Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• A Gun for Dinosaur - (1956) - novelette
• Aristotle and the Gun - (1958) - novelette
• The Guided Man - (1952) - novelette
• Internal Combustion - (1956) - short story
• Cornzan the Mighty - (1955) - short story
• Throwback - (1949) - novelette
• Judgment Day - (1955) - short story
• Gratitude - (1955) - novelette
• A Thing of Custom - (1957) - short story
• The Egg - (1956) - short story
• Let's Have Fun - (1957) - short story
• Impractical Joke - (1956) - novelette
• In-Group - (1952) - short story
• New Arcadia - (1956) - novelette

What finer way for Alexander the Great to honor his old tutor Aristotle than to send him an actual Indian elephant.

After capturing a magnificent specimen from an Indian ruler, Alexander tasks Leon of Atrax, a cavalry commander, to deliver the animal to Aristotle in Athens.

Leon leads a motley crew of companions (and the elephant) from India to Greece, and in the process encounter all sorts of dangers and adventures while completing the long and arduous journey.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Harry Turtledove
• Aristotle and the Gun - (1958) - novelette
• The Gnarly Man - (1939) - novelette
• A Gun for Dinosaur - (1956) - novelette
• The Honeymoon Dragon - (1993) - short story
• The Mislaid Mastodon - (1993) - novelette
• Nothing in the Rules - (1939) - novelette
• Two Yards of Dragon - (1976) - novelette

This is the definitive biography of Robert E. Howard, a giant of the pulp era, who created the archetypal brooding fantasy figure. To the general public, he is virtually unknown, but millions are familiar with the name and exploits of his most famous creation: Conan, the barbarian.

On a future Earth, where invading aliens have forced humanity to revert to a feudal society and conducting scientific research is punishable by death, it's good to be the heir to a duchy. Unless your brother has been burnt as punishment for heresy. And unless you intended to do something about it . . .

A collection of two novellas.

Table of Contents:

• Divide and Rule (1939)
• The Stolen Dormouse (1941)

Twenty-five men and women against a world of evolution gone mad!

Here is the vivid story of their adventures and terrors - the monster in the forest - the city of giant beavers - and the secret of the incredible race that had supplanted mankind.

Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy is a work of collective biography on the formative authors of the heroic fantasy genre by L. Sprague de Camp (1907-2000), first published in 1976 by Arkham House in an edition of 5,431 copies. Most of its chapters are revised versions of articles that initially appeared in the magazine Fantastic and the fanzine Amra between 1971 and 1976.

The work presents the history of the genre through a discussion of the lives and works of its most important early writers. After a general survey of the development of modern fantasy, individual chapters deal with William Morris, Lord Dunsany, H. P. Lovecraft, E. R. Eddison, Robert E. Howard, Fletcher Pratt, Clark Ashton Smith, J. R. R. Tolkien, and T. H. White. A final chapter concerns lesser or later literary lights C. L. Moore, Leslie Barringer, Nictzin Dyalhis, Clifford Ball, Henry Kuttner, Norvell W. Page and Fritz Leiber.

The book also includes an introduction by de Camp's colleague Lin Carter, who remedies what he considers de Camp's most egregious omission by providing a profile of de Camp himself.

This short story originally appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1939. It can also be found in the anthologies A Treasury of Science Fiction (1948), edited by Groff Conklin, Gates to Tomorrow: An Introduction to Science Fiction (1973), edited by Andre Norton and Ernestine Donaldy, and The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 1 (1999), edited by Frederik Pohl.

A leading authority examines the facts and fancies behind the Atlantis theme in history, science, and literature. Sources include the classical works from which Plato drew his proposal of the existence of an island continent, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, the Lemurian Continent theory, K. T. Frost's equation of Atlantis with Crete, and many other citations of Atlantis in both famous and lesser-known literature. Related legends are also recounted and refuted, and reports include accounts of actual expeditions searching for the sunken continent and attempts to prove its existence through comparative anatomy and zoology.

Few writers have had more ironic, paradoxical lives that Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), the great horror-fantasy writer of Providence, Rhode Island. Never having a book of his stories published in his lifetime, he became a best seller after his death. Dying in poverty and obscurity, convinced of his own utter failure, he has been hailed not only as the equal of Poe but even as one of the greatest writers of all time. A self-proclaimed misanthrope, he collected a circle of devoted friends, who remember him as one of the kindest, most delightful and most lovable persons they had known.

The son of parents both of whom died insane, Lovecraft became a powerful philosophical thinker. A scientific materialist, he embraced pseudo-scientific racial theories, only to abandon them in his last years. A poseur who liked to fancy himself as an eighteenth century English gentleman, he condemned poses and affectations in others. A political ultra-conservative, he became a Socialist and New Dealer. A man who prided himself on aristocratic reticence, he poured out his inmost thoughts in at least 100,000 letters, making him one of the greatest letter writers of all time. Here is the tale of his weird upbringing; his bizarre habits, preferences, his tragi-comic literary and marital careers; his key role in the origin of science-fiction fandom; and how he worked his nightmares and neuroses into the stories that became a legend after his death.

After an unintentionally successful demon-summoning, accountant Prosper Nash finds himself on the astral plane, inhabiting the body of Jean-Prospere, Chevalier de Néche-the swashbuckling cavalier he likes to imagine himself as-and in a New York filled with characters from similar wish-fulfillment daydreams of other mundane souls. The demon is possessing his body on a mundane plane, and he attempts to find his way back. This involves the Shamir, the Solomon's Stone of the title, and plentiful swashbuckling adventure, and a plot in which Prosper Nash's accounting abilities prove as useful as Chevalier de Néche's athletic ones.

Contents:

• Swords and Sorcery - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 7 - Introduction: Heroic Fantasy - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• 11 - The Valor of Cappen Varra - [Cappen Varra] - (1957) - short story by Poul Anderson
• 27 - Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller - (1911) - short story by Lord Dunsany (variant of The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller, and of the Doom That Befell Him)
• 33 - Shadows in the Moonlight - [Conan] - (1934) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• 67 - The Citadel of Darkness - [Prince Raynor] - (1939) - novelette by Henry Kuttner
• 97 - When the Sea King's Away - [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] - novelette by Fritz Leiber (variant of When the Sea-King's Away 1960)
• 123 - The Doom That Came to Sarnath - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - short story by H. P. Lovecraft
• 133 - Hellsgarde - [Jirel of Joiry] - (1939) - novelette by C. L. Moore
• 169 - The Testament of Athammaus - [Hyperborea] - (1932) - short story by Clark Ashton Smith

Contents:

• The Gift of God
• Corpus Delectable
• The Better Mousetrap
• Elephas Frumenti
• Beast of Bourbon
• The Love Nest
• The Stone of the Sages
• "Where to, Please?"
• The Palimpsest of St. Augustine
• More Than Skin Deep
• No Forwarding Address
• When the Night Wind Howls
• My Brother's Keeper
• A Dime Brings You Success
• The Raoe of the Lock
• All That Glitters
• Here, Putzi!
• Gin Comes in Bottles
• The Black Ball
• The Green Thumb
• Caveat Emptor
• The Eve of St. John
• The Ancestral Amethyst

Arthur Cleveland Finch was an eminently practical man. Naturally he didn't believe that the carnelian cube was a "dream-stone" with supernatural powers. But, of course, if he were going to wish himself into another world, he would choose one where everything was perfectly rational.

Finch got his wish - with a bang! And he soon discovered that one man's rationality can easily be another man's nightmare. He awoke a poet in a strange place where status meant everything and a man could be tried for umpteen kinds of crimes for reciting a poem in public.

So, being optimistic as well as practical, Finch tried again - and again. And the worlds kept getting wilder, more improbable, and funnier - but more dangerous, too. The question was, could Finch find Utopia¿ before losing his skin?

Contents:

• 9 - Tellers of Tales - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• 12 - The Kingdom of Genghir (map) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 13 - Black Lotus - (1935) - short story by Robert Bloch
• 22 - The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth (map) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 23 - The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth - (1908) - short story by Lord Dunsany
• 41 - Drums of Tombalku - [Conan] - (1966) - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard
• 42 - Drums of Tombalku (map) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 86 - The Girl in the Gem (map) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 87 - The Girl in the Gem - [Brak the Barbarian] - (1965) - short story by John Jakes
• 107 - Dragon Moon - [Elak] - (1941) - novelette by Henry Kuttner
• 108 - Atlantis (map) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 149 - The Other Gods - [Dream Cycle] - (1933) - short story by H. P. Lovecraft
• 150 - The Dreamworld of H.P. Lovecraft (map) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 156 - The Age of the Young Kingdoms (map) - interior artwork by James Cawthorn
• 157 - The Singing Citadel - [The Elric Saga] - (1967) - novelette by Michael Moorcock
• 193 - The Tower - short story by Luigi De Pascalis (trans. of Il mago, la torre e il cavaliere 1966)
• 194 - Map for "The Tower" - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 203 - Afterword (The Tower) - essay by Luigi De Pascalis

The Glory that was - or the Glory that wasn't?

Knut Bulnes had considered Vasil IX, World Emperor of the 27th century, to be a harmless eccentric until Imperial decree completely sealed off Greece behind a force wall and people of Greek descent suddenly began disappearing from the rest of the world - including the wife of Bulnes's friend Wiyem Flin.

Bulnes reluctantly agreed to help Flin find his wife, and the two managed to get inside the force wall only to find themselves in the Classical Greece of Socrates and Euripides - and the target of a man-hunt not only by the soldiers of Perikles, but also by the unpleasant characters with machine guns.

On the 15th day of Franklin, year of descent 1008, planet Kforri...

a young teacher, Marko Prokopiu, is convicted and jailed. His heinous crime: preaching the false and unholy belief that Kforri was originally settled by men arriving from Earth in flying machines, a dangerous heresy against the offical doctrine of divine evolution.

Goaded into jail-break by his wife's desertion and mightily armed with his father's great ax, Marko rushes to avenge his marital honor. With an eminent philosopher, Dr. Halran, inventor of the incredible hot-air balloon, Marko journeys perilously to exotic lands -- to decadent Anglonia, hot Afka, civilized Eropia and, at last, the all-female Isle of Mnaenn. There, by clever ruse and uncommon physical daring, he must recover the Great Fetish and solve the riddle of planet Kforri's ancient history, or meet a fate more complicated than death!

Being the adventures of W. Wilson Newbury, mild-mannered - and mildly ensorcelled - gentleman banker.

L. Sprague de Camp, winner of the Gandolf Award as a Grand Master of Fantasy, reveals within these pages the curious story of his friendship with W. Wilson "Willy" Newbury, for whom the realm of the super-natural seems to have a strange affinity.

- A horse discloses its violent - non-equine - past.
- A manufacturer reveals a particularly unacceptable form of non-union labour.
- Formaldehyde is shown to be a better preservative than even its inventor would have hoped.
- A game of chances takes on serious overtones, and all for a most unlikely prize.

Table of Contents:

• Balsamo's Mirror
• The Lamp
• Algy
• The Menhir
• Darius
• United Imp
• Tiki
• Far Babylon
• The Yellow Man
• A Sending of Serpents
• The Huns
• The Purple Pterodactyls
• Dead Man's Chest
• The Figurine
• Priapus

Suspend Your Disbelief
And plunge headlong into the always wild, constantly weird, and frequently whimsical realm of fantasy as invoked by that master magician L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP!

* A social protestor who just happens to be a ghost...
* A mail-order magic business that conjures up a universe of trouble...
* A fledgling wizard who doesn't know the strength of his own power...

And these are only a sprinkling of the outrageous and amazing creatures and things you'll encounter as you whir through a world where everything is probable.

Table of Contents:

• The Reluctant Shaman - (1947)
• The Hardwood Pile - (1940)
• Nothing in the Rules - (1939)
• The Ghosts of Melvin Pye - (1946)
• The Wisdom of the East - (1942)
• Mr. Arson - (1941)
• Ka the Appalling - (1958)

This short story originally appeared in Amazing Stories, January 1992. It can also be found in the anthologies What Might Have Been? Volume 4: Alternate Americas (1992), edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg, and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Contents:

• 7 - Introduction: Wizards and Warriors - (1965) - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• 12 - Bazaar of the Bizarre - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 13 - Bazaar of the Bizarre - [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] - (1963) - novelette by Fritz Leiber
• 39 - The Dark Eidolon - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 41 - The Dark Eidolon - [Zothique] - (1935) - novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
• 69 - The Hoard of the Gibbelins - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 71 - The Hoard of the Gibbelins - (1911) - short story by Lord Dunsany
• 78 - The Hungry Hercynian - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 79 - The Hungry Hercynian - [Pusadian] - (1953) - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp
• 108 - Kings in Darkness - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 109 - Kings in Darkness - [The Elric Saga] - (1962) - novelette by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock [as by Michael Moorcock]
• 140 - Mazirian the Magician - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 141 - Mazirian the Magician - [Dying Earth] - (1950) - short story by Jack Vance
• 160 - Shadows in Zamboula - interior artwork by Virgil Finlay
• 161 - Shadows in Zamboula - [Conan] - (1935) - novelette by Robert E. Howard

The gods of Poseidonis - or Atlantis - were powerful and real. Now they were determined to destroy the kingdom ruled by the father of Prince Vakar, the one man whose mind they could not read. The only way to save the kingdom was to discover that thing which the gods feared most.

To find it, Prince Vakar set out across the largely unknown world where dangers multiplied with every league. There he found savage countries and strange people - the wild Amazons; a voluptuous, ensorcelled queen; a too-charming girl who was half-horse, half-woman; dangerous magicians who ruled hordes of headless slaves- and the Gorgons, who could paralyze their victims at a glance.

Behind was his ambitious brother, determined that Vakar must fail. Even closer were unknown enemies set on his trail by the suspicious gods.

And to add to his troubles, Vakar had no idea of what he sought!

Table of Content

• The Tritonian Ring - (1951) - novel
• The Stronger Spell - (1953) - shortstory
• The Owl and the Ape - (1951) - shortstory
• The Eye of Tandyla - (1951) - novelette

The Virgin of Zesh

In which a beautiful woman, a mind-drunk poet, and a super-sober scientist must fight for their lives on a planet occupied by weird cultists from the Earth and bizarre varieties of humanoids from all over the galaxy.

The Wheels of If

In which a young lawyer is trapped in a sense-shattering shuttle among alternative worlds of possibility, and lands at last in an America that has been colonised by Norsemen and divided between two great warring empires - one white, one Indian.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword
• The Wheels of If - novella, Unknown Fantasy Fiction, October 1940
• The Best-Laid Scheme - short story, Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1941
• The Warrior Race - short story, Astounding Science-Fiction, October 1940
• Hyperpelosity - short story, Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938
• The Merman - short story, Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938
• The Contraband Cow - short story, Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1942
• The Gnarly Man - novelette, Unknown, June 1939

The Wheels of If turned--and Allister Park spun from our own New York through a dizzying succession of alternate worlds to New Belfast... biggest city in the Bretwaldate of Vinland, the country that might have been if some historical crises had turned out the other way....

Park's frantic efforts to get back to his own if-world turn Vinland upside down--and create a marvelously inventive and entertaining classic of SF.

In addition to this famous novel, this collection includes "The Gnarly Man," "Hyperpelosity," and four other stories in the inimitable De Camp manner.

Time and Chance is the autobiography of Hugo, World Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master Award-winning author, L. Sprague de Camp. It is a fascinating insight into a man who began writing in the late 1930's and remained an active voice in the genre up until his death in the last year of the twentieth century, and who was a prime mover in the formation of the fields of Science Fiction and Fantasy as we know them today.

L. Sprague de Camp was a master of the time travel and alternate history story. In many respects his novel Lest Darkness Fall founded alternate history, while "Aristotle and the Gun" is probably one of the best stories about tinkering with history ever written. In addition we include stories of time travel both backwards and forwards and de Camp's wonderful essay "Language for Time-Travelers". This is a collection of L. Sprague de Camp's SF best stories and essays dealing with time travel.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2005) - essay by Harry Turtledove
• The Wheels of If - (1940) - novella
• Tiger in the Rain - (1970) - poem
• Balsamo's Mirror - (1976) - short story
• Time - (1967) - poem
• Aristotle and the Gun - (1958) - novelette
• Language for Time Travelers - (1938) - essay
• Faunas - (1968) - poem
• The Gnarly Man - (1939) - novelette
• Reward of Virtue - (1970) - poem
• A Gun for Dinosaur - (1956) - novelette
• Nahr al-Kalb - (1967) - poem
• Lest Darkness Fall - (1941) - novel
• Kaziranga, Assam - (1967) - poem
• The Isolinguals - (1937) - short story

Cosmic Manhunt

Meet Victor Hasselborg, easily the most miserable Private Investigator in the entire galaxy. More comfortable with the dull routine of investigating insurance frauds than interstellar adventure, Hasselborg is bound by duty to chase a runaway heiress across known space to the primitive world called Krishna. Clad in kilt and sword, his hair dyed green, riding a buggy driven by a six-legged monster of a beast, Hasselborg's quest takes him through the volatile world of feudal Krishna politics and into the presence of... The Queen of Zamba.

Ring Around the Sun

Everlasting products have started to be released onto the world market and at a price that vastly undercuts their shorter lived rivals. At first the products were small - light bulbs, cigarette lighters, razor blades - but when the mysterious corporation behind these products expands and starts to produce everlasting cars, and modular houses and then clothing for ridiculously low prices, businessmen begin to see this as a deliberate attack on the world's economy.

Soon afterwards more and more people begin to see these as threats to their livelihoods and violence against these and their mysterious manufacturers begins to start.

Jay Vickers is a writer. He is approached by a businessman to write propaganda material to help traditional industries fight the infiltration of these products. But Vickers declines and sets off on his own personal quest to discover if there is any truth in a memory he has from his childhood of a kind of fairyland, and whether this has any connection to what is happening in the world.

Table of Contents:

"

• L. Sprague de Camp - Engineer and Sorcerer" by Poul Anderson
• "Hyperpilosity"
• "Language for Time Travelers"
• "The Command"
• "The Merman"
• "Employment"
• "The Gnarly Man"
• "Reward of Virtue" (poem)
• "Nothing in the Rules"
• "The Hardwood Pile"
• "The Reluctant Shaman"
• "The Inspector's Teeth"
• "The Guided Man"
• "The Ameba" (poem)
• "Judgment Day"
• "A Gun for Dinosaur"
• "The Emperor's Fan"
• "Two Yards of Dragon"
• "The Little Green Men" (poem)
• "Author's Afterword"

The Hand of Zei

Barely had Dirk Barnevelt finishing writing a publicity campaign for his boss, then he learned that he would shortly find himself isolated in the middle of the terrible Sunqar, a floating swamp on the planet of Krishna. Without scientific equipment and surrounded by deadly dangers, he must escape from a place he knows is impossible to succeed.

The Search for Zei

Dirk Barnevelt, tame writer for Shtain Enterprises, is sent to Krishhna to find and bring home its company's explorer-founder, captive of the pirates of the Sargasso-like Sunqar. Zei, Princess of Qirib, is kidnapped from under Barnevelt's nose, and as this new book opens he is escaping across the floating weed beds on improvised skis, with the girl but without Shtain. The rest of the book is devoted to the process by which our hero finishes his original job.

The Virgin of Zesh

Welcome back to the planet Krishna - a wilderness of blue woods under three moons, where square-riggers sail the treacherous inland seas, where fierce humanoid natives with feathery antennae cross swords in endless war, and where a Terran outside the confines of the spaceport is strictly on his own!

The Tower of Zanid

It is the Year 2168--and men have become star-rovers.

The agreed-upon code is that sciences and gadgets beyond the cultural level of the peoples inhabiting the other planets will not be introduced by Earthmen, or other visitors.

Such is the situation on the planet of Krishna, most Earthlike in physical attributes, climate, and inhabitants, when adventurer Anthony Fallon decides to take the risk of winning a kingdom. With enough money, perhaps he can raise a private army...

But there is one risk that Anthony Fallon hesitates to take. Only under pain of death will he explore the mysteries of the dreaded TOWER OF ZANID!

On Midsummer's Eve, as everybody knows, you should leave a bowl of milk out for the fairies. Unfortunately - or fortunately - Fred Barber, an American diplomat convalescing in Yorkshire, didn't take the obligation with proper seriousness. He swapped the milk for a stiff dose of Scotch. So he had only himself to blame if the fairies got a bit muddled. Barber found himself in an Old English Fairyland. At the Court of King Oberon, to be precise. The natural - or supernatural - laws there were, to say the least of it, distinctly odd. Things kept changing. This made the mssion with which he was entrusted, as the price of his return to the normal world, even harder than he expected. He had to penetrate the Kobold Hills, where it was said that swords were being made, and discover if an ancient enemy had returned. He was given a magic wand - but not told how to use it. Through the fields and forests he went, meeting dryads and sprites, ogres and two-headed eagles, on the way. Danger, seduction and magic lay all around him. And, as the adventure continued, somehow it darkened and became more seriousness. At the end of Fred Barber's quest lay a shattering revelation.

Peace had reigned in Aquilonia, but when his beloved Queen Zenobia is stolen before his very eyes, Conan, the great barbarian king, cannot rest until he saves her. And so the most stupendous hero of fantasy-adventure returns to the battlefield, matching his savage strength against the most monstrous forces of evil and doom.

As thief, pirate, mercenary, adventurer, chief of barbarous tribes and general in the armies of kings, Conan had ventured far and known adventure and marvel. But the adventure that started here, in the royal hall of justice in Tarantia was to be the strangest and most fantastic of all.

A vengeful Conan journeys from the dark forests of Gunderland to the ends of the earth in pursuit of Thoth-Amon and the evil wizards of the Black King who killed his son.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• The Witch of the Mists - (1972) - novelette
• Black Sphinx of Nebthu - (1973) - novelette
• Red Moon of Zembabwei - (1974) - novelette
• Shadows in the Skull - (1975) - novelette

Imagine a world of gods and demons, where men are warriors, women are beautiful, life is a fantastic adventure, and the fate of kingdoms balances on the bloody blade of a fabulous hero: Conan of the iron thews, the blue-eyed barbarian giant who towers above the savage Hyborian world.

Table of Contents:

• The Conan Saga - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• Legions of the Dead - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• The People of the Summit - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Björn Nyberg
• Shadows in the Dark - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• The Star of Khorala - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Björn Nyberg
• The Gem in the Tower - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• The Ivory Goddess - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• Moon of Blood - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• Hyborian Names - essay by L. Sprague de Camp

Aquilonia, once the proudest land in all of Hyboria, has fallen under the tyrannical reign of a mad king. As his brutal insanity sweeps the land, only one man dares stand against him: Conan the barbarian.

Conan becomes the leader of an army of rebels, brave warriors who thought their battles would be fought with spear and sword, axe and dagger. In this they were mistaken, for their greatest foe is not the army of Aquilonia, but the vile sorcerer Thulandra Thuu.

Dark clouds loom ahead for the people of Aquilonia, and only Conan can save them.

Conan is back, and at the top of his form!

SFWA Grand Master L. Sprague de Camp was revered in the genre of fantasy for both his fiction and nonfiction. Booklist praised his novel The Honorable Barbarian, saying: "The action is brisk, and the worlds and characters are described with de Camp's deft, light touch... thoroughly agreeable entertainment," while Kirkus Reviews said of The Pixilated Peeress "the unassuming style and verve of the telling keep the pages turning. Pure prose junk-food."

But more important, L. Sprague de Camp wrote Dark Valley Destiny, the definitive biography of Conan's creator, Robert E. Howard, leaving little wonder as to why Conan and the Spider God is considered one of the finest novels in the canon of Conan.

Son of a blacksmith, a former slave and thief, Conan the Cimmerian has risen to the rank of Captain of the Royal Guard. But as usual, trouble is his bedfellow.

Forced to kill while defending himself, Conan must flee the vengeance of the High Priest of Erlik. Foraging through field and forest, meeting friend and foe, Conan cuts a bloody swath through assassins and bounty hunters all the way to the sinister temple of Zath, where he encounters the huge and hideous Spider God. Facing certain death, Conan becomes both the hunter... and the hunted.

Conan and the Spider God is a thrilling adventure of the mighty barbarian, from one of the genre's most revered authors.

Conan the Barbarian is a novelization of the feature film of the same name.

OUT OF A DARK AGE COMES THE GREATEST WARRIOR OF ALL TIME...

In a land of darkling twilight, a world of ancient wizards and dazzling treasures of raging monsters and valiant warriors, the fate of kingdoms balances on his blade alone...

As a child he saw his parents slaughtered by the Snake Cult. In slavery he grew to mighty manhood, trained as a master swordsman and gladiator. As he slaved in chains he planned for freedom and murderous revenge. His day would come. For he was destined to become the warrior who would rule all...

Thief. Warrior. Gladiator. King.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• Letter to P. Schuyler Miller, March 10, 1936 ("Dear Mr. Miller: / I feel indeed honored...") - (1953) - essay by Robert E. Howard
• The Hyborian Age, Part 1 - (1936) - short fiction by Robert E. Howard
• The Thing in the Crypt - short story by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp
• The Tower of the Elephant - (1933) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Hall of the Dead - (1967) - novelette by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• The God in the Bowl - (1952) - short story by Robert E. Howard
• Rogues in the House - (1934) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Hand of Nergal - novelette by Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter
• The City of Skulls - short story by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• The Curse of the Monolith - (1968) - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• The Bloodstained God - (1955) - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard
• The Frost Giant's Daughter - (1953) - short story by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• The Lair of the Ice Worm - short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• Queen of the Black Coast - (1934) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Vale of Lost Women - (1967) - short story by Robert E. Howard
• The Castle of Terror - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• The Snout in the Dark - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1968) - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• Hawks Over Shem - (1955) - novelette by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• Black Colossus - (1933) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• Shadows in the Moonlight - (1934) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Road of the Eagles - (1955) - novelette by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• A Witch Shall Be Born - (1934) - novelette by Robert E. Howard

Conan the Wanderer is a 1968 collection of four fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• Black Tears - novelette by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
• Shadows in Zamboula - (1935) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Devil in Iron - (1934) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Flame Knife - (1955) - novella by L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• The People of the Black Circle - (1934) - novella by Robert E. Howard
• The Slithering Shadow - (1933) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• Drums of Tombalku - novelette by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• The Pool of the Black One - (1933) - novelette by Robert E. Howard

The hunt for a beautiful princess and a king's treasure bring Conan to the edge of the world, where he must battle the hell-fed powers of the sorcerer Thoth-Ammon.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• The Treasure of Tranicos - (1953) - novelette by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• Wolves Beyond the Border - novelette by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• The Phoenix on the Sword - (1932) - novelette by Robert E. Howard
• The Scarlet Citadel - (1933) - novelette by Robert E. Howard

Table of Contetns

• Introduction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• The Return of Conan - (1957) - novel by Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp
• The Hyborian Age - (1936) - short fiction by Robert E. Howard

His life imperiled by the mistrust of a mad King, a haunted by the armies of every nation of the Hyborian Age, the mighty Cimmerian, Conan, in the small band of loyal followers flee to the grim Hayek's of the unmapped Ilbars Mountains, in search of a stronghold that they can make their own. Instead they find the midnight evil of the legendary Magus of the sons of Yezm and his assassin followers... And an even blacker horror spawned by the very hills themselves...

Rewritten edition of the 1955 novella of the same name.

CONAN in all his glory!

Amid the treachery of pirates, the intrigue of a doomed count, the fury of savage Picts, the flashing eyes and flowing hair of beautiful women, fierce swordplay and the deadly vengeance of a black magician, the greatest her Hyboria has ever known picks his way like a clever and deadly hunting cat. For Conan knows what he wants - and what he must do to get The Treasure of Tranicos.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - L. Sprague de Camp
• The Treasure of Tranicos - Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• The Trail of Tranicos - an essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• Skald in the Post Oaks - an essay by L. Sprague de Camp

Tales of Conan is a 1955 collection of four fantasy short stories by American writers Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp, featuring Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. The tales as originally written by Howard were adventure yarns mostly set in the Middle Ages; they were rewritten as Conan stories by de Camp, who also added the fantastic element.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: There'll Always Be a Conan - essay by P. Schuyler Miller
• Ghostly Note - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• The Blood-Stained God - short story
• Hawks Over Shem - (1955) - novelette
• The Road of the Eagles - (1955) - novelette
• The Flame Knife - novella

Martin Padway, 20th-century archaeologist, becomes a reluctant one-way time-traveller, landing in Rome on the verge of the Dark Ages. With no way home, he sets out to make the world he's in a better place.

In short order, Padway "invents" and introduces such things as Printing and newspapers, Arabic numerals, Double entry bookkeeping, Copernican astronomy, and, most important -- Distilling. And the world of decaying Rome will never be the same!

Omnibus edition containing: "The Roaring Trumpet", "The Mathematics of Magic" and "The Castle of Iron".

A mash-up of "The Roaring Trumpet" and "The Mathematics of Money".

It's like this... I am a psychologist at a university in Ohio - very solid state, solid job.

What with ont thing and another my wife happens to be a fictional character from a poem. This is hard to explain. When she disappears into another world, it si much harder to explain - particularly to the cops.

When I follow her with a magic carper, a werewold, and some spells that don't quite work - it's impossible to explain.

Unless, of course, you read the book....

The Mathematics of Magic was probably the greatest discovery of the ages - at least Professor Harold Shea thought so. With the proper equations, he could instantly transport himself back in time to all the wondrous lands of ancient legend. But slips in time were a hazard, and Shea's magic did not always work - at least, not quite as he expected...

The Perfect Servant (NOT!)

He looked like a cross between a dragon and a catfish, and he could bend iron bands into pretzels with a flick of his hand. But what Zdim the mild-mannered demon really was, was a scholar of logic and philosophy. That's why when Zdim was drafter for a year's servitude on the mortal plane he felt that a monumental administrative error had been made.

And even though Zdim resolved to be absolutely obedient and to do exactly what he was told, the wizard who employed him soon agreed.

Jorian, ex-king of Xylar, has had enough adventures to last a lifetime. But when his brother Kerin, youngest son of Evor the Clockmaker, commits an indescretion with Adeliza, a neighbor's daughter, he is packed off on a hasty quest to uncover the secret of an advanced clock escapement for the family firm. A pragmatic, cautious sort, he preps for his journey with a crash course from his experienced brother in useful skills -- swordsmanship and foreign tongues, of course, but also lying and burglary. He is hampered and sometimes aided by the sprite Belinka, commissioned by the calculating Adeliza to ensure Kerin's faithfulness.

Kerin's goal takes him east across the Inner Sea, the Sea of Sikhon and the Eastern Ocean to the empire of Kuromon, where he is promised the secret in return for a magical fan lost centuries before. It has the property of making whatever it is waved at disappear without a trace. Along the way he must contend with a treacherous sea captain and his suspicious navigator, the duplicitous sorcerer Pwana, and the pirate crew of Malgo, who has a grudge against Kerin's family.

A more pleasant complication is Nogiri, a princess of the island empire of Salimor, whom Kerin has liberated (much to the displeasure of Belinka) from the pirates. Kerin returns her to Salimor only to lose her to the nefarious designs of Pwana, and a dire fate from which she can only be preserved by a daring rescue -- on roller skates!

Finally Kuromon is reached and negotiations are concluded satisfactorily, but only at the cost of an unexpected regime change by fan...

King Jorian was rather attached to his head. Hence, he felt his promise to seal the Kist of Avlen, a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts on magic, was little enough a price to pay for a chance to escape his own beheading.

But when the quest pitted him against one peril after another - a murderous wizard and his giant squirrel, a castle full of executioners, a marauding troop of ape men, and a voluptuous 500-year-old princess who was also a serpent - Jorian wondered if he'd made a good bargain!

The Best Mislaid Plans.

Wizardly schemes, Jorian knew went oft a-gley. But this time the wizard's plan seemed simple. Since ancient prophecy foretold that the clocks would save Iraz, Jorian must repair the great tower clocks that his father had built.

If everything went well, Karadur could then plan the rescue of Jorian's beloved wife, Queen Estrildis from Xylar.

And Jorian would be appointed Clockmaster of Iraz, a position that would require him to break a pirate siege, placate an amorous priestess, and stay at least one step ahead of the Royal Guard of Xylar - where he was still wanted as the star sttraction of a royal beheading!

Never Trust a Demon.

Three years earlier, Jorian had been the crowned King of Xylar. But the laws of Xylar decreed that each randomly chosen King must be beheaded at the end of a five-year reign. Jorian had a prejudice against losing his head. With the aid of the aged wizard Karadur, he managed to flee.

Unfortunately he had not been able to bring his beloved wife, Queen Estrildis, with him, nor had he yet been able to find a means of freeing her from the palace in Xylar City.

Now, however, he felt that his luck was about to change. He and the aged wizard Karadur were being flown through the night air in a great copper bathtub, powered by a demon under Karadur's control. Ahead of them lay Xylar City. There, while the demon kept the bathtub hovering above the palace, Jorian could let down a rope and rescue Estrildis.

It should have been a foolproof scheme...

This Hugo Award-nominated novelette originally appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1956. It has been reprinted many times and can be found in the anthologies:

• The World That Couldn't Be and 8 Other Novelets from Galaxy (1959), edited by H. L. Gold
• The Time Curve (1968), edited by Sam Moskowitz and Roger Elwood
• 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1972), edited by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp
• Dawn of Time: Prehistory Through Science Fiction (1979), edited by Robert Silverberg, Joseph Olander and Martin H. Greenberg
• Science Fiction A to Z: A Dictionary of the Great S.F. Themes (1982), edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh
• Grand Masters' Choice (1989), edited by Andre Norton and Ingrid Zierhut
• Dinosaurs! (1990), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Dinosaurs (1996), edited by Martin H. Greenberg
• The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 1 (1999), edited by Frederik Pohl
• The World Turned Upside Down (2005), edited by Eric Flint, Jim Baen and David Drake
• The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century (2004), edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg

The story is included in the collections:

• A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales (1963)
• The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978)
• Rivers of Time (1993)
• Aristotle and the Gun and Other Stories (2002)
• Years in the Making: The Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp (2005)

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Time travel came in time to save Reginald Rivers' livelihood: guiding big game safaris. The world from Paleocene to Pleistocene offers bigger game than any in the modern world. Anyone who could pay Rivers' considerable fee could hunt the dinosaur of his or her choice. But T Rex is a mere inconvenience compared to this group of Homo sapiens.

Table of Contents:

• Faunas - (1968) - poem
• A Gun for Dinosaur - (1956) - novelette
• The Cayuse - (1993) - novelette
• Crocamander Quest - (1992) - short story
• Miocene Romance - novelette
• The Synthetic Barbarian - (1992) - novelette
• The Satanic Illusion - (1992) - novelette
• The Big Splash - (1992) - novelette
• The Mislaid Mastodon - (1993) - novelette
• The Honeymoon Dragon - short story
• Author's Afterword - essay

It's never easy being a knight, especially for practical Eudoric Dambertson, whose mind and temperament are better suited to trade than to the highly impractical demands of chivalry.

Take the simple matter of courting a wife. To please his potential father-in-law, the enchanter Baldonius, the young man must bring back two square yards of dragon hide. Only then can he earn his knightly spurs and the hand of the beauteous Lusina. But battles with dragons always seem to go better in the ballads.

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, from the soldiers set after her by an evil duke who covets her body and her land.

After elderly magician Doctor Bardi mistakenly transforms Yvette into an octopus, Thorolf turns to sinister Doctor Orlandus to restore her true form and discovers that the Doctor Orlandus has invaded the minds of his followers, including Yvette, and is slowly assuming control of the government of Rhaetia.

When Thorolf is accused of Doctor Bardi's murder, he flees to the trolls, one of whom he must wed to gain sanctuary and keep from being eaten. From their uncertain stronghold he mounts an expedition to rescue his beloved countess and his country.

Divide and Rule:

On a future Earth, where invading aliens have forced humanity to revert to a feudal society and conducting scientific research is punishable by death, it's good to be the heir to a duchy. Unless your brother has been burnt as punishment for heresy. And unless you intended to do something about it...

The Sword of Rhiannon:

Greed pulls the archaeologist Matt Carse into the forgotten tomb of the Martian god Rhiannon and plunges the unlikely hero into the Red Planet's fantastic past, when vast oceans covered the land and the legendary Sea-Kings ruled from terraced palaces of decadence and delight.

The Pugnacious Peacemaker:

In this sequal to The Wheels of If, Park/Scoglund serves as a diplomat attempting to defuse a war between Tawantiinsuuju, his adopted world's still-existent Inca Empire and the Muslims who have colonized Brazil, known as the Emirate of the dar al-Harb in this timeline.

The Wheels of If:

New York lawyer Allister Park is inexplicably torn from his normal existence and thrust into a series of parallel universes. Each morning he discovers he has become someone else, in a world changed from his own, initially finding himself in worlds where the American Revolution failed and France won the Napoleonic Wars. Ultimately he finds himself a bishop in the alternate New York of New Belfast, in Vinland, a North America colonized by descendants of the Vikings and now divided between Norse-derived and native polities. He determines that this new world's differences from his own stem from two divergences in the course of history, relative to his own world.

Transformed through her contact with members of an Earth Spaceship on an exploratory mission, Iroedh repudiates her role as a worker in the rigid Avtini sex-caste system and creates revolutionary social change in her community.

Beyond 2001! By the twenty-first century the great power struggle on Earth has been resolved in the Only possible way. The United States, Russia and China all have fallen by the wayside and Brazil has assumed her rightful place as world leader. Thus it is naturally Brazil that conducts the first interstellar explorations and creates the great space transport system.

Meet Victor Hasselborg, easily the most miserable Private Investigator in the entire galaxy. More comfortable with the dull routine of investigating insurance frauds than interstellar adventure, Hasselborg is bound by duty to chase a runaway heiress across known space to the primitive world called Krishna.

Clad in kilt and sword, his hair dyed green, riding a buggy driven by a six legged monster of a beast, Hasselborg's quest takes him through the volatile world of feudal Krishna politics and into the presence of... the Queen of Zamba.

This novel is also known as The Queen of Zamba and Cosmic Manhunt. It originally appeared in serialized form in Astounding Science Fiction in August and September 1949 as The Queen of Zamba. It was then published as half of Ace Double D-61 as Cosmic Manhunt. It's only publication as a single novel was in 1966 under thet title A Planet Called Krishna. It has since appeared in various collections under the title The Queen of Zamba, usually accompanied by the novella Perpetual Motion (1950). Variations in the text between these editions exist. De Camp preferred the title The Queen of Zamba.

Originally published as a serial in Astounding in 1950/1951, also part of Ace-Double F-249.

Dirk Barnevelt, tame writer for Shtain Enterprises, is sent to Krishhna to find and bring home its company's explorer-founder, captive of the pirates of the Sargasso-like Sunqar. Zei, Princess of Qirib, is kidnapped from under Barnevelt's nose, and as this new book opens he is escaping across the floating weed beds on improvised skis, with the girl but without Shtain. The rest of the book is devoted to the process by which our hero finishes his original job.

Originally published as a serial in Astounding in 1950/1951, also part of Ace-Double F-249. Not to be confused with later omnibus editons with the same title.

Barely had Dirk Barnevelt finishing writing a publicity campaign for his boss, then he learned that he would shortly find himself isolated in the middle of the terrible Sunqar, a floating swamp on the planet of Krishna. Without scientific equipment and surrounded by deadly dangers, he must escape from a place he knows is impossible to succeed.

Outside the walls of the starport Novorecife, Earthmen on the warrior planet Kishna are on their own. So when he is chosen to lead the first ersuma (Earth-tourists) through the sorcerer-kingdoms of this "protected" medieval world, Fergus Reith must first learn to speak Durou; must take the chemical oath against imparting technical information; and must above all else learn to handle a broadsword! All these skills are needed when Reith finds himself and his ersuma trapped as pawns in a deadly war between a sorceress and a sterile kingdom under three moons...

Welcome back to the planet Krishna - a wilderness of blue woods under three moons, where square-riggers sail the treacherous inland seas, where fierce humanoid natives with feathery antennae cross swords in endless war, and where a Terran outside the confines of the spaceport is strictly on his own!

This novella originally appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1953. It can also be found in the collection The Virgin & The Wheels (1976) and Ace Double The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid (1983).

This novel is half of this Ace Double.

Welcome back to the planet Krishna - a wilderness of blue woods under three moons, where square-riggers sail the treacherous inland seas, where fierce humanoid natives with feathery antennae cross swords in endless war, and where a Terran outside the confines of the spaceport is strictly on his own!

Percy Mjipa, diplomat-adventurer, and Alicia Dyckman, interplanetary runaway, both aliens on the alien world of Krishna, are swept up in wildly treacherous - and wildly funny - imperial intrigue....

When Fergus Reith agrees to act as tour guide for the famed palaeontologist Dr Aristide Marot, little does he realise that the search for the elusive Ozymandias will uncover spectacular riches, ruthless adversaries - and his former wife, the seductive Dr. Alicia Dyckman! Caught in a bloody civil was, the three adventurers must fight or face death by boiling in the Cauldron of Repentance! The secrets of the planet Krishna continue to unfold in L. Sprague de Camp's latest tale of mystery, treachery and romance.

Wrestling Reptiloids is no job for milquetoasts.

Mild-mannered Terran archaeologist Keith Salazar was just minding his own business, digging up the alien past on an out-of-the-way site on the planet Kukulcan, when suddenly he was besieged by intruders on his scholarly peace: hostile natives, an indifferent ex-wife, and a demon developer with rapacious eyes glued on both his site and his true love.

In the course of protecting his dig, regaining his loved one and vanquishing his rival, Salazar will fight a giant reptilian predator bare-handed, leap into snake-filled pits, engineer the planet's first imperial conquest, lead and train a battalion of alien riflemen and hold a séance. Pretty exciting work - but then maybe Keith Salazar wasn't such a milquetoast after all.

The Producer thinks he's God's gift to women - whether they're human or alien.

The Director is delighted to work on a wild and woolly planet, where he can really behave like Attila the Hun. Some of the local natives are trying to steal the film crew blind - while others plan all-out war.

And if that weren't enough, every time Tour Guide Fergus Reith turns around, he stumbles over another of his ex wives or girlfriends!

Tortured Intellectual

Kirk Salazar, devout intellectual, had quite been looking forward to his field research on Sunga. He aimed to discover how the stump-tailed, semiarboreal kusis lived without being injured within the venom tree forest. A fascinating topic!

His thesis would have progressed splendidly, save for one thing. A certain lack of financing necessitated that he travel through Sunga with a tour group. Much against his will, he soon became embroiled with a conglomeration of characters even more peculiar than Sunga's natural wonders.

First there were the hard-core tourists, always pushing and complaining, desperate to glimpse the rare, birdlike zutas. Worse the Cantemir - a man lewd, rude and dangerous - who had struck a deal with the native Chief to destroy the whole Sunga forest for lumber! But most formidable was Alexis Ritter. She was the high priestess of a Sunga cult dedicated to chastity. But she sure seemed to have a use in mind for Salazar's body!

Doggedly Salazar pursued his research through ambushes, sex, and even attempted murder. A determined intellectual does not give up easily - even if he has to go to extremes to defend his thesis!