Fallible Fiend
Mar. 25th, 2009 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essentialsaltesFinished The Fallible Fiend by L Sprague de Camp.
An airy bagatelle. Zdim is a demon from the Twelfth Plane summoned to a fantasy world. The Twelfth Plane is a bit short on metals, so the demons all take turns becoming indentured servants to the humans of the Prime Plane. Unfortunately for humans, demons take their orders quite literally. Not through maliciousness, but they just don't really understand the Prime Plane that well (and in fact demons might just be a little slow). Probably fortunately, de Camp uses this plot point only a couple times before we both get tired of it (more likely that was his schtick for the first short story (which somewhat surprisingly won the BFA) to which a second story was added, and then additional integument was added to make it into a novel). In the latter two-thirds, he moves on to light fantasy with a satirical POV on the foibles of mankind. I really like de Camp, but this was not one of his better works; meaning it was merely enjoyable. But hey, I got a first edition paperback for $1 at a used book sale, so I'm not complaining.
An airy bagatelle. Zdim is a demon from the Twelfth Plane summoned to a fantasy world. The Twelfth Plane is a bit short on metals, so the demons all take turns becoming indentured servants to the humans of the Prime Plane. Unfortunately for humans, demons take their orders quite literally. Not through maliciousness, but they just don't really understand the Prime Plane that well (and in fact demons might just be a little slow). Probably fortunately, de Camp uses this plot point only a couple times before we both get tired of it (more likely that was his schtick for the first short story (which somewhat surprisingly won the BFA) to which a second story was added, and then additional integument was added to make it into a novel). In the latter two-thirds, he moves on to light fantasy with a satirical POV on the foibles of mankind. I really like de Camp, but this was not one of his better works; meaning it was merely enjoyable. But hey, I got a first edition paperback for $1 at a used book sale, so I'm not complaining.
