The Purple Pterodactyls: The Adventures of W. Wilson Newbury, Ensorcelled Financier

by L. Sprague de Camp, Jim Baen

FIRST EDITION HARDCOVER. There was a "Trade edition" of 1500 copies and a "Limited edition" of 200 signed and slipcased copies. These stories originally appeared in The magazines Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantastic, Escape!, and Fantasy Crossroads, and feature W. Wilson Newbury, an ordinary man continually encountering extraordinary situations. A Sending of Serpents (1979); The Huns (1978); The Yellow Man (1978); Dead Man's Chest (1977); The Menhir (1977); Tiki (1977); United Imp (1977); Balsamo's Mirror (1976); The Purple Pterodactyls (1976); The Lamp (1975); Priapus (1977); The Figurine (1977); Far Babylon (1976); Darius (1977); Algy (1976).

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories

228 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

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 Purple Pterodactyls is a collection of humorous short stories that de Camp wrote in the mid-1970s, many in (uncredited) collaboration with his wife, Catherine Crook de Camp. They're the light-hearted mis-adventures of W. Wilson Newbury, an average, mild-mannered banker who happens to be a magnet for all things weird and supernatural. There are several references and in-jokes to the Weird Tales literary circle that are fun to pick out. Fun stuff through and through!

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy horror. Therein runs a thread of the benign, but really these tales are light-hearted jaunts into strange coincidences, peculiar happenings, and vengeful deities. Settings are wonderfully set, images are imagined and smiles are the result.

[Deanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Purple Pterodactyls: The Adventures of W. Wilson Newbury is a collection of short stories of the supernatural adventures of a banker named Newbury. From lots of ancient deities to a lake monster to a voodoo zombie to a pair of dueling djinn and more, each short story read like a tale that might be heard around a campfire on a dark night without being too dark.

The tales weren't spellbinding, but I found them entertaining nonetheless. 3 stars

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

the purple pterodactyls l sprague de camp
A collection of humorous short stories dealing with the light-hearted mis-adventures of W. Wilson Newbury, an average, mild-mannered banker who happens to be a magnet for all things weird and supernatural.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting rather than great, these are not quite science fiction, not quite fantasy, not really horror, but a kind of mash up of all three.

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Purple Pterodactyls: The Adventures of W. Wilson Newbury, Ensorcelled Financier"

I am as ordinary, commonplace a guy as you can find: middle-sized, middle-class, middle-aged; engineer by training, banker by circumstance; with a nice wife, nice kids, nice house, and nice car. But the damndest things happen to me.

A book of light-hearted short stories, in which Willy Newbury encounters jinns, zombies, easily angered gods and goddesses, ghosts, lucky charms and reincarnation. The title story is perhaps the funniest and definitely my favourite.

[Ann aka Iftcan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories all centered around one man--who is always described as being unmagical himself, but a magnet for magical happenings. The Purple Pterodactyls story is, I believe number 3 or 4 in the collection. I met Sprague several times in "real life" and he was always a gentleman. His death was the loss of one of the giants of "Golden Age" scifi.

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories about W. Wilson Newbury, a banker to whom weird things keep happening. It's mildly entertaining, but certainly not worth reading again.

[Valerie]

L Sprague de Camp always recedes to niches in my mind, and whenever I come across one of his books, I'm again surprised by his peculiar humor. This is a book of 'The Adventures of W Wilson Newbury, Ensorcelled Banker'.

Dedication: "To Jocelyn Harold Darling, whose Pink Panther inspired the title story".

The Acknowledgement pages give the original printing information for the stories, which range from 1975-9.

Contents:

Foreword: A capsule faux biography of W Wilson Newbury.

I Balsamo's Mirror: The sordid side of time travel

II The Lamp: A former potentate tries to recoup his faded fortunes by using a lamp, said to be from Atlantis, to conjure an Atlantean god.

III Algy: Trying to track down the Lake Algonquin Monster

IV The Menhir: If you don't know what a 'menhir' is, it's probably best to start with Asterix. Obelix was always carrying one around. So is it legal to restore a broken one?

V Darius: A horse takes a scunner at the protagonist, for reasons (at least at first) obscure.

VI United Imp: What if the small folk unionize?

VII Tiki: An eccentric millionaire (a friend of the Showa Emperor, 'because of their common interest in marine biology'), runs into problems with his collection of marine isopods.

VIII Far Babylon: Why NOT make a model of the Ziggurat of Marduk, aka the Tower of Babel?

IX The Yellow Man: A mixup of leases results in a dispute about who gets to live in a vacation house.

X A Sending of Serpents: A woman joins a cult, and her banker worries about her denuding herself of all her worldly goods to support the cult leader.

XI The Huns: Putting a hex on a motorcycle gang.

XII The Purple Pterodactyls: Genies for minor spells come into conflict when their masters do.

XIII Dead Man's Chest: A more accurate version of the anthropology of pirates. But what if some ships were run differently?

XIV The Figurine: A 'Mayan' (maybe) idol bought as a souvenir plays havoc with television reception...and maybe other things, as well.

This is the 1979 edition. Normally I don't take much note of the other books advertised in the back, but in this volume there's an ad for Randal Garrett's book Murder & Magic, which was probably a Lord d'Arcy book (Yep, just looked it up: it was the FIRST Lord d'Arcy book). So I'll have to keep an eye out for that. Probably won't find it, but it's worth a try. A good reminder that the text of books is not the whole of their value.