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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
This month we're talking about women of science fiction. These women inspire us to imagine impossible worlds, alien creatures, and fantastical inventions, revealing our deepest fears and hopes for the future.
If you rifle through the paperbacks in the science fiction section of your local bookstore,
you might stumble upon a celebrated tale written 90 years ago.
On the cover, there's a medieval warrior queen with flaming red locks cascading from under a horned helmet.
She's clad in a long red cape and a chainmail mini dress.
This is Jarell of Jory, a rare heroine in sci-fi and one of the fewer written by a woman
too.
Though, not all readers know that.
Let's talk about the woman behind the book, C.L. Moore.
Catherine Lucille Moore was born on January 24, 1911 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She was frequently sick as a child, which left her cycling in and out of school.
Infrequent as her education was, Catherine had one constant companion—books.
As a child, she devoured literature cover to cover, be it Greek pathology, The Wizard of Oz, or the earliest titles in science fiction.
In 1929, she enrolled at Indiana University, where she wrote for the school's student-run magazine.
Catherine left school during her sophomore year, taking a job as a secretary at a bank.
But she never quit writing.
Catherine wrote about space, aliens, and distant planets.
Her heroes encountered monsters, went on adventures, and defeated evil.
But she was interested in journeys beyond sci-fi common fare.
She wrote about her characters' inner lives, their conflicts, their desires, and moods.
In 1933, Catherine sold her first story to Weird Tales, a horror and fantasy pulp magazine.
The story was called Chambleau.
We see a dusty Martian frontier. Rogue space cowboy Northwest Smith hears the cry of a maiden in danger.
He swoops in, saving her from certain death.
She's beautiful, with feline eyes, her hair elegantly swept up in a turban.
Northwest never stood a chance. He falls for her, and right into her trap.
This woman is a Chambleau, an alien with the head of writhing worms for hair.
Northwest is on the verge of losing himself forever to her seduction, until he's saved
by an ally.
And as the tale ends, Northwest reflects. He's been in the clutches of certain death, and should he ever cross paths with another
Chambleau, he would certainly fall once again.
Legend has it the Weird Tales editor was so pleased by Chambleau, he closed the magazine's office for the day in celebration.
It was a hit.
Catherine had initiated a new era of science fiction.
She took the anxieties about women and sex she saw repeated in the world around her, and in the male-dominated genre of sci-fi, and placed them on alien planets, giving women
the power to be strange, alien even, and to derive power from that very strangeness.
Catherine published under the name C.L. Moore.
It may have been a way to conceal her gender, but she claimed it was to hide her identity
from her employer.
Catherine continued Northwest Smith's adventures in several other short stories.
Eventually, she branched out into the sword and sorcery genre and introduced the medieval warrior queen Jor-El of Jory.
In 1936, Catherine got a letter in the mail.
Henry Kuttner, an aspiring writer, had written about his admiration for these stories and addressed his letter to Mr. Moore.
Catherine cleared up the confusion.
Four years later, they were married.
Henry and Catherine wrote collaboratively under a few different names—C.H. Liddell, Lewis Padgett, Lawrence O'Donnell.
It's impossible to tell where Catherine started and Henry ended, literally.
One of them would stand up from the typewriter, take a break, and come back to find the other had sat down, finished their sentence, and started a new one.
They published often, across many genres.
And Catherine also continued to publish a few stories under her own name.
In 1955, she was nominated for a Hugo Award for a novelette she wrote.
Three years later, Henry died of a heart attack.
Catherine never returned to science fiction, turning instead to TV.
She taught writing at the University of Southern California, where she and Henry had finished their undergraduate degrees a few years earlier.
She eventually remarried in 1963 and stepped away from writing.
Regardless, Catherine remained a prominent figure in the sci-fi community.
She garnered many awards recognizing her achievements in the genre, including from the World Science
Fiction Convention, the Swordsman and Sorcerer's Guild of America, and the World Fantasy Convention.
By the 1980s, Catherine had withdrawn from the spotlight due to complications from Alzheimer's disease.
She passed away on April 4, 1987, at the age of 76.
In the years since her death, she's continued to be recognized.
She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and received the prestigious
Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, a joint honor with Henry.
All month we're talking about women in science fiction.
For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram, at Womanica Podcast.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow!
