(listen to episode on Spotify)
(Music: Ominous)
Gretchen:
Hello, this is Chrononauts, a science fiction literature history podcast. I'm Gretchen, joined by my co-hosts, Nate and JM. This section is part of our episode looking at three time travel works. The other two, L. Sprague De Camp's Lest Darkness Fall and Poul Anderson's "The Man Who Came Early", can be found covered in the other sections of this episode.
But this segment will focus on a work of C.L. Moore, "Vintage Season".
Catherine Lucille Moore was born in Indiana on January 24, 1911. The eldest child of Maude Jones and Otto Moore, the latter was a mechanical engineer and inventor, while the former would encourage Moore's interest in literature. As a sickly child, Moore often spent time reading. Some of her most prominent books of interest, being those on Greek mythology, ones by Edgar Rice Burroughs and L. Frank Baum's Oz books.
In 1929, Moore entered the University of Indiana and wrote for a student magazine known as The Vagabond. Unfortunately, due to the Great Depression, she would be forced to leave the University during her sophomore year, instead attending a business school where she learned the basics of typing in shorthand. Moore got a job as a stenographer at an Indianapolis bank after her time at the school, but continued to practice her typing skills. During this period, she discovered newer sci-fi, coming across an issue of Amazing Stories in 1931, and she would later remark that her first story, published in Weird Tales, "Shambleau", was written between her typing practice. "And this is where 'Shambleau' began. Halfway down, a sheet of yellow paper otherwise filled up with boring quick brown foxes, alphabets, and things like 'The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He balances badly.' to lighten the practice."
Nate:
That's pretty awesome.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I like that quote quite a bit.
The story was published in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales and was met with a good amount of praise, and there's even an anecdote recounting that, allegedly, the Weird Tales editor at the time, Farnsworth Wright, closed his offices for the day in celebration of how impressed he was by it upon receiving it. After that, Moore continued to write numerous stories for various magazines, including other stories featuring the protagonist of "Shambleau", Northwest Smith, and also a sword and sorcery fantasy series, featuring a female protagonist known as Jirel of Joiry, one of the first of the subgenre to have a woman as the central character. Moore used her initial C.L. for her stories, not to disguise her gender, but because she did not want to risk unemployment since the bank could fire her if it was known she had another source of income. However, in 1936, Moore would receive a letter from a fan who unknowingly addressed her as Mr. Moore. This fan was Henry Kuttner, another up-and-coming sci-fi writer who, after the correction, grew close to Moore. In 1938, Moore moved from Indiana to New York to live with Kuttner, and they would marry in 1940. For the rest of their lives together, the two had a collaborative professional relationship, writing stories together under a variety of pen names that they shared, including Lewis Padgett, C.H. Little, and Lawrence O'Donnell.
JM:
Yeah, and this is kind of one of the most endearing writing partnerships ever.
Gretchen:
Yeah, it's really sweet, I focus quite a bit on it because I think it's very romantic.
It appears that they came up with backgrounds for each of their pseudonyms. As a quote from fellow writer and friend of Kuttner, Fritz Leiber recounts, "Lewis Padgett was a retired accountant who liked to water the lawn of an evening, and then mosey down to the corner drugstore to pick up a quart of ice cream, and whose wife collected recipes to surprise her bridge club. Lawrence O'Donnell was a wild Irishman who lived in Greenwich Village with a malicious black cat who had an infallible instinct for check letters and generally managed to shoe up their contents before his master had shaken loose from his latest hangover. Keith Hammond was a Lewis Padgett fan, newly broken into the pro ranks, whom Padgett loathed. And in the November 1950 issue of Planet Stories, there was even a section where Little himself writes in to reveal himself as an industrial research chemist in Kansas City, Missouri."
The collaboration between the two writers is often agreed to have improved their work. Some claim that Moore is more responsible for imbuing the tales with their atmosphere, the sensations and emotions depicted in the writing, while Kuttner focused on the intellectual aspect of the stories, though that is claimed by some to be more of an oversimplification.
Nate:
I would imagine so, I mean...
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
That's the beauty of it is that you can't really tell, and it seems Moore herself actually went through the stuff later and kind of assigned a statement about how much might have been her and how much might have been him.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
But other than that though, people have been puzzling over this for a while.
Gretchen:
Yeah, it has in fact been known that it is difficult in some cases to pinpoint exactly which stories were written predominantly by Moore and which by Kuttner. I personally think this enhances the inherent romance of it all.
Nate:
Yeah, absolutely.
Gretchen:
Just to have the work of yourself and the person who you love so so intertwined, you can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
JM:
Yeah, and apparently they've talked about it together all the time and they were always working out each other's things and one of them would get really tired of writing and just pass out in the other and would just pick it up again where they love.
Gretchen:
Yeah, tag team writing.
Nate:
Yeah, and I imagine a lot of things would change like mid-sentence of them revising each other's stuff and maybe suggesting a word here and there. I don't think it's like it's a paragraph of Moore and then a paragraph of Kuttner or something like that. I think they probably really did work together and produced something that is a joint product between the two of them.
Gretchen:
Yeah. Yeah, because even later in life Moore claimed that she herself couldn't exactly recall what was written by her and what was written by Kuttner. Although she did develop memory problems later in life, but even then it was probably so closely enmeshed that you couldn't distinguish which one was which.
JM:
That's so interesting.
Gretchen:
Yeah, and even in real life they were also pretty inseparable as Alan Mueller says in an interview on the two writers. "Most of all they appeared to enjoy spending time together, educating themselves, improving their craft, researching, reading and discussing what they read, learned and wrote. Those who knew them well remarked that it was hard to imagine one without the other and that they were always talking about and working on their writing with one another."
The couple also attended the University of Southern California together, earning their undergraduate degrees in English in 1954. Moore taught classes on writing at the university in the late fifties, and also during the fifties she released two novels, Judgment Night in 1952 and Doomsday Morning in 1957, and in 1955 she was nominated for a Hugo for her novelette "Home There's No Returning".
Unfortunately, Kuttner passed away in 1958 and Moore turned to writing scripts for television. She would not write another science fiction story.
In 1963 she married a businessman, Thomas Reggie, and gave up professional writing for good. However, she continued to be an influential figure to science fiction and fantasy writers with many contemporary as well as later science fiction writers acknowledging the impact her stories, especially "Shambleau" had on the genre. In 1981 she was awarded the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award, though due to Alzheimer's she could not accept it personally. On April 4th, 1987, at the age of 76, she died of complications relating to Alzheimer's, though was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1998.
The story of Moore's we are covering tonight, as I mentioned previously, is "Vintage Season", which was first published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding under the Lawrence O'Donnell pseudonym, which I had forgotten about during my reading. So when you go back, when you go to read the story, you could imagine Moore picturing herself as a Greenwich Village dwelling Irishman typing out the story while shooing a black cat from the typewriter and battling a massive hangover if you wanted to. (laughs)
Nate:
And it's even funnier that the guy named Lawrence O'Donnell is a MSNBC late night news host.
JM:
I didn't know that till you pointed it out.
Gretchen:
Another fun mental image.
JM:
Yeah, I think I like the drunken Irishman a little more.
Gretchen:
Yeah, yeah, it's really good. "Vintage Season" is described by Lester Del Rey in his introduction of a Moore anthology as "a showpiece for all the talents of C. L. Moore. It blends the disparate elements of horror and beauty, alien culture and human feelings and progress and decadence." And I find this description to be pretty fitting.
Nate:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
This was the second time that I had read it. And I know that JM has read it a couple of times.
JM:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
Nate, this is your first time reading?
Nate:
Yeah, I haven't read any Moore before. And I would certainly like to read a lot more from her afterwards. I mean, we penciled in "Shambleau" and I think one or two other things for episodes down the line. But yeah, this is really good. And yeah, I really enjoyed this one.
JM:
Yeah, I can't remember at this point how many times I've read this. This is probably, I mean, at least my fourth, fourth time maybe more more. So this is a story that's been with me since I think around 2002, maybe, or something like that. I think was when I first read it. And it was, I heard a little bit about Moore. And I think I mostly thought she was a sword and sorcery writer at the time. And it was because of the Jirel of Joiry stories, even though I hadn't read any of them. I think I was just starting to learn about Robert E. Howard and Conan and stuff at that time, and I heard that she had created a woman warrior of sword and sorcery of her own. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. And, and then I guess I, I think I came across this one online at the time. There were certain ways of getting ebooks. And I think I was like, searching on IRC for C.L. Moore stories or something like that, and I just came across this. And I read it. And I'm like, "Oh, it's not quite what I was expecting. It's a cool science fiction story." And at the time, I remember talking to a friend about it, who was more of a fantasy, sword and sorcery guy, online. And I said, "Hey, I read this C.L. Moore story, but it was like, awesome science fiction". And he said something really cynical, like, "yeah, science fiction was more popular at the time, so she probably had to like, pay the bills or something". But I think now that I've read actually many C.L. Moore stories, not all, but like all the stories in the Best Of collection and several of the Northwest Smith stories that are in other, that are not in that collection, and a bunch of other stories. I think there's a pretty clear progression of her writing. And I think that in the beginning, she was definitely very, like, she was writing to that Weird Tales thing. And she was definitely doing more gothic, weird, very picturesque landscapes, melancholy. Her writing about Mars, for example, was kind of similar to the way Clark Ashton Smith wrote about Mars, and later even a bit Ray Bradbury, who was obviously influenced by both of them, where Mars is this old, dying place where many civilizations have existed before, and now it's this kind of like, lawless ground where all the spacers go and there's all these weird things there. And "Shambleau" is basically a vampire story. And like a lot of the other Northwest Smith stories are really also vampire stories of a sort, or like a lot of the things you encounter on Mars, even the civilized things, are like remnants of decadence gone to seed a little bit where something evil has emerged, but that's also beautiful, and that's also really, really tantalizing. And some of the commentaries that I read about some of her stuff recently, where like people were talking about, well, who said that the stories back then didn't have any sex in them? She always put it in. And even if it wasn't like necessarily overt, the sensations and the subtle feelings were always there. And that's definitely
Gretchen:
Sensual.
JM:
Yeah, it's very sensual. But later on, after she was kind of moving away from Weird Tales, her style did, it was starting to become a lot more science fictional. And I don't know. I can't say that that was because of writing with Kuttner, because like he did both as well, like he wrote a lot of pure fantasy, and he wrote stuff for Unknown too, right? So Moore actually got her start writing before Henry did, for so much of their career, they were working together. And like, like you were saying, Gretchen, it seems like perhaps each of them helped to sort of improve the other and make it a better unit overall. So I'm not, I really love those early C.L. Moore stories, but I do like the direction she was going in her later stories, like her story, "No Woman Born", which I guess we're probably going to want to do at some point is.
Nate:
Yeah, I think that's the other one that we had marked down.
JM:
Yeah, so it's it's like a cybernetic body story written in the 40s. And it's considered one of the early feminist 20th century golden age type science fiction stories. And and it's also because, and it's also because, you know, it's about a woman who's been, she's her body has been destroyed in this terrible accident, and somebody recreates a new body for her. And they think she's like a monster. And so she has to reclaim, reclaim her body and reclaim the fact that now, yes, she's a cybernetic body, but she's still human. And it's considered a pretty seminal work. And some of the other things were definitely like, it's just really cool that she has the different periods, you know, like the Weird Tales period was 10 years plus earlier. So this is a different C.l. Moore than the "Shambleau" C.l. Moore. They're both good. But I like where she was going. And I will say I really understand, I think, but it is so sad that she didn't keep writing. I was reading a few commentaries, and it does seem like some, some people were not happy with her for like, for one thing using her initials, and not her name, and also for not writing anymore. And like, like it was almost like she had a duty to not be like that. And I, I don't know, like, I don't think that's entirely fair. Like a lot of male writers from the time were also using initials in the pulps, right? And I heard both stories in the things that I was looking into, where they were saying one, she was using the initials to hide her gender, or she was using it to hide from her employer, right? I don't know if there's a little bit of the former, that's true, but I suspect it is mostly the latter. I don't think she was trying to hide anything from the audience like that. Like the science fiction audience knew she was female.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
But I just think she was so enmeshed in that synergy of the writing team that she just couldn't continue afterwards. And it is really, really sad, like just, but I mean, it's more sad and that you feel for her. I mean, yeah, I'm sure she could have done so many great things, but ultimately, a human being is a human being. And like, if the circumstances in an environment around what they used to take such great pleasure in is no longer pleasurable, how can you expect them to carry on, you know, right?
Gretchen:
The act of writing science fiction was so close to her and her relationship with Kuttner. Like, it's no wonder that after he died, she wouldn't want to continue doing it alone. Like, they had such a deep bond that you can't expect her to keep going if that was something that she felt like she had, she was part of that team. And it was almost like that was part of what she lost when she lost Kuttner.
JM:
Yeah. Yeah. Just makes you think again, what about all the alternate universes where that didn't happen? Right? (laughs) But yeah. So yeah, I mean, I've read a lot of her work and a lot of, I guess, their mutual work. Sometimes I'm not sure again, like, who's responsible. This one ended up in the Best Of Moore anthology, which makes sense. And then like another one, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" which I do think they both worked on together, is in the Best Of Henry Kuttner anthology. And you can kind of tell a little bit that maybe Kuttner was the main writer because apparently he was really, really into Lewis Carroll and Alice In Wonderland. And the title of the story obviously indicates that actually figures very prominently into it. And that's one of his things. So that's maybe one of the clues. But also, I guess maybe she did indicate before her memory got too bad. She kind of indicated a lot of who she thought had written each one, right? So. But interestingly, this story, "Vintage Season", "Mimsy Were The Borogoves" and "Twonky" all deal with a very similar concept. And that is things or people coming down from the future and influencing someone or something in the present. And obviously, this was a theme that they liked because three of their classic stories all deal with it in one way or another in really cool ways that are different from each other. So I guess if we had wanted to do a specific C.L. Moore/Henry Kuttner time travel, I guess future things episode, we could have put those three stories together and that might have been an interesting alternative way of looking at things. But I'll describe a little bit more what the other two are about after we finish the plot summary of this one. But it's just really interesting that this is something that they came back to so many times. A similar concept of, yeah, what would happen if people or things came from the future? What effect would they have on the here and now? In a way, arguably, this is the most personal one because here it's not objects, but people, right? And they've been told and they've been, I guess, presumably signed a document of some kind saying that they can't interfere. But they're going to anyway, right? Here we're going to hear about a very personal story of somebody who is interfered with. And it's an interesting experience for him to have. It's just sad that it has to end this way. I don't know. That's kind of how I feel about this story. I love this story. This is probably one of my favorite science fiction short stories, generally. So, yeah.
Nate:
I thought this was great. Yeah. Really interesting take on the time travel narrative, especially compared to the four we've done previously in that while our travelers are going back into the past, they're not from the present. They're traveling to the present. So it puts a different spin on it.
JM:
And of course, the present is always someone's past.
Nate:
Right, exactly. Yeah. But I guess the present as we know it. Yes. Or I guess I never really do specify the year and maybe a little bit into the future, but not terribly far into the future.
Gretchen:
It's contemporary with the times.
Nate:
Yeah, more or less. Yeah. Yeah. But no, there's a lot to like about this. The idea of the future travelers, there's lots of cool attention paid to the customs and like fashions of the travelers, like the clothing they're wearing, the kind of taste that they have as far as cuisine and art goes, I think they spend a lot of time with. And it's just a nice touch to get that kind of aspect from the characters of how they might interact with a different culture.
JM:
Yeah, there's a lot of really, really nice attention paid to detail, for sure. For sure. That's something that she does really well. The style in general, like although, so in the beginning of this, the story actually reminds me a lot of Richard Matheson, like it has his kind of, here's a common everyday domestic situation, and we're going to throw something weird and not right into it. And it starts out like that, but it goes places that Matheson as great as he is, and as far out as he can sometimes be usually doesn't go by the end. But the apocalyptic aspect was similar to because that's obviously one of his things as well, like, you know, his most famous for I Am Legend. And also, many of his short stories have an comment about apocalyptic feeling to them in a way of either there has been an apocalypse or there's going to be one very soon. Right. So and this story has that as well. What I really, really like is that she's so ingenious about putting hints throughout it. When you read it a second time, you're like, Oh, okay. So like, everything was significant, everything they said. As at first, you don't know what it all means. And just like the main character doesn't, right? But later he knows. And so he gives you a hints that, well, now I know what she meant by that. Or now like, you know, now I understand, right?
Gretchen:
Like the ending of the story is very much like you complete a puzzle, because it's like you've had all these pieces that you couldn't really make sense of before. And then it all like, falls into place when you get to the finish.
JM:
Yeah, it's definitely a story that is fun to read again. Like once you've already read it, and you read it again, and you're like, all those things that you just sort of went by and passed. And you're just like, Oh, that was weird. But now you know what they were hinting at. Right. And the behavior of the time travelers seems very strange at first. And it's never not alien. But in a way, by the end of the story, it becomes clear why they're behaving the way they are. So it's like, it's really cool the way the weird becomes almost normal in a way. It's like, conventionalized, but it still remains quite alien. And like, obviously, Mr. Oliver Wilson, our main character is quite fascinated, right? He's quite taken in by all this. And he's so taken in that he, you know, he gets very distracted when his somewhat fiance is trying to tell him what to do.
Nate:
I do like how weird she makes the travelers in comparison to everybody else. It's again, a really nice touch.
Gretchen:
Yeah, the strange elegance that they have always brought up how like uncanny they are.
Nate:
Yeah, yeah, their manner of speaking, their gait, their dress, everything about them. It's just so cool.
JM:
Yeah, it's so, oozing confidence, right? And they're acting, though, they're acting a part. And the little hints that maybe this is a little difficult for them. And so they're having dinner together, for example, like they loosen up a little bit. And they're like, yeah, now we can act. And Wilson is not really supposed to see most of this, right? But since he's insisted upon remaining where he is, which we'll get to, he sees a lot more than he probably should. But does it matter? Yeah. And the writing style, like she's definitely eased off on the super descriptive, like, almost gothic language that's in the Northwest Smith stories, like, those are very much reminding me of Clark Ashton Smith's weird tales about other worlds and stuff, like, they're different, They have a very, very sensual quality to them, like we were saying, but they definitely, by the time she was writing this, and she was in Astounding, right? She had toned down a lot of that, not only perhaps because she had changed as a writer, but because she knew that the Astounding audience didn't expect the Weird Tales kind of style.
Gretchen:
I still think she does do a really great job describing sensations, like there's still hints of that there.
Nate:
Absolutely. Yeah.
JM:
Yeah. And we can highlight when we go through them what the parts that really stand out are, but there are a lot of them for sure, where she does that
(music: buzzing electrics and high pitched tones)
spoiler plot summary
Gretchen:
"Vintage Season" starts with a man named Oliver Wilson, meeting three people, the Sancisco family, to whom he has rented out his old rundown mansion. He didn't know from their signatures if they were men or women, but finds a group of one man and two women, the former named Omerie, and the latter two named Klia and Kleph. He finds them to be elegant, yet in a strange, uncanny way, walking and speaking as though they were acting, and assumes they are foreigners. However, he tries to convince them to leave his house. He has received an offer from another group that wants to buy it, an offer that is greatly over the true market value of the home. However, the Sanciscos refuse to give up their stay, and Oliver insists on staying in the house with them, claiming he has no other place to go. Oliver intends to annoy the tenants with his presence into leaving.
Nate:
That's always a good plan
Gretchen:
It's a very good plan.
JM:
It's really funny the way this starts. It's almost like a romantic comedy movie kind of situation. I remember seeing a few movies like this in the 90s, where like, some couple was trying to get married and something was getting in the way, but then sometimes like, maybe it's best that they not get married in the first place, and the main character should be with somebody else that is like, this is this weird domestic drama situation that starts the story out. And it turns into something so different too. But it's like, it's so expertly handled the way she just turns up the weirdness little by little, you know?
Gretchen:
Yes, speaking of romance, the scheme is revealed to be planned by his fiance, Sue, who is eager to see the Sanciscos gone, wanting the money the other group has promised for the house. However, as the days pass, Oliver grows fascinated by the tenants and their behavior. He notices them reacting to commonplace things as though they are new and alien to them. They'll go out for sightseeing often and dress up for dinner, reacting with amusement or disgust to particular meals. When they eat their other meals in their rooms, Oliver sometimes finds himself nauseated by the smells.
When he meets with Sue for lunch a few days after their arrival, he tells her of a particular odd thing they did. The Sanciscos had called movie theaters to watch only parts of certain films. Oliver does not tell Sue it is because they seem to be interested in a bit player who they refer to as Golconda. During their lunch, Oliver sees a woman he believes is one of the Sanciscos, but realizes it is not her, but someone with their same elegance and strange manner of holding herself and thinks she came from their country. Soon afterwards, Kleph, who has shown an interest in Oliver since their first meeting, invites him into her room and offers a tea.
JM:
She's been making eyes at him.
Gretchen:
Yeah, she seems very intent on getting him alone at some point, which she does. She offers him tea and the tea tastes like the scent of flowers and loosens his tongue. Kleph calls it a euphoriac.
JM:
He soon gets very high.
Gretchen:
Yes, a euphoriac, which has the same effects, though without the aftereffects of their barbarous alcohol. Oliver starts questioning Kleph about where she comes from and though she calls the vacation she and the others are on a pilgrimage, she says nothing more. Oliver gets the feeling she is patronizing him. When Kleph raises her arm while turning on music, he notices a scar on her wrist, which she refers to as an inoculation and hides it in shame. When she does play the music, the sound starts off like that of waves of water and notices a picture above Kleph's bed and that is moving with the sounds, portraying a sea before changing to a man singing and playing a lute-like instrument as music begins. Oliver vaguely recognizes the tune he sings, though the man changes it in a way Oliver can't fully grasp, a technique Kleph refers to as kyling. Kleph switches to another performance where a comedian, made up like a clown, sings and taps his fingers in tune to the music, making allusions that Kleph smiles at, but Oliver doesn't understand. Despite the strangeness of what he sees, the euphoriac leaves Oliver questioning nothing and later he's unsure how much was real or a dream.
JM:
Yeah, imagine like being just in this room with this person and they're showing you all this future media. It's such a weird thing that this whole scene and it's really cool the way she does it. You can really imagine it and it's just it's funny to think how long ago this was written and like how somebody from 1946 might feel, I don't know, sitting in your room or mine now in 2023 being shown like all this weird stuff on a phone or something like that or just like.
Gretchen:
Yeah, like yeah if you went back to the 40s and showed someone like YouTube videos.
Nate:
Yeah on a gigantic 80 inch LCD TV that can display up to 4k resolution and is in full color and you know can do even 3D.
JM:
Meanwhile we have all that, but it'd probably be like "hey you want to watch some TikTok videos"? Depending on what kind of person it is though. Kleph seems like an aesthetic kind of person so she even likes old media like the "Lily Banners" song and all that.
Nate:
Yeah, I was kind of curious as to what they were getting at with the film actor. Do they ever explain that? Does that ever come off?
Gretchen:
No, it's just sort of I guess to show that they there's different tastes in the future. You know they know that there's going to be someone that's a bit player now that becomes a huge star. I don't think it plays anything into the actual.
Nate:
Yeah, so I thought that was going to be significant.
JM:
But did the actual song though that "Forward forward the Lily Banners go". It is an actual song from I can't remember what it's from now. Obviously it's just quite old right and but it would have been more popular at that time and I guess to show that she is kind of one of those people maybe who likes the equivalent of old cult music you know. She's into that weird old stuff so yeah.
Gretchen:
Although I like the apparent concept of kyling with this like sort of remixing something.
Nate:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
He does recall embracing Kleph and later hears her being reprimanded by Omerie and Klia for breaking rules about interfering which Kleph argues should not matter, not here.
Sue calls Oliver the next day to arrange a meeting between her and Oliver and the people who want to buy the house, people she calls odd. They are brought over while the Sanciscos are out. It is an old woman known as Madame Hollia and a younger man, Hara, who she introduces as her husband, both with the same manner.
JM:
Madame Hollia is cool.
Gretchen:
Yeah. She's pretty fun.
JM:
I think she would probably be the best one to actually party with. I think even though maybe she likes the young football player types but still like she just seems to be, and she's a little better at relating to the people in the times where she's at too. You can tell because of the way she talks to, she takes him aside and she talks to him and she's like, I understand your problem. You can tell that she's a little more experienced and a little more wise, I guess, even though she's obviously one of the decadents too and you don't know like.
Nate:
Well, she's the most decadent.
JM:
Oh yeah.
Gretchen:
Yeah. Although I guess that there's something lively about her. You know.
JM:
But also raises the question she does so well portray like that these people are alien and they do have relationships that somebody in that time and place in the 1940s America or wherever this takes place because she never actually says. Somebody would not understand the type of relationships and whatnot that these people have. Right. I think that it's signposted that it's a little strange because she seems like a very lively, very ancient woman with this very young person. Right. He's not described as childishly young, but like, but then it gets you to think, well, who knows how much they've modified their bodies anyway, right? Like, you don't know. And it's just she does such a good job of conveying the fact that we don't like there could be all kinds of so many things about these people that we don't know. And when Robert Silverberg was thinking about this and wrote a sequel, which I haven't read, but I'm certainly interested in checking out. Wonder if he was kind of thinking about stuff like this.
Gretchen:
And knowing of Oliver's situation and his tenants, Madame Hollia gives him and Sue a small silver box, which she tells them to hide and which will rid them of the San Ciscos. Sue goes to do so despite Oliver's attempts to protest and questioning what the device will do. While Hollia is still there, Klef appears seeing her in horror. The latter gives her something from a man named Cenby. Though Hollia tries to convince Klef to leave the house, she declines. Klef also meets Sue and the two have an instant nonverbal confrontation, which Klef wins, establishing a sense of authority over Sue. Before leaving, Hollia takes Oliver to the side and advises him to leave the house before nighttime.
Instead, Oliver spends time looking for the box but is distracted from his task by music. He goes to Kleph's room where it is originating from and finds a screen projecting an experience that affects all of his senses. It appears to depict some sort of calamity, though Oliver cannot fully make out what kind of calamity it is.
JM:
Yeah, it was so awesome the way she described this.
Gretchen:
Yeah, this is one of the prominent moments of, she's really good at describing the sensations here.
JM:
Yeah, it's like beautiful and terrible at the same time, right? Yeah.
Gretchen:
Horror and beauty. When it stops, Oliver feels sick from it, though Kleph, soon at his side, appears merely interested in the experience they both witnessed, telling him it is a symphony made by the person known as Cenbe she had earlier spoken of with Hara. Seeing Oliver as shaken, she gives him euphoriac and decides to play something else for him, turning on first a performance of Richard III before settling on a ballet.
JM:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
He tries to ask her more questions about where she is from, but Kleph refuses since it would be against the rules. However, when she hums and sings a bit of a song she claims is new, he realizes it is from the Canterbury Tales and reveals his suspicions about her traveling in time. To his shock, she admits to it. Kleph explains that they are from a time a little ahead of his own and travel back to experience past seasons of human history, vintage seasons. The May that the story takes place during, that Oliver is living through, she says, is one of the best Mays recorded.
JM:
Yeah, and that's all she tells him too. It's so haunting. She's like, don't worry, we came here because it's the best time.
Gretchen:
Yeah, because when Oliver asked her why his house is so important, she evades that particular question.
Nate:
Yeah, nothing suspicious here.
Gretchen:
Yeah, don't worry about it. Just have more euphoriac. It doesn't matter.
JM:
Yeah, probably for the best really.
Gretchen:
Yeah. Oliver wakes later in a fit of panic and pain with Omerie at his door. The latter is asking about a subsonic and an object that fits the description of Hollia's box, which is causing the intense sensations the people in the house are feeling. Oliver tells him what happened and Omerie tries to get him to help find the box, but when Oliver starts to refuse, he reveals through his remarks what Kleph has told him. Omerie goes to find Kleph and argues with her about her actions, then tells Oliver he must remain in the house until Friday, a few days off, before they return to the matter of the subsonic. After finding and destroying the box, Omerie promises to pay Oliver back whatever money he'll lose by not taking Hollia's offer.
When Friday arrives, Sue calls to announce Hollia has rescinded her offer, though the Sanciscos still expect her to try something later, to ruin their event that night, whatever event that is. The tenants spend the rest of the day preparing for it while Oliver waits to see what it is, and also promises Kleph that he won't leave the house, as she warns him he might get hurt if he does. The guests arrive around midnight and settle into the front rooms of the house around one in the morning, and Oliver, unintentionally drifting off to sleep while waiting, is awoken by a large crash. He stumbles out of his room towards Kleph's, where the people are gathered around a window. Oliver looks out to see a mass of fire burning through the city, and he hears the sound of flames, of people screaming, and of sirens roaring, and he remembers the symphony Kleph had been listening to. She tells him, then, that it is a meteor that hit the city, but his house is safe. When he asks if Sue is safe, though, Kleph says she should be, for a while, then urges him to drink more euphoriac. The party, however, is interrupted when everyone starts to feel the effects of a subsonic, and Hollia appears to confirm she has hidden another one in the house.
Cenbe arrives a moment later, and Kleph rushes to see him, abandoning Oliver.
The next moment Oliver finds himself waking up in Kleph's room, empty of her belongings and the guests. Everyone except Cenbe, who is there to witness the aftermath of the meteor crash so he can complete his symphony. Oliver discusses time travel with Cenbe, claiming they are capable of wiping out human suffering. When Cenbe argues that they have, Oliver realizes he is speaking of his own present, not Oliver's, and recognizes the distance between him and the travelers, who view the tragedies people of his time and before it have to live through as entertainment. He is then overcome with sickness, the same sickness Klef and the others had been inoculated against.
Cenbe's symphony becomes a success, while Oliver, in his time, succumbs to a disease that will be known as the Blue Death. His house demolished in a useless attempt to stop and spread.
JM:
Whoa.
(Music: Sounds somewhat suggestive of bombardments)
spoiler discussion, film adaptation
JM:
What a dark turn that story takes in the end. I know when I started it, I really wasn't expecting anything like that. You know, and it just goes there really quickly at the end. I mean, you kind of know there's so much foreshadowing, right? But you kind of don't pick up on a lot of it at first, I think.
Nate:
And on the flip side, Cenbe's work is a great masterpiece of art, so it was all worth it.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
It's probably pretty amazing. It is kind of like, it disillusions the whole thing with Kleph too, right? You're kind of like, yeah, there's sweet things about that. You almost feel that they have some kind of connection, but not really. And when you think about it, maybe she just, maybe she just wanted that because he was going to die soon. Maybe that's, that was the whole reason why she was into him in the first place like that.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, I mean, she knows the rules don't matter.
Gretchen:
He's a novelty.
JM:
Yeah. It's kind of like, unfortunately, hinted that she is almost like the lost child of the group, right? Like, and she, she kind of feels this unwanted connection with the past and also fascination with death, right? She really likes the darker things, maybe a little bit more than what some people would consider healthy, including some people of her time, because she's getting reprimanded by Klia and Omerie a couple of times, presumably just for breaking the rules of time travel. But she's probably done stuff like this before, you know, I think she is a bit of a like, Moore kind of does this with with some of her characters, like Shambleau is a vampire, right? And like, in a way, I think that the way Kleph is, like, she's sort of tragic, right? And she's in her way, she's kind of sweet, but she's feeding off this in a way that the others aren't kind of. And I don't know, the way that manifests at the end with Cenbe and his Symphony and how it's just the two of them together there. And it's like, it's pretty terrible. It's pretty terrible. It's like to think that somebody could just sit there and watch somebody die, right?
Gretchen:
And I think what's interesting is, as I was kind of mentioning a bit with Anderson story, like Anderson story, of course, is like, kind of when you start to see these, the disillusionment with the people coming back to these periods, the travelers sort of not being the protagonists. But in this story, you see how the kind of mindset that someone like Sir Boss has where like, these people are primitive, they don't matter, they're animals, how that can actually affect the people who are living in that time and how what happens to them because of that mindset.
JM:
Yeah, it's just like I was saying, the present is always somebody else's past, right? So it's like, now we're living in native people could come from the future and look upon this time as, as some fun place to be, right? For one reason or another. And yeah, people die in disasters, people love to see car crashes, though, and they love watching footage of earthquakes and tornadoes and all kinds of intensely violent stuff that kills a lot of people, right? And and that's always been entertainment since Roman times and before, right?
Nate:
Yeah, I mean, bread and circuses. Even today, you have disaster and cultural tourists and things like that. Yeah, people from the Western world going to impoverished areas and flaunting their wealth. It's distasteful, I think.
JM:
Yeah, it certainly is. And one kind of one wonders, like, when she was writing this, it's just after the end of the Second World War. And I guess what she's describing is this impending moment of prosperity and stuff like that. It's kind of seemed to come to pass. I mean, like, we always think of that time after the Second World War as especially in the United States area where it was like considered the birth of a new age of prosperity and the 1950s where people had all this stuff. And nowadays we think of it almost being pretty wasteful, right? I don't know. It's just it's pretty interesting that she goes out of her way to say that. She's like, yes, now we're in this time. Right. And it was like she says that about the contemporary time. But then she also describes the future time a little bit and how perfect it is and how much better it is than now, right? And so there's always something around the corner that's even better and those people will look down on you and your ways of doing things. And it's just it's really interesting the way she contrasts the cultures in this one as well.
So yeah, there is a sequel. I'm certainly interested in reading it. It's called In Another Country. It's not one of Robert Silverberg's most known works. I actually had a little trouble finding a copy of it. But it is out there. And I don't know, I'm certainly interested to see what he does with the concept because I guess he was this story captured a lot of people's imaginations.
There is a film version that I actually didn't even know about till reading up on it and stuff for the podcast. I've known this story for this long and it's always been one of my favorites. But yeah, I never knew that. It's more of an inspiration than an adaptation though. I don't know if you want to get to that at some point soon. But
Nate:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
I also ended up watching it before we recorded. So I have seen it as well.
Nate:
Yeah, it was good, right? Okay.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I thought it was pretty good.
Nate:
It's different.
Gretchen:
It's a loose adaptation. But I think it does some interesting stuff with the concept.
Nate:
Yeah, so I mean, they call it Timescape. And I think it's good when you're doing a looser adaptation if you're not going to stick directly to the text or make some really major changes that just call it something different.
JM:
Call it something different. I agree 100%.
Nate:
And they do credit "Vintage Season" and C.L Moore in the opening credits, though they do say it's by Lawrence O'Donnell and C.L. Moore.
JM:
Yeah. And the main character is Mr. Wilson as well. So it's obviously very clear that they were paying homage to the story in a couple of ways, right?
Nate:
Yeah, the movie up to like the first half or so more or less follows the beats of the story. And then the apocalypse happens like halfway through the film, whereas it probably happens in what like the last like 15% of the story or so like it happens at the pretty much the very end. But there's this whole other plot of he has to save his daughter and things like that in the second half. And it's just kind of a different spin on it.
Gretchen:
And he travels through time as well.
Nate:
Yeah, right.
Gretchen:
Yeah, he ends up becoming a traveler. I think it's interesting that also in Timescape, the travelers are seen as like kind of more explicitly antagonistic, because he's like actively fighting against them to save his daughter and to try to warn people about what's going to happen.
Nate:
Yeah, not only are they ruder, but they use physical force to prevent him from getting from place to place or finding out certain bits of information, which they really don't do in the story, like everybody's polite.
Gretchen:
And even I mean, I think it's more just because they're so indifferent towards it. Yeah, they don't really care about what he's doing.
JM:
Yeah, right, right.
Gretchen:
Is he really a person? He's just a guy from the past.
JM:
Yeah. Yeah. And I did think the way that she handled him kind of figuring it out through the song and everything like in the story was a little bit more fun than the way it was done in the movie. But I actually, I mean, I don't mind the additions they made and the changes they made. And like you said, Nate, unlike with Kindred, they did call it something else. So it's a fair inspiration, I think.
Nate:
And it also tells a complete story unlike Kindred TV adaptation, which I don't know if we mentioned it on the podcast since then, but it got canceled. So it just ends on a cliffhanger.
JM:
We haven't mentioned that yet. I did want to actually mention that because we did spend a lot of time talking about the show. And I did want to mention at some point that it wasn't getting renewed. Apparently they are looking for a new home for it. So the prospect hasn't been completely abandoned. But here's the thing, when it does find a new home, nobody's going to be able to watch it in one place. And that's going to be really irritating for everybody.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
So yeah.
Gretchen:
Partially upset about it because it's, here's the first adaptation of Kindred for film or TV. And it's sad that it has to be canceled. But it was, I'm also happy that is not going to continue.
JM:
Yeah. Right. But Timescape, aka Disaster In Time, is just a short made for TV movie. And it's exactly what it needs to be. Although it's far less bleak than the story. That's for sure. But I don't know, if I had caught this on TV in the 90s, like early 90s, on a weeknight evening or something like that or Saturday, I would have been like happy, you know, it's a good sci-fi film of its time. And I don't know the thing with a daughter was all right. I thought instead of a harridan fiance, he has a really cute daughter played by the girl from Jurassic Park. So it's that's cool.
Gretchen:
And he also is a widower because he had a wife. But yeah, there was a tragedy.
Nate:
Yeah, it was a weird subplot. She's like killed by a horse. I guess like the Carnacki story come back or something. Like,
JM:
Yeah, it was weird, but it was fine. Yeah, it added a little bit of action and weird like touch into certain parts of the story that I don't know. It's just it's fine.
Nate:
Yeah, the acting is generally good. The main character Wilson is played by Jeff Daniels, who is always fun to watch.
JM:
What else has he been in? I don't I recognize the name.
Nate:
yeah, he was a comic actor from the time. The biggest thing is probably Dumb And Dumber.
JM:
Oh, okay. Yeah, okay, that's that's interesting.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I am sure I recognized him, but I could not place where I had seen him. And I looked it up and I had actually recently watched a film where he was in for like only a couple of minutes for my film class, Howl, which is about Alan Ginsberg.
JM:
Oh, the Alan Ginsberg. Yeah, cool.
Nate:
There's a lot of familiar faces in this movie. And I think like there's a lot of those actors that are just career, you know, they're in a movie for a couple scenes or whatever. And they're in a billion movies like that. But yeah, maybe not as like critically acclaimed as some of the other career leading actors.
Gretchen:
Fortunately, none of them were like Golconda.
Nate:
Yeah. No, they didn't work that subplot in the film, which is too bad, because I'm trying to see like, I don't know, whatever contemporary 90s star would have been like a Sylvester Stallone movie or something like that.
JM:
Right, right. Yeah, I mean, they did talk a lot about like, this didn't really have I mean, the story feels a lot, I guess, more personal to Oliver's kind of internal thought processes and stuff. And so, although he does think about this, there's no extended long term discussions in the story of how, why can't these people change the past of the disasters that they go see? Why don't they do something good to help people, right? Like it is something that crosses his mind. It's something that he thinks about. But I don't know, again, I think this is a thing with television and like made for TV movies where everybody has to talk about everything, right? So this this comes up a lot. But it is, it is worthy to talk about, you know, it's like one of the interesting things about that idea. And the stories we've been doing tonight, where somebody actually does try to change things in their opinion for the better, right? Or well, Padway does. I mean, Gerald obviously doesn't even really get far enough to like, he can't even make a sword. So I don't know.
Gretchen:
And the one time a couple of things that he does try to introduce the the others are like, that's primitive, that that's not going to work.
JM:
Right. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, one of my favorite things about the Moore, definitely is, I mean, we've sort of talked about this already, but her descriptive writing, right? And the way she talks about not only the sensations, but like the things like, how he goes into the room, into Kleph's room, and suddenly everything has changed, right? Like, it's not even the same room anymore. And she describes all the strange things that she's put in there. And like, some of it's just new decorations that look cool. But there's also like, the entire way the carpet or whatever they put on the floor feels when you walk on it, like, it doesn't even feel like a normal floor carpet anymore. It's like, that's definitely one of, I guess, her trademarks is again, her absolute exquisite description of sensory impressions. And I mean, in a way that I think that's something that a lot of weird authors try to convey very well, because, you know, it kind of puts you in that place where you're, you feel really transported and it's almost like a psychedelic experience, right?
Nate:
Yeah. And the future multimedia system is really an awesome example of that, because she's playing back media for Wilson that, I guess, stimulates all the senses, presumably the smell as well as the sight and the sound that we would expect from a TV.
JM:
She got him high too, right? It's so weird, because like at first I'm kind of like, yeah, Kleph seems really nice. And then by the end, I'm kind of like, yeah, I don't know. I mean, she just like kind of took advantage of him and got him high. And he's going to die soon. And she knows it. And I think she gets a little bit turned on by that. It's interesting how that whole thing is portrayed. Yeah. And yeah, the technology is certainly interesting as well, though, like, and it does make me think. 1946 was quite a while ago, right?
Nate:
Yeah, I mean, TV was brand new. I mean, film had been around for a while, but it wasn't exactly like you were watching movies in your home.
JM:
No. Most people I would think in 1946 didn't have televisions. So
Nate:
Yeah, I don't know the exact broadcast numbers off the top of my head, but certainly radio was bigger than television.
JM:
Oh, much bigger. by the by the 40s. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think by mid 1950s, I guess televisions were pretty popular in the home. They've been around for about 10 years. But I mean, obviously didn't catch on right away.
Nate:
Yeah. And the war they suspended broadcast.
JM:
Yeah. And the old televisions were very different from what even people, Nate, you and my age.
Nate:
Oh, you know, they're super tiny.
JM:
Yeah, like, they were very small. Yeah, like 10 inches. Yeah. You know,
Nate:
Yeah, oftentimes much smaller than that.
JM:
Oh, yeah. Interesting to think about. Definitely. Again, you know, I can't help but think like, what an amazing science fiction writer she would have been in like the sixties and stuff, right? Like, what would she what could she have done? But we'll never know. We'll never know. In the meantime, we do have a lot of really good stories by her and by her and Kuttner and people should definitely enjoy them. I do think sometimes like some of these really older women science fiction and weird authors are ignored a little bit in favor of the sixties and onwards, right? Because that was like the time of the the real revelation in the way people thought and stuff about these kind of subjects and feminism in science fiction really started to take off around then, right? So a lot of the writers who are addressing those kind of topics at that time were very lauded and justifiably so. But like, people like Leigh Brackett and C.L. Moore, they were leading a charge in a different way, like they maybe those issues were not talked about as much by them, although with Moore that's arguable because unlikely Brackett more was definitely, I guess, more into like, I mean, she could tell us a good rousing space western pretty well too. But she also seemed by the forties interested in actually addressing a lot of social issues pretty head on. So I think in a way it is it is something killed in the bud a little bit and death is always tragic. But again, like we were saying, that pairing that combination was just so good that it was hard for her to imagine being without it. And I guess, from the sound of things, her following husband was not, he didn't spend a lot of time encouraging her to write stories or anything like that. I mean, maybe he did, and it didn't do any good. But I don't know, apparently when she had, she was kind of advanced in the Alzheimer's and she was invited to a thing. And I guess, from what I read anyway, she was a little bit like, yeah, she doesn't have anything to do with that anymore. And he was a little bit dismissive, right? And he was kind of speaking for her at that point, because she was not doing well mentally, and couldn't really for herself. And I guess, maybe that was a soft point for him as well. And maybe that's why he did it. But it just seems like it must have been hard. It must have been really hard for her, I guess. And I get that. So yeah, but this story is amazingly good. And pretty much everything I've read by her, has been really cool and interesting. There's definitely some stories that are better than others, like one of the early stories that I think was in Unknown. It might have been in something else, though, it was called The Fruit of Knowledge. And I remember reading it and thinking like, for 1941 or whenever it was written, it was a pretty cool, like, it was kind of a parable of the Garden of Eden story with an, and she put in like Lilith and all these, you know, other kind of less talked about sides of the creation story, I guess, that have been bandied around a bit. And she was pretty like, for for the time, it made me feel like, yeah, this is it feels pretty modern. It feels like this is something somebody might have written now, like this kind of big grandiose Gothic operatic story about like, creation and God and Lucifer and stuff like that. And I remember thinking that. And I thought, yeah, that's cool. But I don't know if I really want to read that now, like maybe, maybe when I was first getting into like, really dark music and like stuff in my teens, I would have liked that a little more. But right now, I'm not sure if I really feel that story as much. But it's just cool that she wrote it. Like it's cool that it's there. And a lot of the other things that she wrote are so awesome. And like, the writing is always really descriptive. And it's always really powerfully sensual, like how it is in "Vintage Season" in a lot of parts.
So I don't know about covering too much more in the podcast besides "No Woman Born", we could, because like we're saying we're going to do a lot of random short story episodes. And I might want to squeeze in a Northwest Smith story or something like that. That would be cool. But just in general, I definitely recommend reading a lot more, C.L. Moore.
Nate:
Well, I'm sure looking forward to it myself.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I definitely want to read more of her stories.
JM:
Cool. I just read one of the Jirel of Joiry stories a couple of weeks ago. I've read a couple of them, but not that many. So there aren't that many. I think there are maybe six, six or seven stories total. So it's not quite as many as Conan who has, I think, something like 17 overall tales or something like that written by Robert E. Howard. But I've read one of the couple of weeks ago and it was good. I enjoyed it a lot. It was, again, very gothic and grandiose. And like, yeah, had to do with like an unfathomable kind of godlike being. It's kind of funny because Gretchen and I have been watching a few episodes of Space 1999 recently. And like, they're always running into beings like that, kind of these like weird, otherworldly godlike entities that can do almost anything that have like unlimited powers that you don't really understand. And Moore was writing a lot of things like that as well. And so, and that comes up in the Jirel story. And she's like, it's so funny because she's a badass warrior, but it's so not like Conan because like, she's coming up against these beings who like want to enslave her. And they're, "you are the perfect wife for me. And I'm going to capture you." And she's like, "no, I am a warrior! I will fight to the death and I will destroy you!" And she does. And so it's interesting, you know, it's a very different tack on sword and sorcery, I guess, kind of thing.
Well, this was a really fun excursion. And I really enjoyed these time travel trips.
Next time on Chronanauts then, in another month's time or so, we'll be moving a little backwards in time into the 19th century again. And we're going to be talking about artificial life. And we'll be talking about four works, one longer and three shorter works. So the novel we'll be talking about is Erewhon by Samuel Butler, published in 1872. And of course, it may not be obvious, but Erewhon is "nowhere" spout backwards. And I have seen that before in terms of concept. Nehwan is, of course, the world Fritz Leiber created for Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. But I don't think it's much like Erewhon. And we'll find out what Nowhere or Erewhon is really like when we cover the story in the episode. It is apparently somewhat of a utopian novel. I've kind of learned to dread utopian novels somewhat. But I hope ... this one is hugely influential. So I'm at least interested in finding out what this one is really like. Nate, do you know a lot about this one?
Nate:
No, I have read one of his other novels, The Way of All Flesh, which is like a pretty decent social novel. This again is going to be one of those traveler narratives, which we haven't done in a while. But apparently it has several extended chapters on very early concepts in artificial intelligence and what it means for non-biological life to develop sentience and what happens when computing machines are able to think for themselves and that kind of stuff.
JM:
And a science fiction lineage there is famously in Frank Herbert's Dune series.
Nate:
Right, exactly.
JM:
The great revolt against machine intelligence is known as the Butlerian Jihad, which is a deliberate reference to Samuel Butler.
Nate:
So this one's from 1872. So it's almost the full century before Herbert published Dune. So we'll be seeing these ideas pretty early on.
JM:
Yes. we'll be doing Elizabeth W. Bellamy's story, "Ely's Automatic Housemaid" from 1899, as well as Alice W. Fuller's story, "A Wife Manufactured to Order", from 1895. Are either of you familiar with those?
Gretchen:
I have read "A Wife Manufactured to Order".
JM:
Okay.
Nate:
Yeah I haven't read either.
JM:
So Gretchen, you know the story. That's cool. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about what you think about later then. We won't, we won't spoil it just yet by that, even though I want to ask now, but I won't. But yes. And finally, we will also be doing Karl Hans Strobl's story, "The Triumph of Mechanics", from 1907. And that can be found in The Big Book Of Science Fiction. And where can we find "Wife Manufactured to Order" and "Automatic Housemaid"? I know one is in Sisters of Tomorrow, right?
Nate:
Yeah, I think "Wife Manufactured to Order" is in Sisters of Tomorrow. And I believe "Ely's Automatic Housemaids" is in The Feminine Future. UPenn has them both published there.
JM:
Yeah, they should all be reachable on Gutenberg, especially Erewhon. It's quite a well-known work. So Butler certainly was a well-recognized author of his era. So that one should be really easy to find, especially.
But it's a rough world out there, guys. Really, really rough world. So if you ever are out during a lightning storm or something like that and you get transported back to some distant century thousands of years ago, let's hope that you have more in your pockets than a bunch of travelers checks and a passport. I really do hope so, guys. But until next time, we are Chrononauts, and we look forward to seeing you next month when we'll be discovering artificial intelligence.
Bibliography:
Del Rey, Lester - introduction to "The Best of C. L. Moore" (1977)
Moore, C.L. - "Footnote to ‘Shambleau’...and Others" in "The Best of C. L. Moore" (1975)
Science Fiction Bookclub - interview with Allen Muller on Kuttner and Moore (2019) https://middletownpubliclib.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Discussion-of-Kuttner.Moore-Aug-2019.pdf
Yaszek, Lisa - "Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction" (2016)
Yaszek, Lisa - "The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women" (2018)
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