L
Sprague deCamp
1907 - 2000
L. Sprague de Camp, born in New York City
and
educated there, in the
South, and in California, received his BS in Aeronautical Engineering
from Cal Tech in 1930 and earned his MS from Stevens Institute three
years later. He served as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval
Reserve in WWII. For the last half-century, he has spent his life
pounding a hot typewriter, first in Suburban Philadelphia and then in
Texas.
Now author of over 120 Science Fiction and
Fantasy Books and several hundred short stories, he is also well-known
for many non-fiction works in history, science, and biography.
Among his numerous awards is The Gandalf, the Grand Master Award for
Lifetime Achievement in Fantasy, presented in 1976. Two years later
Sprague received from the Science Fiction Writers of America their
Grand Master Nebula Award.
L.
Sprague de Camp is a master of that rare animal, humorous fantasy.
As a young writer collaborating with the late Fletcher Pratt, he began
the world-hopping adventures of Harold Shea. These magical adventures
of The Complete Enchanter are still being written today by de Camp and
Christopher Stasheff.
One of de Camp's recent books
Rivers of Time tells about Reginald Rivers, a twenty-first century
time-safari guide who takes his clients back to former geological
periods to hunt dinosaurs. The settings are so deftly described that
the reader feels he is walking among the inhabitants of untold eons
past.
L. Sprague de Camp
passed away on November 6, 2000.
Conan
Universe
Conan
The Hyborian Age
The Thing in the
Crypt
The Tower of the
Elephant
The Hall of the
Dead
The God in the
Bowl
Rogues in the
House
The Hand of
Nergal
The City of
Skulls
Conan of Cimmeria
The Curse of the
Monolith
The
Blood-stained God
The
Frost-Giant's Daughter
The Lair of the
Ice Worm
Queen of the
Black Coast
The Vale of Lost
Women
The Castle of
Terror
The Snout in the
Dark
Conan the
Freebooter
Hawks over Shem
Black Colossus
Iron Shadows in
the Moon
The Road of the
Eagles
A Witch Shall be
Born
Conan the Wanderer
Black Tears
Shadows in
Zamboula
The Devil in Iron
The Flame Knife
Conan the Adventurer
The People of the
Black Circle
The Slithering
Shadow
Drums of
Tombalku
The Pool of the
Black One
Conan the
Buccaneer
Epic
fantasy's mightiest hero...in a demonic adventure at the edge of
the world! See Conan, in search of treasure and a beautiful princess,
battle the demonic powers of Thoth-Ammon in "Conan the Buccaneer", a
complete adventure by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, based on the
fabulous character created by Robert E. Howard. With an important new
introduction by Lin Carter.
Conan the Usurper
The Black Stranger
Wolves Beyond
the Border
The Phoenix on
the Sword
The Scarlet
Citadel
Conan of Aquilonia
Mighty
Conan in a fight to the death against the most dangerous fiends
of the Hyborian Age! Hunting the swift stag and the tusked boar in the
gloomy forests of the Gunderland Marches, Conan loses his son Conn to
Thoth-Amon and the supremely evil wizards of the Black Ring - and is
drawn into a deadly pursuit to the very ends of the Earth, and a battle
to the deepest levels of his endurance. "Conan of Aquilonia" - the tale
of fantasy's most powerful hero, at the height of his reign, and his
final confrontation with his greatest enemy!
Conan of
the Isles
The
Elder Dark...As thief, pirate, mercenary, adventurer, chief of
barbarous tribes, and general in the armies of kings, Conan ventures
far and knew all that world afforded of adventure and marvel. With his
irresistable sword, the mighty Cimmerian fought demons, dragons and
shambling horrors. A thousand foes felt the bitter kiss of his whirling
blade - bronze-mailed warriors, malevolent wizards, fierce barbarian
chieftains, and haughty kings. Even the eternal gods sometimes fled the
fury of his slashing brand.
Conan the Swordsman
Legions of the Dead
The People of
the Summit
Shadows in the
Dark
The Star of
Khorala
The Gem in the
Tower
The Ivory Goddess
Moon of Blood
Harold Shea
The Incompleat Enchanter
w/Fletcher Pratt
Peter Jones
Sphere, 1979
|
The Enchanter Completed
w/Fletcher Pratt
Peter Jones
Sphere, 1980
|
The Complete Compleat Enchanter
Tom Kidd
|
Sir Harold and the Gnome
King
w/Fletcher Pratt
Stephen Fabian
|
The Enchanter Reborn
w/Christopher Stasheff
Dean Morrissey
|
The Exotic Enchanter
w/Christopher Stasheff
Ruth Sanderson
|
The Incompleat
Enchanter
The Roaring Trumpet
The Mathematics
of Magic
The Enchanter
Completed
The Wall of Serpents
The Green
Magician
The Complete Compleat
Enchanter
The Roaring Trumpet
The Mathematics
of Magic
The Castle of
Iron
The Wall of
Serpents
The Green
Magician
Sir Harold and the
Gnome
King
A
"heretical" Oz book. Harold Shea must rescue his best friend, Walter
Bayard from the world of Norse Myth. Direct attack is too dangerous, so
Shea decides on a short-cut: visiting the world of Oz, borrowing the
Gnome King's magic belt, and teleporting Walter to Oz. Borrowing magic
items isn't always the simplest thing in the world--especially if their
owners don't want to give them up...
The Enchanter
Reborn
Professor Harold and
the Trustees, Christopher Stasheff
Sir Harold and
the Gnome King, L. Sprague de Camp
Sir Harold and
the Monkey King, Christopher Stasheff
Knight and the
Enemy, Holly Lisle
Arms and
the Enchanter, John Maddox Roberts
The Exotic
Enchanter
Enchanter Kiev,
Roland J. Green and Frieda A. Murray
Sir Harold and
the Hindu King, Christopher Stasheff
Sir Harold of
Zodanga, L. Sprague de Camp
Harold
Sheakspeare, Tom Wham
Incorporated Knight
Incorporated Knight
w/Catherine Crook de Camp
|
The Pixilated Peeress
w/Catherine Crook de Camp
Romas Kukalis
|
Incorporated
Knight
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...
The
Pixilated
Peeress
When
Sergeant Thorolf tries to have the beautiful Countess Yvette
disguised magically as a dark dumpy female by the ancient and slightly
senile iatromage Doctor Bardi ,he neglects to mention that she should
avoid alcohol.After a glass of wine the princess changes but not into a
dumpyfemale but into something like an octopus.And then the fun begins.
. .
Novaria
The Goblin Tower
David Mattingly
|
The Clocks of Iraz
David Mattingly
|
The Unbeheaded King
Darrell K Sweet
|
The
Honorable Barbarian
Darrell
K Sweet |
The Reluctant King
|
The
Fallible Fiend
Darrell
K Sweet |
The Goblin Tower
King
Jorian was rather attached to his head. Hence, he felt his promise
to steal 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 Clocks of Iraz
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, form 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 attraction at a royal
beheading!
The Unbeheaded King
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.
The Honorable
Barbarian
Jorian,
the one-time unbeheaded king, was now safely retired from a
long career of getting into trouble. But his younger brother Kerin
lacked such wisdom. The outraged father of Adeliza had caught him in
compromising circumstances with the maiden. So Kerin had to be sent at
once on a mission by sea to the Far East.
Jorian had a prejudice against losing
his head.
The Reluctant
King
The Goblin Tower
The Clocks of Iraz
The Unbeheded King
The
Fallible Fiend
Could
one rational demon survive in an irrational world? Zdim, demon of
the enlightened Twelfth Plane, found it hard to understand his puny
Prime Plane masters. First a master ordered you to eat any being that
came through the doorway while he was away, and then he blamed you for
devouring his foolhardy and rather obnoxious assistant, who had snuck
through that fateful doorway, like any common thief. Ordered to
spend a year's servitude on the human plane, Zdim the demon,
a mild-mannered scholar of logic and philosophy, becomes the city of
Ir's last chance when a barbarian armada threatens to attack.
Krishna
The Queen of Zamba
Paul Alexander
|
The Hand of Zei
Paul Alexander
|
The Hostage of Zir
Paul Alexander
|
The Prisoner of Zhamanak
Paul Alexander
|
Rogue Queen
|
The Virgin of Zesh/The Tower of
Zanid
Paul Alexander
|
The Bones of Zora
w/Catherine Crook de Camp
Victoria Poyser
|
The Stones of Nomuru
w/Catherine Crook de Camp
Tom Kidd
|
The Swords of Zinjaban
w/Catherine Crook de Camp
Tom Kidd
|
The Venom Trees of Sunga
Darrell K Sweet
|
The Continent Makers & Other
Tales of the Viagens
|
The Queen of Zamba
Private
investigator Victor Hasselborg must chase a runaway heiress
across the universe to the primitive, feudal world of Krishna.
The Hand of Zei
Dirk
Barnevelt knew he wasn't a hero, but somebody had to find the
explorer who'd vanished on the low-tech planet, Krisha.and to do that,
somebody had to single-handedly rescue a beautiful princess from
bloodthirsty pirates.and to do that, somebody had to lead the fleet
against an impregnable fortress, while fending off a superior navy. And
whoever managed all that was going to be a hero - whether he knew it or
not!
The Hand of Zei
The Search for
Zei
The Hostage of Zir
Outside
the walls of the starport Novorecife, Earthmen on the warrior
planet Krishna are on their own. Reith finds himself trapped in a
deadly war between a sorceress and a kingdom under three moons.
The Prisoner of
Zhamanak
Percy
and Alicia, both aliens on the alien world of Krishna, are
swept up in wildly treacherous and funny imperial intrigue with the
fate of the entire planet and their own lives at stake!
Rogue Queen
Iroedh
a lover of antiquity could put no faith in the Oracle's
prophecy. There were strange beings, the Terrans had come from beyond
the heavens, but these men were no gods. Iroedh could not understand,
but she was soon to learn that even the most unassuming worker might be
born to rule.
The Virgin of
Zesh/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.
The Bones of Zora
When
Fergus Reith agrees to act as tour guide for the famed
paleontologist Dr. Aristide Marot, little does he realize 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 war, the three adventurers must fight
or face death by boiling in the Cauldron of Repentance!
The Stones
of
Nomuru
Dr.
Keith Salazar, a pioneering interplanetary archaeologist who is up
against his vicious rival for the protection or development for the
planet Kukulkan and also for the woman he loves.
The Swords
of
Zinjaban
Hollywood
comes to Krishna.
Producer:
God's gift to women (human or
alien).
Director:
likes working on a planet where he can act like Attila
the Hun.
Local
natives are stealing the film blind.
Tour
Guide keeps
stumbling over ex-wives.
The Venom Trees
of Sunga
Embroiled
in his field work in the arboreal world of Sunga, biologist
Kirk Salazar must put up with hard-core tourists, an ignorant
industrialist, and Alexis Ritter, the formidable high priestess of a
Sunga cult dedicated to chastity.
The
Continent Makers
& Other
Tales of the Viagens
The Continent Makers
The Inspector's
Teeth
Summer Wear
Finished
The Galton
Whistle
The
Animal-Cracker Plot
Git Along!
Perpetual
Motion
Hand of Zei Illustrations
Plates by
Edd Cartier
Novels
The Tritonian Ring
Vincent diFate
|
None but Lucifer
|
Lest Darkness Fall
|
The Land of Unreason
w/Fletcher Pratt
Donna Violetti
|
The Carnelian Cube
w/Fletcher Pratt
|
Genus Homo
w/P. Schuyler Miller
Richard Powers
|
The Undesired Princess
Gary Ruddell
|
Solomon's Stone
Ric Binkley
|
The Glory That Was
Richard Powers
|
The Great Fetish
|
The Tritonian Ring
Prince
Vakar battles the savage prehistoric gods in his dangerous quest for
The Tritonian Ring.
Night
falls on the bronze-age world of Poseidonis, a continent threatened
with destruction.
In
the smoke of the magician's fire appears the figure of the witch Gra.
"What wish the lords of Lorsk with me?"
"Advise
us how to avert the menace of the Gorgons," the magician answers.
"Send
Prince Vakar to seek the thing the gods fear most!"
None but Lucifer
A
masterpiece of the science fiction/fantasy genre as it had developed
before its Golden Age, during the '20's and '30's.
Horace
Gold wrote it for John Campbell at Unknown Magazine, he collaborated
with de Camp to arrive at the final manuscript, and it was published in
installments in 1939. Never before issued as a book, though it was
highly praised when it appeared in Unknown and has had an underground
following ever since then.
Gold's
novel is based on the Faust
premise: William Hale, in the depths of the Depression in NY City,
undertakes to outwit the Devil with a foolproof plan. The story unfolds
in a series of vivid scenes and encounters. The premise is brilliant
and it gives an unusual twist to its themes, as well as rendering in
high detail and with a full cast of characters a wonderfully film noire
metropolis, from the Salvation Army mission and the vagrant flophouse
to the lavish apartments of the wealthy "captains of industry" of that
time.
Lest Darkness
Fall
The
Roman Empire had spread order, knowledge, and civilization
throughout the ancient world. When Rome fell, the light of reason
flickered out across the Empire. The Dark Ages had begun; they would
last a thousand years. Could a man from the 20th century prevent the
fall of Rome? When lightning struck and he was hurled backward into the
sixth century, the question became anything but academic to Martin
Padway, but even forearmed with a knowledge of 20th century technology
and of events to come, what could one man do? But Padway must try, lest
darkness fall...
The Land of Unreason
The
elf was drunk to begin with...
Otherwise
he would never have kidnapped Fred Barber and dropped him into the
Court of King Oberon and Queen Titania.
Barber,
a seasoned diplomat, believed only what he saw—but what he was
seeing was unbelievable: elves, fairies, sprites, goblins, all
matter-of-factly living in a world of spells, curses, and assorted
magics.
It
was like something out of a children's story—until Barber's
quest for a way back to the "real" world of the 20th century unleashed
forces of ancient evil that had been lying in wait for him for a long,
long time....
The Carnelian Cube
Arthur
Cleveland Finch was a practical man, the staunchest of
citizens... but when he slept with the ancient cube of red stone under
his pillow, he woke to a world where practicality seemed to be against
the law. Finch found himself a poet in a country where poets were
highly valued...and where a man could be arrested for reciting a poem
in public!
Fleeing
for his life, the magic of the carnelian cube carried him
from world to world...and each world proved more fantastic and more
dangerous that the last!
Genus Homo
A
busload of men and women are buried under a tunnel cave-in and are
frozen in a state of suspended animation. After unknown ages they awake
to a very strange and different world. Theu are the only surviving
members of the human race or Genus Homo.The land is completely
changed, new mountains where there were cornfields, vast forests
replace
barren flatlands. And the animals..harmless little mammals have become
huge mankillers but the biggest change is that the simians - gorillas
,baboons ,monkeys and the rest have become the civilized races of this
new world.
The
Undesired
Princess
The
Undesired Princess
finds
the overly practical Rollin Hobart transported to a far-from-sensible
world.
Solomon's Stone
When
Montague Allen Stark, with the assistance of friends, attempts to
summon a devil, he quite unexpectedly succeeds . . .
The Glory That
Was
Isolated
from the rest of the world by a force wall, 27th century
Greece is a mystery - which two men are determined to solve. Wiyem
Flin, a classical scholar, believes his missing wife Thalia has been
taken there. Knut Bulnes, a magazine editor, goes with Flin for the
sake of adventure and an exclusive story. When they penetrate the force
barrier they find that they have been thrown back in time 3000 years to
classical Greece.
The Great Fetish
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!
Collections
Divide and Rule
|
The Wheels of If and other
Science Fiction Stories
Hannes Bok
|
A Gun for a Dinosaur and
Other Imaginative Tales
|
The Reluctant Shaman and other
FantasticTales
|
Scribblings
Cover Calligraphy by
L. Sprague de Camp
|
The Virgin & the Wheels
Don Maitz
|
Best of L. Sprague de Camp
Darrell K Sweet
|
Tales From Gavagan's Bar
|
The Purple Pterodactyls
|
Rivers of Time
Bob Walters
|
Aristotle and the Gun &
Other Stories
Ken Barr
|
The Enchanter Completed
Tom Kidd
Baen, 2005
|
Years in the Making
Bob Eggleton
|
Divide and Rule
Divide and Rule
The Stolen
Dormouse
The Wheels of If
and other
Science Fiction Stories
The Wheels of If
The Best-Laid
Scheme
The Warrior Race
Hyperpilosity
The Merman
The Contraband
Cow
The Gnarly Man
A Gun for a
Dinosaur and
Other Imaginative Tales
A Gun for Dinosaur
Aristotle and
the Gun
The Guided Man
Internal
Combustion
Cornzan the
Mighty
Throwback
Judgment Day
Gratitude
A Thing of Custom
The Egg
Let’s Have Fun
Impractical Joke
In-Group
New Arcadia
The
Reluctant Shaman and other Fantastic Tales
The
reluctant shaman
The hardwood pile
Nothing in the rules
The ghosts
of Melvin Pye
The wisdom of the east
Mr. Arson
Ka the Appalling
Scribblings
The Effects of Time
Travel
The Negative
Wugug
Moveable Ears
The Lusts of
Professor Adams
Preferences
Carnac
The Elephant
Leaves
The Trap
The Newt
African Night
A Night Club in
Cairo
Xeroxing the
Necronomicon
How to Hunt
Dinosaurs
Pfui on Psi
Lost Cities
Government
Bug-Hunter
Three Thirds of
a hero
Books That Never
Were
The Virgin & the
Wheels
Best of L.
Sprague de Camp
Hyperpilosity
Language
for Time Travelers
The Command
The Merman
Employment
The Gnarly Man
Reward of Virtue
Nothing in the
Rules
The
Hardwood Pile
The Reluctant
Shaman
The Inspector’s
Teeth
The Guided Man
The Ameba
Judgment Day
A Gun for
Dinosaur
The Emperor’s Fan
Two Yards
of Dragon
The Little Green
Men
Tales From
Gavagan's Bar
The Gift of God
Corpus
Delectable
The Better
Mousetrap
Elephas Frumenti
Beasts 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 Rape 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
The Purple
Pterodactyls
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
Rivers of Time
A Gun for Dinosaur
The Cayuse
Crocamander
Quest
Miocene Romance
The Synthetic
Barbarian
The Satanic
Illusion
The Big Splash
The Mislaid
Mastodon
The Honeymoon
Dragon
Aristotle and
the Gun &
Other Stories
Aristotle and the Gun
The Gnarly Man
A Gun for
Dinosaur
The Honeymoon
Dragon
The Mislaid
Mastodon
Nothing in the
Rules
Two Yards of
Dragon
The Enchanter Completed
"Sprague: An
Introduction" by Harry Turtledove
"A Land of
Romance" by David Drake
"The Ensorcelled
ATM" (a Gavagan's Bar and W. Wilson Newbury tale) by Michael F. Flynn
"Penthesilia" by
Judith Tarr
"Ripples" by
Richard Foss
"Gun, Not for
Dinosaur" (a Reginald Rivers tale) by Chris Bunch
"Father Figure"
by Susan Shwartz
"Tom O'Bedlam
and the Mystery of Love" by Darrell Schweitzer
"One for the
Record" by Esther
M. Friesner
"The Haunted
Bicuspid" by Harry Turtledove
"Return to
Xanadu" (a sequel to a Harold Shea tale) by Lawrence Watt-Evans
"The Apotheosis
of Martin Padway" (a sequel to Lest Darkness Fall) by S. M. Stirling
"The Deadly
Mission of P. Snodgrass" by Frederik Pohl
"The Garden
Gnome Freedom Front" by Laura Frankos
"The Newcomers"
by Poul Anderson
"Sprague: An
Afterword" by Robert Silverberg
Years in the
Making: The Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp
The Wheels of If
Tiger in the
Rain (poem)
Balsamo's Mirror
Time (poem)
Aristotle and
the Gun
Language for
Time Travelers
Faunas (poem)
The Gnarly Man
Reward of Virtue
(poem)
A Gun for
Dinosaur
Nahr al-Kalb
(poem)
Lest Darkness
Fall
Kaziranga, Assam
(poem)
The Isolinguals
Additional Artwork
L Sprague de Camp - The
Fan Site
Back to Tirptez'
Tales
