| Author | Message | ||
     Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Baen Books seem proud of the fact they have some of the worst covers in the SF and Fantasy publishing industry. Horrendous covers! But some bloody good writers behind those covers... Here's a brief blog entry about one of those writers, the underrated Henry Kuttner. Click here if you wish: http://postmodernmariner.blogspot.com/. Don't click there if you don't wish! That blog entry features a photo showing a book in which a set of Kuttner stories can be found, a photo that includes two daisies! Can you spot 'em? Bet you can, you hawk-eyed rascals! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
This does look good. Kuttner was a terrific writer. So was C.L. Moore, who formed a kind of joint writing identity with him after they married. Some Kuttner stories were co-written with Moore, as were some under pseudonyms. My favourite being 'All Mimsy Were the Borogroves', a Lewis Carroll tribute with a breathtakingly simple premise. Moore was also writing under her own name. Kuttner's premature death (at 43, from a heart attack) is probably the main reason why he isn't better-known: there are no definitive collections of his stories, though I think there was a 'Best of' that I've never seen, and his early heroic fantasy stories were collected recently. Also, C.L. Moore's grief caused her to quit the SF and fantasy field for good – so we lost them both as writers. I remember reading that when they were working on a story together, Moore and Kuttner were so much on the same wavelength that when one got up to make a cup of tea or visit the bathroom, the other would simply continue the story at the same typewriter. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Good stuff, Rhys. I just ordered the Kuttner book on the strength of your blog posting. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've read two Kuttner short stories and both are among the scariest Lovecraftian horror tales ever written imo - 'The Graveyard Rats' (1936) in the 5th Fontana Horror & 'The Salem Horror' (1937) in Derleth's TOTCM. I also have two of his sci-fi novels in my TBR pile; 'Fury' (1947) & 'Mutant' (1953) - both of which were said to have had a huge influence on the wave of new writers who arose in the 1950s - Dick, Bester, Ballard, etc. I'd snap up anything I saw of his without even thinking about it. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"The Salem Horror" was the tale I rewrote without having read it. I was already very fond of his work - Ahead of Time was the first book of his I read. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.232.127 |
I'll never forget Moore's magnificent "Vintage Season", especially the apocalyptic outcome. I cannot seem to find a picture of C.L. Moore anywhere. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
> "The Salem Horror" was the tale I rewrote without having read it. That's a very Borges/Lem statement. Intrigued. How does one rewrite a tale without having read it? It's a bit like the statement: Robinson Crusoe had a very active social life before he met Friday. It seems inconceivable, but Lem showed how it was possible in A Perfect Vaccum. What I especially like about the Henry Kuttner stories I have read so far is the complex interaction of many different elements and the dark ironic humour of his prose. Joel: ah yes, C.L. Moore... I have the masterworks collection Black Gods, Scarlet Dreams but I have only read the first few stories (featuring Jirel of Joiry). Considering they were published in the 1930s they are superior to most magazine SF or Fantasy of the time. I think I prefer Moore's style to Robert E. Howard's on the whole. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
That's fascinating, Ramsey. Do you mean you wrote a story with the same theme by chance and then read Kuttner's story after? Must have been a shock and a disappointment I'd imagine or did it give you a boost to realise you had emulated one of the masters without realising it? I have to say your story 'Cold Print' in TOTCM was one of the very first things of your's I read and it scared me rigid at the time and still does. A real little masterpiece that more than holds its own with the other stories in that classic anthology. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Here you go Hubert:  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.23.239 |
I vaguely remember an old b/w picture of the couple in their younger days bent over a typewriter, but haven't been able to find it. Thanks, Stevie. | ||
| Skunsworth (Skunsworth) Username: Skunsworth Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 92.30.157.79 |
Mutant is excellent, and well worth finding if you can. S | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.145.226.3 |
Does anyone else have that special edition of Crypt of Cthulhu, the all-Henry Kuttner issue (#42 I think)? It contains more or less all of the Weird Tales and Strange Tales stuff he wrote. I'll have to dig my copy out from the garret dust. Mark S. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I must have it too, Mark. Steve - here's the anecdote about me and Kuttner. It's from the All Hallows column I wrote about plagiarism (actually, the second of two, both of which I'll be reprinting in my next non-fiction book): "A writer moves to an unfamiliar town and takes up residence in a house that once belonged to a witch. A room in the house proves to have been designed to revive her spirit when anyone ventures into the room. She exerts an influence over the writer, first manifested in weird dreams. In due time her body is revived and an attempt is made to invoke a Lovecraftian being. An occultist who has been visiting the house becomes aware of the situation and is instrumental in preventing her plans from reaching fruition. That’s the plot of a story first published in Weird Tales in 1937. It is also the plot of a tale first published in 1964... Unlikely as it may seem, that was a coincidence. The 1937 tale is Henry Kuttner’s “The Salem Horror”; the later story is my “The Return of the Witch”. I was seventeen when I wrote it, and had had no access to the issue of Weird Tales. I didn’t encounter his story until 1969, when it was reprinted in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, and I still remember my growing unease as I read something I’d thought was my own. August Derleth published both tales, but he never mentioned the similarity, and I assume he either didn’t notice or thought it insignificant. He once remarked to me that one can’t copyright an idea. Perhaps the idea is less important than the writer." | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Ramsey, if you think about it the plot of Kuttner's story is not a million miles away from Lovecraft's own 'The Dreams In The Witch House' (1933). It could be you were both inspired by that story to write a similar but just different enough tale and by chance made the same alterations. All very Jungian if you ask me but it must have been some shock at the time. |