Lyon Sprague de Camp

Lyon Sprague de Camp (November 27th 1907, New York - November 6th 2000, Plano, Texas) is a American writer of Science-fiction and Fantasy. With the length of its 50 years career, it wrote more than 100 Nouvelle S, like several Biographie S of writers of fantasy. It was friendly with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein (they worked together with the Naval Experimental Air Station of Philadelphia towards 1942). Its first news appeared in 1937 in Astounding Science-Fiction; it was entitled Isolingues .

Biography

Aeronautical engineer in of formation, of Camp was candidate scientific (Bachelor off Science dismantles) in aeronautical engineering in 1930 at the Institute of Technology Californian and laid off same subsidiary company (Master off Science dismantles) at the Institute of Technology Stevens three years later, in 1933. He married Catherine Crook in 1940, with which he collaborated on many works of fiction and not-fictional as from the years 1960.

During the second world war, of Camp also worked with the Naval Experimental Air Station of Philadelphia (the N.A.E.S) with two of his/her friends authors of science fiction, Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. It reaches the rank of Lieutenant Commander at the end of his service in the navy.

He was member of the male literary club of the Trap Door Spiders ( spiders under the trap door , in French), which was used as model with the fictional group of the Veufs Blacks of the writer Isaac Asimov. Sprague de Camp was used itself as model to the character of Geoffrey Avalon , one of the widowers in question. He was also member of (in) the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild off America (SAGA - American Guilde of the epeists and wizards , in French), an abstract group authors of Héroïc-fantasy founded in the years 1960, whose works inter alia were gathered in the form of anthology in the series of the Flashing Swords! of Flax Casing.

The of Camp moved in Plano, in Texas, in 1989. Lyon Sprague de Camp will die on November 6th, 2000, seven months after the death of his wife with whom it was married during 60 years, Catherine Crook de Camp . He died the day of the birthday of his late wife, only three week from his clean 93ème birthday. Its ashes rest in a ballot box common with those of his wife to the national cemetery of Arlington.

The personal library of the author, rich person of almost 1.200 works, was acquired with the biddings by the company Half Price Books in 2005. The collection included/understood the original volumes signed by his/her collaborators and friends, following the example Isaac Asimov or of Carl Sagan, as well as works of Lyon Sprague de Camp itself.

Its career of writer

Lyon Sprague de Camp was a materialist who signed works treating of the company, the history, technologies and mythology. He published very many news, novels, not-fictional works and poems during the long career.

Science fiction

The science fiction conceived by Camp is marked by an interest pronounced for the main historical and linguistic tendencies. Its first history published, the isolingues ( The Isolinguals ), is appeared in the Astounding Science Fiction of September 1937, year during which it had been put at the writing. Its works considered as major in this kind are its stories of temporal voyages and alternative realities. It is for example the case of For fear darkness ( Lest Darkness Fall ) (1939), The Wheels off Yew (1940), has Gun for Dinosaur (1956), Aristotle and the Gun (1958) and The Glory that Was (1960) - in the EC-last account, the temporal voyage proves to be an occasion to rewrite the history.

Its most important work, from the point of view of the number of volumes and pages, was its series of the Viagens Interplanetarias , where the Brésil is the super-powerful news on Earth. One finds there in particular a mini-series belonging to the kind of the galactic novels, which proceeds on the planet Krishna and which begins with the novel Zeï ( The Queen off Zamba ). Its most influential history in the series of the Viagens was the volume Rogue Queen (which does not belong to the mini-series proceeding on Krishna), a history of secret society corrupted by interstellar contacts, which was one of the first science-fiction novels has to approach the topic of the sex openly.

Lyon Sprague de Camp also signed a certain number of significant but less known accounts which covered fundamental subjects such as the Racisme, that it just considered to call Ethnocentrisme. He noticed, not without humor, that no scientist studied the merits of the various human ethnos groups not to forever seek to prove that its own ethnos group was lower than the different one.

Fantasy

Sprague de Camp was especially known for its works of Light fantasy, in particular its series Harold Shea and Gavagan' S Bar , both written in collaboration with its close friend Fletcher Pratt. In duet, they also signed several novels independent in the vein of the stories of Harold Shea , among which more snuffed is Land off Unreason , and of Camp wrote several others of them only.

Sprague de Camp is also famous for its account of Sword and Sorcery, a sub-genus of the Fantasy that it given to the last style by its leading work and its work of continuation on the saga of Conan the Barbarian, the most famous character of Robert E. Howard. He wrote itself three cycles belonging to the kind Sword and Sorcery. The early cycle Pusdadian , composed of the novel The Trinonian Boxing ring and several news, proceeds in one era antédiluvienne similar to that created by Howard.

Its cycle Novarian , later, is also more revealing. The heart of this cycle is the trilogy Reluctant King , beginning with the trunk from Avlen ( The Goblin' S Tower ), probably the best work of the kind signed by Camp the trilogy tells the history of the adventurer Jorian, ex-king de Xylar. The world of Jorian is an alternative reality in which our world is used as world of deaths. The cycle Novarian also comprises other novels, like The Fallible Fiend , a satire in which the narrator is a demon, and the honourable barbarian ( The Honorable Barbarian ), one following the trilogy Reluctant King , in which the hero is the brother of Jorian.

The third and last cycle, composed of The Incorporated Knight and The Pixilated Peeress , are held in the medieval era of an alternative reality which shares its geography with our world, but in which the Neapolitain empire plays the part of Rome and any religion universal monotheist, the Christianisme, never seemed, leaving its nations divided between sects rival paganists. The decorations is borrowed partly from the Voyages of Mandeville .

Historical novels

Sprague de Camp also wrote historical fictions taking as tallies traditional antiquity, of its tops incarnated by the Persian Empire to the final movements of the Hellénistique period, which forms a rather flexible framework of reference based on a common geography and occasional cross references. Most known of its historical novels The Dragon off the Ishtar Gate is .

Not-fictional works