[Rob B]

Has anybody here read any of the books by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt featuring Harold Shea?

The Science Fiction Book Club is now offering four of the books in an omnibus volume.

Considering, in the UK, Victor Gollancz has included these books as part of the Fantasy Masterworks series, I would think they are pretty good.

Any thoughts?

[Richard]

I read the stories early on and they are still among my favorites. A little dated but with wry humor and good literary touches, as each takes place in a world based on a famous work. I definitely recommend them.

I had the honor of meeting de Camp and his wife a few times. They were a wonderful couple and he reminded me of the sort of gentleman from an era long past. A Renaissiance man with knowledge in many, many fields.

[estranghero]

Yup, pretty good reading, the Incompleat Enchanter.

However, I preferred the first books as compared to succeeding ones. The funny thing was that I didn't know I was reading a veritable classic when I first picked up this one up.

Is the omnibus volume also called the Incompleat Enchanter?

[Rob B]

SFBC is titling it The Compleat Incompleat Enchanter

[Llama]

I dislike de Camp intensely for all his shoddy scholarship and his Howard rewrites, but will have to admit the fiction he wrote with Pratt is pretty good. Both these books and the Gavagan's Bar stories are worth reading.

[Rob B]

Llama

Thought you might mention the Conan stuff he did, seeing as how you and Hobbit are two of our pre-eminent "scholars of the classics". http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

his shoddy scholarship
Huh?

[Hobbit]

Yup, a 'goodie', if I remember right.

Richard has said it very well there - the humour may have dated a little, and it is a little farcical in style but there is a good-natured 'comedy of errors' style humour in the stories that I liked and I thought at the time a clear intelligence, often lacking today. The humour was something you laughed 'with' rather than 'at', I think.

Been a while since I read them though, and not sure which novels/stories are in the Millennium book.

Might just have to give them another go!

Hobbit

[kaseryn]

Hear Hear.. i mentioned this book in the forgotten classics section.. which pretty much says what i think of it. You can criticise technically.. but what's dated for some is flavour and something of a period feel for others. I seem to recall a lot of people being angry that his method of travel didnt add up [no pun intended] but hey.. it's a work of fantasy.. GO WITH IT!? The time machine didnt come in for so much schtook did it.. a great romp throught diverse and familiar universes.. good stuff.. a sort of Jeeves and Wooster go Time Travelling. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Llama]

Re shoddy scholarship - de Camp wrote biographies of Lovecraft and Howard which were later shown to contain many errors. Same with his essays collected in LITERARY SWORDSMEN AND SORCERORS.

And the problem with de Camp and Howard isn't just that he wrote pastiches -- he rewrote actual Howard stories claiming to have "improved" them, and even today finding the original Howard versions and not the knockoffs ain't that easy.

[Llama]

This gives a pretty good summary, for those who are interested, of why so many Robert E Howard fans hate de Camp:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/6570/issues.html