THE DEEP ONES: "The Quest of the Starstone" by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

"The Quest of the Starstone" by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

Discussion begins February 7, 2024.

First published in the November 1937 issue of Weird Tales.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?82830

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Jirel of Joiry
Northwest of Earth
Realms of Wizardry

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://podcastle.org/2023/08/29/podcastle-802-quest-of-the-starstone/
https://podcastle.org/2023/09/05/podcastle-803-quest-of-the-starstone/

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://podcastle.org/2023/08/29/podcastle-802-quest-of-the-starstone/
https://podcastle.org/2023/09/05/podcastle-803-quest-of-the-starstone/.

MISCELLANY

https://onanunderwood5.blogspot.com/2019/03/conan-and-jirel-robert-e-howard-and-...
https://www.flapperpress.com/post/weird-tales-wedding-bells-the-story-of-henry-k...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._L._Moore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kuttner
http://tinyurl.com/2merka9h

Didn't get around to re-reading this for this week, but one thing I think interesting about it is how seemlessly the crossover works, despite Smith nominally being sf and Jirel fantasy. In Moore's hands the generic divide is blurry at best.

Smith is more than a little lucky.

>2 AndreasJ: Moore keeps the tradition up of Smith usually being saved by someone body else. (As I recall, Jirel usually saves herself.)

I'd forgotten how romantic and emotional Moore's prose could be.

I think this one worked surprisingly well, and I liked the unsentimental way Smith regards his adventure at story's end.

Star Trek: TOS, as I have noted before, has a very strong flavour of Pulp or pre-Golden Age science fiction. When you look back on it, or catch a repeat showing, you may be struck by how Gothic it often it (the first episode to be aired, the one with the salt vampire disguising itself as one of McCoy's old flames, gives you Gothic Horror and doomed Romance from the off).

I've read the Jirel stories but so far only a couple of Northest Smith stories (plus this one). So far, the Northwest stories have matched the Gothic Fantasy template and been a long way from recognisably Hard SF. This may be why the crossover doesn't jar.

But there's something in Moore's writing that seems closer to Star Trek than her contemporaries, and it's the emotional susceptiblity of Smith and suggestions of erotic submission (to Shambleu, and to the Alendar in "Black Thirst" - where admittedly it's written as psychic domination by a kind of vampire/evil magician figure, but what would the real-life analogue be?). Smith is routinely cited as a precursor of Han Solo but as a character he seems far more like Captain Kirk. Maybe this is a coincidence, and Kirk is a product of TV Network requirements and William Shatner's acting style (which I'm not knocking, just noting that it's of its time and place). But Kirk's weakness for a pretty face (and their weakness for his!) and his emotional openess (at least in front of Spock and McCoy), and the actor's ability to writhe in agony under a supposed energy beam or telepathic onslaught, well they kept coming to mind when I was reading "Shambleau" and "Black Thirst" and again when I reread this one.