The Foremothers Who Inspire - Part 3 of 3

                 

[Image from Biblio.com]

JIREL OF JOIRY is another SFBC purchase that introduced me to C.L. (Catherine Lucille) Moore. When we think about the Sword-&-Sorcery genre, a subgenre under Fantasy, many of us think about Conan the Barbarian, Kull the Conqueror, and even Red Sonja. However, there have been other leading women characters, and so, I found out about Jirel, a shero created to counter all those heavily-muscled loincloth-wearing men!

Science Fiction Book Club (Remember I said in the last posts never join this club? Don't say I didn't warn you) had a hardcover collection of Jirel of Joiry's hard-to-find short stories in one. I bought it, tore through it, and then let a friend borrow it who never gave it back (If you are a book lover and collector, please don't let ANYONE borrow your books) but BOY! What a dark and dim-grim fantasy series this was! And oh, so good! 

Now that I think about it, C.L. Moore's JoJ was more like Michael Moorcock's Elric of Meldibone' series. Grim, dismal, dark, ironic, and compelling. And earlier! 

It was between Jirel, Elric, and later, Sabriel (Garth Nix) that I wanted to write my own sword-and-sorcery/dark fantasy within my feline fantasy series, Tabber the Red. 

Right now, for the month of NaNoWriMo, I'm a NaNoRebel and penning a dark little fantasy tale in two short stories about a black
warlock cat and brown tabby warrior encountering a hellscape of animated trees, possessed gemstones, and dragons so ancient that landscapes form on them. 

Please tune in for more and this concludes my 'Foremothers Who Inspire' blog trilogy!

Thank you for reading!