by Brian Kunde
My de Camp highlight under review this time around is The Enchanter Completed: A Tribute Anthology for L. Sprague de Camp. Now that’s a mouthful! This is another one not actually by de Camp, but don’t let that stop you. Personally, I love this book, and if I didn’t love this book, I would still love the idea of it, as spelled out in the subtitle. Not all authors get these tributes, but Baen Books kind of specializes in them. Baen has also put out anthologies honoring Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Poul Anderson, David Drake, and likely others that have either slipped my mind or I don’t know about.
Technically, such compilations are known as festschrift, if they honor living authors, and gedenkschrift, for deceased ones. German terms: the Germans have words for everything other languages haven’t thought of yet, which is also, incidentally, why you send your children to kindergarten. The Enchanter Completed is of the gedenk variety.
There was only one edition, the Baen Books paperback issued in May 2005. These sorts of books tend not to have long shelf lives, alas. The front cover, a gorgeous creation by Tom Kidd, is rather in the vein of the cover of de Camp’s own autobiography, in that it pictures our author surrounded by some of his creations. Or, rather, the creations of his tribute bearers, in this instance—note the garden gnomes, which will be encountered again in Laura Frankos’s contribution. The figure of de Camp himself also recalls the autobiography, as his likeness hearkens back to the same source, a photograph of the man taken at the wedding of his fan and friend Phillip Sawyer. It turns up fairly often, and bids fair to becoming the definitive de Camp portrait.
The back cover gives us the inevitable blurb. “Top authors” is a bit of an exaggeration, as the contributions mixed top authors with others of less renown. Most are recognizable, at least. And we get quotes from Heinlein and Asimov, who weren’t around to contribute. Had they been, they undoubtedly would have. Asimov in particular.
Harry Turtledove edited this book, which is appropriate, since, as he tells anyone who will listen, reading de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall gave him his start both as a scholar (of Byzantium) and an author. He tells us again in his personal contribution to this volume, “Sprague: An Introduction.” (He also contributes a story, as we will see later.) Robert Silverberg also gets a chance to gush, in the endpiece, “Sprague: An Afterword.” I’m sure there would have been more gushes included from more of de Camp’s contemporaries, had the opportunity not been foreclosed by him outliving most of them. Lin Carter, long dead, is the most notable missing voice, but there are many, many others. Their absence may account in part for the again (I’m sorry) less than stellar cast of contributors. Another reason may have been the fact that de Camp had been gone five years when the book came out, and hadn’t put out a book of his own for four before that. (There had been a posthumous collection or two.) So, inconceivable as it may seem to us, there could have been a certain amount of “de Camp who?” going on.
Don’t get me wrong; most of the contributors are very good indeed, and some not of the first rank have risen higher since this book appeared in 2005. It’s just not the company you would expect. Some top names are there, but there are others not so top. A few of the authors got in the book, I suspect, either because they knew Turtledove or he knew them. Like Laura Frankos, who happens to be married to him. But nobody phoned in their contributions, and most rose to the occasion.
So, what’s in it, aside from Turtledove’s and Silverberg’s nonfiction bookend pieces? Mostly stories of the sort de Camp himself commonly wrote, or that followed up on stories he did write, or that were inspired by what he wrote. Let’s have a look at the authors and their stories
David Drake (1945-2023) gives us a parallel world story in “A Land of Romance.” It’s okay, but not his best work; he’s known primarily for his military science fiction, and I confess most of his occasional fantasies haven’t done it for me. Nor did this one, which (very) faintly echoes the Shea tales in that it sends its protagonist into a fantasy world by scientific means. Had this appeared as a novel, back in the day, I would likely have read, enjoyed, and then promptly forgotten it. What makes Drake de Camp-appropriate? Well, he was a fan, most notably of “A Gun for Dinosaur,” which he paid the ultimate tribute of imitation in his own story “Time Safari.” And he counted de Camp as one of the authors “who most formed my view of what science fiction was” when he first started reading SF. He was even something of a de Camp scholar, writing, for instance, a 2005 article on the man’s earliest short story (“The Hairless Ones Come” for The New York Review of Science Fiction). And, finally, he was Baen Books’ go-to man whenever they wanted to reissue one of de Camp’s early short novels, and needed a thematically similar story as filler! I suspect this one may have been commissioned for the same purpose, only to end up here instead. Drake’s filler pieces being (literally) de Camp-adjacent, I should probably review them as a group some day…
Michael F. Flynn (1947-2023) contributes “The Ensorcelled ATM.” Now this is more like it! You can’t fault Flynn for lacking ambition; he’s playing right in de Camp’s own backyard, as it’s both a Gavagan’s Bar story and a W. Wilson Newbury tale! Meaning Willy Newbury goes into a bar after a harrowing experience, and it just happens to be Gavagan’s, where of course the familiar patrons are all too happy to hear of his woes. It’s well done, though it gets a bit muddled towards the end. Could have used better editing. Not to knock Turtledove, but an outside eye might have helped ensure everything held together.
Judith Tarr provides “Penthesilia,” about what happens when Alexander the Great meets some Amazons, and, more importantly, what happens to him in consequence after his death. Alternate history that could be actual history, were the real world amenable to a supernatural touch, or two. The de Campian angle here is simply that the Hellenistic era was a particular preoccupation of his, one in which he set several historical novels. And of course he himself made Alexander a character in both An Elephant for Aristotle and “Aristotle and the Gun.” Tarr’s tale doesn’t really have a de Campian feel, but you can’t have everything. Good story.
“Ripples,” a short piece which may have taken its title from that of a 1980 poem by de Camp, is Richard Foss’s contribution. It’s a straight alternate history story one might expect to have found in one of those Alternate Whatever anthologies Mike Resnick was putting out back in the 90s. Specifically Alternate Tyrants, since this is a “what if” about Socrates becoming a tyrannical philosopher king of Athens and offhandedly defeating an assassination attempt by his old pupil Plato (who, amusingly, he barely recognizes). A good argument against philosopher kings, a concept ironically favored by the historical Plato. Which makes it a neat dig against Plato, too. Good one, though lacking the whimsical de Campian touch.
“Gun, Not for Dinosaur” is a Reginald Rivers tale not by de Camp, but by Chris Bunch (1943-2005). You’ll recall one premise of the original “Gun” was that the timestream abhors paradox; also that it doesn’t permit time travel too near the traveler’s own time, when paradox might become unavoidable. But what if, as the time theorists learn more about the so-called fourth dimension, these seeming natural laws turn out to be not quite true? We find out as Rivers has to contend with an attempt to prematurely wipe out Australopithecus Afarensis, then regarded as a direct human ancestor. Appropriately for an African-based time trip, Beauregard Black really comes into his own in this one. Pitch perfect!
“Father Figures,” by Susan Shwartz, is based on the interesting premise that the Harold Shea Syllogismobile formula was a true thing, except that it was actually devised by Pratt and de Camp themselves rather than their fictional Reed Chalmers and Harold Shea, that it was the authors who really made all those parallel world trips, and that Sprague continued the world jumping after Pratt passed, now in the company of his wife Catherine. But they aren’t the main characters in this story, which is in fact about one Emrys, an inhabitant of post-Roman Britain. We soon discover him to have been the original Merlin and we learn the difference that an encounter with Sprague and Catherine makes in his career. (For one thing, it makes it possible.) Another good one. A shame Shwartz wasn’t on board for the “Enchanter” shared world anthologies of the 90s; she’d have been great for it.
Dark fantasy author and long-time de Camp friend Darrell Schweitzer blesses the book with a new entry in his “Tom O’Bedlam” series, “Tom O’Bedlam and the Mystery of Love.” Very Schweitzerian and not at all de Campian, but had de Camp been given his choice, I’m sure he would have preferred to read a story in Schweitzer’s own style rather than one that tried to pastiche his. Possibly Schweitzer felt the same. In any event, a welcome contribution.
“One for the Record” comes next, from Esther M. Friesner, who had a head start on capturing the de Camp tone, since much of her work is also in a whimsically humorous vein. That said, she writes a Friesner, not a de Camp, and it works quite nicely. It’s a club tale told by a rather snooty narrator, the club in question being rather pinched for funds, as we’re reminded a few too many times, and it ventures into mythic territory through the involvement of a certain Orpheus. Echoes of de Camp and Pratt’s Gavagan’s Bar tales here (and Dunsany’s Jorkens), without any direct referencing of them.
“The Haunted Bicuspid” is by Harry Turtledove; small-scale fantasy of the sort de Camp often got published in Unknown early in his career. In this instance, involving a nineteenth-century fellow whose false teeth evidently included one harvested from the deceased Edgar Allen Poe, whose influence, melancholy and spirit seem to come along for the ride. There’s some wryness, but not a lot of humor; reads rather like a de Camp pastiche of Poe, while being, of course, a Turtledove pastiche of a de Camp pastiche of Poe. But perhaps I’m reading too much into it. It’s very much the sort of story Turtledove might have written anyway; maybe he just figured it fit here. Which it does.
“Return to Xanadu,” by Lawrence Watt-Evans, is an unapologetic pastiche of Pratt and de Camp’s Harold Shea tales, though Shea does not appear therein. Rather, Watt-Evans explores the fate of Dunyazad, a minor character from the world of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” which Shea and friends visited early on in The Castle of Iron. Who turns out to be in the wrong world herself; a beneficent wizard very reminiscent of de Camp sends her back where she belongs–the universe of The Arabian Nights. This one would slot nicely into the Harold Shea saga itself.
“The Apotheosis of Martin Padway” follows, by S. M. Stirling, who accomplishes the impossible; a satisfying sequel to Lest Darkness Fall. (Though others have since duplicated the feat.) Set in Padway’s old age, it simultaneously provides us a look at the world he altered centuries later, from which (intentional) time travelers have come back to resolve the mysteries surrounding the mysterious historical figure known as St. Martin of Padua. The long-term success of his intervention is made manifest; the travelers are from what would in our own world be the tenth century. Extraordinarily satisfying in every way.
Next, inevitably, comes the 1964 Frederik Pohl (1919-2013) story “The Deadly Mission of P. Snodgrass,” the only reprint, which originally appeared, I believe, as a Galaxy editorial. Pohl was still around, and could have provided something new, but honestly, what else could have been more appropriate? It always was, and always would be, the ultimate parry to Lest Darkness Fall. (Together with Poul Anderson’s 1956 story “The Man Who Came Early,” of course.)
Then there’s Laura Frankos’s “The Garden Gnome Freedom Front.” A good story, with an amusing title, though this is another one that didn’t quite do it for me as a de Camp tribute. But perhaps she’s to be commended for going her own way with her own sort of story.
Finally (except for Silverberg’s concluding afterword) we get “The Newcomers” by Poul Anderson (1926-2001). One of the biggest of big names, and a de Camp-influenced author who outdid his model. He notably contributed the introduction to the best de Camp collection, appropriately titled The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978). Anderson’s most de Campian tale was Three Hearts and Three Lions (1961, expanded from a 1953 novella), but there was much, much else—even a Conan pastiche novel! While deceased by the time this tribute volume was published, I gather it was gestating when he was still around, as his piece was a new one, a minor fantasy set in the world of his Cappen Varra character. An Anderson story is always a fun read, but I found nothing particularly special about this one. Really, “The Man Who Came Early” would have worked a lot better here. Or perhaps “House Rule,” or “The Barbarian,” or one of his Time Patrol stories.
And speaking of Anderson, I am reminded of one more missing voice here, Anderson’s friend and sometime collaborator Gordon R. Dickson (1923-2001), who also penned some very de Campian tales over the years, such as the Hoka tales (with Anderson), and the 1957 classic “St. Dragon and the George” (which he turned into a highly successful fantasy novel in 1976 and expanded into a series of novels in the 1990s). But it would be unrealistic to have expected him to contribute, as he was gone himself by the time this tribute was put together. He outlived de Camp, but not by much.
On that somewhat down note, I conclude this exploration. Overall assessment? A bit uneven, but there’s some marvelous stuff here, and, as I said, much to love about this book. If you can find it and feel you would (like me) enjoy a last romp or two in de Camp’s world(s) that he’s no longer present to bring us, give it a read. You won’t be sorry.
There’s no dedication. Probably because the dedication’s really in the title.
An earlier version of this review appeared on the L. Sprague de Camp- Enchanter of the Quill Facebook group on April 11, 2020.
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