that have posited Lovecraft/Crowley interactions have gone further and been more ahistorical. A more interesting tidbit is the question of Lovecraft’s prejudices:

Lovecraft was a racist and anti-Semite. Why would you honor him with the title of your book? I highly doubt he would have married a Jewish woman.

Lovecraft was married to Sonia H. (Haft), a successful Jewish milliner and amateur pulp fiction writer, from 1924 to 1937. She tried to educate him as best as she could, and by the end of his life, his views had changed somewhat, but he said some pretty awful things in his day. I make his outrageous beliefs absolutely clear in my book.
—Cynthia van Buhler, Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu

While von Buhler doesn’t answer the first question directly, I think the book itself makes the point clear: Lovecraft was weird, and is the connective tissue between Houdini and Crowley, the three together providing a bridge from rationality to occultism and weird fiction. Lovecraft comes across as a bit stiff and surreal, but that’s not unusual for fictional depictions of HPL, and if the effort is made not to hide Lovecraft’s prejudices, neither does she make the effort to depict him as a cartoon caricature of a bigot. Sonia gets less attention, unfortunately, but her part in the proceedings is a minor one.

Ultimately, this isn’t Lovecraft’s story, or Crowley’s, but Minky Woodcock’s. A dame detective who finds herself in strange company and dangerous situations, surviving largely by her ample wits. While not quite as bloody and fierce as Max Collins’ Ms. Tree, there is that same sense of a woman in a primarily male occupation dealing with society’s preconceptions and some quite ruthless characters—and, sometimes by the skin of her teeth, coming out alive if not always on top.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Behind the Wall of Sleep” (1970) by Black Sabbath

Now from darkness, there springs light
Wall of sleep is cool and bright
Wall of sleep is lying broken
Sun shines in, you have awoken
—Black Sabbath, “Behind the Wall of Sleep”

England. August 1969. The cinema across the street was playing the Italian horror anthology film I tre volti della paura (1963, “The Three Faces of Fear”), rendered into English as Black Sabbath. Or maybe it was just a poster of the film. Recollections, years later, differ. That became the title of the band, and the lead song on the album they recorded in November of that year. The basis of the band was blues-based rock & roll, with heavier guitar riffs, less melodic and more distorted. Lyrically, the band borrowed from horror and fantasy as much as they did the grimy street life of drugs; shades of Tolkien in “The Wizard,” Dennis Wheatley in “Black Sabbath” and “N.I.B.,” H. P. Lovecraft in “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

Guitarist Tony Iommi had lost the tips of two fingers in a workplace accident, and down tuned the guitar to make playing easier, but played aggressively; Geezer Butler, on bass, was used to playing a guitar and followed Iommi’s riffs, but was also the band’s chief lyricist. Bill Ward on drums set the tempo, alternately driving or (in the case of “Black Sabbath”) with dirge-like slowness; Ozzy Osbourne provided lead vocals and harmonica. Iommi, Butler, Ward, and Osbourne all had working-class backgrounds, done stints in factories and abattoirs. They were young, a bit raw, and played and sang hard and fast and loud—and saw something in the rising interest in horror and fantasy.

The ’60s saw a rise in interest in horror and fantasy fiction, alternative spirituality, and the occult. Wicca gained traction in the United Kingdom and United States; the works of Aleister Crowley were reprinted; the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, first released as hardbacks, found new life in paperback. British writer Dennis Wheatley published an entire library of occult fantasies like The Devil Rides Out. Old pulp authors like H. P. Lovecraft likewise found a new generation of enthusiasts for horror and fantasy as Arkham House hardbacks were reprinted as affordable paperbacks, like Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (1969) by British publisher Panther, which contained “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” When asked about the matter, Geezer Butler responded:

I think I may have borrowed the title “Behind the Wall of Sleep” from “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (of which I have a first edition), but it’s so long ago, I can’t really remember. The lyrics came from a dream I had, hence hte title. Most of my inspiration in those days came from books by Dennis Wheatley, rather than Lovecraft or Poe.
—Butler, quoted in Gary Hill’s The Strange Sound of Cthulhu 44

Reportedly the working title of the track on the masters was “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (The Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination 74); who made the change and why has likely been lost to time and memory.

The one-day studio recording session for their eponymous debut album, produced by Rodger Bain (who provided the Jew’s harp on “Sleeping Village”), was almost a live album, with a few effects added to “Black Sabbath” and some double-tracked guitar solos for “N.I.B.” and “Sleeping Village.” No complicated audio engineering, no elaborate orchestration; listeners have noted a jazz-like quality to the rhythm swings, the few chords by the several key changes that give variety to the sound (Experiencing Black Sabbath 4). It is still very clearly based in twelve-bar blues and lyrically draws from the tradition of psychedelic rock, but it is also clear the musicians are trying to get away from that, breaking formulas. The music and the aesthetic came together to make something different than the typical prog-rock offerings.

On 29 November 1969, Black Sabbath’s set for the Top Gear radio show played; “Black Sabbath”, “N.I.B.”, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “Sleeping Village.” The first time the public heard the new sound. By the time the album was released on Friday the 13th (13 Feb 1970), the marketing was already spinning the band’s darker image, playing up links to Satanism, witchcraft, and the occult, and “Black Sabbath” climbed the charts. On the North American release, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “N.I.B” was divvied up as “Wasp / Behind the Wall of Sleep / Bassically / N.I.B.”—probably by the production company for royalty purposes (Experiencing Black Sabbath 4); “Behind the Wall of Sleep” has a jazz waltz-like opening and ends with a bass solo, so you can see where the idea for “Wasp” and “Bassically” came from, even though they are just the opening and closing to “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

At least some listeners picked up on the Lovecraft reference:

The newest from that far-out band known as Black Sabbath is now available on LP album and both cartridge and cassette tape form. This newest album is appropriately entitled “Black Sabbath” and offers such new goodies from the group as “The Wizard”, “Wicked World” and a title taken from one of the late H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

The group is in its usual sardonic turn of mind, and of course, their music is a fine example of just what can be done with unusual nad bizarre sound when coupled with some rather weird lyrics.

Good stereophonic effects abound in the album and the fidelity of the Warner Brothers recording is clean and sparkling.
—“Sights and Sounds,” The Robesonian, Lumberton, NC, 11 Aug 1971, p.14

Lyrically, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” has little to do with Lovecraft’s story. The song is about death, or perhaps a death-like sleep brought about by opium (“Visions cupped within the flower / Deadly petals with strange power”). Butler was likely more inspired by the title than the story itself, though Osbourne makes the lyrics work.

Black Sabbath can be fairly claimed to be the first heavy metal album—and highly formative and influential on many other subgenres, from black metal to stoner rock—and buried in there, the third track on the A-side, was a reference to H. P. Lovecraft. They weren’t the first band to take inspiration from H.P.L.; the U.S. psychedelic/folk rock band H. P. Lovecraft (1967-1969) was earlier. Nor was Lovecraft ever the focus of Black Sabbath. Yet they did get the ball rolling—Lovecraft and metal would meet, again and again, over the decades to come, and many metal bands credited Black Sabbath for their influence, musical and Lovecraftian.

Black Sabbath est à notre connaissance le premier group aujourd’hui classé dans le catégorie « metal » à faire allusion à l’œuvre de Lovecraft. Malheureusement, à l’exception de cette chanson, il n’y a dans la discographie des Anglais de Birmingham aucune trace d’influence lovecraftienne. Aujourd’hei, comme nouse le signalons parfois dans les pages de cet ouvrage, un certain nombre de formations inspirées par le maître de Providence justifient leur emprunt par l’antériorité de Black Sabbath. D’autres se sont meme interéssés à l’écrivain grâce à cette chanson du quautor.Black Sabbath is, to our knowledge, the first band now classified as “metal” to allude to Lovecraft’s work. Unfortunately, with the exception of this song, there is no trace of Lovecraftian influence in the discography of the English band from Birmingham. Today, as we sometimes point out in the pages of this book, a number of bands inspired by the master of Providence justify their borrowing by the precedent of Black Sabbath. Others have even become interested in the writer thanks to this song by the quartet.
Sébastien Baert, Cthulhu Metal: l’influence du Mythe 281English translation

Black Sabbath was a beginning, not an ending. The years after its release would see Black Sabbath develop their style and glamour, inspiring generations of metalheads.

“I cannot speak longer, for the body of Joe Slater grows cold and rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You have been my only friend on this planet—the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again—perhaps in the shining mists of Orion’s Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in prehistoric Asia, perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight, perhaps in some other form an eon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away.”
—H. P. Lovecraft, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep”

John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne
3 December 1948 – 22 July 2025
R.I.P.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The Bright Illusion” (1934) by C. L. Moore

Weird Tales was not the only pulp that C. L. Moore read, nor the only one she submitted stories to. While it might seem that she was selling everything that she wrote (and Moore would say as much in some later interviews), her letters in 1934 show that Farnsworth Wright, editor at Weird Tales, wasn’t accepting everything that came off of C. L. Moore’s typewriter—and so Moore splashed the science fiction pulps, selling “The Bright Illusion” to Astounding for its October 1934 issue—and that story has an interesting origin:

Yes, I do much more revising that I care about. Have to, tho it simply sickens me, and I hate everybody in sight while laboring away at the disgusting job. A story of mine which I’ve just sold to ASTOUNDING and which will appear in Oct. is really a third of one original N.W.Smith tale. I had that almost finished when I saw that it was two stories, and split it apart. Then the half I got to work on began to show amoeba-like tendencies toward division, and the third attempt resulted in THE BRIGHT ILLUSION, which I’ve sold, to Astounding. The other two nuclei are still simmering gently in the back of my mind, and may emerge some day.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 5 Jul 1934, MSS Brown Digital Repository

“The Bright Illusion” starting out as a Northwest Smith story makes sense; the protagonist Dixon is broadly similar to Smith in Moore’s previous stories, although not as well developed. As to the original story, Moore would expand on that:

I wrote a story once, which I don’t believe you ever saw—starting out as my story “Greater Glories” started with a man lost in the interior of a giant body, being swept into its brain-chamber and finding himself in the presence of a god whose people have almost completed their race-goal. The people are of  peculiar physical structure which permits their amalgamation into one immense and rather horrid-looking mass, like a great vine budded with individuals who by now have sunk their individuality into the whole, being drawn together by a common race-love which through the millennials [sic] of life has grown out of and taken the place of all other forms of attraction between individuals. The race has become a unit, but incomplete as the god is incomplete, because each lacks the essential attributes of the other. They are reaching their ultimate goal, which is the union of god and united people, into a perfect whole which is to go on, perhaps, as no more than an atom at the bottom of some tremendous scale of unknown evolution—somewhere. I didn’t sell the story, and finally cut it up into “Greater Glories” and “Bright Illusion” and another mass which I haven’t tried to recast. 
—C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 7 Dec 1935, LCM 87-88

Elements of this plot are clearly seen in “The Bright Illusion”: especially the emphasis on love, the god that knows nothing of love, and the way the god absorbs the energy of its worshippers into its flame. Where it differs is the narrower scope: instead of an entire race embodied in an individual, a human and nonhuman, pawns of cosmic deities (or deity and would-be-deity) meet and feel an attraction that is outside the experience of either.

So a smaller story, more personal, and maybe a little less weird, although very much outside the normal product of Astounding, which still tended to more traditional interplanetary stories, gadget fiction, etc. However, in December 1933 editor F. Orlin Tremaine had allowed that he was expanding the magazine to include “thought variant” stories that pursued ideas that maybe weren’t strictly scientific. Perhaps this openness to slightly weirder fare made Astounding a tempting potential market.

What’s most notable at the story for the time is the somewhat unusual emphasis on sex. Dixon, a human, is presented as a representative of a species with two sexes (and, implicitly, genders, although Moore does not make this distinction explicit); the high priestess of IL is from a species that has many more sexes as part of their reproduction, and ignorant of romantic love. They two meet, wreathed in illusion so each sees the other translated as a member of their own species, and attraction is immediate, mutual, and confusing:

And she was not even female!

He narrowed his eyes and strove to pierce the mirage for a moment; to convince himself that here knelt a colored horror of sinuousity and sexlessness. And verything within him cried out protestingly. She was human—she was lovely—she was everything desirable and sweet. And she did not even exist save as a crawling horror upon whom in her normal guise he could never dare to look.
—C. L. Moore, “The Bright Illusion”

While this is not a direct address to any LGBTQ+ issues of Moore’s day, there are definite parallels as Dixon and the priestess strive to understand their attraction and overcome their cultural preconceptions:

Could his own new love for her endure the sight of her real self? And what would happen to this strange flowering of an emotion nameless and unknown to her—her love for him? Could it bear the look of his human shape, unmasked? And yet, he asked himself desperately, could a love as deep and sincere as the love he bore her be so transient a thing that he could not endure the sight of her in another guise?
—C. L. Moore, “The Bright Illusion”

Compare this internal monologue to The Crying Game (1992); and Dixon’s overcoming of his preconceptions and acceptance of his lover for who she is (Dixon is still filtering his relationship through his human understanding)—and this immediately turns to the rather significant obstacles for them to get together, being biologically incompatible and not even destined for the same afterlife. Even the sexless god IL realizes there are some fundamental issues to their union:

[“]Love is a thing between the two sexes of your own race. This priestess of mine of of another sex than those you understand. There can be no such thing as this love between you.”

“Yet I saw her first in the form of a woman,” said Dixon. “And I love her.”

“You love the image.”

“At first it may be that I did. but now—no; there’s much more of it than that. We may be alien to the very atoms. Our minds may be alien, and all our thoughts, and even our souls. But, after all, alien though we are, that alienage is of superficial things. Stripped down to the barest elemental beginning, we have on kinship—we share life. We are individually alive, animate, free-willed. Somewhere at the very core of our beings is the one vital spark of life, which in the last analysis is self, and with that one spark we love each other.”
—C. L. Moore, “The Bright Illusion”

It’s not quite “the love that dare not speak it’s name,” but Moore is definitely trying to find the language and put it into Dixon’s mouth to describe an attraction that goes beyond the physical.

It has to be added that any view of the story that reads LGBTQ+ parallels in the story is a reflection of the prevelance of such issues in contemporary society. It’s notable that in the 1970s, when the magazine Chacal interviewed Moore, they had a different perspective on the story based on the prominent issues of the day:

Chacal: Upon reading “The Bright Illusion,” I got the distinct impression that it was a parable about racial tolerance. Am I correct, or am I reading something into it?

Moore: It just came off my typewriter, but it probably was. Not consciously, but the idea was probably lurking somewhere in my mind. 

–“Interview: C. L. Moore Talks To Chacal” in Chacal #1 (1976), 30

Like many pulp stories that emphasize the power of love, such connections are often unrealistically sudden and powerful, which prevents the pace from dragging. So it was in A. Merritt’s “The Conquest of the Moon Pool” (1919) and “The Metal Monster” (1920), which share some elements with “The Bright Illusion,” particularly in “Moon Pool” the ultimately tragic nature of the love. Moore was aware of the pacing issue and not trying to drag the story out too long:

I suppose you know I’ve a story, THE BRIGHT ILLUSION, in the October AS[T]OUNDING. That’s one idea which must surely be absolutely original—or am I flattering myself? Anyhow it’s really a different story, tho I’m rather ashamed of the way it’s written. T[h]e idea needed more space to develop than the plot warranted, if you follow me! You’ll understand when you read it. I had either to make it abrupt or dragged-out and boring, and by the time I’m halfway through with a story I usually hate it anyhow and want to get the whole thing over with.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 21 Aug [1934], MSS Brown Digital Repository

Considering “The Bright Illusion” is 17 pages, I think Moore drew the story out as far as the plot would sustain it. Some notes in another letter suggest that the story was otherwise written much like her previous Northwest Smith yarns, taking inspiration as it came to her, and worried that the result was too weird for Astounding.

I am wondering what you thought of my BRIGHT ILLUSION in this month’s ASTOUNDING. Was it bad? I can never tell if they’re going to be masterpieces or utter flops. The drawing was nice, tho. The first I’ve had that really satisfied me—it looked just like that. […]  The great god IL in THE BRIGHT ILLUSION was snatched out of the April on the calendar that stared me int he face when I looked round for a good name, and the girl Apri in my new story has the same derivative. […] I did a drawing for THE BRIGHT ILLUSION which was pretty good too, tho was rejected as being too weird and too much of a contrast with ASTOUNDING’s usual type of drawing. The figures were simply heavily outlined a la McClelland Barclay, no background. They were afraid that the story itself was almost too weird for their rag, and thought the drawing would push it over the borderline. I’d like you to see it, tho don’t want to load you up there with my things.
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 10 Sep-9 Oct 1934, MSS Brown Digital Repository

Irrespective of her worries, Moore retained a fondness for the story, and sent a copy to Barlow, who had proposed publishing a collection of her weird fiction.

 Despite your preference, I find I like it better than BLACK GOD’S KISS. It’s so nice and sentimental, and really ingenuous. I think. It took such an awful lot of struggle to figure out some way of solution that I’m very fond of the thing. I’ll send you my illustration for it, and the draft for the JULHI illustration, which is all I have of the drawing now—that is, if I can find it. (Heavens how involved my paragraphs do get.)
—C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 31 Dec 1934, MSS Brown Digital Repository

Barlow thought enough of the story to mention it to Lovecraft, who did not usually buy Astounding:

Oct. W.T. about average, on the whole. The Moore item is really very notable—full of intensity & atmospheric suggestion of encroaching dream-worlds which none of the other authors seem able to achieve. I’ll try to look up the item in Astounding, even though it be less free from the hackneyed & conventional.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, [26 Oct 1934], O Fortunate Floridian 187

Ultimately, Barlow had to send the copy of “The Bright Illusion” to Lovecraft:

Thanks very much for “The Bright Illusion”, which I had not seen before. There is splendid atmosphere in it, & the conception of a whole alien world with a hypnotic false front is really masterful. On the other hand, the mawkish, sticky, 1900-period sentimentality I’d hardly nominate this effusion for use in your select volume—assuming that your plans stops short of complete works.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, [16 Mar 1935], O Fortunate Floridian 217-218

Lovecraft’s dislike of the “mawkish” bits is typical—he also disliked when Merritt did something similar in “The Conquest of the Moon Pool”—but his praise for her handling of the alien world is genuine, since it was very different from the typical idea of a human landing on an Earth-like world with human-like aliens.

Astounding had its own letters column, called “Brass Tacks,” as with Weird Tales and the “Eyrie,” this was a forum where readers could weigh in on the stories in previous issues, sometimes getting into technical matters of science and mechanics. The story was well-received:

And last, but far from least, there is C. L. Moore. I read five of her stories without being impelled to rave. Good jobs they all were, and done in workmanlike fashion; but nothing calling for repeated reading. Then The Bright Illusion! Man, there is a job of work—adult fare, that; no fooling! I have read it three times so far, and haven’t got it all yet. I have no idea whether Miss (or Mrs.) Moore is a young girl with an unusually powerful mind and a full store of unsullied idealism, or whether she is a woman whose long and eventful life has shown her that real love is man’s supreme dower. But whoever or whatever she may be, I perceive in her Bright Illusion a flame of sublimity brighter, whiter, fiercer, and more intense even than the eternal fire of IL’s great temple.
—Edward E. Smith, Astounding Stories Jan 1935

E. E. “Doc” Smith was well-known as the author of the Lensman series, and his occasional letters in the ‘Eyrie’ (and reference to this as her sixth story) showed him to be a regular reader of Weird Tales—and curiously enough, he knew what many WT readers did not, which was that Moore was female. It would seem as if she had landed another successful market.

“The Bright Illusion” was published in the October 1934 issue of Astounding Stories. Scans of this issue are available to download from Pulp and Old Magazines and Words Envisioned.

For readers who want to read more about the origin of “The Bright Illusion” and its origins, Marcos Legaria has a detailed article: “C. L. Moore’s “To What Dim Goal” and Its Progeny” in Penumbra: A Journal of Weird Fiction and Criticism, 2023.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Red Star at R’lyeh” (2025) by Susan Shwartz

If something more had been made of the kind of harm done by the release of atomic energy, there might be great possibilities for original & unusual development. How about it? What could you imagine as a sufficiently hellish consequence of the conquest of energy? The opening up of another dimension & the submergence of our familiar physical universe by some influence from ‘outside’? The explosion of all the matter in the immediate space-time continuum? The total or partial suspension of physico-chemical laws, or the disastrous ability of users to effect such a suspension locally or universally? Any of these lines—& many others—would be promising. But at any cost get away from the beaten track!
—H. P. Lovecraft to Richard F. Searight, 31 Aug 1933, LRS 10

It is difficult for many people today to understand what it was like to live during the Cold War. A period when the world was divided between great superpowers whose direct conflict would lead to mutually assured destruction, and whose proxy wars consumed generations. A war that was won, not ideologically, but by the unsustainability of the conflict itself, the inability of the human government systems to maintain the constantly escalating costs of preparing for a conflict that would destroy them both.

There were people who, for decades, were told that at any moment the world might end and all they could do was hide under a desk and pray to survive the blast wave. People who grew up being told that equitable government distribution of resources was a blacker evil than conscription of troops to fight in a foreign military intervention, or that breadlines and internal passports were the cost of security for the nation as a whole.

It was not a conflict that Lovecraft lived to see.

Such were the ways of the elder gods, of which these engineers had been told nothing, nothing at all.
—Susan Shwartz, “Red Star at R’lyeh” in Cold War Cthulhu (2025) 41

The gold standard stories of Cold War Cthulhu Mythos fiction are “The Unthinkable” (1991) by Bruce Sterling and “A Colder War” (2000) by Charles Stross. Both stories capture more than just the chronological era of the Cold War, the trappings of cars, clothing, hairstyles, language, music. They focus on the psychology of the period, the mix of ideology and rapid technological progress, the paranoia and, especially, the sacrifices made in pursuit of victory. Sometimes, the technology and the sacrifices went hand in hand.

“Red Star at R’lyeh” by Susan Shwartz is a Mythos-inflected take on a real Cold War event, the Nedelin Catastrophe. It plays out in the form of a secret history: the Cold War has turned colder as the superpowers, so consumed with their conflict, dabble with eldritch forces beyond their understanding. The unthinkable becomes pragmatic, almost prosaic; a toxic cosmic byproduct repurposed as rocket fuel, the better to lift the U.S.S.R. to the stars. Ultimately, due to human hubris, this leads to disaster.

Shwartz captures the mood. The culture of bad decisions that led to lost lives. Like the victims of nuclear radiation, the victims of the Nedelin Catastrophe were an acceptable human cost in pursuit of technological, economic, and ultimately ideological supremacy over their foe. The question to ask is: does it make a difference if Cthulhu was involved, however peripherally?

Knowing how it turned out in the real world, effectively no. The Cold War was a tragedy on a global scale, and the Nedelin Catastrophe happened without the help of Cthulhu or shoggoths. In terms of the story, however, it hints at darker bargains being struck. Lies and omissions that went beyond Cold War norms. It is one thing to have an industrial accident using dangerous technology, enabled by inadequate safeguards and dangerous pressure for an accelerated schedule. It’s something else to have that and know that the dangerous technology is something that humans know they shouldn’t be playing with, bought at some unknown but likely obscene cost, and placed in the hands of those who were unaware of what dangers they truly faced.

Perhaps that’s what makes it a colder war. The realization that someone, somewhere, knew how dangerous this all was, and decided that the human cost was an acceptable risk. That kind of obscenity isn’t unique to the Cold War, but….it is emblematic of the darker side of the conflict, where both sides were willing to sacrifice their own for whatever advantage they thought it would give them, only to be pawns in a much older, vaster game.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.