The Carnelian Cube [Paperback]

It is the evening of July 8, 1939 and the scene is the mountainous district of Cappadocia, in Asia Minor. Arthur Cleveland Finch, the story's hero, is a historian and archeologist, and he and his friend, Lloyd Owens, are on a dig, examining whatever ancient artifacts they can find in the hope of expanding human knowledge. The dig is being finance by Leo Pushman, a rich movie magnate who once read Arthur's dreary, academic tome "The American Deme; a Study of Pontus and Armenia under the Byzantine Empire" and liked it. Arthur has no idea of how Pushman even struggled through the book, which he considers to be as "dull as a third-rate sermon". Why should that "unimportant piece of prose" have attracted so much attention when his book of poetry, which was liked by the critics, sold only 37 copies? The world just doesn't seem to be reasonable Arthur thinks. Arthur and Lloyd discover that Tirdat Ariminian, one of the local workers on the dig, seems to have purloined a small find: as red carnelian cube, about the size of a golf-ball, with an Etruscan inscription on it. The cube seems rather out of place here in Cappadocia and Arthur and Lloyd think it may be quite a find. But Tirdat claims that the cube is his: that he got it from a man named Iblunos in far away Nigdeh. Iblunos was an old man, "maybe three hundred years". The stone was a "dream-stone. Arthur is bemused and that night sleeps with the cube under his pillow. If only the world were more rational Arthur laments again! In the morning Arthur wakes to a very different world. It has become exactly what he asked for: a completely rational world. But will Arthur like what he asked for, and if not how will he get out of this strange enchantment?

This book was first published in 1948 and is De Camp and Pratt's third collaboration. The first two were The incomplete enchanter (1941) and Land of Unreason (1942). After <The Carnelian Cube> these two authors went on to write many short stories and several more novels.

De Camp and Pratt both wrote for the pulp magazine trade, which favors shorter works, and that background shows clearly in this book. The volume is really three short stories linked by the recurring motif of the cube. The stories are also linked by the thematic idea that what we long for is not always what is best for us. Indeed we may not even understand what it is about our present life that is good. The three stories hold together well as a unit and they progress from being (1) quite humorous, to (2) light-hearted, but with some qualms, to (3) quite threatening. This book, however, is not as coherent as some of the authors' other works. <The Land of Unreason>, for example, has a real sense of taking the readers somewhere, where this book at times flounders. The same point could possibly have been made with less words.

Arthur Finch is quite a pompous, self-assured man and his confidence leads him into trouble. As the stories proceed the character gradually becomes less certain, but this growth is not marked. All of the other characters are basically cameos, adding color to the tales, but not having an arch of development.

De Camp and Pratt definitely have a sense of the absurd, so if you like 'out there' books you may enjoy this one, but if you are of a more stayed mind you would be advised to steer clear. The cube, after all, is a "dream-stone" and this book, in some ways, makes as much sense as dreams. If you are good at suspending disbelief you will enjoy it.

This is not De Camp and Pratt's best book, but it is worth dipping into. It earns four stars for its originality. I certainly have never read another book like it.

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