Most of these stories could be considered to belong to the sword-and-planet genre, although they’re slightly unconventional examples of the breed. Time travel figures prominently in several of these tales. The stories range from moderately competent to extremely good with the good outweighing the bad. And all are at least interesting.
In The Six Sleepers it is 1934 and an American prospector takes refuge in a cave. He finds five bodies in the cave. They are the bodies of a Roman legionary, a Crusader knight, a 16th century Italian condottiere, a 17th century pirate and an 18th century French nobleman. What really surprises him is that these men are not dead. They are asleep and they have been sleeping for centuries. He figures out that there is a strange gas seeping into the cave, a gas that has the property of putting a person into an endless sleep. Unfortunately by the time he’s figured this out he too is asleep.
When he awakens (along with the other five) it’s not just centuries have have passed but tens of thousands of years. They are in a strange future. A mighty civilisation has arise and then decayed into oblivion. People still exist, along with half-human half-animal creatures. The nastiest of these are the rat-men.
At this point in the story you expect a beautiful young maiden to appear, and sure enough that’s what happens. The girl and the five men are going to have to battle the dreaded rat-men. A very good story.
The Fire Creatures is a lost world story. A scientist invents special protective suits to allow him to be the first to enter the heart of an active volcano. He disappears. His daughter Helen and her boyfriend Jerry Holt (wearing the fireproof suits) have to enter the volcano to find him. What they find is extraordinary - creatures that live in a world of fire and extreme temperatures. Not just fire-creatures, but men adapted to live inside a volcano. In fact a civilisation.
It turns out to be a none-too-friendly world.
The plot isn’t that dazzling but the fire world is an impressive and bizarre creation. Fire-men fishing on a lake of molten lava. Cold air used as the ultimate weapon. An entire ecosystem of fire creatures. An excellent highly imaginative story.
In fact it takes for several thousand years Ulios and his faithful servant pursue the woman and her lover. They witness the rise and fall of civilisations. Ulios cares nothing for this. Nothing can take the place of Atlantis.
So obviously a story of obsession and love turned to hate. Hamilton takes the opportunity to have his hero mixed up in great events, and to meet major historical figures. And to add some amusing alternate history takes on some of these events, such as the notorious reign of the Roman Emperor Caligula. An ambitious and clever story.
In Child of Atlantis David and Christa Russel are enjoying their honeymoon on board David’s yacht, en route for the Azores. They’re enjoying until suddenly they are wrecked on an island that isn’t there. One moment they were surrounded by empty ocean, the next moment the island was there. An island with a black castle perched on a clifftop. Having made their way ashore they notice something odd. Looking out to sea they can only see a few hundred yards and after that there’s just a strange shimmering.
The island is inhabited by shipwrecked sailors of many nation some of whom have been there for twenty years or more. They cannot leave the island. If they try the Master calls them and they cannot resist his will. At various other times one of the marooned sailors is called by the Master. The Master’s will compels him to enter the black castle and he is never seen again.
David refuses to accept this. There must be a way to escape. But that seems increasingly impossible.
Once again Hamilton has a cool idea and he makes good use of it. Another fine story.
Comrades of Time is a time travel story similar in some ways to The Six Sleepers. This time it’s an American serving in the Foreign Legion in the 1930s, a soldier from ancient Egypt, a conquistador, a Viking, a 19th century American frontiersman and one of Cromwell’s soldiers who find themselves in the distant future. It is however a different kind of future. A million years into the future the last continent on Earth is doomed. There’s a mad scientist (but a kindly one), a wicked king, a beautiful maiden and a hideous ageless insane genius.
Our six adventurers have to get hold of the time-ry machine that can send them back to their own times. It’s OK but one of the lesser stories in the collection.
Armies from the Past is a sequel to Comrades of Time. The same six adventurers are plucked out of the past, and this time they’re sent two million years into the future. The kindly mad scientist and his beautiful daughter are in trouble again.
Earth is ruled by the Masters, who appear to be human-like aliens. The human population is drugged to force them to obey.
Thing go wrong for our time-traveling adventurers and the scientist’s beautiful daughter falls into the hands of the Masters. A terrible fate lies in store for her if she can’t be rescued and she’s being held in an impregnable fortress. It would take an army to storm it. The scientists tells them they can have their army.
Like Comrades of Time this is a slightly disappointing story with a reasonable central idea that isn’t developed all that well.
Dreamer’s Worlds is more interesting. Henry Stevens and Khal Kan have a problem. They’re the same person. Or they might be. Henry Stevens is a meek little clerk in Midland City, Illinois. Khal Kan is the warrior prince of Jotan on a planet that is clearly not Earth. Every night Henry Stevens falls asleep and dreams of his life of adventure and swordplay and lusty wenches as Khal Kan. Every might Khal Kan falls asleep and dreams of his prosaic life as Henry Stevens. Maybe Khal Kan exists only in Henry Stevens’ dream. Or maybe Henry Stevens exists only in Khal Kan’s dream.
What makes Henry Stevens suspect that Khal Kan is real is that his dreams have perfect continuity. When he falls asleep Khal Kan’s life picks up exactly at the point it had reached in the previous dream. It’s just one long continuous dream, and it has none of the disjointedness or illogicality of a normal dream. Quite a good story.
The Shadow Folk is a change of pace. A race of transparent people live in the high mountains. They are totally invisible to ordinary folk but to each other they are semi-transparent. They live in fear of their existence being discovered by the Others (their name for ordinary non-invisible people). A mistake by one of the young female Shadow Folk could reveal their secret. She makes an even bigger mistake. She falls in love with one of the Others.
This sounds like a fantasy story but it’s actually science fiction, and the emphasis is on romance. An odd but quirky story.
On the whole a varied and fascinating collection from DMR Press. Highly recommended.
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