{"id":51315,"date":"2021-12-06T03:55:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T03:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jurn.org\/tentaclii\/?p=51315"},"modified":"2022-04-11T06:24:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T06:24:31","slug":"witch-of-the-demon-seas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2021\/12\/06\/witch-of-the-demon-seas\/","title":{"rendered":"Witch of the Demon Seas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just the thing for a dull Monday, a new two and a half hour LibriVox recording by Phil Chenevert for Witch of the Demon Seas<\/a><\/em> by Poul Anderson. It was the only Planet Stories<\/em> tale he didn’t use his own name for, possibly because he also had another tale in the same January 1951 issue.<\/p>\n

There’s also an existing paid audiobook, which has this enticing blurb…<\/p>\n

an entertaining romp with pirates, witches, wizards and bizarre sea aliens [and] an intriguing brand of “magic” [which] eschews the typical supernatural underpinnings in favor of the more scientific.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The journal Amra<\/em> (February 1977) observed…<\/p>\n

Witch of the Demon Seas (January ’51); a damn good heroic fantasy, beautifully and accurately illustrated by Vestal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A recent account of a reading of “Witch” by Mporcius<\/em> has way too much plot-spoiling summary to risk linking, but he usefully observes…<\/p>\n

Anderson’s story totally lives up to the sex and violence reputation of Planet Stories<\/em> … Even though its full of dragons, sea serpents, witches and swordsmen, this is a science fiction story, not a fantasy. What the characters seek is not a pile of treasure, but knowledge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It all sounds quite positive to a Conan<\/em> fan. The main character is even called Corun. But there’s more. Anderson had similar Planet Stories<\/em> tales in 1951, “The Virgin of Valkarion” and “Swordsman of Lost Terra”. “Swordsman” is also available in a 2021 Librivox audiobook<\/a> — though with a different reader than “Witch”, and you may want to tweak the AIMP player’s pitch settings to get a deeper voice.<\/p>\n

These three pulp tales obviously gave the author a taste for the approach, and they were followed in 1954 by what is said to be the very superior dark fantasy novel The Broken Sword<\/em>. This apparently drew heavily on much the same sources as Tolkien, resulting in a ‘Norse Vikings vs. Elves’ situation that was actually slightly pre-Tolkien and all the more interesting for it. Dark World<\/em> notes that in the 1970s Anderson returned to do more writing for the Broken Sword<\/em> world, following a successful 1971 re-issue of his by-then-forgotten novel. Of this original novel Dark Worlds<\/em> observed… <\/p>\n

perhaps the finest American heroic fantasy, with good characterizations, excellent surface detail, good plotting, and an admirable recreation of the mood of the Old Norse literature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just the thing for a dull Monday, a new two and a half hour LibriVox recording by Phil Chenevert for …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-odd-scratchings","category-podcasts-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53306,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51315\/revisions\/53306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}