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Henry Kuttner


USA flag (1914 - 1958)
Husband of C L Moore

aka Keith Hammond, Lawrence O'Donnell, Lewis Padgett

Henry Kuttner worked alone and in collaboration with his wife, the great science fiction and fantasy writer C.L. Moore, one of the four or five most important writers of the 1940's, the writer whose work went furthest in its sociological and psychological insight, to making science fiction a human as well as technological literature. He was an important influence upon every contemporary and every science fiction writer who succeeded him. In the early 1940's and under many pseudonyms, Kuttner and Moore published very widely through the range of the science fiction and fantasy pulp markets.

Their fantasy novels, all of them for the lower grade markets like Future, Thrilling Wonder, Planet Stories, are forgotten now; their science fiction novels, Fury and Mutant are however well regarded. There is no question but that Kuttner's talent lay primarily in the shorter form; Mutant is an amalgamation of five novelettes and Fury, his only true science fiction novel, is considered as secondary material. Three are, however, 40 or 50 shorter works which are among the most significant achievements in the field and they remain consistently in print. The critic James Blish, quoting a passage from Mutant about the telepathic perception of the little blank, silvery minds of goldfish, noted that writing of this quality was not only rare in science fiction but rare throughout literature; "The Kuttners learned a few thing writing for the pulp magazines, however, that one doesn't learn reading Henry James."

In the early 1950's, Kuttner and Moore, both citing weariness with writing, even creative exhaustion, turned away from science fiction; both obtained undergraduate degrees in psychology from the University of Southern California and Henry Kuttner, enrolled in an MA program, planned to be a clinical psychologist. A few science fiction short stories and novelettes appeared (Humpty Dumpty, finished the Baldy series, in 1953.) Those stories -- Home There Is No Returning, Home Is the Hunter, Two-Handed Engine and Rite of Passage -- were at the highest level of Kuttner's work. He also published three mystery novels with Harper & Row (of which only the first is certainly his; the other two, apparently, were farmed out by Kuttner to other writers when he found himself incapable of finishing them).

Henry Kuttner died suddenly in his sleep, probably from a stroke, in February 1958; Catherine Moore remarried a physician and survived him by almost three decades but she never published again. She remained in touch with the science fiction community, however, and was Guest of Honor at the World Convention in Denver in 198l. She died of complications of Alzheimer's Disease in 1987.
 


Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy
 
Series
Baldy
   Mutant (1953)
   Beggars in Velvet (2012) (with C L Moore)
   Baldy (2012) (with C L Moore)
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Dr. Michael Gray
   The Murder of Ann Avery (1956)
     aka Masked for Murder
   The Murder of Eleanor Pope (1956)
   Murder of a Mistress (1957)
   Murder of a Wife (1958)
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Novels
   The Creature from Beyond Infinity (1940)
   Earth's Last Citadel (1943) (with C L Moore)
   The Dark World (1946)
   Valley of the Flame (1946) (as by Keith Hammond)
   Fury (1947)
   The Mask of Circe (1948) (with C L Moore)
   The Time Axis (1948)
   Man Drowning (1953)
   The Well of the Worlds (1953)
   Destination: Infinity (1956)
   Elak of Atlantis (1985)
   Prince Raynor (1987)
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Collections
   The Proud Robot (1952)
   Robots Have No Tails (1952)
   Ahead of Time (1953)
   No Boundaries (1955) (with C L Moore)
   Bypass to Otherness (1961)
   Return to Otherness (1962)
   The Best of Kuttner (1965)
   The Best of Kuttner 2 (1966)
   The Best of Henry Kuttner (1975)
   Clash by Night (1980)
   Chessboard Planet and Other Stories (1984) (with C L Moore)
   The Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner (1986)
   Kuttner Times Three (1988)
   Secret of the Earth Star (1991)
   Mountain Magic (2004) (with others)
   Mimzy and Other Stories (2007)
   Thunder Jim Wade (2008)
   Don't Look Now and Two Others (2009)
   Detour to Otherness (2010) (with C L Moore)
   The Michael Gray Mysteries (2015) (with Catherine L Moore)
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Novellas and Short Stories
   The Graveyard Rats (1936)
   I, the Vampire (1937)
   The Jest of Droom-Avista (1937)
   Quest of the Starstone (1937) (with C L Moore)
   Raider of the Spaceways (1937)
   We Are the Dead (1937)
   Avengers of Space (1938)
   The Shadow on the Screen (1938)
   The Spawn of Dagon (1938)
   Thunder in the Dawn (1938)
   Towers of Death (1939)
   Beauty and the Beast (1940)
   Dr. Cyclops (1940)
   The Mad Virus (1940)
   Chameleon Man (1941)
   Dragon Moon (1941)
   The Crystal Circe (1942)
   Crypt-City of the Deathless One (1943)
   Endowment Policy (1943) (with C L Moore)
   The Eyes of Thar (1944)
   Sword of Tomorrow (1945)
   Absalom (1946) (with C L Moore)
   Call Him Demon (1946) (as by Keith Hammond)
   What Hath Me? (1946)
   Don't Look Now (1948)
   Ex Machina (1948)
   Carry Me Home (1950)
   The Ego Machine (1951)
   Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1951)
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Non fiction show
 
Omnibus editions show
 
Books containing stories by Henry Kuttner
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The Lure of Atlantis (2023)
Strange Tales from the Sunken Continent
(British Library Tales of the Weird, book 40)
edited by
Michael Wheatley
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Black Cat Weekly #82 (2023)
(Black Cat Weekly, book 82)
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Black Cat Weekly #71 (2023)
(Black Cat Weekly, book 71)

More books 


Award nominations
2020 Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella (nominee) : A God Named Kroo
2020 Retro Hugo Award for Best Novelette (nominee) : The Children's Hour
2019 Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella (nominee) : Clash by Night: And Other Stories
2019 Retro Hugo Award for Best Novelette (nominee) : The Proud Robot
2014 Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella (nominee) : The Time Trap
2014 Retro Hugo Award for Best Novelette (nominee) : Hollywood on the Moon
2006 Locus Award for Best Collection (nominee) : Two-Handed Engine


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