While Edmond Hamilton introduced me to Space Opera, his wife, Leigh Brackett, and another woman writer, Catherine Lucille Moore (1911 – 1987), showed me the kind of emotional power these stories could wield. Moore was an influence on Brackett, and both of these writers wrote beautiful and poetic prose, which is something I always look for in the books I take home with me, although it’s not something I often find. (Robert E. Howard was another writer who could create that kind of prose, and both Moore and Brackett acknowledged him as an influence.)

Moore is known today for two genres that she did stellar work in. Neither of those is Sword and Planet, but one of them is Sword & Sorcery. Her Jirel of Joiry stories are exotic and luminescent. Jirel is one of the earliest flame-tressed female warriors in fantasy fiction. Depending on how far afield I eventually travel with this series, we may well come back to Jirel.

[Click the images for heroic versions.]

Northwest Smith (Ace Books, October 1982). Cover by Jim Burns

The other genre Moore excelled in is Space Opera. Her Northwest Smith character is my favorite in that genre.

One of the first stories I read by her was “Shambleau”, which is illustrated on the cover I’ve shown above. A very different kind of vampire story and one that still haunts me at times. In fact, Moore and Brackett’s work haunted me enough to write my own space opera in that tradition.

After Borgo Press published the first three books in my Talera series, Robert Reginald, the Borgo editor, contacted me about an idea he had. He wanted to do a Borgo Press double in the tradition of the old Ace Doubles. It would be SF and he wondered if I had anything in that vein, or if I could write something for him. Naturally, I told him I could.

Judgment Night (Dell, August 1979). Cover uncredited

I had been reading a lot of Leigh Brackett and C. L. Moore and was enamored of both their styles as well as their ability to pack emotional depth into their stories. I wanted to strive for something similar and came up with an idea for a novella called “Under the Ember Star.”

I dedicated it to Moore and Brackett. Since these two women had written about male space opera characters, I decided to write about a female one named Ginn Hollis.

I had a huge amount of fun writing this story, and it appeared as a double novel with a book by Mark Burgess on the other side — The Battle for Eden. The book is available as a double on Amazon, but Under the Ember Star is also available as an ebook by Charles Allen Gramlich.

Wildside Double #25: Under the Ember Star by Charles Allen Gramlich, paired with
The Battle for Eden by Mark E. Burgess (Borgo Press, March 29, 2012). Covers uncredited

Here’s the back cover blurb I wrote for Under the Ember Star.

Ginn Hollis was fourteen when her father’s mysterious death left her alone on the planet Kelmer. She’s grown up since then. Kelmer is a harsh world, an old world: its people are ancient, its civilization long fallen and dimly dreaming under a brown dwarf sun the natives call the Ember Star. But now, long dormant forces are beginning to stir on Kelmer, forces that could destroy the planet forever… or bring it back to life. One being stands at the center of the turmoil. His origins are veiled, his destiny is unclear. Everyone wants a piece of him. Only Ginn Hollis can protect him from both sides — if she can save herself first.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.