The Undesired Princess
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 Dust-jacket for The Undesired Princess |
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| Author | L. Sprague deCamp |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Crozetti |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy short stories |
| Publisher | Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. |
| Released | 1951 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 248 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
The Undesired Princess is a 51,000 word fantasy novella written by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the fantasy magazine Unknown Worlds for February, 1942. It was published in book form by Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. in 1951. The book version also includes the 10,000 word fantasy short story "Mr. Arson", first published in Unknown for December, 1941.
The title story was also published in paperback by Baen Books in 1990 together with David Drake's story The Enchanted Bunny, under the combined title The Undesired Princess & the Enchanted Bunny.
The Undesired Princess concerns Rollin Hobart, a man transported to another plane whose natural laws are those of Aristotelian logic; that is, everything is either one thing or another, with nothing in between and no gray areas. He must learn to use and master the inflexible laws of this universe in order to survive and ultimately return home. In the course of his adventures he picks up a royal local lady-love and rises to become the master of the plane, but elects to abandon both to return to his mundane life. The lady, however, has her own ideas about that...
"Mr. Arson" features Carl Grinnig, who accidentally conjures up a Saldine or fire-elemental while taking a correspondence course on Nigromancy. The Saldine, Mr. Arson, attempts to unleash his fellow Saldines on the human world, only to find the situation complicated by humanity itself. This story is enlivened by the author's own experience with correspondence schools.
[edit] References
- Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd., 271.
- Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller, 100-101.
