Customer Reviews

Jirel Of Joiry

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Guillaume's white teeth clicked on a startled oath. He stared. Joiry's lady glared back at him from between her captors, wild red hair tousled, wild lion-yellow eyes ablaze.

'God curse you!" snarled the lady of Joiry between clenched teeth. 'God blast your black heart!'"

In such fashion did Jirel of Joiry, the first female protagonist in the genre now defined as sword-and-sorcery, explode from the pulp pages of Weird Tales in October of 1934. The story, "Black God's Kiss," is the first and finest of the five collected in this book. (The five are essentially the sum of Jirel's legend. A sixth, "Quest of the Starstone," was written to combine Jirel with Ms. Moore's other famous lead, space outlaw Northwest Smith, and is not included here.)

"Black God's Kiss" establishes the tone and theme of Jirel's legend, as well as the basic plot for each tale: she ventures to a strange and/or dark otherworld and, through her spiritual and emotional willpower, manages to survive, gaining not treasure but self-knowledge. A curious and noteworthy detail: though an expert swordsman, Jirel does not fight a single duel throughout the tales. Rather, she herself is the sword wielded against sorcery. ("The face above her mail might not have been fair in a woman's head-dress, but in the steel setting of her armor it had a biting, sword-edge beauty as keen as the flash of blades.")

Ms. Moore's writing is, on the whole, transparent and clean. It does suffer from some of the tendencies common among other writers of the time (longer descriptions than necessary; multiple adverbs; an unhealthy fondness for abstract words--gulfs, vastness, fathomless, etc.). More detail about Jirel as a character--precious little is mentioned of her parentage, childhood, and the nature of her fiefdom--would have been welcome, too. (Then again, the heroine can be said to spring newly forged into the stories' setting--she simply is what she is.) Many of the otherwordly descriptions are vivid and haunting, even by modern fantasy standards. Her willingness not to spoon-feed the reader the precise nature of the powers Jirel encounters (e.g. the light-devil in "Kiss" and the witch in "The Dark Land") is also appreciated.

Although "Kiss" is likely the only one of the five that would be published by a professional magazine today, this is an easily read and worthwhile collection for the serious fantasy fan--and "Kiss" is a must-read. Three fascinating stars.

Jirel of Joiry is a haunting, powerful fantasy that takes place back in Dark Age France sometime after the fall of Rome. Jirel, with her red hair and two-handed longsword, is the literary ancestor of such present day swordwomen as Red Sonja. The stories are vibrant and bold, depicting their settings very realisticly. In alot of ways, the stories are every bit as good as Howard's Conan stories. My only reservation is that the stories have a very 30's pulp feel to them (probably because that was when they were written). All in all an excellent read.

This book is good if you like medieval type fantasy without all the mushy romance or weird and wacky creatures. It may be lacking a bit in minor characters, but the adventures are so vivid that they make up for it. The book casts a dark shadow on the fantasy genre, wholly unlike it's more light hearted successors, but shines through if you're into that sort of thing.

Jirel is a woman that would probably have been right at home wandering alongside the various versions of Moorcock's Eternal Champion. Sometimes it seems she takes her opponent out by force of personality as opposed to steel, as the dour bloodnut goes through her various adventures. So, a slightly different take on the whole thing.

Jirel of Joiry : Jirel Meets Magic - C. L. Moore
Jirel of Joiry : Black God's Kiss - C. L. Moore
Jirel of Joiry : Black God's Shadow - C. L. Moore
Jirel of Joiry : The Dark Land - C. L. Moore
Jirel of Joiry : Hellsgarde - C. L. Moore


Having to rid herself of a wizard that has killed some or her men, Jirel finds worse, his own ruler, a sorceress.

4 out of 5


An escape from a captor leads Jirel basically into a Clark Ashton Smith story, and a passionate revenge.

4 out of 5


Jirel looks for a way to undone some of what she has done when she decides that the Black God's Kiss was rather an extreme solution to her earlier hatred.

3.5 out of 5


Jirel is snatched from lying severely wounded by a wizard who is a lot more than he seems.

4 out of 5


Jirel finds your strange mysterious castle that only appears occasionally, and an occupant that has a bit of the undead thing going on.

3 out of 5

I picked this book up at a Salvation Army store for about 50 cents, and I'm glad that's all I paid. I have no problem with strong female warrior types, but Jirel does not do them justice. As the editorial review notes, Jirel is a little stupid, and it is often her uncontrolled emotions rather than her courage or her bravery that get her out of sticky situations. As a heroin, I just couldn't bring myself to root for her to win. My biggest complaint, however, is the lack of other characters in most of the stories, especially the Black God stories. Moore undoubtedly spent a great deal of time writing 30 pages of description of strange alien worlds, but after the first 10 pages they get a little boring. A good story needs more than one character to keep up the reader's interest. In this respect, the final story in this collection, Hellsgarde, was a pretty good story, and much easier to read because there were several interesting characters.