Henry Kuttner has come back into the public eye with The Last Mimsey (2007), a science fiction film about children who receive educational toys from the future. The film is based on Kuttner’s undeniably classic short story, “Mimsey Were the Borogoves” (Astounding, February 1943). It is one of the stories that guarantees him a spot on SF’s Greatest Writers list. There were others, but Kuttner did not find his way onto the grandmaster roll easily. First, he had to change his reputation, a reputation sullied in part by the Cthulhu Mythos.
We don’t often think of snobbery as being part of science fiction fandom. When you dress up like spacemen and invade a hotel for a weekend, you need all the accomplices you can get. Still, amongst certain science fiction fans, sword&sorcery and Lovecraftian horror are the poor cousins you hide when company comes. I think this is part of SF’s terrible need to be legitimized in the eyes of mainstream literary circles. And this snobbery hurt Henry Kuttner.
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