Henry Kuttner is still considered one of the great pioneers of the "Golden Age" SF. Like dozens of others he started with short stories in the American pulp magazines. Some of the longer works became novels. Born in 1914 he was more a contemporary of Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein then the new kids like Asimov and Pohl. His works covered the 1940s to the late 1950s when he died. Much of what he wrote was a collaboration with his wife C. L. Moore. Together they wrote dozens of short stories and some novels under the name of Lewis Padgett. He had stories in over 20 different Science Fiction magazine titles.

This short novel from the 1940s surprised me It is more fantasy then SF which is generally a non-starter for me. The exceptions are works by, the great, Leigh Brackett and now Henry Kuttner. This story moved fast and as I was reading I kept thinking this is almost as good as a Brackett novel. I will eventually read of of his works. ( )

The Dark World is an excellent example of the sort of rationalized fantasy that was the mainstay of John Campbell's Unknown magazine. (Unknown folded in 1943, and Kuttner's novella first appeared in Startling Stories in 1946.) The titular world is a parallel to Earth, and the occasional interactions between the two are the source of most of Earth's mythology and legends of the supernatural.

Ever since a wartime incident, Edward Bond has felt restless, out-of-place and vaguely uneasy. As it turns out, this is the result of his consciousness having been swtiched with his counterpart in the Dark World--Ganelon, a powerful member of the coven that controls, by way of sorcery derived from mutation, that parallel reality. In a sense, Bond has become Ganelon, but still has Bond's memories; thus his sense of the "wrongness" of his life on our Earth. With the self-interested and power-hungry Ganelon exiled to Earth, the morally upright Edward Bond was sent into Ganelon's body in the Dark World, where he switches sides in the power struggle there, becoming a leader of a rebellion to overthrow the power of the coven and create a free society.

Along with the variety of rationalizations for what we would consider magical or supernatural beliefs and creatures that are derived from the Dark World (gods of various pantheons, sorcery, werewolves, etc.), the other main source of interest in this story is following the first person point of view of Ganelon/Bond. This first-person/people point-of-view is somewhat unique, since the two-in-one characters have different ethical systems and memories, but, having been switched and combined, his/their potential motivations and actions in the Dark World become unpredictable. Will Ganelon prevail and succeed in becoming the ruler of the Dark World, or will Edward Bond return to lead the resistance to victory? Or will the two characters somehow remain merged and produce an unpredictable combination?

This inner battle plays out in the context of a nicely plotted science-fantasy adventure of the sort that Kuttner was a superior practitioner of in his time. All this holds up quite well (and should be especially interesting to anyone interested in the history of SF/fantasy), though it won't seem as original to modern readers as it must have to those who picked up the Summer 1946 issue of Startling Stories. Michael Moorcock and John Cawthorn included The Dark World (along with The Valley of the Flame, also from 1946) in their Fantasy: The 100 Best Books. ( )

I also have this novel as part of a collection (The Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner), but this is a very beautiful copy, and there's that introduction by Piers Anthony.

It still reads well, after all this time.

(As a whim, I briefly checked out Piers Anthony, an author of works that don't appeal to me--hence my not knowing much about him. What a great and worthwhile human being he is! Applause to you, sir, wherever you are!) ( )

First published in 1946 this short science fiction novel is still surprisingly fresh. Even though the theme is now a common trope - parallel worlds and a man from our Earth transported to the different planet. One of the things I like about this book is Kuttner's use of mythology - Nordic and Celtic and some of the folklorish monsters. A good quick read. ( )

This was intriguing, and I can see that for its day (60 years ago) it was fairly unique. This is a short parallel world story, with the twist that while the worlds are parallel and distinct, one man has a duplicate in both worlds. That theme has been done time and again since then, but this is a good short version. ( )