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4.0étoiles sur 5
Excellent Light-hearted Fantasy, Aoû 7 2006
A totally engrossing tale of the wacky adventures of Harold Shea & friends, modern-day (well, from the 1940s anyway) people transported to mythical realms and forced to improvise magic and swordplay in the thick of literary events. Pratt and de Camp are very good at presenting a humourous everyman's view of fantastic worlds and manage to combine just the right amount of wit with a deft sensibility without resorting to slapstick or satire. The adventures of Shea provide plenty of light-hearted action-adventures coupled with graceful exploration of literature such as the Norse sagas and Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Fun, furious and clever, never ponderous or snooty, and always with a twinkle in its eye.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea, Jui 18 2006
One rarely thinks about this, but there actually was terrific heroic fantasy being written before Tolkien published the Lord of the Rings, and L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt were at the forefront of such efforts. These magical misadventures of Harold Shea, psychologist turned multiverse knight/magician/hero are thoroughly entertaining and amazingly detailed. The Complete Enchanter consists of the two novellas The Roaring Trumpet and The Mathematics of Magic (published together as The Incomplete Enchanter) and a follow-up novel The Castle of Iron. Sorting out the different versions of these books can be somewhat confusing, but basically this set consists of the original trilogy of "books" recounting the adventures of Harold Shea. Shea is a smallish man who continually takes on affectations such as unusual modes of dress in an effort to lift his spirits out of the mundane environment of his life. When his boss comes up with a logical theory for traveling among different universes, Shea takes the initiative and put the theory to the test. Aiming for mediaeval Ireland, Shea actually finds himself in a bitterly cold environment where he meets up with Thor and the three other principal gods of Norse myth. Deciding to pass himself off as a magician, he soon finds himself involved in preparations for a final world-ending battle between the Norse gods and a group of malicious giants. In many ways this is my favorite Shea story because it is here that he finds, to his own amazement, that he can handle a sword with some degree of skill (as long as it has a sharp point at the end) and can actually perform some feats of magic.
After managing to return to good old present-day earth, Shea soon sets out on another journey, this time with his boss Dr. Chalmers along for the thrill-seeking ride. Their aim is true, placing them inside the world of Spencer's Faerie Queen. Here Shea finds himself in the company of both noble knights and rogue "black" magicians bent on defeating the good and noble paladins and destroying the enchanted world. In this mediaeval setting, he hones his fighting skills, struggles with his magical spells (as does his colleague Chalmers), and meets up with the red-haired beauty of the woods Belphebe. Chalmers, for his part, becomes enchanted with the lady Florimel, who unfortunately is a not quite human reproduction (formed of ice and snow) of the original Florimel.
The Castle of Iron finds Shea back in his own time and space again, trying to explain to cops the manner in which his wife has disappeared. Suddenly, he, two cops, and two of Shea's colleagues find themselves transported to another world Shea soon realizes is Xanadu, but soon Shea and his annoyingly rash colleague Vaclav are whisked magically away to a castle of iron in an ancient Moor kingdom (the world of "Orlando Furioso"). The plot of this novel confused me a little, but basically Chalmers has bidden them there to help him achieve a truly human form for his beloved Florimel. The castle Chalmers resides in, however, is under a curse which can be put in motion should the young Mohammedan warrior Roger escape the grounds and fight as a warrior, which is the only thing Rogers wants to do, as luck would have it. Once again, Shea finds himself mixed up with men and creatures of mythological origin, seeking this time to not only glorify himself in further adventure without winding up dead but also to find and restore the memory of his recently-disappeared wife.
The logic of Shea's method of time travel is rather abstruse; basically, transference is achieved by choosing your desired location (which ends up being a fictional or mythological universe of literary note), trying to ground yourself in the physical and magical principles that would hold reign in such a world, and then reading aloud complicated logical arguments-then, poof, you find yourself in another place and time, one where all of your old assumptions do not quite hold true, requiring quick thinking, ingenuity, and-inevitably-skillful or very lucky life-preserving skills. There are quests, battles, and loves galore in these three adventures. The method of invoking magic is especially interesting, as Shea and Chalmers basically take their words of power from literary sources such as Spenser's The Faerie Queen and Shakespeare. The only negative thing I can say is that sometimes Shea's time in each world is drawn short before we have a chance to actually experience the long-awaited battle or ultimate conclusion to events there. De Camp and Pratt made an incredibly talented writing team, and the magical misadventures of Harold Shea hold a long-appreciated, eternally rewarding place in the annals of heroic fantasy.
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