The Virgin & the Wheels
Encyclopedia
The Virgin & the Wheels is a 1976 collection of two short science fiction
novels by L. Sprague de Camp
, published in paperback by Popular Library
. An E-book
edition was published by Gollancz
's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.
's novel Flowers for Algernon
, which it predates.
The Wheels of If. Lawyer Alister Park is inexplicably torn from his normal existence and thrust into a series of alternate worlds. Each morning he discovers he has become someone else, in a world changed from his own. Ultimately he finds himself a bishop in Vinland
, an America that might have been had the early Anglo-Saxons
converted to Celtic Christianity
and the Franks
lost the Battle of Tours
. The displacement of his consciousness turns out to have been incidental to a plot directed against his other self, Bishop Scoglund , whose campaign to extend civil rights to Vinland's native inhabitants, the Skraelings
, has aroused opposition. To get home Park must continue his counterpart's struggle while somehow unraveling the mystery of how to reunite the minds of all his selves with their proper realities. The story is a classic early alternate history tale.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels by L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
, published in paperback by Popular Library
Popular Library
Popular Library was a New York paperback book company established in 1942 by Leo Margulies and Ned Pines, who at the time was a major pulp magazine, newspapers and magazine publishers...
. An E-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
edition was published by Gollancz
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership...
's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.
Contents
- The Virgin of ZeshThe Virgin of ZeshThe Virgin of Zesh is a science fiction novella written by L. Sprague de Camp, the fourth book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and the third of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the fifth Krishna novel.It was first published in the magazine...
(originally published in Thrilling Wonder StoriesWonder StoriesWonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went...
, February 1953) - The Wheels of IfThe Wheels of If"The Wheels of If" is a classic alternate history science fiction story by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Unknown Fantasy Fiction for October, 1940, and first appeared in book form in de Camp's collection The Wheels of If and Other Science Fiction...
(originally published in UnknownUnknown (magazine)Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...
, October 1940)
Plot and storyline
The Virgin of Zesh. Earth missionary Althea Merrick, stranded on the planet Krishna and fleeing from an unwanted marriage to a Viagens Interplanetarias official, joins a scientist and poet en route to a utopian Terran colony on the island of Zesh. There she becomes embroiled in the affairs of some peculiarly intelligent aborigines. The story is notable for its satirization of contemporary pseudoscientific movements and for some remarkable parallels to Daniel KeyesDaniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes is an American author best known for his Hugo award-winning short story and Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000.-Early life and career:Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New...
's novel Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960...
, which it predates.
The Wheels of If. Lawyer Alister Park is inexplicably torn from his normal existence and thrust into a series of alternate worlds. Each morning he discovers he has become someone else, in a world changed from his own. Ultimately he finds himself a bishop in Vinland
Vinland
Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE.There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus...
, an America that might have been had the early Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
converted to Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...
and the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
lost the Battle of Tours
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours , also called the Battle of Poitiers and in Battle of the Court of the Martyrs, was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, located in north-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille, about northeast of Poitiers...
. The displacement of his consciousness turns out to have been incidental to a plot directed against his other self, Bishop Scoglund , whose campaign to extend civil rights to Vinland's native inhabitants, the Skraelings
Skræling
Skræling is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the indigenous peoples they encountered in North America and Greenland. In surviving sources it is first applied to the Thule people, the Eskimo group with whom the Norse coexisted in Greenland after about the 13th century...
, has aroused opposition. To get home Park must continue his counterpart's struggle while somehow unraveling the mystery of how to reunite the minds of all his selves with their proper realities. The story is a classic early alternate history tale.