short stories, including “Playing with Fire” (1993),
“Death of a Raven” (1997), and “The House of
Nine Doors” (1998).
Kuttner, Henry (1914–1958)
Although Henry Kuttner was best known for his
science fiction, he also wrote some horror and
weird fiction in the mode of H. P. LOVECRAFTas
well as sword and sorcery fiction. He was married
to Catherine L. Moore, who was also a writer who
contributed anonymously to much of the work
published under Kuttner’s various pseudonyms and
in some cases was the primary author. Kuttner’s
Lovecraftian fiction is mostly minor and had been
out of print for many years when it was collected as
The Book of IOD(1995). “The Eater of Souls” and
“Spawn of Dagon” (1938) are the best of these.
His sword and sorcery fiction fell chiefly into
two series, the Prince Raynor stories and the more
interesting tales of Elak, a barbarian hero similar to
the CONAN SERIESby Robert E. HOWARD. These
were collected as Elak of Atlantis (1985), and
Prince Raynor(1987) and the former in particular
are of much higher quality than most similar fic-
tion from the 1930s. During the 1940s Kuttner and
Moore wrote a number of short novels clearly in
imitation of the work of A. MERRITT, and as in his
case, they often blurred the lines between fantasy
and science fiction, employing technological de-
vices that were often indistinguishable from magic.
The magazines of that time were less interested in
fantasy, so in most of their work from this period
magic was rationalized as superscience or the prod-
uct of psi powers.
The most clearly fantastic of these early nov-
els is The Mask of Circe(1948, although not in
book form until 1977), in which a contemporary
man discovers that he is the reincarnation of Jason
and that he must relive the conflict with Circe and
the gods. Rather more interesting although also
quite similar is The Dark World(1946, but not in
book form until 1964), in which another protago-
nist from our world discovers that he has a differ-
ent identity in another reality. The good and bad
aspects of his personality begin to battle with one
another.
Several of Kuttner’s short stories are humor-
ous fantasy, including “The Misguided Halo”
(1939), “A GNOME THERE WAS” (1941), and “Com-
pliments of the Author” (1942). His most famous
horror story is “THE GRAVEYARD RATS” (1936).
Kuttner left a surprisingly large body of fiction be-
hind despite a relatively short career, certainly be-
cause a large part was by Moore, who ceased
writing fiction shortly after his death.200 Kuttner, Henry