with King Jorian set to defeat marauding pirates,
rescue a fair maiden, and repair a set of magical
clocks. He eventually succeeds in escaping and, ac-
companied by a helpful wizard, seeks to rescue his
still-captive queen in The Unbeheaded King(1983).
The final book in the series, The Honorable Barbar-
ian(1989), is a comparatively minor afterthought
chronicling the adventures of Jorian’s brother.
The Fallible Fiend(1973) is in much the same
vein. A relentlessly literal demon is set to guard a
doorway and is eventually disgraced when he de-
vours his master’s apprentice. Most of the humor
comes from the efforts by the demon to under-
stand human behavior. The Purple Pterodactyls
(1979) is a collection of older light short fantasies
with a common character, none of which are indi-
vidually significant, although the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts. With Catherine credited
as coauthor, The Incorporated Knightappeared in
1987, a collection of short stories about a knight
who has various whimsical, magical adventures.
The Pixilated Peeress(1991) followed, de Camp’s
last significant fantasy work. An unlikely hero as-
sists a fugitive maiden as she magically alters her
appearance, but things go awry with the result that
she ends up looking like an octopus. Subsequent
attempts to set things right lead to danger at the
hands of a charismatic sorcerer and his followers,
as well as the untrustworthiness of magic in gen-
eral. Sir Harold and the Gnome King(1991) is a
novella continuing the Harold Shea series, but it
lacks their ingenuity and liveliness.
De Camp’s historical novels, particularly The
Dragon of the Ishtar Gate(1961) and The Bronze
God of Rhodes(1960), should appeal strongly to
fantasy fans because of their marvelous invocation
of an imagined version of history. Lest Darkness Fall
(1941), although science fiction, was written as a
rebuttal of A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING
ARTHUR’S COURT(1889) by Mark Twain, a fantasy
in which a modern man travels back through time
and uses modern technology to transform Camelot.
De Camp’s response has an engineer sent back to
Rome, where despite all of his best efforts, he is un-
able to do anything to preserve the empire. There
are too many fine short stories to list them all here,
but among his best are “The Hardwood Pile”
(1940), “When the Nightwind Howls” (1951),
“The Rape of the Lock” (1952), the latter two both
with Fletcher Pratt, and “Ka the Appalling” (1958).
Even when it features barbarian warriors and primi-
tive societies, de Camp’s fiction is imbued with a
sense of human decency and good humor that is
largely missing from most modern fantasy.Dee, Ron(1957– )
Although Ron Dee had previously published two
novels, one a medical thriller, it was with Blood Lust
(1990) that he finally found material with which he
was both comfortable and successful. The plot is that
of a typical vampire story, with a traditional evil un-
dead creature invading a small town and rapidly
propagating his kind within the population. Dee
avoids answering questions about the inevitable end
of such rapid reproduction, although he addresses it
partially in the two sequels. The first of these was
Dusk(1991), in which a coven of newly transformed
vampires gathers in a small Mexican town to plan
their strategy. Unfortunately, some of the less cau-
tious of their number travel to Dallas and engage in
an undisciplined killing spree, which threatens to re-
veal the secret of their existence and imperil their
common future. Although Dee’s vampires are all es-
sentially bad, their personalities are sufficiently dif-
ferentiated that we can feel some sympathy for their
plight. The FBI becomes aware of vampirism in the
third in the series, Blood(1993). A research labora-
tory develops a miracle cure for the terminally ill, but
the cure is actually the essence of vampirism. Their
patients are soon searching for blood and fleeing
from federal agents intent upon destroying them.
Two other novels appeared under Dee’s name.
Descent(1991) is a sometimes confusing mix of
occultism and ghosts with a plot that never seems
to pick up any speed. Succumb(1994) is consider-
ably better, the story of a man troubled by a suc-
cubus who invades his dreams. Strong erotic
content is also found occasionally in Dee’s vam-
pire novels. He wrote a substantial number of
short stories during the 1990s, most of them in-
volving vampires but none of particular merit. His
1994 collection, Sex and Blood,appeared only in a
small press edition.
Dee also published four novels as David Darke,
two of which are also about vampires. Shade(1994)82 Dee, Ron