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Title: Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith (Planet Stories Library)
ISBN: 1601250819
Author:
C. L. Moore
C. J. Cherryh
Publicate Date: 2008-03-26
Publish: 2008-03-26
List Price: $12.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $6.42
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $6.88
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.39
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1: Know what you're getting into...
Northwest Smith is described on the back cover as a "quick-drawing outlaw of the spaceways", and in her Introduction, C.J. Cherryh describes him as the archetype of Indiana Jones. So you might be expecting planet-hopping tales of action and derring-do.
Think again.
The NW Smith stories consist mostly of description. Not much happens, but the inaction is luxuriously described. Here's a taste. "...it was truly dreadful. Dimly he knew it, even as his body answered to the root-deep ecstasy, a foul and dreadful wooing from which his very soul shuddered away--and yet in the innermost depths of that soul some grinning traitor shivered with delight. But deeply, behind all this, he knew horror and revulsion and despair beyond telling, while the intimate caresses crawled obscenely in the secret places of his soul--knew that the soul should not be handled--and shook with the perilous pleasure through it all."
It's like that for pages and pages and pages, all nameless horror and soul-shuddering revulsion and despair, until about five pages from the end NW finally pulls his ray-gun and blasts the obscene perilous crawling ancient evil into smithereens.
Most stories have just four characters:
(1) NW himself;
(2) a female story hook, always aluring and exotic, usually alien, always a slave to, or herself the
(3) indescribable and yet comprehensively described nameless ancient horror;
and (4) NW's best friend and partner in crime, who sometimes shows up at the end to help rouse him from the thrall/sleep of the dreadful eons-old soul-sucking obscenity.
Since all that happens in most stories is that NW runs into the alien babe, gets enslaved by the inhuman crawling madness, and eventually either summons the inner strength to draw his ray gun and blast it or gets roused by his best buddy, the stories don't occupy much physical space. Most of them take place in a single town, and most of the action in each story takes place in a single building or even a single room, as NW engages in a soul-deep struggle against the aforementioned nameless indescribable writhing ancient horror.
So if you're expecting fisticuffs, shootouts, dogfights, chases, escapes, rescues, or other forms of Plot, you may want to look elsewhere. In time it takes NW to grapple with, "...knowledge so dreadful that consciously he could not comprehend it, though subconsciously every atom of his mind and soul sickened and writhed futilely away," an Edgar Rice Burroughs protagonist would have found, rescued, and married a princess, killed a few thousand aliens with in swordfights, and been declared a planetary warlord.
But if nigh-endless descriptions of the indescribable are your bag; if you like Poe and Lovecraft but can't stand their breakneck pacing; or if you have a limit of only one weapon discharge per narrative, these stories will be right up your alley. See if you can track down one or two to test-drive before you spring for the whole volume, though.
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2: Not quite what I expected but still good
About 75% finished with this one. I really like it but let's just say it's not what I expected.
The way I've heard it described, with Northwest Smith being a Han Solo prototype, I was expecting good pulpy action with rayguns and gross monsters. It's more like Han Solo nearly getting seduced/killed by Lovecraftian beasties (often disguised as women) and just barely surviving. The writing is much better than I expected, like Michael Moorcock at his pulpy best. The stories are fairly creepy and held my interest. The one gripe I had was that many of them are fairly similar in plot and structure.
In conclusion, creepy: yes, action-packed: no.
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3: Super Reader
The introduction by C. J. Cherry to this Paizo Planet Stories is brief. Basically she says these are good, you should read them, as should your grandparents and grandchildren and children.
She doesn't mention the pets, although reading them to your parrot or budgie to get them to come out with 'heat gun' or 'Northwest' sounds like a good plan, to me.
Anyway, she is right. Atmospheric bordering on horror at times, in a similar fashion to some of the Jirel tales, Northwest runs into more odd monsters and women and even monster women than you would expect any space adventurer to do.
Speaking of the flame-haired sword swinging sorcerer slicing woman of Joiry, there is a great crossover story here : 'Quest Of the Starstone'.
Very nicely done indeed to have these all in one volume, as the stories have been available in different chunks in different places in the past.
Grab a copy.
Northwest Smith : 01 Shambleau [short story] - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 02 Black Thirst - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 03 Scarlet Dream - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 04 Dust of Gods - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 05 Julhi - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 06 Nymph of Darkness - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 07 The Cold Gray God - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 08 Yvala - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 09 Lost Paradise - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 10 The Tree of Life - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 11 Quest of the Starstone - Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 12 Werewoman - C. L. Moore
Northwest Smith : 13 Song in a Minor Key - C. L. Moore
Shoot vampire gorgon women, don't ask them in for dinner.
4.5 out of 5
"Not even the lowest class of Venusian street-walker dared come along the waterfronts of Ednes on the nights when the space-liners were not in. Yet across the pavement came clearly now the light tapping of a woman's feet."
This leads him to monstrous vampiric alien, and to the aid of one his thralls, above.
""The-Guardians-still rove the halls, and unleashed now -so keep your ray-gun ready, Earthman. . , ."
4 out of 5
Northwest's fondness for markets leads him to a purchase trapping him in a dream world.
3 out of 5
Investigations leads to what just may be the remains of one of the three elder gods of mars.
4 out of 5
Other-planar sorceresses and their attractive victims to be found this time.
4 out of 5
An invisible divine daughter of darkness runs into Northwest's arms, leading to a dangerous dance.
4 out of 5
A gorgeous famous singer suddenly reappears, and she gives Northwest the creeps despite her Venusian milky magnificence.
Ol' leather's instincts are still good, as there is a bit of body snatching going on.
4 out of 5
Its Circe and Beast-men time when the desperados go in for a spot of exotic escort hunting.
3.5 out of 5
Northwest comes across evidence of an ancient Moon race.
3 out of 5
Women who commune with trees and others in ruined temples are best avoided. Failing that, there is the trusty raygun solution.
3.5 out of 5
The wizard Franga is getting his arse handed him by Jirel so badly he has to summon help. The man, time and place he chooses to pick is Northwest Smith, having a quiet drink and convo in the future.
Northwest, of course, intrigued enough to step through a strange gate into the past is more than capable of smelling a rat, along with being impressed by the bloodnut warrior.
5 out of 5
Running with a pack of females is Northwest Smith, fading in and out of a lost, cursed land, but there are hunters around.
4 out of 5
A bit of reminiscing about the first use of a ray gun in anger.
3 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
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4: the original Han Solo
Paizo's Planet Stories line gives us another classic from the "queen of the pulps" C.L. Moore. This volume focuses on Northwest Smith, hardbitten, yet strangely vulnerable, outlaw of the spaceways. Smith faces weird, and sometimes horrific, alien menances in a solar system owing inspiration to Edgar Rice Burroughs--Venus is swampy and cloud-enshrouded; Mars is an ancient desert. Moore has all the adventure of her pulp forebears, but adds to it a gift for weird imagery, an undercurrent of sensuality, and superior characterization. Moore's science fiction isn't shiny rockets, but dark and moody encounters with ancient horrors.
The volume opens with the first Northwest Smith story--the darkly sensual "Shambleau" which made her a star when it was published in 1933, just eleven months after Howard's Conan. It ends with the poignant vignette "Song in a Minor Key" which, in the words of writer/editor Karl Edward Wagner, packs a punch "Bruce Lee would have envied."
In between are tales full of adventure and strangeness waiting to bring CL Moore to a much deserved new audience.
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