Classic SF from '47. It isn't bad and it has a solid plot thread and a very streamlined theme, from breaking off the yoke of immortals only to realize you are one, to founding a rebellion allowing all the people to earn their own immortality and a place in the sun. (On Venus, nonetheless.)

I don't have any outright complaints about this tale. No embarrassing idiocies and I can tolerate a climate-controlled venus just fine when it's in service to a decent tale.

However, all in all, it's just too simple for my taste. It's pretty much golden age pulp fiction designed for people hankering for adventure. Throw in a smattering of telepathy, the prejudice that might come from immortals, and a somewhat exotic location, and it's a pretty classic SF theme. Simple.

Get the rebellion on. Forward the Fury!

Like I said, no complaints, but no great accolades, either. ( )

Starting in 1936 Kuttner was one of the more prolific SF writers of the early 20th century. He married author C. L. Moore and afterwards most of his published works were to some extent joint efforts – it is said that each could pick up and smoothly continue any story started by the other. They became part of John W Campbell Jr's stable of writers, working for Astounding Science-Fiction. They frequently used the pseudonyms of Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnel. Each had successful solo careers but most of the work under his name was 50% by Moore. After his death she went on to write for television. For me, his and their best works are the wonderful short stories.

Fury is considered one of his/their more memorable novels. It is epic in nature and follows the major character's struggle over decades. It reminded me a little of "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester but it is not as good. ( )

Those gold coloured covers of the Gollancz SF series proved irresistible to me as I haunted the local libraries when I was in my teens; their simple design made them leap out from the shelves. This edition was published in 2000 exactly 50 years after its first publication and the simple design looks even more pared down to how I remember them.

I don’t remember having read Fury before, but if I had read it way back then, I know I would have enjoyed it. The story line is a good one; no hard science fiction to confuse an already failed physics student, but plenty of good characterisation and imagination to delight an avid reader of science fiction. The story is set in a future where the human race has destroyed earth through atomic warfare and the survivors have fled to Venus and built impervious domes on the floor of the Venusian ocean. Selective breeding has produced a race of immortals who control the day to day lives of the vast majority of people who have a short term existence. Life in the domes (keeps) is peaceful but people are by nature inward looking and there is widespread use of narcotics. There has been a previous attempt to establish a colony on the Venusian land mass but an extremely hostile environment and hostilities amongst the colonists has driven the pioneers back to the keeps where they seem to be content to dream away their lives. Sam Reed bursts onto the scene a genetically altered immortal, unaware of his parentage or immortality looking to break through the somnambulistic existence and wrest the power away from the immortals.

One of the key themes throughout the book is living with and living without immortality; actually the people here who are called immortals live for about 1000 years, but during that time they can attain a certain amount of wisdom that puts them at a distinct advantage over the shorter term lifespan people. They become the social and political leaders living in enclaves separated largely from the rest of the population. Time is always on their side in as much as they can more easily endure difficult periods knowing that they will have plenty of life span to enjoy the good times when they come round again, however they cannot see a certain moribundity to their thinking and slowly the human race is loosing its energy, its vitality. Sam Reed changes all that, having to endure a difficult upbringing where he has to rely on becoming streetwise to survive. He is a man unafraid of taking risks, unscrupulous to a fault, he sees the colonisation of the land mass as his way forward and the main thrust of the book is his battle with the immortals to lead a revolution from the keeps. There is plenty of adventure and skullduggery to keep the pages turning, along with the contrast between the drug infused life style of the immortals and the adventures of the new pioneers.

Henry Kuttner collaborated with his wife L. C. Moore on many of his novels and perhaps this is why they tend to be more literate, and have better developed characters than many of the books in the genre at the time: certainly the female characters have more of a part to play. A good read for science fiction lovers even today and so 3.5 stars. ( )

I base the publication date on this entry from the ISFDB:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?14856

Remarkable man, and this is a good example of his work. I was always (and will always) be sad that Catherine Moore sublimated her own talent to support his efforts. She was so very productive before. Her introduction in this book is clearly written after his death (in 1958).

They collaborated on everything he wrote (to my knowledge). From her introduction:

"...mankind, having settled down into a luxurious Eden of the future, with no challenges left, would slowly strangle in its own inertia if, out of somewhere, a deliverer did not come with a flaming sword to drive them back to life."

So it goes. ( )

[later re-issued under the title DESTINATION INFINITY]