Today, April 7, marks Henry Kuttner’s birthday (1915-1958). Kuttner is one of the most revered authors in these here parts. I’ve been in a Weird Tales kind of mood lately, probably because it the Weird Tales centennial. I’m going to try to get some posts up about that soon.

But I digress.

For today’s post, I’m going to look at one of Kuttner’s early stories for Weird Tales, “The Jest of Droom-Avista”. Kuttner was still learning  the ropes on this one, so it’s a little rough around the edges. It was first published in the August 1937 issue.

The basic plot goes like this:In the city of Bel-Yarnak, atop the Black Minaret, the sorcerer priest Thorazor seeks to find a way to turn common metals into the rarest metal of all. To that end, he summons the god Droom-Avista.

It goes about how you would think a deal with the devil would go.

This story isn’t anywhere near Kuttner’s best work, but the best work would be a few years off, after he met and married C. L. Moore. The story is told in the style of Clark Ashton Smith, meaning lots of lush, slightly purple prose. For the most part, Kuttner pulls this off, and the and the story doesn’t gt bogged down in its own wordiness but reads easily. The twist at the end is clever.

I read it in the ebook edition of The Book of Iod. This is an affordable collection of Kuttner’s early stories, mainly Lovecraftian pastiche. I read the original edition in paper years ago. I’ll be dipping into it again soon, I suspect.