This is, quite frankly, a terrible biography. After you wade through all the psychoanalysis, and silly gossip, rumors, and tall-tales about Howard, what do you have left? Not much. Unfortunately, since around 1962 to about the middle of the 90s, the ideas from de Camp's works (including this biog...
This omnibus volume brings all five of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's "Compleat Enchanter" tales together in one nearly 500 page volume -- a good thing or bad thing depending on one's perspective, since each one of them is short, and really, light enough, to tempt one towards perusing on...
More bad writing from De Camp and Carter. Chronologically, Conan The Buccaneer takes place before Conan Of The Isles, but was written after. This one is marginally better than Conan Of The Isles but still pretty rough. At least there’s no scuba gear.That’s all I’m going to say about the story....
I consider this a minor classic of S&S and one of de Camp's more accomplished solo works (most of his well-known stuff was written in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt). Unlike his Conan pastiches, which while readable could hardly be considered much more than vaguely inspired hackwork, The Trito...
The de Camps' latest fantasy is set in pragmatic Rhaetia, the same world pictured in The Incorporated Knight . Acting sergeant Thorolf Zigramson of the Fourth Commonwealth Foot, an aspiring scholar but a soldier by default, somewhat reluctantly rescues Yvette, the beautiful countess of Grintz, fr...
Welcome to Gavagan's Bar (rhymes with "pagan") where it's always 1953, the bartender is Irish, and the drinks are never watered down! Where you can rub elbows with mad inventors, dark wizards, and ancient gods masquerading as ordinary schlubs.The Gavagan's Bar stories were written by L. Sprague d...
L. Sprague De Camp is famous for his numerous light fantasy novels. They are sort of the potato chips of fantasy lit, tasty but not particularly filling. This is one of his lesser works. It is told from the viewpoint of a "fiend" summoned to an Conan-esque world. The gimmick is that fiends aren't...
Jorian, the one-time unbeheaded king, was now safely retired from getting into trouble. But his younger brother Kerin was caught in compromising circumstances with the maiden Adeliza, so Kerin had to be sent at once to sea. But Kerin's talent for trouble was not to be denied. First came Belinka,...
– DEATH BY FIRE They had to crawl through a mere burrow. Vakar's knees were sore and he was sure that the tunnel had taken them clear to the other side of Nichok's lot when he rammed his head into the end of the tunnel. He felt around overhead until he located the cont...
The mead in it was strong and sweet. Already he found himself unable to focus on the frieze of Olga's revenge, that marked the point where the walls of this chamber arched up to form its dome.The inside of the dome was painted gold, and the afternoon sunlight gilded it further. How many more sips...
They were a bedraggled, woebegone-looking lot. Several days of storm at sea had afflicted most of them with excruciating seasickness. With the nearing of solid ground, however, they began to revive. Some pointed to the cliff that rose above the lower town. Along the brow of this cliff, a massive ...
2114-2140Finished“It won’t work forever,” said Abreu gloomily. “Keep up a technological blockade, and at the same time allow communication between Krishnans and beings from other planets? Bah! Why doesn’t the damned Interplanetary Council ask us something easy, like lighting the Sadabao Sea with ...
To regain his father’s sword alone possessed him. Valeria and Subotai, with total disregard of danger, loyally moved forward at his side.As the three figures, arms at the ready, cut off all escape from the alcove, Thulsa Doom strove to cast off the stupor that held him in thrall. His eyes narrowe...
From her perch, she could see the top of the Temple of Zesh to the north, and in the opposite direction the clearings and hutroofs of Elysion. She knew that the path from one to the other ran close to the cliffs along the east side of Zesh, sometimes coming out to the edge. If she simply walked e...
Fallon’s spirits rose. It had been some time since he had been able to afford a ride, and Kastambang’s office lay in the commercial Kharju District, over on the far side of the city. First they wound through the odorous alleys of fee A’vaz; then through the section of the ...
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The park, with its fantastic potted trees and eight-foot blossoms, stretched farther from the tower than Barber had imagined; and his mind ran round and round the idea Imponens had thrown out, as though at once seeking some escape and happy at not finding it. In midnight arguments that flowered o...
Now that he had a chance to scrutinize Yolanda while they stood on the same level, Eudoric realized that she overtopped him by a good span. With her shift still clinging damply to her, she reminded him of one of those pagan goddesses worshiped in the old Napolitanian Empire before the triumph of ...