Who Goes There?

L. Sprague de Camp made his debut in 1937, and would remain more or less active until his death in 2000, although he would lean much more towards fantasy than SF after 1960. De Camp technically debuted before John W. Campbell’s takeover of Astounding, but he quickly became one of Campbell’s court jesters, his humor being just innuendo-laden enough but more often relying on deadpan and slapstick delivery. But it was with Unknown, Astounding‘s fantasy sister magazine, that we saw much of de Camp’s best early work, both solo and in collaboration with Fletchet Pratt. It’s not surprising that in The Best of L. Sprague de Camp a solid portion of the stories included are from Unknown, despite that magazine only lasting a few years. De Camp would go on hiatus during America’s involvement in World War II, and he would not return to writing in earnest until around 1950. He’s probably most known today for his helping in raising awareness of Robert E. Howard’s work, if also his meddling in said work. The two would’ve been close contemporaries, had Howard lived.

Lest Darkness Fall was de Camp’s first solo novel (he had already written None But Lucifer with H. L. Gold), and it’s often considered his best. It was published in Unknown as a solid 50,000-word novel, which is why I’m confused by Wikipedia calling it the “short story version.” De Camp must’ve expanded it for book publication in 1941, but not by much, and he revised it for a 1949 reprint. This is often considered an SF novel, which makes its inclusion in Unknown a bit strange, but I do have a couple theories as to why it’s here: the first is the setting, which is pre-medieval and thus almost reads like low fantasy; the second is that Unknown had a policy of sometimes printing whole novels while Astounding did not, and Campbell maybe couldn’t fit Lest Darkness Fall in as a serial in the latter, for indeed it would’ve been too long to run in one piece.

Placing Coordinates

First published in the December 1939 issue of Unknown, which is on the Archive. You can also read the 1949 revision here. Lest Darkness Fall ran as a five-part serial in Galaxy’s Edge, presumably based on the 1949 version. It’s also been bundled in a Gollancz SF Gateway Omnibus with Rogue Queen and The Tritonian Ring. It’s also been bundled with a couple sequels by other hands as Lest Darkness Fall and Related Stories. In other words, this is not exactly a hard novel to find, and because it’s short by modern standards it’s often been packaged with other things.

Enhancing Image

I have some notes:

1. De Camp does not waste time here, at least with getting us to 6th century Rome. Martin Padway is an archeologist and a bit of a workaholic who’s currently staying in 1930s Rome. (We get a mention of the country being run by Mussolini’s fascists, but Padway doesn’t seem to feel anything strongly about fascism, and anyway it’s not dwelt on.) Padway is also a divorcee; his wife left him because after “one taste of living in a tent and watching her husband mutter over the inscriptions on potsherds” she realized being an archeologist’s wife was not in the cards for her. This is about all we learn about Padway before a bolt of lightning sends him back to 535 CE. We’re not given even the ghost of an explanation for how a lightning strike could do this and it’s obvious that de Camp is not interested in the how of getting his hapless anti-hero to where he wants him to be.
2. The line of plausibility is a fine one to walk, and I would say de Camp succeeds so long as one does not go deliberately looking for holes. Of course some convenience is at play. It’s convenient that Padway is an archeologist and, by extension, a kind of historian, not to mention he seems to have read Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. De Camp himself admits in the introduction he took some inspiration from Robert Graves’s historical novels (incidentally I just finished I, Claudius), although Padway himself doesn’t mention Graves. This is a curious comparison, because the idea of making history entertaining was still a new concept then—not history as told in Hollywood productions but well-researched, fact-based history. With that said, while you do get some context within the novel, de Camp makes assumptions about the reader’s knowledge that probably aren’t valid anymore.
3. There is one thing that strains one’s suspension of disbelief, which is the language barrier. Italians in 535 CE spoke Latin, and Padway just so happens to know elementary-level Latin despite being a Congregationalist and not a Catholic; to de Camp’s credit he does acknowledge that language, even one as antiquated as Latin, changes over time, and so Padway talks with a heavy accent which other characters are quick to point out. Cleverly Padway adopts the more Latin-sounding name “Martinus Paduei” to fit in with the locals. Not sure why Padway wasn’t written as a Catholic (one who is estranged from his wife), since in the pre-Vatican II days it would’ve been perfectly sensible for a Catholic to know his Latin. Then again, Padway is mostly apolitical and unconcerned with religious matters, which is true of a lot of Protestants. De Camp is playfully ribbing some people here, but he’s not trying to make any kind of serious statement; this is, ultimately, an unserious novel.
4. So, the context: Rome in 535 CE is long past the days of Augustus, to put it lightly. The Italians have accepted Christianity for a couple centuries now, no longer looking to feed infidels to the lions, but the Roman Empire is now fractured. The western Italian-Gothic coalition is about to enter war with the Eastern Roman Empire, and the ensuing war will help bring about the Middle Ages, shrouding Europe “in darkness, from a scientific and technological aspect, for nearly a thousand years.” Padway knows that life in Rome is on the downslide and about to get much worse, but the people around him are blissfully ignorant of this. Surprisingly the idea of somehow returning to his own time doesn’t much occur to him; rather he quickly becomes concerned with surviving in a Rome that is about to get totally butt-fucked by war, and he also wonders if history can be changed enough to create an alternate future.
5. If you read anything about Lest Darkness Fall in advance then you know it’s alternate history novel, and indeed it doesn’t take long for Padway to introduce some changes that will have long-term consequences—some of which will not be to his advantage. Inventing the printing press and starting one’s own newspaper (freedom of the press and all that) in what amounts to a police state can land one in jail, as it turns out. Padway starts out “small,” teaching a local banker double-entry accounting, inventing the printing press, eventually starting the world’s firs telegraph line—you know how it is. Like I said, convenience plays a not-inconsiderable part here, although Padway is not a demigod; he can’t do everything himself. He gets arrested enough times that it becomes a sort of running gag. I would still argue Padway is too much of what Heinlein would call “the competent man,” and I have to wonder what would’ve happened if someone less skilled had been thrown back to Rome right before the Middle Ages; admittedly they would probably last all of three days.
6. As with Graves’s historical novels, de Camp throws some real-life figures into the mix, although due to the relative obscurity of the time period there’s nobody the reader is likely to recognize right away. I hope you know who Justinian is. And let’s not forget Thiudahad, king of the Italians and Goths who eventually succumbs to what is probably dementia or some other neurological disease; he’s pretty funny. The funniest might be Mathasuentha, princess and wife to whomever would succeed Thiudahad once he becomes unfit for the throne—and, much to Padway’s horror, a bloodthirsty opportunist. Padway considers romancing Mathasuentha until she reveals herself to be a bit of what we would call a yandere. “You wouldn’t exactly describe her as a ‘sweet’ girl,” the narrator tells us. Better to marry her off to Urias, who after all is a war hero and who can probably deal with her shenanigans. Padway himself remains a bachelor to the end, at least in the magazine version.
7. How good you think Lest Darkness Fall is will depend on how funny you think it is, because it is very much a novel filled with what we humans would call “jokes.” De Camp isn’t always funny, and I think his cynical brand of conservatism (almost like a distant precursor to South Park-type humor) holds him back from being a more serious writer, but when he’s on the ball he can elicit some chuckles. The novel becomes less funny as it pivots more towards alternate history warfare (this is when Padway gains enough clout to basically do Thiudahad’s job for him), but we’re assured that despite what the title suggests, nothing too dark will happen. This is largely because even as Padway’s situation becomes more serious, both Padway and the third-person narrator remain as deadpan as ever. At one point Padway ponders the evils of slavery and how he should probably do something about it, but it reads like someone writing down stuff they ought to buy as the grocery store. Like I said, not a very serious novel.
8. I can see why de Camp would add a few thousand words onto the novel for book publication, but if anything he should’ve expanded it even further. Lest Darkness Fall, for how much ground it’s covering, is too short; the magazine version is about 50,000 words long and it could easily be twice that length. I know this is weird coming from me, as someone who tends to like short novels, but consider that I, Claudius is 450 pages long and still omly makes up the first half of a larger narrative. There are characters who brim with personality but barely get any screentime because this novel is a train and the train will not stop. SFF novels prior to the ‘60s often didn’t go past 300 pages, and this is sometimes a bad thing because some narratives need more space to reach their full potential. Lest Darkness Fall feels like the abridged version of a complete novel which sadly does not exist.

There Be Spoilers Here

Darkness does not fall.

A Step Farther Out

The “modern man sent to the distant past” plot type has been done many times since Lest Darkness Fall, and needless to say some authors have built on the foundation de Camp laid down. There’s a lot of room for navel-gazing with this premise and de Camp keeps that to a minimum, for better or worse. If this novel succeeds (and it is a succeess for what it is), it’s because de Camp’s fascination with the foibles of ancient history is infectious, helped by the fact that this is a perfectly balanced, well-oiled machine of a novel. We’re given just enough context in what was then the modern day before being hit with the time-travel lightning. Padway is a bit of a scoundrel, but he’s not unlikable enough to make us always following him a chore; to make him a total asshole would’ve been fatal for the novel. There’s some commentary on the gap in values between Italy circa 535 CE and 20th century America, but not enough to give one the impression that de Camp is trying to make one of those pesky political statements. If this sounds like a cynical assessment of the novel, that’s because it’s a cynical novel.

What made Lest Darkness Fall inspirational for a couple generations of SFF writers is that it’s history made entertaining; one might even call it an early example of “edutainment” in genre literature. Admittely you may wanna do some extra reading on the twilight years of the Roman Empire, since de Camp assumes you’re a well-educated person who already know enough going in; this might’ve been true in 1939, but needless to say our priorities with history have changed drastically since then. It’s a genuinely funny novel, if also slight in terms of emotional and thematic content. Had I read this, say, five to ten years earlier, I probably would’ve loved it; but I also think it has since been outshined by its own progeny.

See you next time.