The Heart of the Moon

by Tanith Lee

“The Isle is supernatural and may produce anything. It is a place half in this world and half elsewhere. In spots, they say, it opens on the country of the moon itself. Therefore, anticipate magic, and great danger. Sacrifice is common on the Isle. So is death.”

Clirando, a celebrated warrior, believes herself to be cursed. Betrayed by people she trusted, she unleashes a vicious retaliation upon them and then lives in fear of fateful retribution for her act of cold-blooded vengeance.

Once every seventeen years, the full moon of midsummer shines for seven nights, and celebrations take place upon the mysterious Moon Isle. When Clirando is ordered by the priestess of the temple of Parna to travel with seven companions to the festival on the Isle, she sees this as her punishment at last – if not her doom. But the Isle is mysterious and disorientating. The senses cannot be trusted. Strange visions haunt the shadows. Perhaps the dead walk there. During the nights of the full moon, anything might happen.

Set in a land resembling Ancient Greece, in this novella Tanith Lee explores the dark corners of the heart and soul within a vivid mythical adventure. The book also includes ‘The Dry Season’ another of her tales set in an imaginary ancient world of the Classical era.

Genres: Fantasy

167 pages, Paperback

Published December 12, 2019

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Meredith is a hot mess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm happy to see this on Kindle as well as KU! The cover by Danielle Lainton is beautiful. Highly recommend this story to Tanith Lee fans. Even though I've previously read this story I purchased it because this is a story I'll be rereading. I also believe in what the publisher of this book, Immanion Press, is doing to preserve Tanith Lee's work, while making her more accessible to readers. I can't wait for At the Court of the Crow to be released.

Quotes from The Heart of the Moon :

Clirando felt a shadow fall on her, like a heavy cloak for travelling. Her sleep-starved eyes half glimpsed Araitha suddenly, standing there in the shade behind the goddess’s statue, motionless, with face averted. “This is my true punishment, then.” “You may see it as such,” said the priestess. “Or as a chance at salvation. The seas at this time of year are calm as honey. The voyage will last no longer than nineteen days, and perhaps rather less. Go now and tell your band. Pack anything you may need, for battle or for mere existence.”

...

Next thing, the magicians pointed up into the sky. Above, the moon was lifting toward the zenith. Only the most engorged stars gleamed strongly enough to be seen against her extravagant light. The magicians started to wave their arms and call up at the heavens. “Stars! Stars come down and visit us! No one will miss you up there, on such a moon-white night.” And the stars came. They detached themselves from the black sky, circling, swarming like diamond bees down toward the island. Clirando heard Zemetrios murmur beside her. She too was astounded and filled by the wildest happiness. Why should stars not fall from heaven?

This also includes The Dry Season , by Tanith Lee, which I hadn't read before. 3.5 stars. A fitting addition to include with The Heart of the Moon .

Q:

“There’s more. There’s the sacrifice.” “Sacrifice?” Seteva repeated softly. He tried to go on grinning – doves spotting the valour of Remusa – but he saw flames curling out of a well. “In five days’ time. To make the rain come end-of-season.” “You mean an ox, or do these barbarians use horses?” “Worse. I mean a girl. A temple girl, a virgin.” The fire ran into his mouth and through his belly.

...

In the East, our holy books inform us that when the first man had been made, the god breathed the divine breath into him, which became his soul, and caused him to become quick. It was then necessary to create woman. But the god did not breathe life directly into the woman. Instead he opened the man’s body and removed from it a piece of the soul, and this he gave to the woman. Since then, for every man created, a piece of his soul is subtracted to quicken a woman. In memory of this deed the seed also passes from male to female. But if a man finds by chance the woman who contains that fraction of his own soul, he will know her, as he knows his own image in a mirror.

...

“Wait,” said Nylerus. “Where are you going?” But horse and rider went by him, between the fires, and through the circle of firelit men, up the spine of one hill, descending from sight over another. “The Remusan is going to Tophiteth, the place of burning,” one of the men said malevolently. He spoke in the eastern language, his words striking on the quiet of the young night, scoring it like writing on a wall. “The Remusan is going to Hell.”

[Lyx Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this on the Eurostar, was a great travel companion and gave me that feeling of surfacing from a really intricate dream by the end of it. Gonna try and parse things out:

- It took me a moment to warm up to Tanith Lee's style, especially as a lot of stuff happens in her prologue with very little description at all, and I'm usually one to prefer more descriptive writing so I can visualise things properly. But once you settle into the Greco-Roman sort of feel of the fantasy then it gets easier to paint the environment yourself. She also slows down the pace once the main narrative starts, and allows herself to get less pragmatic and more weird/experimental with the prose, and that's when I really got into it.

- The Moon Isle & all its strangeness and allusions to old myths was a delight to read. The section in the village especially, the sorcery and the bridge between worlds. All very ancient themes and the historical fiction-loving side of my brain was wondering why Lee couldn't have just made this actual Greco-Roman fiction rather than vaguely inspired, as it would've only given more depth to the fantastical elements. (I also really loved the pulpy artistry of the sex scene. The twined swords?! Love it. Some great euphemisms in there and also those old-school metaphors that had me grinning - hadn't seen "conflagration" in a while!)

- Loved Clirando's female warband, wished we got a bit more interactions between them, but the story was very focused on Clirando & the layering of symbolism and literal events in her journey. It was very much a "this is how she learns to heal" journey, so it struck me as more of a "moral/message" story than a story with enough flesh to make you really care about the characters, if that makes sense.

- On that subject, for all the marvel and wonder of The Heart of the Moon story, I actually think I prefered the story that came after it, The Dry Season (it was weird to find it there, I didn't expect there to be 2 short stories in this book). It sucked me in straight away and the absolute moral shambles of the main protagonist was just a lot more interesting to read for me? I think I've just been reading quite a few books with female protagonists who have to be "morally correct" or at least achieve moral correctness within the narrative (I was also fresh out of ACOTAR, where it feels like Feyre must always think and react in a morally correct and just way). So to finally read some fantasy with a protagonist who is an absolute disaster & who makes all the wrong choices for the wrong reasons, was great and refreshing lol. This story definitely made me want to read more Tanith Lee. I loved the distinct voice she managed for that MC, whereas I felt like Clirando didn't have much of a voice, or at least not as distinct - it felt like she was just part of the beautiful symbolic picture that Heart of the Moon is.

[Leila Anani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ancient world fantasy – Set in a fantasy version of Ancient Greece, warrior-priestess Clirando discovers her lover Thestus cheating with her best friend Araitha. She bests them both in single combat and shames them forcing them to be exiled from the city. Araitha curses Clirando to sleep no more – then dies before Clirandro can get her to lift the curse when the ship she’s in sinks. Clirando’s order sends her to a mysterious moon island full of mystery and hidden dangers, here Clirando must survive as well as face the demons of her past. She meets fellow enlightenment seeker Zemetrious, also tortured by things in his past. Is he her true love or a figment of her imagination?

Themes
• Love/Hate relationship
• Male/Female
• Myth – Greek, Christian
• Nature of “self”
• Revenge
• Sin/Redemption
• True love

Being an Ancient historian I love fantasy with a Classical setting and I loved Tanith Lee's take on this, the latter half feeling a bit like Homer's Odyssey - isle of Circe. It's a wonderful allegorical journey of Sin and redemption.

Also included here is the story 'The Dry Season' (1986) written in Lee's darker, less psychological phase. Again it has an Ancient world setting - this time a fantasy ancient Rome, where a military commander falls in love with a maiden about to become a human sacrifice. Oh my is this dark and tragic. It's like the polar opposite of Heart of the moon, and makes a wonderful contrast - showing off Lee's versatility and tremendous talent.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Araitha is betrayed by her lover and best friend, she is sent to the isle of the Moon on a spiritual pilgrimage. While there she finds herself and her true love. Thestus is the classical arrogant man, but

Araitha was a fool to gamble so much for so little and had no right to do what she did to Clirando who was more wise and forgiving than they deserved.

Fave scene: meeting Zemetrios.

[Raisa Kreek · Rating 5 out of 5]

The joy when a story reaches you at just the right time...! I loved the ancient Mediterranean setting, the competent but hard-on-herself Clirando, the way C and Z doubt what they see but have no choice but to believe. This was my first Tanith Lee story -- I'll be sure to seek out more!

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

To lose love was a very terrible thing. To lose affection for one’s own self – this must be worse. For you could, at least in your mind, move far off from others. But from yourself you never could, until death released you. [loc 1161]

A novella ('The Heart of the Moon') coupled with a short story ('The Dry Season'): I hadn't read either of these before, and they contrast one another excellently.

'The Heart of the Moon' is set in a secondary world reminiscent of ancient Greece: Clirando, on discovering that her lover Thestus is having an affair with her best friend, Araitha, bests them both in combat and sends them into exile. Araitha, in return, curses Clirando never to sleep again -- and when the ship she sailed on is wrecked, Clirando has no hope of the curse being lifted. She is sent on a holy mission to Moon Isle, where a mysterious conjunction takes place once every seventeen years. There, Clirando meets a number of disconcerting entities, and falls in love with Zemetrious, who's also tormented by his past. A spiritual journey, an inn-room with only one bed, and a psychological resolution: classic Lee.

'The Dry Season' is also set in a world with echoes of antiquity, in this case Imperial Rome -- the Remusa featured in some of Lee's other work. Seteva is a military commander who falls in love with a young woman who's about to be sacrificed. He does not listen to the excellent advice he is given. No good comes of it.

I have loved Tanith Lee's work since I encountered her writing when I was in primary school. Given the sheer volume of novels, stories, plays and screenplays she produced, it's not surprising that I am still, six years after her death, discovering new fiction by her. I don't regard either of these stories as representing her best work, and I didn't enjoy them as much as I had hoped: but they are strong stories and it's good to see them in print.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in Winter Moon. It's told by a str8 woman, and I'm obliged to say that her romance with a str8 man was surprisingly satisfying for me, a gay man. I'm sure it's because of the equality the two of them reveled in.