Status Updates From Jirel of Joiry

Wizards are simply not worth the trouble.

She was beginning to understand the significance of the hall. It must be from here that Jarisme by her magical knowledge journeyed into other lands and times and worlds through the doors that opened between her domain and those strange, outland places.

Finished the book. Golly. This is my favorite book so far in this adventure. The dark land was my least favorite, but the white witch of death in it was still so haunting. And, the ghost story of Alaric and Hellsguard was so creepy and entertaining. Jirel is such a BA and I love how she always finds some sort of evil/magic means of vengeance upon the men who wrong her.

Finished Jirel meets magic and loved it! It has a bit of Vancian magicians and a bit of elfland. But kept all of the gendered criticism that I loved in the first two books. I love that the wizard didn’t say a word until the finale of the book. And I loved the duel between Jirel and Jarisme. The call back to guillaume was subtle and empowering. I want to make a DCC one shot of this story badly.

Finished book two. This stuff is super trippy and I love it. The black god of despair! And the journey to free Guillaum from its grasp was a little hard to follow but had a whole vibe of terror to it that really captures the unearthly feel of a strange and foreign world. It makes me think of both Hodgson and Cabbel in its surreal wandering. Really fun.

Finished the first story and love the inversions here. Moores description of the demonic world are awesome and haunting. And I love the means of Guillaume’s destruction. Excited to keep reading.

"Hellsgarde" was good, with some strange ideas ("a drinker of undeath") and creepy moments that brought it back for me in the end.

"Quest of the Starstone," co-written with her husband, Henry Kuttner, is the first story in the collection that I just did not like at all. I understand the urge to combine her two signature characters of the time, Jirel and the SF character Northwest Smith, but for me it just did not work at all. The overwhelming cosmic weirdness so far established was abandoned for goofy, pedestrian action.

The Dark Land is my new favorite. I like the atmosphere and the challenges that Jirel goes through.