And she was only 22 and I believe came from a fairly sheltered background, which makes the eroticism of the story even more startling. There was a radio adaptation of the story on the BBC four or five years ago, which was very well done. It's just possible that it might be available online somewhere if you search for it.
I've read very little of hers, sadly. I should make an effort to seek it out. But I have her short story "Vintage Season" in a multi-author anthology, and that is excellent. It's not so openly sexual as "Shambleau", but the writing is very sensual.
"Many of the bizarre myths and legends of classic lore are dim memories of creatures met on other worlds*. Sure enough, Medusa was based on the Shambleau."
I've just gone to Amazon and found a 672 page omnibus: "C.L. Moore SF Gateway Omnibus: Jirel of Joiry, Northwest of Earth, Judgment Night" (the last of those being a short story collection). I've bought it. Now all I have to do is find the time to read it.
Of No Woman Born not only examines disabilities, superpowers and what it means to be human, but the cyborg heroine seems to have inspired the design for all sexy female robots that weren't already based Lang:
... she had no face. She had only a smooth, delicately modeled ovoid for her head, with a . . . a sort of crescent-shaped mask across the frontal area where her eyes would have been if she had needed eyes. A narrow, curved quarter-moon, with the horns turned upward. It was filled in with something translucent, like cloudy crystal, and tinted the aquamarine of the eyes Deirdre used to have. Through that, then, she saw the world. Through that she looked without eyes, and behind it, as behind the eyes of a human-she was.
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I've read very little of hers, sadly. I should make an effort to seek it out. But I have her short story "Vintage Season" in a multi-author anthology, and that is excellent. It's not so openly sexual as "Shambleau", but the writing is very sensual.
"Many of the bizarre myths and legends of classic lore are dim memories of creatures met on other worlds*. Sure enough, Medusa was based on the Shambleau."
The vampire legends as well, I imagine.
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... she had no face. She had only a smooth, delicately modeled ovoid for her head, with a . . . a sort of crescent-shaped mask across the frontal area where her eyes would have been if she had needed eyes. A narrow, curved quarter-moon, with the horns turned upward. It was filled in with something translucent, like cloudy crystal, and tinted the aquamarine of the eyes Deirdre used to have. Through that, then, she saw the world. Through that she looked without eyes, and behind it, as behind the eyes of a human-she was.
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