Henry Kuttner – Fury (1947) Review

7.5/10

Henry Kuttner’s SF novel Fury from the late 1940s feels like a proto-version of Alfred Bester’s much more famous The Stars My Destination (1956). It has the same wacky, off-world futuristic settings, and the same kind of tough, bald, ugly, abrasive and angry protagonist, who ultimately helps humanity to reach the stars through his life of anger and revenge. The plot also moves very fast and has and needs the omniscient third-person narrator to tell us in a pulse-quickening way how the main character is like a bad seed sprouting and barreling his way through society.

The story is set on underwater cities on the planet Venus. This was still the time when SF writers imagined Venus as a hellish jungle world. Fury refers to both the protagonist’s temperament and to the jungle up high. Mankind has burrowed itself down there and has become a stagnant, declining race, dwelling in hedonistic luxury cities called Keeps deep down in the oceans and afraid even to come to the surface. Main character Sam was born as one of the upper-class Immortals, mutant aristocrats who live up to 700 years. But Sam’s mother died in childbirth and his father, also a man of great angers, turned his hatred upon baby Sam and modified his body to that of a normal human and exiled him to the lower classes. 

Now, Sam has a brain designed for a 700 year lifespan and high intelligence, but a normal body, giving him an undefined rage since early childhood. A rage born from feelings of restriction, imprisonment and injustice, which Sam points like a weapon towards everyone around him and even towards humanity’s situation as a whole in its insular, underwater cities. Sam’s bald head is an unguided missile on a crash course with reality. For readers looking for a hero’s journey with a sympathetic, noble protagonist, look elsewhere. Sam is an ugly little monster filled with fury in a story of violence.  

Like Bester’s Gully Foyle, Sam isn’t consciously trying to do something good for humanity. He’s in it for the money, the swindle, the big score, and later for vengeance. Unlike Foyle, he is a shrewd businessman and gangster, arriving at lightning speed decisions. Sam has a similar Count of Monte Cristo moment of complete abandonment, ruination and rebirth and that is where the story really becomes interesting. Kuttner makes much of the long lived aristocrats and their subtle centuries-long plans, which Sam has to deal with. This could have been an inspiration for Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon (2002) too. Sam also has to contend with many types of mind-altering drugs and viruses that are used tactically in the games of the Immortals. 

Another interesting aspect of the story is that humanity apparently needs a swindler to revitalise itself. Kuttner keeps repeating that Sam may look rough but vital. That asshole energy is a moving energy to kick humanity’s collective butt, and it ties into a great ending. But I wonder why Kuttner wanted to make that a focus.

I found the writing a bit rushed. Especially in the first 50 pages, the story moved so fast that it skipped over any spatial orientation and scene setting, and characters met up and made deals so fast that I was confused who knew who in this story. At the same time, there is great energy in the storytelling. It is in constant movement. Unforeseen twists keep jumping the story forward over the course of years and decades. Strange hallucinogenic drugs and hyper-intelligent immortal people make Sam unsure what’s what, what events are part of hidden plans, and in how far he is in control of anything. Nevertheless, I found it hard to stay engaged with the story. It is basically a silo-escape story like Hugh Howey’s Wool (2012), but the conflicts felt a bit too simplified. By the way, Kuttner co-wrote this with his wife C.L. Moore; according to her, this was about 70% Henry.