Lest Darkness Fall
Rarely do books have such a great influence on a genre as "Lest Darkness Fall" has had on science fiction. Frequently quoted as one of the 'favorite' books of many of the masters of the field, this book by L. Sprague de Camp helped establish time-travel as solid sub-genre of science fiction. An...
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Rarely do books have such a great influence on a genre as "Lest Darkness Fall" has had on science fiction. Frequently quoted as one of the 'favorite' books of many of the masters of the field, this book by L. Sprague de Camp helped establish time-travel as solid sub-genre of science fiction.
An indication of the influence and longevity of the book is the number of best-selling writers who have written stories in direct response to, or influenced by, Lest Darkness Fall. This new volume also includes three such stories by Frederik Pohl, David Drake and S. M. Stirling written over a period of forty-three years-a testament to the timelessness of the book.
Similar, thematically, to Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," the book tells the tale of Martin Padway who, as he is walking around in modern Rome, is suddenly transported though time to 6th Century Rome.
Once in ancient Rome, Padway (now Martinus Paduei Quastor) embarks on an ambitious project of single-handedly changing history.
L. Sprague de Camp was a student of history (and the author of a number of popular works on the subject). "In Lest Darkness Fall" he combines his extensive knowledge of the workings of ancient Rome with his extraordinary imagination to create one of the best books of time travel ever written.
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Format: mass market paperback
ISBN:
9780345282859 (034528285X)
Publish date: July 12th 1983
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Pages no: 208
Edition language: English
I first read L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall nearly 15 years ago, and I've reread it dozens of times since then. It's one of my all-time favorite novels, and as I reread it again I thought about why I regard it so. Probably the first reason is that it's a novel about time travel, one of my...
A historian, Martin Padway, is transported to Rome of 500AD and proceeds to introduce inventions (like the printing press, Arabic numerals) and innovations to prevent the Fall of Rome and the inception of the Dark Ages. This is an engaging mixture of time-travel and alternate history--in fact, given...
De Camp's attempt at a more technologically accurate version of Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. A 20th century American engineer is transported back in time and he decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages from happening by introducing modern technology into the medieval world.
This was one of my favorite books as a child. It quite possibly was a major influence on my subsequent undergraduate and post-graduate careers since it powerfully motivated me to learn all I could about the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines & the historical figures that litter the novel.It didn't hurt that...
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