Vintage Season
| Author | C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner (as "Lawrence O'Donnell") |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novella, Science fiction |
| Publisher | Astounding Science Fiction |
|
Publication date
|
September, 1946 |
| Media type | Print (Periodical, Anthologies) |
"Vintage Season" is a science fiction novella by American authors Catherine L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, published under the joint pseudonym "Lawrence O'Donnell" on September, 1946. It has been anthologized many times and was selected for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2A.
This story is often said to be Moore's or "almost entirely" hers, but scholars are not certain of how much Kuttner was involved and at least one gives him some credit.
The story is set in an unnamed American city at about the time of publication. There are several mentions of how beautiful the weather is.
Oliver Wilson is renting an old mansion to three vacationers for the month of May. He wants to get rid of them so he can sell the house to someone who has offered him three times its value, provided the buyer can move in during May. His fiancée, Sue, insists that he arrange for them to leave, so that he can sell the house, giving them enough money for their impending marriage.
The tenants are a man, Omerie Sancisco, and two women, Klia and Kleph Sancisco. They fascinate Oliver with the perfection of their appearance and manners, their strange connoisseur's attitude to everything, and their secretiveness about their origin and about their insistence on that house at that time. Oliver's half-hearted attempts to evict them founder when he becomes attracted to Kleph. The mystery deepens with remarks she lets slip, with the unspectacular but advanced technology of things she has in her room—including a recorded "symphonia" that engages all the senses with imagery of historical disasters—and with the appearance of the would-be buyers, a couple from the same country, who plant a "subsonic" in the house intended to drive the residents out.
Hearing Kleph sing "Come hider, love, to me" from the Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Oliver realizes that she and her friends are time travelers from the future. He traps Kleph into admitting they are visiting the most perfect seasons in history, such as a fall in the late 14th century in Canterbury. Oliver happens to see a healed scar on her arm, which she hastens to cover and admits with obvious shame that it is an inoculation; the reason for her shame would become clear only at the end.
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