The Incomplete Enchanter
Dust-jacket illustration for The Incomplete Enchanter | |
Authors | L. Sprague de Camp Fletcher Pratt |
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Cover artist | Boris Artzybasheff |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Harold Shea Series |
Genre | Fantasy |
Publisher | Henry Holt and Company |
Publication date | 1941 |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 326 |
Followed by | The Castle of Iron |
The Incomplete Enchanter is a collection of two fantasy novellas by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, the first volume in their Harold Shea series. The pieces were originally published in the magazine Unknown in the issues for May and August 1940.[1] The collection was first published in hardcover by Henry Holt and Company in 1941 and in paperback by Pyramid Books in 1960.[2][1]
Summary
The Harold Shea stories are parallel world tales in which magic exists in separate universes which coexist with our own, and which can be reached by aligning one's mind to them by a system of symbolic logic. The worlds are based on the mythologies, legends, and literary fantasies of our world. In the stories collected as The Incomplete Enchanter, the authors' protagonist Harold Shea visits two such worlds, that of Norse mythology and that of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.
Contents
- "The Roaring Trumpet"
- "The Mathematics of Magic"
Reception
Reviewing the 1950 edition, Boucher and McComas described the series as "a high point in the application of sternest intellectual logic to screwball fantasy."[3] Damon Knight characterized the series as "relaced, ribald adventure ... priceless," saying that "no fantasy reader should be without them."[4] P. Schuyler Miller declared that these "first and best of the Harold Shea stories," through the authors' "fiendishly clever application of symbolic logic", have "annexed the entire realm of "pure" fantasy to science fiction."[5] Alfred Bester wrote in 1960 that the hero's adventures "lean heavily on anachronistic dialogue for laughs, but the book holds up amazingly well after twenty years".[6]
In 1977, Richard A. Lupoff described the series as "whole planes above the hackneyed gut-spillers and skull-smashers that pass for heroic fantasy."[7]
The book was also reviewed by E. J. Carnell in Operation Fantast, #6, September 1950; the editor in Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1950; P. Schuyler Miller in Other Worlds Science Stories, January 1951; Joseph H. Crawford, Jr., James J. Donahue and Donald M. Grant in '333': A Bibliography of the Science-Fantasy Novel, 1953; John Carnell in Science Fantasy, August 1962; Joseph Nicholas in Paperback Parlour, December 1979; Everett F. Bleiler in The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, 1983; and Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye in Galaxy's Edge Magazine, Issue 19, March 2016.[1]
Editions
The Incomplete Enchanter has been reprinted by a number of other publishers since its first appearance. A 1979 edition published by Sphere Books was issued under the variant title The Incompleat Enchanter.[2][1] An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.[8][9]
The collection has been combined with later books in the series in the omnibus editions The Compleat Enchanter (1975) (which presumably influenced the title of the Sphere edition just mentioned),[2] The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989), and The Mathematics of Magic: The Enchanter Stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (2007). It has also been published in German,[1] Italian,[1] and Dutch.[2][1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g The Incomplete Enchanter title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- ^ a b c d Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller. pp. 67–68.
- ^ "Recommended Reading," The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1950, p. 104.
- ^ "The Dissecting Table", Worlds Beyond, December 1950, p. 114.
- ^ "Book Reviews", Astounding Science Fiction, February 1951, p. 150
- ^ Bester, Alfred (October 1960). "Books". The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (column). pp. 92–94. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "Lupoff's Book Week", Algol 28, 1977, p.56.
- ^ Orion Publishing Group's L. Sprague de Camp webpage
- ^ Amazon.com entry for e-book edition
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 95.
Preceded by none | Harold Shea Series The Incomplete Enchanter | Succeeded by |
- v
- t
- e
Interplanetarias
Krishna |
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Kukulkan |
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Other |
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- "The Roaring Trumpet" (1940)
- "The Mathematics of Magic" (1940)
- The Castle of Iron (1941/50)
- The Wall of Serpents (1953)
- The Green Magician (1954)
- Sir Harold and the Gnome King (1990)
- Sir Harold of Zodanga (1995)
- The Tritonian Ring (1951)
- "The Eye of Tandyla" (1951)
- "The Owl and the Ape" (1951)
- "The Hungry Hercynian" (1953)
- "The Stronger Spell" (1953)
- "Ka the Appalling" (1958)
- "The Rug and the Bull" (1974)
- "The Stone of the Witch Queen" (1977)
- The Goblin Tower (1968)
- The Clocks of Iraz (1971)
- "The Emperor's Fan" (1973)
- The Fallible Fiend (1973)
- The Unbeheaded King (1983)
- The Honorable Barbarian (1989)
- The Incorporated Knight (1987)
- The Pixilated Peeress (1991)
speculative
fiction
Novels |
|
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Short stories |
|
- The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate (1961)
- The Arrows of Hercules (1965)
- An Elephant for Aristotle (1958)
- The Bronze God of Rhodes (1960)
- The Golden Wind (1969)
- The Wolf Leader (1950)
- Swords and Sorcery (1963)
- The Spell of Seven (1965)
- Conan the Warrior (1967)
- The Fantastic Swordsmen (1967)
- Conan the Conqueror (1967)
- Warlocks and Warriors (1970)
- 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1972)
- Tales Beyond Time (1973)
Science and history |
|
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Lit crit and biography |
|
- The Conan Swordbook (1969)
- The Conan Grimoire (1972)
- To Quebec and the Stars (1976)
- The Blade of Conan (1979)
- The Spell of Conan (1980)
- Demons and Dinosaurs (1970)
- Heroes and Hobgoblins (1981)
- Phantoms and Fancies (1972)
- The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (1953)
- The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid (1983)
- The Incomplete Enchanter (1941)
- Wall of Serpents (1960)
- The Compleat Enchanter (1975)
- The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989)
- The Enchanter Reborn (1992)
- The Exotic Enchanter (1995)
- The Mathematics of Magic (2007)
- The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales (1953)
- The Reluctant King (1985)
- Conan (1967)
- The Conan Chronicles (1989)
- The Conan Chronicles 2 (1990)
- Conan of Aquilonia (1977)
- Conan of Cimmeria (1969)
- Conan the Adventurer (1966)
- Conan the Avenger (1968)
- Conan the Freebooter (1968)
- Conan the Swordsman (1978)
- Conan the Usurper (1967)
- Conan the Wanderer (1968)
- Sagas of Conan (2004)
- Tales of Conan (1955)
- The Treasure of Tranicos (1980)
- Aristotle and the Gun (2002)
- The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978)
- Divide and Rule (1948)
- Footprints on Sand (1981)
- A Gun for Dinosaur (1963)
- The Purple Pterodactyls (1980)
- The Reluctant Shaman (1970)
- Rivers of Time (1993)
- Scribblings (1972)
- Sprague de Camp's New Anthology (1953)
- Tales from Gavagan's Bar (1953/78)
- The Undesired Princess (1951)
- The Virgin & the Wheels (1976)
- The Wheels of If (1948)
- Years in the Making (2005)
- GURPS Planet Krishna (1997)
- The Enchanter Completed (2005)