Book description
On Midsummer's Eve, as everybody knows, you should leave a bowl of milk
out for the fairies. Unfortunately - or fortunately - Fred Barber, an
American diplomat convalescing in Yorkshire, didn't take the obligation
with proper seriousness. He swapped the milk for a stiff dose of Scotch.
So he had only himself to blame if the fairies got a bit muddled. Barber
found himself in an Old English Fairyland. At the Court of King Oberon,
to be precise. The natural - or supernatural - laws there were, to say
the least of it, distinctly odd. Things kept changing. This made the
mssion with which he was entrusted, as the price of his return to the
normal world, even harder than he expected. He had to penetrate the
Kobold Hills, where it was said that swords were being made, and
discover if an ancient enemy had returned. He was given a magic wand -
but not told how to use it. Through the fields and forests he went,
meeting dryads and sprites, ogres and two-headed eagles, on the way.
Danger, seduction and magic lay all around him. And, as the adventure
continued, somehow it darkened and became more seriousness. At the end
of Fred Barber's quest lay a shattering revelation. Lyon Sprague de
Camp was born in 1907 and died in 2000. During a writing career that
spanned seven decades, he wrote over a hundred books in the areas of
science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, non-fiction and biography.
Although arguably best known for his continuation of Robert E. Howard's
Conan stories, de Camp was an important figure in the formative period
of modern SF, alongside the likes of Isaac Asimov and Robert A.
Heinlein, and was a winner of the Hugo, World Fantasy Life Achievement
and SFWA Grand Master awards.
