Black God's Shadow contains five novelettes of C. L. Moore's red-haired and fiery warrior-woman, Jirel of Joiry. Dating back to the 1930's where they were first printed in the heyday of Weird Tales magazine, they are a remarkable series of magnificent word pictures — strange fantasies set in a fortressed land close to magic.

"Black God's Kiss," which introduced Jirel to Weird Tales readers in 1934, is a powerful weird adventure in which the warrior-woman ventures into a nightmare land that lies far below the vaults of her castle. Close by the shore of a black lake, Joiry's lady comes upon a forbidding temple which yields to her the monstrous weapon that she seeks. Jirel returns to the nightmare land in "Black God's Shadow," seeking to undo the bizarre evil that had resulted from her first visit.

The haunted castle, "Hellsgarde," ringed by mists and wilderness, is beset by those who seek the undead. The result is a classic — one of the most fanciful and effective weird tales ever written. In "Jirel Meets Magic," a wizard is pursued into a land of magic where a dying dryad provides Jirel with a talisman. And, in a startling fantasy concept, Pav of "The Dark Land" is a world in himself.

Black God's Shadow is a book of magic in time-haunted worlds that are alien to earth. Here are worlds filled with beauty and much sadness, where love and hate are sometimes indistinguishable.