[GFA]≡ Read Northwest of Earth The Complete Northwest Smith Planet Stories Library C L Moore C J Cherryh 9781601250810 Books

Northwest of Earth The Complete Northwest Smith Planet Stories Library C L Moore C J Cherryh 9781601250810 Books

Download As PDF : Northwest of Earth The Complete Northwest Smith Planet Stories Library C L Moore C J Cherryh 9781601250810 Books

Northwest of Earth The Complete Northwest Smith Planet Stories Library C L Moore C J Cherryh 9781601250810 Books

The name of this collection is a little confusing: this has the same title and the same main character as the anthology published by Gnome Press in the 1950s, but it is not the same book. The Gnome Press collection featured the space smuggler Northwest Smith, but also included stories about C.L.Moore's other recurrent character, the fantasy-genre warrior woman Jirel of Joiry. This Planet Stories reprint includes stories from Gnome's Shambleau and Other Stories, Gnome's Northwest of Earth, as well as various other Northwest Smith stories. (Planet Stories also publishes the Jirel tales in a reprint collection titled The Black God's Kiss). Is Northwest Smith an earlier, more remote, less exuberant version of Han Solo? Northwest is a smuggler, has an alien side kick, and a ship too fast for the trudging space patrol; definitely there are some similarities. On the other hand, Northwest's Venusian partner, Yarol, is a far quieter, more thoughtful type than Chewbacca (who seemed to be designed as sort of a humanoid golden retriever) and, more significantly, Northwest Smith does not have the kind of over-the-top action adventures we associate with Star Wars. Like Jirel, Smith's conflicts are ultimately more psychological than physical; what appear to be physical challenges usually resolve through changes in mental state. Beyond that, Northwest's universe has the trappings of science fiction, but the ambience is far more like fantasy. Blaster guns and space ships are referred to, but have a generic feel; the story is more about the sense of strangeness, the weird and exotic, often beautiful, landscapes, and the pervasive sense of dread. The villains are reminiscent of horror fantasy characters, slightly evolved into science fiction form. Sometimes this "playing against type" works well, an author writing science fiction from a fantasy mindset can produce very interesting stories. It works in this case. I recommend this book even more than the Jirel of Joiry collection.


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Northwest of Earth The Complete Northwest Smith Planet Stories Library C L Moore C J Cherryh 9781601250810 Books Reviews

My thanks to for connecting me to a seller of this book. C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith tales were among the most memorable stories of that period when they finally let me into the adult side of the public library. I read Moore's Northwest and Jirel of Joiry series over and over, and they have not become any less provocative 53 years later. Moore's fantasies still conjure up worlds as eerily evil and species as terrifyingly decadent as those of H.P. Lovecraft-- also required reading.
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.
Northwest Smith is one of the true greats of science-fiction characters, he's archetypal. That said, there are some people who will not appreciate these tales as much as I (and a lot of others) do. I wish I could say it would be a good read for everyone, sadly this is not the case.

That being said however, for the right person, these are truly gemstones of fabulous value. The tales are written in a style that is regrettably no longer seen, a pulp-Lovecraftian style that is heavy on detail, nameless horror and sensual description. If you are a fan of Lovecraft you'll probably enjoy this, if you either don't know or don't have strong feelings for HPL, I think that a good number of the stories will still be interesting and fun to read. If you hate Lovecraft, you'd probably be better to get your hands on the paper copy, scan-read a few pages and see if there is still something there that will catch your interest. It's worth the effort.

If there is a major problem however, it is in the repetition of the basic plotlines. Many of the other reviewers have noted that there is a kind of pattern to the stories, and I'm not going to say there isn't. This is probably the thing I like least about the series myself. In a way, this phenomenon is a "nature of the beast" thing, the common problem of the era in which it was written. That's not a cop-out, while the story structures may have some similarities, the description and the "meat" of them are still worthy of delving into. Think of them as variations of a theme. So even with that caveat, I recommend these tales highly and have bought more than one as a gift for some of my friends with similar tastes to my own.
Northwest of Earth
This is science fiction by way of H. P. Lovecraft, where ancient evils meet ray guns and iron will. Northwest Smith is a smuggler and outlaw adventuring through the solar system - Mars, Venus and the moons of Jupiter. He has a Venusian sidekick, Yarol, and it is never clear whether Yarol is near or part human, or something else. That doesn't really matter though, and nor does the fact we see all of one spaceship, and that while heat-guns exist, they are rarely used.

These are tales of femme fatales, forgotten gods and lost civilisations. The imagery is superb - the fall of gardens of the moon in the light of the Earth is vivid in my mind's eye. The action is there, but the real struggle is in the character's head in almost every case.

The stories are somewhat formulaic - as other reviewers have pointed out - but to an extent, that misses the point. It's the sensual, decedent prose used to tell the story that makes us read on. Its better to read only one tale at a time, putting the book aside from time to time, as this is similar to how the stories were originally read (and written) as monthly (or so) instalments in the pulp magazines of the 1930's.
The name of this collection is a little confusing this has the same title and the same main character as the anthology published by Gnome Press in the 1950s, but it is not the same book. The Gnome Press collection featured the space smuggler Northwest Smith, but also included stories about C.L.Moore's other recurrent character, the fantasy-genre warrior woman Jirel of Joiry. This Planet Stories reprint includes stories from Gnome's Shambleau and Other Stories, Gnome's Northwest of Earth, as well as various other Northwest Smith stories. (Planet Stories also publishes the Jirel tales in a reprint collection titled The Black God's Kiss). Is Northwest Smith an earlier, more remote, less exuberant version of Han Solo? Northwest is a smuggler, has an alien side kick, and a ship too fast for the trudging space patrol; definitely there are some similarities. On the other hand, Northwest's Venusian partner, Yarol, is a far quieter, more thoughtful type than Chewbacca (who seemed to be designed as sort of a humanoid golden retriever) and, more significantly, Northwest Smith does not have the kind of over-the-top action adventures we associate with Star Wars. Like Jirel, Smith's conflicts are ultimately more psychological than physical; what appear to be physical challenges usually resolve through changes in mental state. Beyond that, Northwest's universe has the trappings of science fiction, but the ambience is far more like fantasy. Blaster guns and space ships are referred to, but have a generic feel; the story is more about the sense of strangeness, the weird and exotic, often beautiful, landscapes, and the pervasive sense of dread. The villains are reminiscent of horror fantasy characters, slightly evolved into science fiction form. Sometimes this "playing against type" works well, an author writing science fiction from a fantasy mindset can produce very interesting stories. It works in this case. I recommend this book even more than the Jirel of Joiry collection.