The Wall of Serpents
"The Wall of Serpents" | |||
---|---|---|---|
Short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt | |||
First book edition (1960) | |||
Country | United States | ||
Language | English | ||
Genre(s) | Fantasy novella | ||
Publication | |||
Published in | Fantasy Fiction | ||
Publisher | Future Publications | ||
Media type | Print (Magazine) | ||
Publication date | June, 1953 | ||
Chronology | |||
Series | Harold Shea | ||
|
The Wall of Serpents is a fantasy novella by American science fiction and fantasy authors L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt. The fourth story in their Harold Shea series, it was first published in the June 1953 issue of the fantasy pulp magazine Fantasy Fiction. It first appeared in book form, together with its sequel, "The Green Magician", in the collection Wall of Serpents, issued in hardcover by Avalon Books in 1960; the book has been reissued by a number of other publishers since. It has also been reprinted in various anthologies and collections, including Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy I (1972), The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989), and The Mathematics of Magic: The Enchanter Stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (2007). It has been translated into Italian and German.
The Harold Shea stories are parallel world tales in which universes where magic works coexist with our own, and in which those based on the mythologies, legends, and literary fantasies of our world and can be reached by aligning one's mind to them by a system of symbolic logic. In The Wall of Serpents, Shea visits his fifth such world, that of the Finnish mythological epic poem the Kalevala.
Plot summary
When Harold Shea's wife Belphebe, originally from the world of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, was accidentally spirited off to that of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (The Castle of Iron), he came under suspicion by the police for her disappearance. While he was ultimately successful in retrieving her, two others, his colleague Walter Bayard and policeman Pete Brodsky were left trapped in the world of Coleridge's Xanadu. As Shea's skill in traveling between universes is still somewhat hit or miss, he decides to seek professional assistance in rescuing them, from the wizard Väinämöinen in the world of the Kalevala. Harold and Belphebe attain the right world but the wrong magician, ending up instead with the touchy and unreliable Lemminkäinen, who tricks them into serving his ends. Persuading him they need their stranded friends' aid, Shea persuades the wizard to summon them. Later, after their quest with Lemminkäinen to Pohjola goes sour, Bayard inadvertently transports them to the world of Irish myth.
References
- Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller. pp. 103–104, 258.
- The Wall of Serpents title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Preceded by | Harold Shea Series The Wall of Serpents | Succeeded by |
- v
- t
- e
Interplanetarias
Krishna |
|
---|---|
Kukulkan |
|
Other |
|
- "The Roaring Trumpet" (1940)
- "The Mathematics of Magic" (1940)
- The Castle of Iron (1941/50)
- The Wall of Serpents (1953)
- The Green Magician (1954)
- Sir Harold and the Gnome King (1990)
- Sir Harold of Zodanga (1995)
- The Tritonian Ring (1951)
- "The Eye of Tandyla" (1951)
- "The Owl and the Ape" (1951)
- "The Hungry Hercynian" (1953)
- "The Stronger Spell" (1953)
- "Ka the Appalling" (1958)
- "The Rug and the Bull" (1974)
- "The Stone of the Witch Queen" (1977)
- The Goblin Tower (1968)
- The Clocks of Iraz (1971)
- "The Emperor's Fan" (1973)
- The Fallible Fiend (1973)
- The Unbeheaded King (1983)
- The Honorable Barbarian (1989)
- The Incorporated Knight (1987)
- The Pixilated Peeress (1991)
speculative
fiction
Novels |
|
---|---|
Short stories |
|
- The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate (1961)
- The Arrows of Hercules (1965)
- An Elephant for Aristotle (1958)
- The Bronze God of Rhodes (1960)
- The Golden Wind (1969)
- The Wolf Leader (1950)
- Swords and Sorcery (1963)
- The Spell of Seven (1965)
- Conan the Warrior (1967)
- The Fantastic Swordsmen (1967)
- Conan the Conqueror (1967)
- Warlocks and Warriors (1970)
- 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1972)
- Tales Beyond Time (1973)
Science and history |
|
---|---|
Lit crit and biography |
|
- The Conan Swordbook (1969)
- The Conan Grimoire (1972)
- To Quebec and the Stars (1976)
- The Blade of Conan (1979)
- The Spell of Conan (1980)
- Demons and Dinosaurs (1970)
- Heroes and Hobgoblins (1981)
- Phantoms and Fancies (1972)
- The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (1953)
- The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid (1983)
- The Incomplete Enchanter (1941)
- Wall of Serpents (1960)
- The Compleat Enchanter (1975)
- The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989)
- The Enchanter Reborn (1992)
- The Exotic Enchanter (1995)
- The Mathematics of Magic (2007)
- The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales (1953)
- The Reluctant King (1985)
- Conan (1967)
- The Conan Chronicles (1989)
- The Conan Chronicles 2 (1990)
- Conan of Aquilonia (1977)
- Conan of Cimmeria (1969)
- Conan the Adventurer (1966)
- Conan the Avenger (1968)
- Conan the Freebooter (1968)
- Conan the Swordsman (1978)
- Conan the Usurper (1967)
- Conan the Wanderer (1968)
- Sagas of Conan (2004)
- Tales of Conan (1955)
- The Treasure of Tranicos (1980)
- Aristotle and the Gun (2002)
- The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978)
- Divide and Rule (1948)
- Footprints on Sand (1981)
- A Gun for Dinosaur (1963)
- The Purple Pterodactyls (1980)
- The Reluctant Shaman (1970)
- Rivers of Time (1993)
- Scribblings (1972)
- Sprague de Camp's New Anthology (1953)
- Tales from Gavagan's Bar (1953/78)
- The Undesired Princess (1951)
- The Virgin & the Wheels (1976)
- The Wheels of If (1948)
- Years in the Making (2005)
- GURPS Planet Krishna (1997)
- The Enchanter Completed (2005)