to enlist his aid in one plot or another. Since they
recognize him as being satanic, he clearly is a be-
liever and hence cannot be a heretic; they restore
him to authority, but then time runs out and he re-
verts to his original form. Lucifer himself is ap-
palled by the deviousness of the church officials
and leaves Sylvester to continue his own good
works. Garnett’s indictment of corrupt clergymen
is mirrored in many of his other fantasies, but
never as skillfully as in this classic.
Denning, Troy (1958– )
The FORGOTTEN REALMSrole-playing game system
has been accompanied for many years by tie-in
fantasy adventure novels, in most cases written by
authors who have had no previous experience in
the genre, although some such as R. A. SALVA-
TORE, Margaret WEIS, and Ed GREENWOODhave
subsequently enjoyed some success with other pub-
lishers. Troy Denning’s first three adventure stories
were published under the house name Richard
Awlinson and are competent but rather routine
quest adventures.
The first novel to appear under Denning’s own
name was The Verdant Passage(1991), the first in
the Prism Pentad, a series of five novels whose over-
all story was the battle between a group of heroic
rebels and the evil sorcerer who has ruled their
world for a thousand years and the consequences of
his fall. The slaves have been freed in The Crimson
Legion(1992), but that causes widespread social
chaos, an ideal situation for another ambitious and
ruthless sorcerer. The battle continues in The Amber
Princess(1992) and The Obsidian Oracle(1992), fi-
nally ending with The Cerulean Storm(1993), which
repeats much of the plot of the opening volume.
Denning followed this with the Twilight Giants tril-
ogy—The Ogre’s Pact(1994), The Titan of Twilight
(1995), and The Giant among Us(1995), which tells
the story of a war between humans and giants with
considerable enthusiasm but little originality.
The Veiled Dragon(1996) was the first of Den-
ning’s novels to stand out, with a witch forced to
solve a murder mystery while avoiding the un-
wanted attention of a cult. It is still his most inter-
esting work. Pages of Pain (1997) was more
ambitious, a complex story set in a multitude of uni-
verses that has some excellent moments that are
overwhelmed by the rapid pace and overt action.
Faces of Deception(1998) was memorable chiefly for
its protagonist, a man whose face is so disfigured
that he keeps it concealed. Beyond the High Road
(1999) and The Oath of Stonekeep(1999), the latter
based on a computer game, were routine quest sto-
ries. The Return of the Archwizards sequence,
which includes The Summoning(2001), The Siege
(2001), and The Sorcerer(2002), is also set within
the Forgotten Realms universe and tells the story of
another interspecies war. Denning is considerably
more sure of himself, and his story rises at times
above its overly familiar material. Whether he will
follow other authors who have moved from this
venue to wider markets remains to be seen, al-
though he clearly has the required skills to do so.Derleth, August(1909–1971)
Although August Derleth produced a considerable
body of fiction during his career, most of it was nei-
ther fantasy nor horror. He did write a number of
ghost stories, some of which are quite good,
enough to fill several collections. His primary sig-
nificance to the field, however, is his long-standing
promotion of the works of H. P. LOVECRAFT, whose
continued popularity is in large part due to Der-
leth’s early efforts to ensure that they escaped the
obscurity of the pulp magazines where they first ap-
peared. With Donald Wandrei, another writer who
specialized in weird fiction, Derleth founded
Arkham House, a high-quality specialty publisher
that brought most of Lovecraft’s work into print in
hardcover editions as well as the work of many
other new and obscure writers. Arkham House
survived the death of both founders and still pub-
lishes a small number of new titles.
Derleth’s own supernatural fiction began ap-
pearing during the 1920s. His best stories are “The
Lilac Bush” (1930), “Wild Grapes” (1934),
“Feigman’s Beard” (1934), “LOGODA’S HEADS”
(1939), and “The Gentleman from Prague”
(1944). Almost all of his supernatural fiction has
been collected in Someone in the Dark (1941),
Something Near(1945), Lurker at the Threshold
(1945), Dark of the Moon(1947), Not Long for This
World(1948), Lonesome Places(1962), Mr. George86 Denning, Troy