Appendix N: Leigh Brackett's "The Halfling and Other Stories"

While I have immensely enjoyed Leigh Brackett, and will undoubtedly read more from her, this will be the last of my Leigh Brackett Appendix N entries for a while. I am feeling the need to move further down my reading list of Anderson to Zelazny.

I found my copy of this book in a used book store, and while I have seen it for sale on-line, I encourage you to haunt your local used book stores first, as I firmly believe in supporting local owned businesses.

As far as I know, this book and many of the stories contained within it are out of print.

My copy is dog eared, beaten up, stained with loose pages. Luckily, it is intact and I only paid $1. It is a paperback first Ace Books printing from 1973. I was unable to confirm who the cover art was by, any information on this would be appreciated. There was a second Ace printing done in 1983 which has cover art cited to Mel Odom.

It contains the following stories: "The Halfling", "The Dancing Girl of Ganymede", "The Citadel of Lost Ages", "All the Colors of the Rainbow", "The Shadows", "Enchantress of Venus", "The Lake of the Gone Forever" and "The Truants". Strangely, "The Truants" is not included in the table of contents, nor is any first printing information provided for it in the Acknowledgements section. I was able to find said information with minimal research.

"The Halfling" being the title story, was the first in the collection. It first appeared in Astonishing Stories, 1943. While it was not my favourite story in the collection, it showcased Brackett's ability to write across genres as it was a science fiction story, but had a definite hard boiled noire feel to it. Halflings in Brackett's universe are not the happy hobbits found in Tolkien's world. In Brackett's stories, a halfling is a creature that is half human and half something else. It is a concept seen in her novel The Sword of Rhiannon, and to a lesser extent, her Skaith novels as well. It is a concept that I find intriguing, and I am considering adopting it into my own D&D universe; perhaps retiring the happy hobbits of "Tolkienville".

"The Dancing Girl of Ganymede" first appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1950. This story was a striking cross between C.L. Moore's "Shambleau" and Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Interestingly enough, C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith story was published in Weird Tales in 1933, while Androids was not published until 1968. I wonder if Moore's story influenced Brackett, and consequently, Brackett influenced Dick? Honestly, I am not enough of a scholar on any of the three to say with any certainty. I draw connections between these three as a casual reader. I point out a connection to Catherine Moore as "Dancing Girl" shares a plot structure used to a large extent (perhaps too large of an extent) by Moore in her Northwest Smith stories; that being "Boy meets Girl, Girl turns out to be far more then Boy anticipated". I only use "Shambleau" as an example as it was the first to pop into my head by Moore; actually, any number of her Smith stories would work nicely. As to the connection to Philip K. Dick, there is a theme shared in both "Dancing Girl" and "Androids", "Man vs. Machine, and the rights of said machines".

"The Citadel of Lost Ages" first appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1950. This story reminded me of a novel by Henry Kuttner, The Dark World, published 1946. Thematically both are similar, but my connection may be born of the fact that I read The Dark World not too long ago.

"All the Colors of the Rainbow", Venture Science Fiction, 1957. This story stood out for me the most in the entire collection. Here Brackett tackles racism as only a science fiction writer can. I found it, interesting, sad and still (sadly) relevant.

"The Shadows", Startling Stories, 1952. This was a straight up "bug-hunt"; although in this case the "bugs" were shadows. It contained the most interesting quote in the collection: "We aren't welcome in the universe. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we're not content to be the animals we are, but must always be pretending that we're something else, prying about and upsetting things, grasping after stars, making trouble and screaming because it hurts. I don't know. I only know that we are hated. Everywhere I've been, everywhere there was a man, they've been gotten rid of somehow". Substitute "world" for "universe" and "American" for "man" and it is still a phrase that rings true.

"The Enchantress of Venus", Planet Stories, 1949 (also published as "City of the Lost Ones"). This is an Eric John Stark tale; actually, it is the second Stark story written by Brackett, the first being "Queen of the Martian Catacombs". It is a solid Stark story, and a solid story regardless of the protagonist, and I wonder why it has not been re-printed by Paizo in their Planet Stories line?

"The Lake of the Gone Forever", Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1949. I found the reading of this as almost a warning story of those that try to take the magic of the world and keep it for themselves.

"The Truants", Startling Stories, 1950. Again, this story did not appear in the table of contents, so I was surprised and pleased upon reaching the end of "Lake" to find I had one more tale. It is a creepy tale, almost Stephen King like in style, with a rather, in my opinion, silly ending that still satisfied.

Overall, this is a great collection, and read along with the Stark/Skaith stories available from Paizo and The Sword of Rhiannon, serves as a great introduction to the writings of Leigh Brackett.

In Memory of Catherine Jeffrey Jones

An icon of fantasy art died yesterday. She was more commonly known as Jeffrey Jones. She had sexual reassignment surgery in the 90's.

Her art was inspiring and always intriguing. Plus, her art was always sexy.

Here are two covers by her that I have in my collection.

RIP. You were one of the greats.

More Frank Frazetta Art Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I found a few books that I had forgotten that I bought in San Diego on a recent family vacation. Among them was this gorgeous Frank Frazetta cover for Savage Pellucidar. My copy is a fourth priting by Ace Books circa 1973.

Again, I am struck by how sexy the women in Frazetta's art were. Heavy breasted, round butts, savage, yet innocent.

Enjoy.

More Frank Frazetta Appreciation, or My Wife Has A Frazetta Drawn Ass

I visited my local favorite used book store today and scored some very fine books. Amongst the score were numerous Edgar Rice Burroughs books to add to my collection. All together, I hauled in some booty of seventeen ERB books, plus a nice clean copy of E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, and a nice copy of Fritz Leiber's Ill Met in Lankhmar Volume 1, which had some stories my Leiber collection was missing.

Some of the Burrough's books I all ready had, but five of them featured Frank Frazetta cover art, which I am a proudly and loudly a self proclaimed panting fan-boy of. I will always buy a second copy of a book I all ready have, if said copy features Frazetta art.

The image which I found myself gazing upon the most was the image above, the cover for The Moon Maid. Now please draw your eyes to the shapely bum of the maid herself. Go ahead, and take your time.

Back? Good. The women depicted in Frazetta's art have always...well, we'll just say I've always found them inspiring. Frazetta has forever burned into my head what female beauty is and could be. Call me a pig if you will, but Frank captured my imagination like no other artist ever has.

Here is where I brag. I have always been enraptured by my wife's rear assets. It was not until today that I realized why: my wife has a Frank Frazetta Drawn Ass. I would post a picture to prove it, but it would be the last picture I ever posted, for I would be dead.

However, for your viewing pleasure, two more fabulous ERB inspired Frank Frazetta Art, which show cases my favorite aspect of his dames, the rear view.

The Moon Men

Escape On Venus

C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner - A Perfect Union

When Gary Gygax put together his Appendix N for the first edition AD&D DM Guide, there was no way he could have been all inclusive. However, there are some names that are shockingly not on it, such as Clark Ashton Smith. Two other names that often come up in discussions of missing authors are C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner.

Pictured to the left are Catherine Moore and Henry "Hank" Kuttner. It is nearly impossible to discuss one with out the other. The story has been passed down that the two started a relationship when Hank sent a fan letter to the gender ambiguous author C.L. Moore. Catherine Moore was using the gender-non-specific pen name in order to help her boost her sales in a then almost entirely male dominated pulp world.

A friendship began which turned into a marriage. Their marriage was more then just a civil union, it was the union of two talents as well. More then one person that knew the two would often remark that they worked so well together, that when one left the typewriter, the other would sit down, scan what was done then launch right back into the story. Thus it is often hard to say what stories are pure Moore or pure Kuttner or an amalgamation of the two.

I became enamored with their writing when I discovered them through my Planet Stories Subscription through Pazio Publishing. I read Moore's works offered from the Planet Stories line several months ago, and I read Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis around the same time. It was not until recently when I took account of how far behind I had fallen in reading my Planet Stories subscription that I finally read Kuttner's Dark World and Robots Have no Tails.

This offering by Pazio Publishing collects all of the Northwest Smith stories, most of which appeared in Weird Tales beginning in 1933. The biggest negative criticism I have towards the collection is that the character of Northwest Smith has been advertised as a precursor to Han Solo. This is what I expected when I read these stories, but that is not what was delivered. Now I should state that this is not a negative comment towards Moore and her creation; rather, it is a statement that the blurbs are misleading. I was expecting stories of space smugglers out running the law in space ships and a hero blasting away the bad guys. In short, I was expecting Space Opera.

In truth, the Northwest Smith stories are more in the key of H.P. Lovecraft then Star Wars style space opera. This makes sense as both Moore and Kuttner were part of the Lovecraft Circle of the pulp era. Moore offers up stories of creeping doom, often in the guise of alien women that hint towards being the catalyst of mythological creatures such as the Medusa (read Moore's short story "Shambleau" and you will know what I am talking about).

There are no battles in space, I think there may have been one space ship in the entire collection, and the appearance of "blasters" is slim and infrequent. Many of the stories take place on Mars, and this is the Mars of the pulp era that is assumed to have always been habitable. It is a future in an undetermined time in which space travel is frequent and common, even though there is a definite lack of said space travel.

In other reviews, I have read several accounts of readers being disappointed with the definite lack of "space opera-ness". Again, this is not a fault of Moore's but rather it is bad marketing. Moore's Northwest Smith stories are engaging and a worth while read; however, the reader should know what he is getting into.

It would be easy enough to place these same stories not on Mars, but instead on Earth or an earth like world. The space ships which are mentioned could be left out, and the few blasters that appear could be replaced with swords. If these things were done, then these would be Sword and Sorcery tales albeit somber ones with a great amount of creeping horror but short on sword swinging action.

If this were done, then I think some of the charm of the Northwest Smith stories would be lost. As they are written they are good stories, some great. They are not Space Opera. They are more Sword and Planet, without the "swords"; perhaps even the sub genre of Planetary Romance could apply.

Pictured to the left is an illustration of the alien from "Shambleau"(this illustration is not included in the Planet Stories volume, I should point out) . It is the first story in the Planet Stories collection and the first published Northwest Smith story. They appear in the volume by publication date, and nearly half of them appeared not in Weird Tales but in fanzines.

"Shambleau" is a strong story. Upon reading it, I was immediately sucked into the book as a whole; however, I quickly realized after reading three more stories in succession that Moore was writing this with an eye towards publication. She had a definite formula she was following and she did so stringently with the intent of publishing and putting food on the table. This was a common practice in the hey day of pulp weird/science/fantasy fiction. Many of the authors were full time writers and at only a few cents per word, they were forced to create regularly and publish as much as possible. This meant going with what sold. Moore knew she had a winner with Northwest Smith, so she stuck to the formula. Unfortunately, when the Northwest Smith stories are read in succession, this leads to predictability. They are worth reading, but do yourself a favor and do not read them all in succession. Take your time with this book. Read a story, set it down and read another the following week or month.

I did not have the same experience when I read Moore's Black God's Kiss. Perhaps this was due to the fact that there are only six of them. There was a formula to these stories as well, not too different from the formula used with her Northwest Smith stories.

These stories are strongly influenced by Lovecraftian style horror as well, but while the Northwest Smith stories may be difficult to place in a genre, her Jirel of Joiry stories are not. They are Sword  and Sorcery, and it is obvious that Moore was hoping to ride on the coat tails of the success of Robert E. Howard with these stories. That isn't to say she wrote Conan pastiche with a red-haired woman in place of the sullen eyed barbarian. No, the Jirel of Joiry stories are unique to themselves.

What I found enjoyable about them is while the Northwest Smith stories were episodic, the Jirel of Joiry tales taken as a whole read almost like a novel. Each successive story references the former and Jirel's actions in previous stories have consequences that she must face. This may be why I didn't notice the formulaic nature of them when read successively.

I believe most fans are attracted to Moore's Northwest Smith stories, but for me her Jirel of Joiry tales are what sucked me in. I found Jirel more of an early ancestor of Roy Thomas and Barry Windor-Smith's Marvel Comics character Red Sonja. The ancestor's normally attributed to Red Sonja are either Howard's Red Sonya of Rogatino ("The Shadow of the Vulture) and/or another Howard character Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a swords-woman of 16th century France.

It was Howard who inspired the creation of Jirel of Joiry for Moore was very taken with the first Dark Agnes story, "Sword Woman". I have not had the pleasure of reading "The Shadow of the Vulture" nor have I read any Dark Agnes stories (of which there are only two complete stories and a third draft) beyond last month's offering in Dark Horse's Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword #1, but instinct speaks to me and says that Moore was just as much responsible for the birth of Red Sonja as Howard himself was.

I shall move onto Henry Kuttner, but I would like to point out that the story "Quest of the Starstone" appears in both Northwest of Earth and Black God's Kiss. It is interesting to read because it was written with Henry Kuttner. It is a meeting of Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry, kind of an early "Marvel Team-up"; unfortunately, it is the weakest story of both volumes, and I felt cheated having it appear in both books.

I read Henry Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis prior to any of Moore's stories. I found this book in a used book store. I knew of the Planet Stories books, but had not bothered to investigate them. My decision to subscribe was based upon the strength of this book.

Consequently, I only picked it up for I am always interested in potential Clonan characters, and Elak seemed to fit the bill. I was wrong. Elak of Atlantis is not a Clonan. He and his sidekick Lycon have more in common with Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser then Conan.

Don't get me wrong, all of the tropes of Sword & Sorcery are there and it would be naive to say that Howard's success in the field didn't have anything to do with Hank Kuttner creating the Elak stories; however, they stand on their own, in the spirit of Howard, but not simple pastiche (and not to get off on a rant here, but even though I use the words "simple pastiche" I have no hang ups with Howard Pastiche stories -- many Howard fans do, I'm not one of them; not to mention, there has been some good pastiche written, particularly by Karl Edward Wagner).

It is a shame that there were only four Elak stories written. I read these over a year ago, and while I remember enjoying them, the particulars all ready fade from memory, but I enjoyed them enough that I know this book will warrant future re-readings to pass a lazy warm Sunday afternoon. Included in this volume are two Prince Raynor stories, inferior to the Elak stories, but still good stories on their own merit.

The Dark World was a great read and stands out as a reason that Ray Bradbury calls Kuttner a "neglected master". Just as I did with Leigh Brackett's Skaith books, I found my hungry DM mind filling up with great world building concepts born of this short novel.

Kuttner presents an intriguing world, a parallel universe to our own in which magic is real, but is perhaps the result of super-science unexplored within our own realm. Vampires, werewolves and gorgons exist, but they are mutations.

The Dark World is Sword & Sorcery, and it is very good Sword & Sorcery. Piers Anthony, in his introduction to the book, points out that Kuttner makes many rookie mistakes with writing, and it is true that he does, but as Anthony points out, the story is strong enough that you do not notice.

I have been toying with the idea for some time now of presenting to my players a fantasy world that they are sucked into from our own world, although, maybe not from our time period.

The initial idea was generated while reading Edgar Rice Burrough's "Pellucidar" stories, and sprouted while reading Brackett's Skaith books. The Dark World just might be the rain that cements it all together for me.

That is the best part of reading selections from Gygax's Appendix N (and authors that were not included, but should have been such as Moore and Kuttner). Each book I have read has given me something, at least a kernel of an idea. Ideas are germinating, and that is what Gary Gygax was hoping he could do for fellow gamers by offering them Appendix N. The experiment was successful.

Galloway Gallegher, the protagonist of the stories collected in Robots Have No Tails was familiar with successful experiments, but only when he was loaded.

The five stories collected in this book were too short, and I regret that there only will ever be five. They are not perfect and the science in the science fiction aspect is suspect. Kuttner may not have been big on research, but he was big on fun.

Fun is what is promised in this book and fun is what is delivered. Each story was short to read and was a joy. I didn't gleam many ideas from these; however, I can easily see a drunken genius gnome inventor named after Galloway Gallegher making an appearance in my Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game soon.

An introduction by C.L. Moore (written in 1952) is included in the Planet Stories edition. The author name given for these stories was originally "Lewis Padgett". Lewis Padgett is a pseudonym created from both their mothers' maiden names.

Moore insists in her introduction that these were Kuttner's stories, written by him with no help from her, but he use of the joint pseudonym (one of several that the two used) suggests that the opposite is true.

Personally, I like to think that Moore did help write these. I have no proof that such is the case, but I like the idea of it. I like imagining the two chuckling. One looking over the other's shoulder then saying "move over, I have an idea". That sounds perfect to me.

I will end this post with an enlargement from the cover art from the first printing of the book, for no other reason then I like it.