"James E. Gunn - Mimsy Were The Kuttners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

MIMSY WERE THE KUTTNERS
by James Gunn
version 1.0
Scanned from The Road to Science Fiction vol. 3 by drOrlof


In 1940 two fantasy writers married and produced a family of science fiction
writers. The fantasy writers were Henry Kuttner and C. (for Catherine) L.
Moore. Up to that time Kuttner (1914 - 1958) had written mostly fantasy and
horror stories for Weird Tales and humorous science fiction for Thrilling
Wonder Stories and Startling Stories, and Moore (1911-1987) had written mostly
romantic fantasy for Weird Tales and an occasional science fiction story for
Astounding.
After their marriage almost everything they wrote was a collaboration in some
degree under seventeen different pseudonyms, of which the most important the
ones they used for the stories they published in the wartime Astounding - were
Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell. Beginning early in 1942, Astounding
began to publish these new kinds of Kuttner-Moore stones; over the next ten
years it would publish forty-seven of them, forty-one of them between 1942 and
1947, thirty-three under the name of Padgett, nine under the name of
O'Donnell, the remainder under Kuttner or Moore.
The metamorphosis of the Kuttner-Moore style was as dramatic as the later
rebirth of Robert Silverberg as a literary artist. Whether it was because of
the newly combined talents or a conscious decision to create a new kind of
story, Kuttner and Moore began to produce fiction of dramatic substance and
often with a surprising literary quality.
The stories that were mostly Kuttner's usually were published under the name
of Lewis Padgett; they included "The Twonky," "Piggy Bank," "Mimsy Were the
Borogoves," "When the Bough Breaks," "What You Need," "Line to Tomorrow,"
"Private Eye," two novellas, "The Fairy Chessmen" and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow,"
a series about a drunken inventor named Gallagher, and a series about mutant
telepaths called "Baldies." Under the O'Donnell name he wrote most of "Clash
by Night" and the novel Fury Later The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
published "Two-Handed Engine" under the Kuttner name.
The stories that were mostly Moore's were published under her own name or the
name of O'Donnell; they included "The Children's Hour," "No Woman Born," and
"Vintage Season." The last, published in the September 1946 Astounding, and
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" were the two finest stones produced by the
Kuttner-Moore collaboration, and both were selected for The Science Fiction
Hall of Fame volumes by the members of the Science Fiction Writers of America
(SFWA).
Science fiction has produced an unusual number of collaborations. Such joint
efforts work variously and variously well. At best, the authors work as fast
as or faster than they can work separately and produce work that neither can
produce alone. Some collaborators write separate sections and then rework each
other's sections; some have one writer do a first draft and the other the
final draft The most successful seem to work closely together throughout, with
one nicking up where the other leaves off. At least this was the method used
by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth, and by the Kuttners.
Moore described their method in an introduction to a paperback edition of