Генри Каттнер цитаты

Каттнер, Мур, «Когда ломается ветвь», 1944
перевод: И. Горачин

«Робот-зазнайка», 1943
перевод: Н. Евдокимова

«Механическое эго», 1951
перевод: И. Г. Гурова

«Маскировка», 1945
перевод: Н. Евдокимова

Каттнер, Мур, «Лучшее время года», 1946
перевод: В. Скороденко

«День не в счёт»

Едва подрастешь, как тебе начинают забивать голову. Фильмы, телевизор, журналы, кинокниги — все средства воздействия идут в ход. Цель одна — тебя заставляют покупать. Всеми правдами и неправдами. Прививают искусственные потребности и страхи до тех пор, пока ты уже не можешь отличить настоящего от поддельного. Ничего подлинного,..
«День не в счёт»

«День не в счёт», 1953
перевод: Н. Евдокимова

Ardath in The Creature from Beyond Infinity (1940)
Short fiction
Контексте: We are all part of some cosmic pattern, and this pattern works toward good and not evil. It builds and does not destroy. So I shall go on in my search for a race where I can find kinship and happiness.

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 1 : Encounter In Rio (opening words)
Контексте: The whole thing never happened and I can prove it — now. But Ira De Kalb made me wait a billion years to write the story.
So we start with a paradox. But the strangest thing of all is that there are no real paradoxes involved, not one. This is a record of logic. Not human logic, of course, not the logic of this time or this space.

On the character "Thunder Jim Wade" in "The Poison People" in Thrilling Adventures (July 1941) using the pseudonym "Charles Stoddard."
Short fiction
Контексте: A casual eye might have seen nothing extraordinary in Wade as he moved lithely across the meadow toward the Thunderbug. He was tall, lean and rangy, looking rather like a college boy on a vacation, with his brown, almost youthful face and tousled dark hair, so deep-black that it was almost blue.
A closer inspection would have shown more significant details. There was an iron hardness underlying Wade’s face, like iron beneath velvet. His jet eyes were decidedly not those of a boy. There was a curious quality of soft depth to them, although sometimes that black deep could freeze over with deadly purpose.

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 1 : Encounter In Rio
Контексте: I never understood the ultimate answer. That was beyond me. It took the combined skills of three great civilizations far apart in time to frame that godlike concept in which the tangible universe itself was only a single factor.
And even then it was not enough. It took the Face of Ea — which I shall never be able to describe fully.
I saw it, though. I saw it...

Источник: The Dark World (1954), Ch. 1 : Fire in the Night
Контексте: "I believe in things I never used to. I think someone is trying to find me — has found me. And is calling. Who it is I don't know. What they want I don't know. But a little while ago I found out one more thing — this sword."
I picked the sword up from the table.
"It isn't what I want," I went on, "But sometimes, when my mind is — abstract, something from outside floats into it. Like the need for a sword. And not any sword — just one. I don't know what the sword looks like, but I'd know if I held it in my hand." I laughed a little. "And if I drew it a few inches from the sheath, I could put out that fire up there as if I'd blown on it like a candleflame. And if I drew the sword all the way out — the world would come to an end!"

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 3 : The Vision Of Time
Контексте: I closed my eyes again, thinking of the Face. I had to force my mind to turn around in its tracks and look, for it didn't want to confront that infinite complexity again. The Face was painful to see. It was too intricate, too involved with emotions complex beyond our grasp. It was painful for the mind to think of it, straining to understand the inscrutable things that experience had etched upon those mountain-high features.
"Is it a portrait?" I asked suddenly. "Or a composite? What is the Face?"
"A city," De Kalb said. "A nation. The ultimate in human destiny — and a call for help. And much more that we'll never understand."

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 25 : Return Voyage
Контексте: This isn't my world, now. Not any more. Not the world I left. This is a world in which no nekronic flash leaped from a box that Ira De Kalb opened and dropped to his hearthstone to infect the world, De Kalb and me. All that did happen once, in another world that hasn't existed since the four of us, a doubled weapon wielded by the Face of Ea, wrought the cleaving apart of two universes.
Imponderable forces shifted when that cleavage took place. You and I know nothing about it, for it happened far beyond the perceptions of any sentient creature. But it happened. Oh yes, it happened.

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 1 : Encounter In Rio
Контексте: I never understood the ultimate answer. That was beyond me. It took the combined skills of three great civilizations far apart in time to frame that godlike concept in which the tangible universe itself was only a single factor.
And even then it was not enough. It took the Face of Ea — which I shall never be able to describe fully.
I saw it, though. I saw it...

Zend explaining the Spawn of Dagon to Elak
Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)
Контексте: "They dare'd not invade the palace while the globe shone, for the light-rays would have killed them. … This island-continent would have gone down beneath the sea long ago if I hadn't pitted my magic and my science against that of the children of Dagon. They are masters of the earthquake, and Atlantis rests on none too solid a foundation. Their power is sufficient to sink Atlantis forever beneath the sea. But within that room" — Zend nodded toward the curtain that hid the sea-bred horrors — "in that room there is power far stronger than theirs. I have drawn strength from the stars, and the cosmic sources beyond the universe. You know nothing of my power. It is enough — more than enough — to keep Atlantis steady on its foundation, impregnable against the attacks of Dagon's breed. They have destroyed other lands before Atlantis."

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 3 : The Vision Of Time
Контексте: I closed my eyes again, thinking of the Face. I had to force my mind to turn around in its tracks and look, for it didn't want to confront that infinite complexity again. The Face was painful to see. It was too intricate, too involved with emotions complex beyond our grasp. It was painful for the mind to think of it, straining to understand the inscrutable things that experience had etched upon those mountain-high features.
"Is it a portrait?" I asked suddenly. "Or a composite? What is the Face?"
"A city," De Kalb said. "A nation. The ultimate in human destiny — and a call for help. And much more that we'll never understand."

On the character "Thunder Jim Wade" in "The Poison People" in Thrilling Adventures (July 1941) using the pseudonym "Charles Stoddard."
Short fiction
Контексте: A casual eye might have seen nothing extraordinary in Wade as he moved lithely across the meadow toward the Thunderbug. He was tall, lean and rangy, looking rather like a college boy on a vacation, with his brown, almost youthful face and tousled dark hair, so deep-black that it was almost blue.
A closer inspection would have shown more significant details. There was an iron hardness underlying Wade’s face, like iron beneath velvet. His jet eyes were decidedly not those of a boy. There was a curious quality of soft depth to them, although sometimes that black deep could freeze over with deadly purpose.

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 25 : Return Voyage
Контексте: I'm going forward. I know — because I went. It was a wonderful world they had. I want to see more of it. I want to wake up in a time when the race of man is spreading through the galaxy, leaping across the gulfs between the stars, opening the gates to all the worlds. I want to and I will.

Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)
Контексте: "They dare'd not invade the palace while the globe shone, for the light-rays would have killed them. … This island-continent would have gone down beneath the sea long ago if I hadn't pitted my magic and my science against that of the children of Dagon. They are masters of the earthquake, and Atlantis rests on none too solid a foundation. Their power is sufficient to sink Atlantis forever beneath the sea. But within that room" — Zend nodded toward the curtain that hid the sea-bred horrors — "in that room there is power far stronger than theirs. I have drawn strength from the stars, and the cosmic sources beyond the universe. You know nothing of my power. It is enough — more than enough — to keep Atlantis steady on its foundation, impregnable against the attacks of Dagon's breed. They have destroyed other lands before Atlantis."

Zend explaining the Spawn of Dagon to Elak

The Devil You Know (originally published in Unknown Fantasy Fiction, August 1941), p. 67
Short fiction, No Boundaries (1955)

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 2 : The Stain and the Stone

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 25 : Return Voyage

Zend explaining the Spawn of Dagon to Elak
Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)
Контексте: "They dare'd not invade the palace while the globe shone, for the light-rays would have killed them. … This island-continent would have gone down beneath the sea long ago if I hadn't pitted my magic and my science against that of the children of Dagon. They are masters of the earthquake, and Atlantis rests on none too solid a foundation. Their power is sufficient to sink Atlantis forever beneath the sea. But within that room" — Zend nodded toward the curtain that hid the sea-bred horrors — "in that room there is power far stronger than theirs. I have drawn strength from the stars, and the cosmic sources beyond the universe. You know nothing of my power. It is enough — more than enough — to keep Atlantis steady on its foundation, impregnable against the attacks of Dagon's breed. They have destroyed other lands before Atlantis."

The Valley Of The Flame (1946), published using the pseudonym "Keith Hammond."
Short fiction

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 1 : Encounter In Rio

Janissa, in The Valley Of The Flame (1946), published using the pseudonym "Keith Hammond."
Short fiction

Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)

Источник: The Dark World (1954), Ch. 9 : Realm of the Superconscious

Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 14 : Vega-Born

Short fiction, The Spawn Of Dagon (1938)

Stephen Court in The Creature from Beyond Infinity (1940)
Short fiction

Home There’s No Returning (p. 80)
Short fiction, No Boundaries (1955)

Two-Handed Engine (p. 135)
Short fiction, No Boundaries (1955)

Источник: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 1 : Encounter In Rio