Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith

Another Gateway acquistion. I owned a copy of Shambleau many years ago, but culled it before I moved to Cambridge, not appreciating the brilliant writing. Both books are Moore’s Northwest Smith stories, but Shambleau has less stories than the new collection.

Pure pulp at it’s best. Stylistically very reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith or H P Lovecraft if either had written science fiction stories. Don’t expect much enlightened attitudes - females (although strong characters in their own right) are either vamps or victims (often both), and other races are either degenerate or at best sidekicks.

Great background material for a pulp planetary campaign - from the jungles of Venus to the deserts of Mars, the Solar System has been home to show more many humanoid races over the millenia.

Recommended. show less

Northwest Smith has the strength, skill and resourcefulness you'd expect of a planetary romance hero, but there's surprisingly little physical action here; the perils he encounters tend to need to be resisted by pure force of will. Nor are they in any meaningful sense science fictional - they may inhabit Venus or Mars, but they draw their inspiration from myth and horror fiction rather than anything scientific.

The stories tend to repeat themes, and reading them with breaks in between is adviceable - but stringing it out over a decade as I did is overdoing it badly.

Unusually for Science Fiction written in the 1930s, these have not dated at all. Sure we know Mars and Venus are not like this, but it doesn't matter a jot, the quality seeps through every inch of these tales. Moore deserves every last piece of her reputation.

'Northwest Smith' is a gritty traveller of the Spaceways. Often living outside the law, he can't return to his home planet earth because of the price on his head.

Often paired with his Venusian Friend Yarol, C. L. Moore puts Smith through some rather nasty adventures.

These stories lean heavily toward the Weird, and you can see why H. P. Lovecraft was a fan.

The complete stories are gathered here including a crossover with her other major character 'Jirel of Joiry'

This volume is a show more fine example of the best of what the publisher 'Paizo Planet Stories' has to offer. Check out their reprints of 'Henry Kuttner' and 'Leigh Brackett' amongst others. Great cover art, gritty retro. Brilliant. show less

This book had a lot of promise at the start. However, since it is a compilation of short stories from a magazine, it has a serious problem, in that many of the stories have exactly the same plot. Such repetitiveness is unusual for such monthly magazine stories, but I get the impression that was a 'theme' of the NW Smith stories in Weird Tales, but collected together, it does not work very well. After the first one or two vampire stories, they get old. Otherwise, this is a intriguing collection of old science fiction/fantasy from the old days. Its far more fantasy than fiction.

The stories follow a clear formula: Northwest Smith encounters a damsel in distress, who is Other Than She Seems, and encounters some menacingly powerful otherworldly entity which he manages to resist through sheer force of will, losing said damsel (who is often the entity itself) in the process.

Fine enough, but it starts to wear after the first three or four stories.

From C. J. Cherryh's review: "This is an important book. Read it. Make sure your kids and grandkids read it. It's timeless, and it's that good."

Those days, long ago, when it was still possible to dream about what might be on Mars, and about alien life, were heady stuff, and I'm sometimes sorry that the world seems somehow smaller nowadays. It doesn't have to be, you know.

Dream a little.

Introduction: "Teaching the World to Dream" by C. J. Cherryh
"Shambleau"
"Black Thirst"
"Scarlet Dream"
"Dust of Gods"
"Julhi"
"Nymph of Darkness"
"The Cold Gray God"
"Yvala"
Lost Parade"
"The Tree of Life"
"Quest of the Starstone"
"Werewoman"
"Song in a Minor Key"

Stories were OK but got a bit samey.