Song in a Minor Key, by C L Moore
6m | Aug 27, 2026He had been promising himself this moment for how many lonely months and years on alien worlds?
Today's story is "Song in a Minor Key" by C L Moore. It appeared in the January 1957 issue of "Fantastic Universe" on pages 79 to 81.
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Catherine Lucille Moore (January 24, 1911, Indianapolis, Indiana, US – April 4, 1987, Hollywood, California, US) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She was among the first women to write in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Moore's work paved the way for many other female speculative fiction writers.
Her early work included two significant series in Weird Tales. One features the rogue and adventurer Northwest Smith wandering through the Solar System; the other features the swordswoman/warrior Jirel of Joiry, one of the first female protagonists in sword-and-sorcery fiction.
Moore married her first husband Henry Kuttner in 1940, and most of her work from 1940 to 1958 (Kuttner's death) was written by the couple collaboratively. They were prolific co-authors under their own names, although more often under any one of several pseudonyms.
As "Catherine Kuttner", she had a brief career as a television scriptwriter from 1958 to 1962. She retired from writing in 1963.
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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at goldenagefiction@proton.me.
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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
