Book description
Arthur Cleveland Finch was an eminently practical man. Naturally he
didn't believe that the carnelian cube was a "dream-stone"
with supernatural powers. But, of course, if he were going to wish
himself into another world, he would choose one where everything was
perfectly rational Finch got his wish - with a bang! And he soon
discovered that one man's rationality can easily be another man's
nightmare. He awoke a poet in a strange place where status meant
everything and a man could be tried for umpteen kinds of crimes for
reciting a poem in public So, being optimistic as well as practical,
Finch tried again - and again. And the worlds kept getting wilder, more
improbable, and funnier - but more dangerous, too. The question was,
could Finch find Utopia before losing his skin? 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.
