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Trouble on Titan and two more stories
The sub-human denizens of Saturn’s largest moon were said to be harmless—but when the ace director of Nine Planets Films was sent to photograph them, he was in for a shock!
116 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 15, 2022
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About the author
Henry Kuttner
741 books208 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
Will Garth
James Hall
Keith Hammond
Hudson Hastings
Peter Horn
Kelvin Kent
Robert O. Kenyon
C. H. Liddell
Hugh Maepenn
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
Will Garth
James Hall
Keith Hammond
Hudson Hastings
Peter Horn
Kelvin Kent
Robert O. Kenyon
C. H. Liddell
Hugh Maepenn
Scott Morgan
Lawrence O'Donnell
Lewis Padgett
Woodrow Wilson Smith
Charles Stoddard
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 16, 2022
Good, wild stuff. Lots of pulpy verve, an inventive plot revolving around a radioactively induced virus, and some interesting aliens that seem like anthropomorphized seals.
October 12, 2022
I thought this was pretty great. Unexpectedly thoughtful, even though it had a few very pulpy ideas innit.
The solar system appears to be filled with a variety of alien species. Some of those we hear about are the Zonals, living on Titan and referred to as sub-human. Another director, Udell, has managed to produce a smash hit tv story with the Zonals as the stars, but unfortunately the director is killed in an accident before the filming is completed. Enter Quaid, whom the fine folks at Nine Planets Films enlist to complete the project.
The story moves along very quickly and is full of fascinatingly alien descriptions. Overall, I loved this. It's a simple plot with a pretty transparent twist, but a lot of care has gone into making this a very alien adventure. The dialogue certainly shows the age of the story, originally published in 1947 but I didn't pick up on any jarringly superseded scientific ideas. In fact, some of the descriptions included very nicely disguised scientific reasoning.
The following are a bunch of quoted descriptions of the alien species that appear in this story:
"They used to be highly civilized at one time, historians think, but something wrecked their brains."
"The Zonals spend a lot of time underwater,"
"Its body was thoroughly anthropoid in outline, and curiously graceful in its sleekly furred, streamlined contours. The Zonal was a little more than five feet tall. Its hands and feet were huge and webbed."
"The Zonal squirted jets of liquid from its eyes."
"The creature was shooting through the air like a streamlined spaceship, thirty feet high and going fast."
"Those sacs on their back look soft, but they’re plenty tough. They’re filled with gas, continually renewed and manufactured by letting in air and water to mix with the chemicals of their bloodstream."
*************
I only read the story 'Trouble On Titan' and haven't read the 'and Two More Stories' yet. The main story is available for free on the Gutenberg Project website.
The solar system appears to be filled with a variety of alien species. Some of those we hear about are the Zonals, living on Titan and referred to as sub-human. Another director, Udell, has managed to produce a smash hit tv story with the Zonals as the stars, but unfortunately the director is killed in an accident before the filming is completed. Enter Quaid, whom the fine folks at Nine Planets Films enlist to complete the project.
The story moves along very quickly and is full of fascinatingly alien descriptions. Overall, I loved this. It's a simple plot with a pretty transparent twist, but a lot of care has gone into making this a very alien adventure. The dialogue certainly shows the age of the story, originally published in 1947 but I didn't pick up on any jarringly superseded scientific ideas. In fact, some of the descriptions included very nicely disguised scientific reasoning.
The following are a bunch of quoted descriptions of the alien species that appear in this story:
"They used to be highly civilized at one time, historians think, but something wrecked their brains."
"The Zonals spend a lot of time underwater,"
"Its body was thoroughly anthropoid in outline, and curiously graceful in its sleekly furred, streamlined contours. The Zonal was a little more than five feet tall. Its hands and feet were huge and webbed."
"The Zonal squirted jets of liquid from its eyes."
"The creature was shooting through the air like a streamlined spaceship, thirty feet high and going fast."
"Those sacs on their back look soft, but they’re plenty tough. They’re filled with gas, continually renewed and manufactured by letting in air and water to mix with the chemicals of their bloodstream."
*************
I only read the story 'Trouble On Titan' and haven't read the 'and Two More Stories' yet. The main story is available for free on the Gutenberg Project website.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews