The Dark World

The Dark World is a science fantasy novel by Henry Kuttner, noted for its influence on The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny.

An amnesiac man is transported to another world -- a new world, where he has a new name, and a new destiny!

An outstanding science fantasy, this stands with Vintage Season as some of his very best work.

Edward Bond, a pilot recovering from wounds received in the war, is drawn by the needfire to a parallel Earth, where the Sun is a swollen red giant, sorcery is real and strange mutations have made a reality of ancient legends.

But is he truly Bond, or is he Ganelon, a cruel, arrogant warlock who with the rest of his Coven rules this "time-variant" of our world?

The story takes a distinct turn for the weird when he encounters a giant wolf, a red witch, and the undeniable power of the need-fire, a portal to a world of magic and swordplay at once terribly new and hauntingly familiar.

In the Dark World, Bond opposes the machinations of the dread lord Ganelon and his terrible retinue of werewolves, wizards, and witches, but all is not as it seems in this shadowy mirror of the real world, and Bond discovers that a part of him feels more at home here than he ever has on Earth.

Roger Zelazny said that the Kuttner story that had the greatest impression on him when younger was The Dark World and remarked that much of its appeal comes from its "colorful, semi-mythic characters and strong action." He cited Kuttner (and C. L. Moore) as major influences on his work.

The novel was first published in the July 1946 issue of Startling Stories, then reprinted in the Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine. Its first book edition was issued by Ace in 1965. The novel was also collected in a 1997 paperback omnibus, The Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror, an author who was one of the half dozen or so pillars of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi.

Marion Zimmer Bradley is among many authors who have cited Kuttner as an influence. Her novel The Bloody Sun is dedicated to him. Roger Zelazny has talked about the influence of The Dark World on his Amber series.