Northwest Smith is a fictional character, and the hero of a series of stories by science fiction writer C. L. Moore.
Northwest Smith is a fictional character, and the hero of a series of stories by science fiction writer C. L. Moore.
Smith is a spaceship pilot and smuggler who lives in an undisclosed future time when humanity has colonized the Solar System.
The stories are set in a milieu common to science fiction stories of the pulp era. All of the planets of the system are able to support life and have their own civilizations. Many of the intelligent races living on the planets have comparatively primitive cultures. The relationship of the "planetary primitives" to the earth colonists is analogous to the situation of Native Americans, Africans and other indigenous people facing colonialism. Exceptions to this rule are the planets Mars and Venus, which Moore depicts as having ancient and decadent cultures (which might stand for China and other ancient Asian cultures, as they seemed to Westerners at the time). This general milieu was shared by a number of other writers, including Moore's friends Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett.
By profession, Smith is an outlaw who lives by a variety of criminal means, including smuggling. By nature, he is an anti-hero, ruthless, self-serving, and cynical. Despite this, he has a core of goodness and often does the right thing in spite of himself. Smith is described as a dark haired man with "space bronzed" skin and pale eyes, who wears brown spacer's leathers and carries a raygun at his side like an old west gunfighter. His ship, the Maid, is small and unspectacular but surprisingly fast and agile. His closest ally is the equally amoral Venusian, Yarol.
His stories often involve ancient alien beings who have been worshipped as gods. This theme is similar to the tales of H. P. Lovecraft though, unlike Lovecraft's tales, Moore provides a hero who always manages to win out over hopeless odds. The classic Northwest Smith story is "Shambleau", in which Moore plays with themes of sexuality and addiction in Smith's encounter with a strange female alien.
The story "Quest of the Starstone" is also worth noting because it connects Smith with Moore's other most famous character, Jirel of Joiry.
Moore originally created Smith as a western character and kept the name when she switched to science fiction. [1] She reportedly liked the absurdity of a character named "Northwest" in space, where compass points are meaningless.
Moore traced the origin of the character's name to the typing work which she was doing for a living while writing Shambleau and which included a letter addressed to a "Mr. N.W.Smith." [2] Moore admitted that the name of Smith's Venusian buddy, Yarol, was simply a permutation of the name of her favorite typewriter.
In the history of both the United States and Canada, the term "Northwest" recurs in various contexts, greatly variant with time and place but all carrying associations of wild frontier areas, exploration and adventure (Northwest Territory in early US history, North-Western Territory/Northwest Territories in Canada, Northwest Passage, North-West Rebellion and more).
Northwest Smith is sometimes compared to the Star Wars character Han Solo; both are violent, gun-wielding, rogue smugglers with hearts of gold who travel among planets that are stand-ins for existing Earth cultures. [3]
The Northwest Smith stories include the following:
Northwest Smith stories appear in the following collections:
Catherine Lucille Moore was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, who first came to prominence in the 1930s writing as C. L. Moore. She was among the first women to write in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Moore's work paved the way for many other female speculative fiction writers.
Sword and sorcery (S&S) is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and sorcery commonly overlaps with heroic fantasy.
"The Green Hills of Earth" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. One of his Future History stories, the short story originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, and it was collected in The Green Hills of Earth. Heinlein selected the story for inclusion in the 1949 anthology My Best Science Fiction Story. "The Green Hills of Earth" is also the title of a song mentioned in several of Heinlein's novels.
Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers. Later writers describe him as one of the Outer Gods, an alien pantheon.
Jirel of Joiry is a fictional character created by American writer C. L. Moore, who appeared in a series of sword and sorcery stories published first in the pulp horror/fantasy magazine Weird Tales. Jirel is the proud, tough, arrogant and beautiful ruler of her own domain — apparently somewhere in medieval France. Her adventures continually involve her in dangerous brushes with the supernatural.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Begun probably in the autumn of 1926, the draft was completed on January 22, 1927 and it remained unrevised and unpublished in his lifetime. It is both the longest of the stories that make up his Dream Cycle and the longest Lovecraft work to feature protagonist Randolph Carter. Along with his 1927 novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, it can be considered one of the significant achievements of that period of Lovecraft's writing. The Dream-Quest combines elements of horror and fantasy into an epic tale that illustrates the scope and wonder of humankind's ability to dream.
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"Shambleau" is a short story by American science fiction and fantasy writer C. L. Moore. Though it was her first professional sale, it is her most famous story. It first appeared in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales and has been reprinted numerous times. It features one of Moore's best-known heroes, Northwest Smith, a gun-toting spacefarer, and is a retelling of the Medusa myth; it looks at themes of sexuality and addiction.
Shambleau and Others is a 1953 collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories by American writer C. L. Moore. The book was originally announced by Arkham House but never published by them. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1953 in an edition of 4,000 copies. The collections contains stories about Moore's characters Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry. The stories all originally appeared in the magazine Weird Tales.
Northwest of Earth is a 1954 collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories by C. L. Moore. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1954 in an edition of 4,000 copies. The collections contains stories about Moore's characters Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry. The stories all originally appeared in the magazine Weird Tales.
Black God's Shadow is a collection of fantasy short stories by American writer C. L. Moore and illustrator Alicia Austin. It was first published in 1977 by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. in an edition of 2,550 copies, of which 150 were bound in buckram, boxed, and signed by the author and artist. The stories feature Moore's character Jirel of Joiry, and originally appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. The stories were previously collected in a different configuration under the title Jirel of Joiry (1969).
Scarlet Dream is a collection of science fiction short stories by C. L. Moore with illustrations by Alicia Austin. It was first published in 1981 by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. in an edition of 1,820 copies, of which 220 were bound in buckram, boxed, and signed by the author and artist. The stories feature Moore's character Northwest Smith. All but the last story originally appeared in the magazine Weird Tales.
Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first Barsoom tale was serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in 1912 and published as a novel as A Princess of Mars in 1917. It features John Carter, a late 19th-century American Confederate veteran who is mysteriously transported from Earth to the dying world of Mars where he meets and romances the beautiful Martian princess Dejah Thoris. Ten sequels followed over the next three decades, further extending his vision of Barsoom and adding other characters.
Jirel of Joiry is a collection of five fantasy stories by C. L. Moore, often characterized as sword and sorcery. The volume compiles all but one of Moore's stories featuring the title character, a female warrior in an imagined version of medieval France. All the stories were published in Weird Tales during the 1930s. After being published as a paperback original by Paperback Library in 1969, the collection was reissued by Ace Books in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Bibliography of science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction writer Lin Carter:
Savage Heroes is an anthology of sword and sorcery stories edited by Michel Parry under the pseudonym of Eric Pendragon. It was first published in paperback by Star Books in February 1977. The first U.S. edition was issued in hardcover and trade paperback by Taplinger in March 1980. The editor's pseudonym was dropped for the Taplinger edition.
The Best of C. L. Moore is a collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories by American author C. L. Moore, edited by Lester del Rey. It was first published in hardback by Nelson Doubleday in November 1975 and in paperback by Ballantine Books in March 1976 as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. A second hardcover edition was issued by Taplinger in 1977, and the paperback edition was reissued by Del Rey/Ballantine in December 1980 and January 1981. The book has been translated into German and Italian.