{"id":10874,"date":"2020-04-30T21:24:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=10874"},"modified":"2021-12-28T21:38:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T02:38:30","slug":"fletcher-pratts-the-well-of-the-unicorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=10874","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, April 29, 2020 \u2014 Fletcher Pratt\u2019s The Well of the Unicorn"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Affi\u00adciona\u00addos of fan\u00adta\u00adsy fic\u00adtion are usu\u00adal\u00adly famil\u00adiar with the col\u00adlab\u00ado\u00adra\u00adtive works of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletch\u00ader Pratt col\u00adlec\u00adtive\u00adly known as the \u201cHarold Shea sto\u00adries,\u201d writ\u00adten in the 1940s. Both these men were hard-nosed ratio\u00adnal\u00adists who enjoyed writ\u00ading fan\u00adta\u00adsy, with de Camp par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly keen on build\u00ading worlds out of the log\u00adi\u00adcal impli\u00adca\u00adtions of mag\u00adi\u00adcal premis\u00ades, and equal\u00adly keen on the humour that ensues from such log\u00adic. De Camp lived until 2000, dying at the age of 92, writ\u00ading dur\u00ading most of that time. He pub\u00adlished a sci\u00adence book on pri\u00adma\u00adtol\u00adogy in 1995 and an auto\u00adbi\u00adog\u00adra\u00adphy in 1996. He remained well known and well loved in the Sci\u00adence Fic\u00adtion \/ Fan\u00adta\u00adsy com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adty for all that time. Pratt, how\u00adev\u00ader, was born in 1897 and died in 1956, short\u00adly after the pub\u00adli\u00adca\u00adtion of these famous col\u00adlab\u00ado\u00adra\u00adtions. With\u00adout de Camp, he wrote four sci\u00adence fic\u00adtion and two fan\u00adta\u00adsy nov\u00adels, as well as six\u00adteen books on naval his\u00adto\u00adry and many oth\u00aders on a broad range of sub\u00adject. He was also a pio\u00adneer \u201cgamer,\u201d cre\u00adat\u00ading a com\u00adplex math\u00ade\u00admat\u00adics-based strate\u00adgic naval war game in 1933 that is con\u00adsid\u00adered one of the best ever con\u00adceived. After the pub\u00adli\u00adca\u00adtion of the revised ver\u00adsion of the game in 1940, he wrote that \u201cwives and girl\u00adfriends of male par\u00adtic\u00adi\u00adpants dropped their roles of observers and soon became fear\u00adsome tac\u00adti\u00adcians.\u201d He was, like de Camp, a man of broad inter\u00adests. He wrote mys\u00adter\u00adies, Civ\u00adil War his\u00adto\u00adries, culi\u00adnary his\u00adto\u00adries and cook\u00adbooks, and a con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00adable amount of well-regard\u00aded poet\u00adry. While look\u00ading for a pho\u00adto to illus\u00adtrate this post, I found one of him at his New Jer\u00adsey home gam\u00adbol\u00ading on its lawn with the poet John Cia\u00adr\u00addi and rock\u00adet sci\u00aden\u00adtist Willy Ley.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>

Fletch\u00ader Pratt<\/p><\/div>\n

Of the two fan\u00adta\u00adsy nov\u00adels, I\u2019ve just read The Well of the Uni\u00adcorn<\/em>, first pub\u00adlished in 1948. Three things are strik\u00ading about the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

One is the style, which com\u00adbines the clean and crisp sen\u00adtence struc\u00adture and imagery you would have found in the era\u2019s Sat\u00adur\u00adday Night<\/em> or New York\u00ader<\/em> with some of the pur\u00adple con\u00adven\u00adtions of pulp fan\u00adta\u00adsy nov\u00adel\u00adists, and a dash of Lord Dun\u00adsany. He delight\u00aded in insert\u00ading antique and ana\u00adgog\u00adic words into this slick matrix, but unlike most of the pulp writ\u00aders, he actu\u00adal\u00adly knew what they meant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anoth\u00ader thing that struck me is the social, psy\u00adcho\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal, and polit\u00adi\u00adcal real\u00adism. The soci\u00adety depict\u00aded is actu\u00adal\u00adly plau\u00adsi\u00adble, resem\u00adbling very close\u00adly what you would find read\u00ading the Twelfth Cen\u00adtu\u00adry Ges\u00adta Dano\u00adrum<\/em> of Saxo Gram\u00admati\u00adcus. The inter\u00adplay of local kings and feuda\u00adto\u00adries with pirate raiders and inde\u00adpen\u00addent jarls on the fringes of a world pre\u00advi\u00adous\u00adly dom\u00adi\u00adnat\u00aded by an urban empire is pret\u00adty much what you would have found in ear\u00adly medieval Jut\u00adland. Unlike most fan\u00adta\u00adsy nov\u00adels, Prat\u00adt\u2019s imag\u00adi\u00adnary world is one where peo\u00adple have to eat and make a liv\u00ading, and peo\u00adple get hurt when they fight. The pol\u00adi\u00adtics is real\u00adis\u00adtic. Much of the text is con\u00adcerned with the hero Airar strug\u00adgling with com\u00adpet\u00ading ide\u00adolo\u00adgies, forced into unpleas\u00adant com\u00adpro\u00admis\u00ades, and find\u00ading no social arrange\u00adment that does\u00adn\u2019t cre\u00adate some injus\u00adtice. By the end of the book, he comes across some\u00adthing like Duke Louis II<\/span> de Bourbon.*<\/span><\/p>\n

There is, of course, mag\u00adic in Prat\u00adt\u2019s world, but there is an under\u00adly\u00ading mes\u00adsage: mag\u00adic sucks. It does\u00adn\u2019t work very well, does\u00adn\u2019t pro\u00adduce the desired results, and at its best is rather lame. This is what allows the book to main\u00adtain its real\u00adis\u00adtic feel\u00ading, and also cures the most irri\u00adtat\u00ading prob\u00adlem of fan\u00adta\u00adsy fic\u00adtion. Since at any sec\u00adond some\u00adone might pull out a spell or sum\u00admon some pow\u00ader that makes what\u00adev\u00ader hap\u00adpen that the writer wants to hap\u00adpen, the mag\u00adi\u00adcal ele\u00adment of fan\u00adta\u00adsy fic\u00adtion essen\u00adtial\u00adly inflates the cur\u00adren\u00adcy. The read\u00ader just trudges through the set-pieces and bat\u00adtles, wait\u00ading for the mag\u00adic ring or the cos\u00admic woo-be-doo to do its stuff. Pratt could see this per\u00adil, and instead used mag\u00adic more as a source of irri\u00adta\u00adtion and irony than a dri\u00adving force in the nar\u00adra\u00adtive. The only oth\u00ader fan\u00adta\u00adsy writer that I know of tak\u00ading this approach is R. A. MacAvoy.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an enjoy\u00adable old fan\u00adta\u00adsy, if you know the con\u00adven\u00adtions of pre-WWII pulp fic\u00adtion estab\u00adlished by Robert E. Howard, and even more if you\u2019ve read a bit of Dun\u00adsany or A. Mer\u00adritt. A mod\u00adern read\u00ader might not quite \u201cget it\u201d or see its charm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2013<\/span>
\n* whose life sto\u00adry has recent\u00adly been trans\u00adlat\u00aded by my friend Steven Muhlburg\u00ader (pri\u00admar\u00adi\u00adly) and myself (assist\u00ading). [Chron\u00adi\u00adcle of the Good Duke<\/em> by Jean Cabaret d\u2019Orville (fl. 1429), trans\u00adlat\u00aded by Steven Muhlberg\u00ader and Phil Paine]<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Affi\u00adciona\u00addos of fan\u00adta\u00adsy fic\u00adtion are usu\u00adal\u00adly famil\u00adiar with the col\u00adlab\u00ado\u00adra\u00adtive works of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletch\u00ader Pratt col\u00adlec\u00adtive\u00adly known as the \u201cHarold Shea sto\u00adries,\u201d writ\u00adten in the 1940s. Both these men were hard-nosed ratio\u00adnal\u00adists who enjoyed writ\u00ading fantasy, \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,1519],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bg-reading-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10874"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10879,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874\/revisions\/10879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}