 Jirel of Joiry — (1969) Stories about the first female heroine of sword and sorcery.
 Jirel of Joiry: The first lady of swords against sorcery...
"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. —Rob Rhodes
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