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Clash by Night and Other Stories
Far beneath the seas of Venus the descendants of Earth now live in impervium domes. The citizens reside securely and comfortably within the safety of their Keeps, but through their midst stride men whose grim, sunburned faces make them seem like a different race – the Free Companions.
These are the surface dwellers – the mercenaries who fight out the wars of Venus's cities so that the rest of civilization can survive in peace.
The prequel to Henry Kuttner's classic novel Fury, this enthralling story follows one of their military campaigns. Not many of the Free Companions ever questioned their way of life – but Clash by Night tells of one who did...
In these five gems of imagination the talents of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore combine to produce a powerful and shocking blend of science fiction and horror.
Contents:
- Introduction by Peter Pinto
- Clash by Night (1943)
- When the Bough Breaks (1944)
- Juke-Box (1947)
- The Ego Machine (1952)
- Vintage Season (1946)
Cover illustration by Chris Moore
These are the surface dwellers – the mercenaries who fight out the wars of Venus's cities so that the rest of civilization can survive in peace.
The prequel to Henry Kuttner's classic novel Fury, this enthralling story follows one of their military campaigns. Not many of the Free Companions ever questioned their way of life – but Clash by Night tells of one who did...
In these five gems of imagination the talents of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore combine to produce a powerful and shocking blend of science fiction and horror.
Contents:
- Introduction by Peter Pinto
- Clash by Night (1943)
- When the Bough Breaks (1944)
- Juke-Box (1947)
- The Ego Machine (1952)
- Vintage Season (1946)
Cover illustration by Chris Moore
215 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
About the author
Henry Kuttner
798 books217 followersHenry Kuttner was, 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 1940s, 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 1940s 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, and 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. There 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 1950s, 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.
His pseudonyms include:
Edward J. Bellin
Paul Edmonds
Noel Gardner
James Hall
Keith Hammond
Hudson Hastings
Peter Horn
Kelvin Kent
Robert O. Kenyon
C. H. Liddell
Hugh Maepenn
Will Garth
Scott Morgan
Lawrence O'Donnell
Lewis Padgett
Woodrow Wilson Smith
Charles Stoddard
Their fantasy novels, all of them for the lower grade markets like Future, Thrilling Wonder, and 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. There 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 1950s, 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.
His pseudonyms include:
Edward J. Bellin
Paul Edmonds
Noel Gardner
James Hall
Keith Hammond
Hudson Hastings
Peter Horn
Kelvin Kent
Robert O. Kenyon
C. H. Liddell
Hugh Maepenn
Will Garth
Scott Morgan
Lawrence O'Donnell
Lewis Padgett
Woodrow Wilson Smith
Charles Stoddard
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 29, 2019
A book of its time. Full of fascinating ideas and very little characterisation. Worth a read but don't expect an epic full of warm and interesting people.
March 29, 2024
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
"From 1937 to 1958, the dynamic writing duo of Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) and his wife C. L. Moore (1911-1987) wrote countless stories together. As SF Encyclopedia puts it, “much of [Kuttner’s] later work is inextricably entwined” with that of Moore–often to the point of being unable to entangle [...]"
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
"From 1937 to 1958, the dynamic writing duo of Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) and his wife C. L. Moore (1911-1987) wrote countless stories together. As SF Encyclopedia puts it, “much of [Kuttner’s] later work is inextricably entwined” with that of Moore–often to the point of being unable to entangle [...]"
February 5, 2017
good retro sci fi.
a well told retro sc fi story, about a feudal underwater society on venus and the naval mercenary fleets that exist like condottiere fighting each other for profit.
a well told retro sc fi story, about a feudal underwater society on venus and the naval mercenary fleets that exist like condottiere fighting each other for profit.
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August 22, 2008Clash by Night and Other Stories (Hamlyn science fiction) by Henry Kuttner (1980)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews