“The Dark Land” (1936) by C. L. Moore

Glad you liked “The Dark Land”. I made the drawing a long time ago, and wrote the story so I could bring it in, with the addition of a cadaverous head and a swirl of vagueness.
—C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 30 Jan 1936, Letters to C. L. Moore and Others 108

We don’t know much about how C. L. Moore came to write “The Dark Land,” the fourth published adventure of Jirel of Joiry, and saw print in the January 1936 issue of Weird Tales, except that it drew on ideas Moore had at some point before she first conceived of Jirel, and which she now turned to for inspiration:

Jirel’s Guillaume whom I so ruthlessly slew in the first of her stories, yet whom I can’t quite let die, was patterned after the drawing of Pav of Romne with which I illustrated her latest story, “The Dark Land” in Weird Tales. I made that drawing somewhere in the remote past, and have cherished it all these years in the confidence that someday it would come in handy. I meant to use it to illustrate “Black God’s Kiss,” first of the Jirel tales, but somehow the story got out of hand, and I’ve never since been able to introduce a situation it would fit until “The Dark Land.”
—C. L. Moore, “An Autobiographical Sketch of C. L. Moore,” Echoes of Valor 2, 37-38

Like most of Moore’s series stories, this tale was effectively a standalone episode; and like many of them, Jirel swiftly finds herself in another dimension, facing a supernatural threat wildly beyond her abilities.

“Our dear lady has dabbled too often in forbidden things,” he murmured to himself above the crucifix. “Too often. . . .”
—C. L. Moore, “The Dark Land” in Weird Tales (Jan 1936)

Once again, Jirel of Joiry is up against a dangerous, domineering suitor—an echo of the overbearing Guillaume in “Black God’s Kiss” (1934) by C. L. Moore. The central conflict is effectively a weird social drama, a contest of wills (literally) between Pav of Romne and Jirel of Joiry, as the alien king seeks to seduce or dominate Jirel without destroying her. In that, more than most of Jirel’s stories, there is a fierce resistance that is emblematic of the character that would become Red Sonja, who would give herself to no man who had not bested her in combat.

“Give me a weapon! There is no man alive who is not somehow vulnerable. I shall learn your weakness, Pav of Romne, and slay you with it. And if I fail—then take me.”
—C. L. Moore, “The Dark Land” in Weird Tales (Jan 1936)

It is sword & sorcery without much swordplay; Jirel is weaponless in the traditional sense, but then she is facing enemies that cannot be slain with a yard of steel. Like many of Moore’s stories, it deals with entities that are both vastly alien from human conception, and yet peculiarly attracted to either the human form or spirit. It is an aspect of sword & sorcery, the indomitable nature of the human spirit, that separates the swordswomen from the damsels in distress.

While the fans received “The Dark Land” positively, this tendency toward spiritual or psychic warfare was noted:

The Dark Land, by C. L. Moore, gets my vote for first place. . . . For originality of ideas in fantastic realms, Moore takes first place. However, can C. L. Moore discover something else instead of the hero’s (or heroine’s, as the case may be) tremendous will-power, to beat the foe?
—Michael Liene in The ‘Eyrie,’ Weird Tales (Mar 1936)

Another reader noted another running theme in Moore’s stories:

Can’t C. L. Moore write anything but woman-witch-halfbreed stories? Shambleau, The Dark Land, Yvala, ye gods!
—Willis Conover in The ‘Eyrie,’ Weird Tales (Mar 1936)

“The Dark Land” also aroused little comment from Moore’s peers, beyond polite acknowledgement. it wasn’t a bad story, but it lacked the vast originality of her earliest stories in Weird Tales.

I read your “Dark Land”, and liked it well.
—Forrest J Ackermann to C. L. Moore, 12 Feb [1936]

Jan. & Feb. W T issues very poor—saved only by Moore stories.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Emil Petaja, 1 Apr 1936, LEP 472

Have skimmed recent W T issues—though I suppose another is out today. Jan. & Feb. poor—each redeemed only by a Moore story.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 1 Apr 1936, LFB 316

Moore herself doesn’t comment on how she felt about this story; but there is a notable gap between “The Dark Land” and the next two (and final) Jirel of Joiry stories, “Quest of the Starstone” (WT Nov 1937) and “Hellsgarde” (WT Apr 1939) and when she returns to the character it is with a very different plot.

“The Dark Land” was published in the January 1936 issue of Weird Tales. Scans of this issue are available on 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.

“En Tierra Baldía” (2024) by Miguel Almagro & Lord Dunsany

Libre adaptación del relato escrito por Lord Dunsany	Freely adapted from the story by Lord Dunsany
Cthulhu #30 (2024)	English translation

“On the Dry Land” by Lord Dunsany was first published in the small magazine Neolith #4 (Aug 1908), and was collected in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories that same year. It is the last story in the book, and it is one of those Dunsany short-shorts that is more than a drabble but less than a tale. Call it a prose poem or flash fiction; it has a certain poetry to it, and there is more that is left unsaid than is said. It has a mythic quality, but it is not a story of any particular mythology, whether of Pegāna or any other tradition. A kind of story so universal in its outlines it might slip easily into the tradition of any culture that has the concept of love and death.

How do you illustrate that? How do you put into images and words, the unspoken understanding, the loneliness and heartache?

For one, the adaptation allows the text to be decompressed. Dunsany’s pithy text is stretched out by Miguel Almagro into 9 black-and-white pages. For two, the scene and many details are expanded to silently add to the storytelling. Rather than the marsh where Dunsany had first set the scene, the story unfolds on a cliff overlooking the sea; the blowing of grass and the stance of the unnamed man show the direction of the wind that blows strongly throughout, and blocks of stone suggest some ancient construction or ruin, marks of the passage of time. The layout of the panels helps control the pacing of the story.

Te conduje entre los que me odíaban y me reí cuando tomaron venganza en tí… Usé tu bondadoso corazón sin misericordia… Ahora he de dejarte No llores más, soy un necio, un desalmado, solo me quedé contigo porque eras un buen compañero de juegos…	I led you among those who hate me and laughed when they took revenge on you… I used your kind heart without mercy… Now I have to leave you Don’t cry anymore, I’m a fool, a heartless man, I only stayed with you because you were a good playmate…
Cthulhu #30 (2024)	English translation

As a free adaptation, Almagro is not making an attempt at an exact replication of Dunsany’s text; lines are told out of sequence, rearranged to meet the needs of the artistic arrangement. Maintaining the core of the short short while shifting the representation. So for example, this scene as Dunsany wrote it:

And Love said to the old man, ‘I will leave you now.’

And the old man made no answer, but wept softly.

Then Love was grieved in his little careless heart, and he said: ‘You must not be sorry that I go, nor yet regret me, nor care for me at all.

‘I am a very foolish child, and was never kind to you, nor friendly. I never cared for your great thoughts, or for what was good in you, but perplexed you by leading you up and down the perilous marshes. And I was so heartless that, had you perished where I led you, it would have been nought to me, and I only stayed with you because you were good to play with.

‘And I am cruel and altogether worthless and not such a one as any should be sorry for when I go, or one to be regretted, or even cared for at all.’

And still the old man spoke not, but wept softly; and Love grieved bitterly in his kindly heart.

And Love said: ‘Because I am so small my strength has been concealed from you, and the evil that I have done. But my strength is great, and I have used it unjustly. Often I pushed you from the causeway through the marshes, and cared not if you drowned. Often I mocked you, and caused others to mock you. And often I led you among those that hated me, and laughed when they revenged themselves upon you.
—Lord Dunsany, “On the Dry Land”

Pero nunca mas volverás a estar solo	But you will never be alone again.
Cthulhu #30 (2024)	English translation

As with “Donde suben y bajan las mareas” (1978) by Alberto Breccia, Carlos Trillo, and Lord Dunsany, we have to read this from the perspective of both a translation and an adaptation. Dunsany’s title “On the Dry Land” is a key to the story because the dry land represents the end of journey and parting of ways; the nameless man with Love has been wading through the marshes, the wet lands, and that trudge and effort and peril are metaphorically, life and hardship and struggle. The dry land is what comes after. The Spanish title, “La tierra baldía” translates most literally to “The Wasteland,” which isn’t quite the same meaning, suggesting as it does barrenness, though the metaphor still works: the nameless man has come to the undiscovered country:

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
—Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1

Dunsany is putting his own spin on it; rather than clinging to life, the man is clinging to Love, despite all the pain that has come from clinging to love, and dreads the loss of it. Yet there is that reassurance, that final promise, of a more constant, faithful, and comparing companion—a character more akin to Death in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels than the medieval grim reaper, or even Death as sometimes personified in Dunsany’s other stories.

In adaptation, Miguel Almagro is taking that story in translation and moving it a bit further. It is not a wasteland in the sense that there is nothing living; there is grass, insects, but it is devoid of people or shelter, a land gone fallow and wild. Even the sky and sea are empty and desolate. Death, when she appears, is not frightening, merely a dark-eyed psychopomp—and the man has accepted Death, even as he has accepted the loss of Love. Dunsany wrote in the last line:

And after a while, with his face towards the morning, Death out of the marshes came up tall and beautiful, and with a faint smile shadowy on his lips, and lifted in his arms the lonely man, being gentle with him, and, murmuring with his low deep voice an ancient song, carried him to the morning to the gods.

Almagro foregoes the song, and the gods; the last we see of them are two shadows side by side on a new and different journey. There is something more poignant in that image, that acceptance and continuance. Perhaps a man literally cannot live without Love, but so too, now Love can no longer hurt him.

Thanks to Martin Andersson 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 Cold Gray God” (1935) by C. L. Moore

Was there ever such a duel in the whole universe as the one between Northwest Smith and the nameless being that fought him in that Martian room?—a gripping tale by the author of “Shambleau”
—Epigraph to “The Cold Gray God” in Weird Tales (Oct 1935)

Summer in the Midwest, before the widespread adoption of air conditioning, could be sweltering. The very air gets sticky, even nights could be stifling and sweaty. C. L. Moore hadn’t been slacking during the summer of 1935, but Northwest Smith had been absent from the pages of Weird Tales. Wright had the story that would be “The Cold Grey God” on hand at least as early as March, but he sat on it, apparently waiting for the right time, and thinking of the right title. That came with the October 1935 issue.

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

On the subject of titles, I envy you your ability. The most painful part of writing, so far as I’m concerned, is naming the stories. Mr. Wright more or less takes it out of my hands sometimes, as in the case of a story scheduled for mid-summer sometime, which he is calling “The Cold Gray God”. I’m getting a regular spectrum of colored gods, staring with black and working slowly upward thru grey toward goodness knows what.
—C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 7 May 1935, Letters to C. L. Moore and Others 34

The story starts with snow on Mars. A femme fatale. Northwest Smith, unable to repress his curiosity, goes to her house. The aesthetic borrows aspects of hardboiled fiction, of Oriental stories, the details adapted to the extraterrestrial setting. The idea of an ancient religion buried in the hearts and minds of an exotic culture was not uncommon in stories like Robert E. Howard’s “Skull-Face” (WT Oct-Nov-Dec 1929) and Robert W. Chambers’ The Slayer of Souls (1920); here it was applied to Martians.

“The Cold Gray God” is not set up as an archaeological horror; it’s set up as a weird heist story, in the strange criminal underworld of Mars. As in “Dust of the Gods” (1934), he’s hired to do a not-quite-legal job. Unlike in that story, the job itself isn’t the problem. A noirish sensibility of a web of secrets unfolds the narrative, and once again ensnares Northwest Smith in a plot of ancient space gods, strange survivals from a dim and distant past, and one with an unspeakable name:

And he knew why the men of Mars never spoke their cold god’s title. They could not. It was not a name human brains could grasp or human lips utter without compulsion from Outside. […] Nor was the name wholly gone, even now. It had withdrawn, for reasons too vast for comprehension. But it had left behind it shrines, and each of them was a little doorway into that presence; so that the priests who tended them furnished tribute. Sometimes they were possessed by the power of their god, and spoke the name which their devotees could not hear, yet whose awful cadences were a storm of power about them. And this was the origin of that strange, dark religion which upon Mars has been discredited for so long, though it has never died in the hearts of men.
—C. L. Moore, “The Cold Gray God” in Weird Tales (Oct 1935)

Which is a neat way to get around coming up with a mouthful of letters like Cthulhu or Tsathoggua. While C. L. Moore never deliberately added to the Mythos of the Necronomicon and Unaussprechlichen Kulten, she very much absorbed the ideas of Lovecraft and co., and adapted those tropes to her own use. This is not unlike Northwest Smith’s version of “The Call of Cthulhu,” or an homage to the same. The stars were right—then came the raygun.

If there’s a criticism of the story, it’s that it is very similar to Smith’s other adventures. This isn’t the first god he’s faced down, or the first time he’s struggled against an alien will. It is a standalone episode; while there are elements of the setting that are shared with other stories, there is still no continuity. This encounter does not cause Smith to reflect on any other encounters; this experience does not hinge on any previous one. So while the setting expands a bit with each story, the series itself maintains the same episodic nature as that other great stalwart of Weird Tales, Jules de Grandin. Readers weren’t looking for character development, no origin or ending, and writers weren’t going for character arcs for the most part.

“The Cold Gray God” is well-written, a good example of a Northwest Smith story. It just lacks a bit of novelty.

Nor did readers complain about that, although they complained about other things:

I read “Cold Gray God” last night, and liked it good. My only objections are personal: I don’t like “cooed” as a word; and I can’t stand “clean death”. For some obscure reason, I don’t fancy a girl cooing; whilst during the past year or so it seems to me all the fictional characters have gone overboard about having a “good, clean death”—by a “cool, clean sword”, “clean, consuming fire”…or good clean, clean, clean—like a clank, clank, clank—will drive me clean coo-koo, so help me, if I come across it about oncemore!!!
—Forrest J. Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 2 Oct 1935

Readers in “The ‘Eyrie'” were more positive, with one writing simply:

I surely enjoyed The Cold Gray God by C. L. Moore. I like stories of Mars.
—Orby Martin, Weird Tales Dec 1935

Among Moore’s pulp peers, H. P. Lovecraft counted it among the best stories in the issue. A typical version of his response:

W T is rather lousy of late. In the Sept. issue “Vulthoom” & “Shambler from the Stars” barely save it from being a total loss, while “Cold Grey God” & “Last Guest” perform a similar service for the Oct. number.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Lee McBride White, 28 Oct 1935, Letters to J. Vernon Shea et al. 362

If he noted the similarity to some of his own ideas, it hasn’t survived in any letter that’s seen print. At some point, Lovecraft conveyed the essence of this to Moore herself:

I’m so glad you approved of my “Cold Grey God” (which is Wright’s title, not mine.)
—C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 16 Oct 1935, Letters to C. L. Moore and Others 68

One thing seems clear: both the readers and Lovecraft had come to appreciate Moore as a reliable writer, one of Weird Tales‘ more familiar and recognizable names for quality. Farnsworth Wright, the editor, was content to keep buying her stories. With this, her 13th published story in a pulp magazine or fanzine, Moore herself seems to have achieved a comfortably high level of confidence and competence.

“The Cold Grey God” was published in the October 1935 issue of Weird Tales. Scans of this issue are available on 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.

“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.

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

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.

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.

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.