Die Prinzessin und der Löwe

by L. Sprague de Camp

Terra Fantasy 52 - Die Prinzessin und der Löwe
Originaltitel „The Undesired Princess“ (© 1951 by L. S. de Camp)
Übersetzung Lore Straßl, Erich Pabel Verlag, 1978

Genres: Fantasy

Paperback

First published September 29, 2011

About the author

Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction literature. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, both novels and works of non-fiction, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Undesired Princess was de Camp's first non-collaborative fantasy novel, and appeared in John W. Campbell's Unknown Worlds magazine in February of 1942. It's a portal fantasy about a man who gets summoned to an Aristotelian world, where all things are absolute and there are no in-between stages of anything. It's either off or on, black white, young or old, etc. It's an interesting idea, but I thought it tended to break down pretty early in the story and most of the book involves his defeating one brand of monster or foe after another, gaining wealth and titles and notability as he goes. The story has aged more than most of the contemporary Unknown stories; I had to stop and look up Frederick Winslow Taylor and the political philosophy of Thomas Dewey, and much of de Camp's humor is out of place by modern standards. The novel was reprinted by Baen some years back packaged with a David Drake novella, and has more recently appeared alone. This first book publication came from Fantasy Publishing Company of Los Angeles in 1951, a fine early small/specialty press that produced the first book editions of many fine works of authors like A.E. van Vogt, L. Ron Hubbard, Murray Leinster, Raymond F. Jones, Stanley G. Weinbaum, etc. It includes another de Camp story from Unknown, Mr. Arson, a humorous story from 1941 about a man who accidentally conjures up a fire demon from a text from an educational correspondence course he's taking through the mail. De Camp had worked for such an institution before he turned to writing full time, and his dry observations about the practices and philosophies of the people who run the program are as amusing as the story itself. They're not de Camp's best, but still fun.

[Lucrezia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gradevole. Si fa un po' di fatica a sopportare il protagonista, ma tutto sommato è una storiella simpatica e scorrevole. Considerando anche la brevità del libro, è una buona lettura per passare il tempo o distrarsi da qualcosa di più impegnativo.
Godibile, ma nulla di più.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ambitious idea which doesn't really work. Almost certainly inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, this is the story of Rolin Hobart, who is transported to another universe which is ruled by Aristotelian logic - by which is meant that there are no shades, everything is absolute one way or another. So a child becomes an adolescent, and changes from small child to a thirteen year old; colours are all black or white or primary colours, and so on. This turns out to be impossible to sustain even over quite a short novel, and so in the second half things become fairly chaotic and slapdash, as Hobart repeatedly meets new groups of people - caricatures of the kind of peoples who filled fantasy novels in the forties and fifties, as befits the no shades concept - and defeats their ruler to replace him, without intending to. It's clearly meant to be funny, but it's too repetitive and humour is strangled by the ambitious concept.

[Morgan Dhu · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, still doing sine reading for the 1943 Retro Hugos. L. Sprague de Camp’s The Undesired Princess is a tongue-in-cheek portal fantasy set in a world of binary logic - things either are something or they are not, there are no transitional states - everything is exactly as it seems, and all fairytale tropes are true. The sun does circle the earth, only primary colours exist, and the princess always falls in love with her champion. Engineer Rollin Hobart is unwillingly transported to this world, where he saves the princess from the monster and is then supposed to marry her and rule half the kingdom. The only problem is, Hobart just wants to go home again. But before that can happen, he has to save the king from a behemoth, foil a barbarian invasion, rescue the princess again, lead another barbarian invasion, appoint a god, and hardest of all, get a handle on how things work in the land of Logaea. De Camp was a funny writer.

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF