Henry Kuttner - The Book of Iod (Chaosium)

[andydecker]

Henry Kuttner – The Book of Iod (Chaosium, 1995, edited by Robert M. Price, 204 p.)

Henry Kuttner (1914-1958) was a friend of young Robert Bloch and a promising writer in his own right. They shared the same markets, including Weird Tales and Strange Stories. They even collaborated on a few stories, and both shared a friendship with the Great Old One, er, Grand Old Man, H.P.Lovecraft. Kuttner soon became one of the Lovecraft Circle, submitting plot ideas and draft manuscripts to Lovecraft.

Eventually Henry Kuttner matured into a fine writer of fantasy and science fiction, for which he is best known. He had, however, an important impact on the development of both the Cthulhu Mythos and on the development of other writers who would eventually become better known.. Ray Bradbury refers to Kuttner as "A Neglected Master" in his memoir of his friend and mentor in The Best of Henry Kuttner.



Content:
The Khut-N'hah Mythos (1995) - Robert M. Price
The Secret of Kralitz (1936)
The Eater of Souls (1937)
The Salem Horror (1937)
The Black Kiss (1937) - Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner
The Jest of Droom-Avista (1937)
Spawn of Dagon (1938)
The Invaders (1939)
The Frog (1939)
Hydra (1939)
Bells of Horror (1939)
The Hunt (1939)
Beneath the Tombstone (1984) - Robert M. Price
Dead of Night (1988) - Lin Carter

The introduction by Price is the usual, a bit about Kuttner – but nothing about his life, which is disappointing - and a bit about Price's pet theme, names in the Mythos and their linguistic origin. He theorizes that Kuttner was inspired by Theosophy or borrowed directly from Blavatsky's writing.

The introduction to the individual tales is the best about the collection. Anecdotes, connections, bibliographical information on Kuttner's work. Sometimes they are revealing. When Price writes for instance that Lin Carter "always maintained that Kuttner beat Howard at his own game in these tales" – the thoroughly mundane Elak stories -, this says more about Carter then about Kuttner.

The stories are a mixed bag. The impression is that Kuttner was a writer first and an Lovecraft fan second. (Which is perfectly okay and was smart of him, Pulp writers had to be flexible, a thing which HPL surely wasn't) Some stories are better than others, but a lot are nothing special and by the numbers. And often you get the impression that he parodied the genre quite deliberately. "Vorvadoss of Bel-Yarnak! The Troubler of the Sands!" Maybe this was 1939 an in-joke, but come on, The Troubler of the Sands? What is next? The Separator of the Waste? The Deliverer of Am'a'zon?

Rounded is the collection by the inevitably stories of Price and Lin Carter. Carter just name-drops Kuttner's The Book of Iod in one paragraph, which seem to be enough to qualify, this is one of the tiresome Anton Zarnak tales. And the Price story is a pastiche of a Derleth story of a Lovecraft story. "I cannot say precisely why my eccentric Uncle Absalom had chosen me to inherit what remained of his wordly estate", it begins.  Highly original! Frankly another original Kuttner story from 1939 would have been better.

Basically this is an okay collection of mostly mediocre Weird Tales reprints. For a die-hard Kuttner fan surely of interest. For all others a bit meh.

[dem bones]

The Crypt of Cthulhu Kuttner issue.

Robert M. Price (ed) - Crypt Of Cthulhu # 42 (Cryptic Publications, Lammas 1986)

Robert H. Knox

Editorial Shards

The Secret Of Kralitz
The Salem Horror
The Eater Of Souls
The Jest Of Droom-avista
The Invader
The Bells Of Horror
Hydra
The Hunt

Kuttner Horror Stories in Anthologies

[andydecker]

Thnaks.

So this is a fine work of recycling.