Henry Kuttner

Still have some tax refund money burning a hole in your pocket? If you order the new MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALE: HENRY KUTTNER edition from Centipede Press by 5/13/11, you can get it for $125 instead of $295.

http://www.centipedepress.com/masters/kuttnermwt.html

Even at below half-price they are a bit expensive. They look really nice though and Kuttner is a fantastic author, though I prefer his wife's work.

BTW, the book still seems to be on sale but for $175 now.

I missed out on the Centipede Kuttner sale myself. I know they have some other volumes on their to-be-published list that I need to save for. Kuttner is still sadly lacking in my library. There is a much more affordable hardcover that I've had my eye on: Terror in the House: the Early Kuttner from Haffner Press.

Can anyone recommend it? Here is a link to the Amazon description:

http://tinyurl.com/4xpvayv

wonderful collection of early stuff - highly recommended

and/or with Two-Handed Engine you get Moore as well - and lovely book from Centipede or the cheaper reprints

Ok - my favorite comic book shop has the Haffner Press edition, still in shrink wrap. I'll be picking it up today or tomorrow. Nice to finally add an official Kuttner volume to my collection!

UPDATE - I bought the Haffner volume. Nice little R. Matheson preface, although the intro by Dr. Roberts might have made a better afterword, since it goes into detail on the stories.

I especially like the table of contents, which utilizes the old pulp blurbs, such as the one for "Bamboo Death" which reads "Deep in the tangled everglades, a fiendish torture plot is put into execution by a greed-maddened, black-masked monster.

Who could resist?! Can't wait for Vol. 2...

I have read way too many introductions that have blatantly given away key parts of the story before. I suppose the author of the intro assumes people have already read the stories before they purchase the book. This is a practice that needs to be put to an end.

>8 Thulean:

One of the reasons I never read an introduction before I finish the book...

I've taken to refering to introductions of that sort as "extroductions".

Since I'm reading a gazillion different things at once these days, I'm taking my time going through this first volume of early Kuttner. I have noticed a couple of intriguing things so far, after sampling a half dozen or so stories:

"The Graveyard Rats"really is a nasty, claustrophobic little masterpiece of horror that seems to stand well apart from the other tales in this volume.

Most of the other stories (so far) are what you might call "weird menace" tales, in which a non-supernatural villain turns out to be responsible for the sinister activities.

There is a LOT of sexual perversion here, ranging from not-so-covert S&M scenarios to some pretty extreme body mutilation that puts most of today's popular "torture porn" fiction to shame.

Interesting early-twentieth-century pulp tales to say the least!

Bought the Centipede Kuttner volume. It's only about half the thickness of others in the MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALE series, but still well worth getting. Filled with full color artwork too. Get it while you can. As of yesterday, Centipede says there are only 10 copies left.