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Page 143
Critical Extracts
H. P. Lovecraft
As to the work of C. L. MooreI don't agree with your low estimate. These tales have a peculiar quality of cosmic weirdness, hard to define but easy to recognise, which marks them out as really unique. "Black God's Shadow" isn't up to the standardbut you can get the full effect of the distinctive quality in "Shambleau" & "Black Thirst". In these tales there is an indefinable atmosphere of vague outsideness & cosmic dread which marks weird work of the best sort. How notably they contrast with the average pulp productwhose bizarre subject-matter is wholly neutralised by the brisk, almost cheerful manner of narrative! Whether the Moore tales will keep their pristine quality or deteriorate as their author picks up the methods, formulae, & style of cheap magazine fiction, still remains to be seen. A. Merritt fell for the pulp formula, hence never realised his best potentialities. Miss Moore may do the same. But at present she certainly belongs in the upper tier of W(eird) T(ales) contributors along with (Clark Ashton) Smith, (Robert E.) Howard, &c.
H. P. Lovecraft, Letter to William Frederick Anger (28 January 1935), Selected Letters 19341937, ed. August Derleth and James Turner (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976), pp. 9293
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Lin Carter
I first read Earth's Last Citadel back in the old Argosy, and it was quite nice to re-live that fine story once againmy Argosy copies having long since gone the Way of All Old Pulps. That is the best fantasy novel you've printed for quite a while; you'll have to go some to find a better one than that.
Naturally, any collaboration of the talents of C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner would be something special. But this one was actually superb. So rich with color and imagery, such lavish Merrittesque descriptionindeed that adjective might be used to classify the entire story. This is probably the finest imitation of Merritt's style since Hannes Bok's "Sorcerer's Ship." I can't seem to praise the novel enough. So seldom does a work of such heights of imagination appear in print, that it almost paralyzes one's powers of description.
Lin Carter, Letter to the Editor, Fantastic Novels 4, No. 3 (November 1950): 127

 
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