A tiny taste of L. Sprague de Camp

 You know, it’s been over a week since I talked about literature. And folks seem to enjoy those blogs so let’s do another one.

L. Sprague de Camp has been one of my fallback authors during Covid. While I read some of his actual novels (namely The Reluctant King trilogy but I’ll probably reread the Incompleat Enchanter at this rate) but I’ve also been picking through anthologies of classic science fiction for his short stories.

I decided that The Blue Giraffe was the perfect short story to talk about. If you don’t want any spoilers, just go and read it now.

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No, seriously, go and read it. It’s really good.

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The Blue Giraffe answers the question ‘What if the Island of Doctor Moreau was a comedy?’ I didn’t know that was a question that even needed to be asked but de Camp did a marvelous job answering it.

The protagonist finds in darkest Africa the effects of a mad scientist’s machine that creates radiation that causes somehow safe mutations in all the surrounding wildlife. After some misadventures, he turns the darn thing off.

The first thing that is notable about the story is the tribe of intelligent baboon people, who are also the source of a lot of the hijinks, including the main character dealing with a potential forced marriage. As opposed to be being crude primitives, they are pretty much regular folks, complete with snark and jealousy and such.  For 1939, that is nifty.

The other bit that stayed with me was the framing story, with the protagonist years later exposing to his son why he’s adopted. I was expecting his adopted son to not be human. No, the most ordinary explanation instead. After being exposed to all that radiation, it wasn’t safe for him to have kids. And that’s part of de Camp’s magic. There’s a practical, grounded element that makes the fantastic even more fantastic.

The Blue Giraffe isn’t my favorite de Camp work but it is what I’d recommend to someone to help them decide if they want to read more of his stories.

L. Sprague de Camp’s Reluctant King isn’t perfect but it is soothing

I have definitely been reaching for decompressing books during the COVID-19 lockdown and continued partial lockdown. And L. Sprauge de Camp (along with Rex Stout) has been someone who has been one of my main fallbacks.

While it is true that de Camp wrote a lot of light hearted and funny stuff, the best word that I found myself coming back to, again and again, is charming. He creates worlds that might be strange and dangerous but somehow are still all right in the end. 

After reading several of his short stories, I decided that this was due time to finally read his Reluctant King trilogy, which I remember almost picking up at the library when I was young. 

The books chronicle the misadventures of Jorian of Xylar. He accidentally became the king of Xylar by catching the decapitated head of the last king. You see, Xylar only keeps kings for five years before cutting their heads off and chucking the head into the crowd to choose the next one. The very first chapter describes how Jorian escapes when it’s his turn to lose his head.

As a side note, I could not help but think of Jorian as a bard whose player had cheated and rolled straight 18s for stats. He’s a dabbler in absolutely every craft and will tell stories at the drop of a hat.

Throughout the three books, Jorian does his best to evade Xylar forces who want to drag him back for the beheading, try and get his favorite wife out of Xylar and just deal with the never ending adventures that inevitably fall in his lap. The books are one half rollicking fantasy adventure And one half political satire. The balance isn’t always even. The first book leans more towards adventure while the last one leans more towards satire. I was afraid halfway through the last book that the book would get bogged down about lawsuits. 

Frankly, the trilogy is kind of an odd read and not de Camp’s best. At the same time, I’d say this is also the ambitious thing I've read by him. At the end of the day, the moral is just ‘there is no good idea that greed and corruption can’t mess up’ but de Camp definitely explores that idea. And, seeing how this is de Camp, things ultimately do work out for Jorian. Which as much spoiler as I’ll give.

The Reluctant King trilogy was actually a great read as far as stress-coping was concerned. On the one hand, yes, it was relentlessly cynical. On the other hand, optimism ran through the books as well. The second moral was: ‘Yeah, people can be jerks but, eh, they’re basically okay too’

Why the Wheels of If still works

The Wheels of If by L. Sprague de Camp is a little novella from 1940 that is full of gigantic ideas. de Camp didn’t invent the idea of alternate history but The Wheels of If expanded the concept to a level that completely changed the genre. On top of that, it’s a cracking good story, albeit one with an interesting level of a value dissonance. 

I’m not actually sure what the first alternate history was. Some argue Livy wrote one in 9 BC.  However, the earliest ones dealt with the immediate result of something different happening in history. Usually, what if the other side won a war.

The Wheels of If, from what I can tell, was one of the first that explored the idea of long term, global effect. While set in the 1940s, the key changes took place centuries earlier and we see much more massive changes. Since then, literally hundreds of works have taken a similar tact. 

The Wheels of If also uses the ideas of multi-verses with everyone having variations of themselves in other universes although not in most of them. The title comes from the idea of all of them going over one click, their minds ending up in their bodies in the next universe over.

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Allister Park, a New York lawyer, gets pulled out of his own body into a series of alternate versions of himself, until he ends in the body of a Bishop in a world where the Roman Catholic Church is much weaker, Southern Europe is held by Muslims and the Americas were settled much earlier so the native population was able to fight back better.

Oh and the body swapping was all done as political machinations by one of the political opponents of the bishop. Which seems like a crazy amount of work when less metaphysical methods are out there.

However, Park’s New York chutzpah and political savvy let him turn the tables and take control of the situation, even creating a second identity as his old name Allister Park. His efforts to get back to his own timeline upset the political landscape enough that a three-front war ends up starting in North America. 

That particular escalation is a little abrupt but de Camp handles it well enough that you can buy into it, which is an impressive bit of writing.

By modern standards, Park is an anti-hero. He is downright Machiavellian in his actions, which are pretty much completely self-serving. He uses women pretty much like disposable playthings. (In fact, there are no female characters of note in the story) And he admires the racist, corrupt political boss who got him into the mess because he knows how to party.

However, de Camp keeps us on Park’s side because he’s so gosh darn clever, his enemies are worse and he ultimately makes the world a better place, even if it’s unintentional, although Park is happy with the results.

Still, I suspect Park was more conventionally heroic when the story first was written.

What is fascinating about the Wheels of If is that is a seminal work that changed the way folks approached alternate history but de Camp uses it to serve the story. Park’s adventures are the point. Alternate history is just the backdrop. de Camp changed the genre but it was a side effect of telling the story.

And maybe that’s why the Wheels of If still holds up so well. A little dated but still engaging.