Aug 6, 2024
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Vintage Paperback - Anything You Can Do by Randall Garrett
Lancer (1969)
So I've been rereading Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories, and they're a fun time I haven't seen anyone mention on tumblr, so I thought I might as well.
They're detective stories, set in a alternate universe where the Plantagenet line has ruled a united England and France for over half a millennium. Aristocracy still rules, this is no constitutional monarchy. Magic has been studied as a science, with trained magicians licensed by the Church. Effects are understood and predictable, though only those with Talent have access to it. Some Talented members of the clergy are trained as Healers, able to treat physical and mental ailments, bringing the life expectancy up to 125. There are trains, but no motorcars, and belief in the healing powers of moldy bread is backwards superstition. It is the 1960s, and Lord Darcy is the chief investigator for the Duke of Normandy. He and his forensic sorceror, Sean O Lochlainn, are responsible for looking into every death among the nobility in his region. If you're willing to give 60-year-old speculative fiction a whirl, I recommend them. They're fun little locked-room mysteries.
If you keep your eyes open, you can spot some fun shout-outs in the text. My favorite is the Marquis de London and Lord Bontriomphe - obvious expys for Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin (Bon/Good + Triomphe/Win; I'm a sucker for a pun).
Garrett drops references to prior cases, but all the stories are stand-alones, so you can jump in anywhere you like.
Caveats: If you expect your speculative fiction to have a more critical eye for power structures like monarchy, aristocracy or colonialism, you won't find it here. The Anglo-French empire are presented as the good guys here (or at least the home team). They claim the Americas (New England = N. America, New France = S. America) and are at war with unspecified groups of indiginous peoples there; though they seem to have assimilated the Aztec Empire entire ("Mecchicoe") as a Duchy without warfare. There are a variety of female characters throughout, but not in high enough density to even pass the Bechdel test. Only one speaking character is explicitly described as being non-white. No evidence of any queer lifestyles, other than an offhand comment about a lord's taste in lovers not including men. ("It's 60 years old", yeah, well, Delany's Dahlgren turns 50 next year)
The Vengeance of Kyvor by Randall Garrett
Fantastic, May 1957
There are a lot of bad sentences in this book I'm reading, but this one is probably the worst.
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Analog magazine covers from the back half of 1965.
Credited artists: July - John Schoenherr; August - Frank Kelly Freas; September - Frank Kelly Freas; October - Randall Garrett; November - Frank Kelly Freas; December - Frank Kelly Freas