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To science fiction aficionados, the name of Henry Kuttner needs no introduction. To readers just discovering the delights of this form of fiction, we can promise a feast of variety and interest. Although none of Henry Kuttner's work can be described as "little known," we have attempted, in selecting these stories, to avoid those which have been anthologized or collected elsewhere. The richness and productivity of this author have made the selection easy, and in fact this volume is the first of what we hope will be three volumes to cover the best of Kuttner's writing. We are proud indeed to be able to bring to readers, both old and new, such a shining star in the galaxy of imaginative writing as is represented by Henry Kuttner.

Contents:

• 7 - Cold War - [Hogben - 5] - (1949) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 30 - Call Him Demon - (1946) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 51 - The Dark Angel - (1946) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 63 - The Piper's Son - [Baldy] - (1945) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 88 - Absalom - (1946) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 101 - The Little Things - (1946) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 114 - Nothing But Gingerbread Left - (1943) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 131 - Housing Problem - (1944) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]

During World War II, four bitter enemies are pulled forward a billion years in time by a master being from an alien galaxy. They arrive on a dying Earth--to Carcasilla, Earth's last citadel--where the mutated remnants of humanity are making their final stand against the monstrous creations of a fading world.

Thrust in the middle of this desperate struggle for survival, the last humans must put aside their differences and stop the looming Armageddon.

This novelette originally appeared in the collection No Boundaries (1955). It can also be found in the anthologies S-F: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy (1956), edited by Judith Merril, and Asleep in Armageddon (1962), edited by Michael Sissons.

Henry Kuttner's 1953 novel of a despised community of telepaths hiding from society carries echoes of the Holocaust and the postwar DP communities. Kuttner, the most inventive and gifted short story writer in all of the science fiction, bridged this novel from five novelettes in ASTOUNDING: four were published that atomic year, 1945.

Here is an anthology that explores the furthest reaches of imagination and the closest areas of emotion with power and with humour and with a sense of human purpose. This is Kuttner and Moore at their best.

Table of Contents:

• Vintage Season - (1946) - novelette
• The Devil We Know - (1941) - novelette
• Home There's No Returning - novelette
• Exit the Professor - (1947) - short story
• Two-Handed Engine - (1955) - novelette
• About the Authors - essay by uncredited

Return to Otherness Science Fiction Paperback Book by Henry Kuttner 1962

In this second "otherness" volume of stories by Henry Kuttner, the editors have again selected those works which have never appeared in other collections, and seldom even in an anthology.

Further, the stories have lent themselves to a theme broadly based on robotics -- or more properly, man-made creations or machines which duplicate the purposes and activities of man.

In the hands of Henry Kuttner, however, no robot, let alone android, could ever remain merely an extraordinary concatenation of nuts, bolts and wires.

Therefore, there is a tremendous diversity between these amusing, terrifying and all-too-human tales.

And since no collection of Henry Kuttner's work would seem complete without the Hogbens, that marvelous family which has blasted its way into the affections of all aficionados, we have included one gem from that group.

All in all, a collection of intoxicating delight.

Contents:

• 5 - See You Later - [Hogben - 4] - (1949) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 24 - This Is the House - (1946) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 47 - The Proud Robot - [Gallegher (Henry Kuttner)] - (1943) - novelette by Henry Kuttner
• 82 - Gallegher Plus - [Gallegher (Henry Kuttner)] - (1943) - novelette by Henry Kuttner
• 121 - The Ego Machine - (1952) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 167 - Android - (1951) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 200 - The Sky Is Falling - (1950) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• 226 - Juke-Box - (1947) - short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]

Galloway Gallegher is his name. He's the greatest inventor since Leonardo Da Vinci and Tom Swift. With toothpicks and twine, a few empty beer cans and some stray isotopes he can make--well, anything imaginable. (And what an imagination he has!) He's the most delightful "scientist" in science fiction.

In Science fiction literature there's one element which is all too rare: humor. Not often does a writer succeed in combining the seriousness of science with the more light-hearted side of life. Lewis Padgett, creater of that delightfully whacky genius Gallegher, is one writer who succeeds. And what a rib-tickling success it is!

But it isn't that Gallegher is merely a screwball. Not at all. As a scientist, he's tops. It's just that Gallegher suffers (if you can call it that) from an insatiable mania--the very thing which releases his subconscious mind and turns him into such a remarkably creative genius. The only trouble is he's spending half his time fighting his way out of a hangover, trying to figure out just what he did invent. The results will astonish and amuse you--just as they do Gallegher himself.

And then, besides our hero, there's his friend Joe. Joe, with his unmorbid Narcissus complex, is more than human--a particularly fascinating fact inasmuch as Joe, after all, is just a robot. But what a robot!

This is a book packed with adventures, gadgets, and fun--which you're certain to enjoy.

Contents:

• The Proud Robot
• Gallegher Plus
• The World Is Mine
• Ex Machina
• Time Locker

Like a great, lethal snake, plague creeps through the galaxies. No conscious entity can halt its progress, and life is slowly draining from planet after planet. Only one super-intelligence is capable of preventing cataclysm. To do it, he must penetrate far beyond infinity-to the formless, deathless creature out to kill the universe. Cosmic terror strikes as a messenger of death sweeps through the universe.

Henry Kuttner's Sword and Sorcery classic returns to print at last! World War II veteran Edward Bond's recuperation from a disastrous fighter plane crash takes a distinct turn for the weird when he encounters a giant wolf, a red witch, and the undeniable power of the need-fire, a portal to a world of magic and swordplay at once terribly new and hauntingly familiar. In the Dark World, Bond opposes the machinations of the dread lord Ganelon and his terrible retinue of werewolves, wizards, and witches, but all is not as it seems in this shadowy mirror of the real world, and Bond discovers that a part of him feels more at home here than he ever has on Earth.

A five-minute tale of a strange entity on a distant world.

This short story appears in the collection, The Book of Iod: The Eater of Souls & Other Tales (1995), by Henry Kutner

Originally appeared in Weird Tales, January 1937 available free on Internet Archives.

From on high of Mount Olympus comes an adventure in mythology, penned by a Hugo-nominated master of the genre.

Jay Seward remembered a former life in a land of magic, gods, and goddesses--a time when he was Jason of Iolcus, sailing in the enchanted ship Argo to steal the Golden Fleece from the serpent-temples of Apollo. But one night the memories became startlingly real, as the Argo itself sailed out of the spectral mists and a hauntingly beautiful voice called: "Jason... come to me!" And suddenly he was on the deck of the Argo, sailing into danger and magic.

A ghastly horror from the witchcraft days of three centuries ago reared its dreadful form in the Witch Room of that old house in Derby Street.

This short story appears in the collections:

• The Book of Iod: The Eater of Souls & Other Tales (1995), by Henry Kutner
• Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1969), edited by August Derleth

Originally appeared in Weird Tales, May 1937 available free on Internet Archives.

Called to the end of time by a being they knew only as The Face of Ea, four adventurers from the twentieth century faced a power that not even the super-science of that era could meet - the nekron, negative matter, negative force, ultimate destruction for everything it touched. It seemed hopeless to expect them to win this battle for the fate of the universe - but between them they had a power they themselves could not suspect.

Two-Handed Engine is the largest collection of science fiction and fantasy by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore ever published. It features a frontispiece by Richard Powers, and an introduction by the book's editor, David Curtis.

The stories, ranging from across their entire career, include: Shambleau, The Graveyard Rats, Mimsy Were the Borogoves, Vintage Season, Private Eye, and more.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Two-Handed Engine) - (2005) - essay by David Curtis
• Shambleau - (1933) - novelette by C. L. Moore
• The Graveyard Rats - (1936) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• A Gnome There Was - (1941) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• The Twonky - (1942) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Compliments of the Author - (1942) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Mimsy Were the Borogoves - (1943) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Shock - (1943) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Reader, I Hate You! - (1943) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• The World Is Mine - (1943) - novelette by Henry Kuttner [as by Lewis Padgett]
• When the Bough Breaks - (1944) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• The Cure - (1946) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• The Code - (1945) - novelette by C. L. Moore [as by Lawrence O'Donnell]
• Line to Tomorrow - (1945) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Clash by Night - (1943) - novella by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lawrence O'Donnell]
• Ghost - (1943) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• The Proud Robot - (1943) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Nothing But Gingerbread Left - (1943) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• No Woman Born - (1944) - novelette by C. L. Moore
• Housing Problem - (1944) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• What You Need - (1945) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• Absalom - (1946) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• Call Him Demon - (1946) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Keith Hammond]
• Daemon - (1946) - shortstory by C. L. Moore
• Vintage Season - (1946) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lawrence O'Donnell]
• Dark Angel - (1946) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (variant of The Dark Angel) [as by Henry Kuttner]
• Before I Wake - (1945) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner (variant of Before I Wake...)
• Exit the Professor - [Hogben - 2] - (1947) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• The Big Night - (1947) - novelette by Henry Kuttner [as by Hudson Hastings]
• A Wild Surmise - (1953) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
• Don't Look Now - (1948) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• Private Eye - (1949) - novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
• By These Presents - (1953) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• Home Is the Hunter - (1953) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
• Or Else - (1953) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner]
• Year Day - (1953) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• A Cross of Centuries - (1958) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• Two-Handed Engine - (1955) - novelette by C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

Somewhere there was a radioactive fire that could perform miracles of super-science. Somewhere there was a place where cat-people prowled, where time was altered, and incredible mysteries held their secrets of power and fortune for the daring discoverer. Deep in an unexplored jungle, Brian Raft sought the secret of the legendary Valley of the Flame...

The life of an anthropologist is no doubt filled much of the time with the monotonous routine of carefully assembling powdery relics of ancient races and civilizations. But White's lone Peruvian odyssey was most unusual...

This story was originally published under the pen name of C. H. Liddell in Fantastic Universe, May 1954. Read this story for free at Project Gutenberg.

Contents:

• Mimsy Were the Borogoves
• Two-Handed Engine
• The Proud Robot
• The Misguided Halo
• The Voice of the Lobster
• Exit the Professor
• The Twonky
• A Gnome There Was
• The Big Night
• Nothing But Gingerbread Left
• The Iron Standard
• Cold War
• Or Else
• Endowment Policy
• Housing Problem
• What You Need
• Absalom

Contents:

• The Book of Iod - interior artwork by Earl Geier
• v - The Khut-N'hah Mythos - (1995) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 1 - The Secret of Kralitz - (1936) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 11 - The Eater of Souls - (1937) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 17 - The Salem Horror - [Michael Leigh] - (1937) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 37 - The Black Kiss - [Michael Leigh] - (1937) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner and Robert Bloch
• 59 - The Jest of Droom-Avista - (1937) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 65 - Spawn of Dagon - [Elak] - (1938) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 85 - The Invaders - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 105 - The Frog - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 125 - Hydra - [Azathoth] - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 143 - Bells of Horror - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner (variant of The Bells of Horror)
• 161 - The Hunt - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
• 179 - Beneath the Tombstone - (1984) - shortstory by Robert M. Price
• 189 - Dead of Night - [Anton Zarnak] - (1988) - shortstory by Lin Carter

Terrifying disturbances have been reported in the Uranium mines of Fortuna. The minors have come to believe that they are haunted, and the delays in production have attracted the attention of the Royal Atomic Energy Commission. Their agent arrives to discover one of the mine's owners, a young woman of unknown origin, living in terror of the other, an old man with mad dreams of immortality. They follow a mysterious and ruthless would-be goddess into another world, where masked beings of pure energy have enslaved the population for thousands of years, drawing their titanic power from the unfathomable Well of the Worlds.

A Variant Title for The Fairy Chessmen:

A mathematician whose research involves a type of chess played with variable rules ("fairy chess") is the only one able to solve an "equation from the future" in which the constants are treated as variables that the "bad guys" are going to use to win World War III.

The Earth is long dead, blasted apart, and the human survivors who settled on Venus live in huge citadels beneath the Venusian seas in an atrophying, class-ridden society ruled by the Immortals - genetic mutations who live a thousand years or more. Sam Reed was born an immortal, born to rule those with a normal life-span, but his deranged father had him mutilated as a baby so that he wouldn't know of his heritage. And Sam grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and the law, thinking of the Immortals as his enemies. Then he reached the age of eighty, understood what had happened to him and went looking for revenge - and changed his decaying world forever.