Works
Despite the magical trappings, the Lord Darcy stories play fair as whodunnits; magic is never used to "cheat" a solution, and indeed, the mundane explanation is often obscured by the leap to assume a magical cause.
Too Many Magicians is the only Lord Darcy novel written by Randall Garrett: it first appeared in Analog magazine from August to November 1966 and was issued in book form by Doubleday in 1967. This was followed by two short story collections: Murder and Magic (1979), and Lord Darcy Investigates (1981), containing stories that had appeared in Analog, Fantastic and other magazines. Garrett's extended illness and death prevented him from writing more Lord Darcy tales as he had intended.
Two more Lord Darcy novels, Ten Little Wizards (1988), and A Study in Sorcery (1989), were written by Garrett's friend Michael Kurland after Garrett's death—the two names manifestly modeled on those of famous detective novels by, respectively, Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, as that of Too Many Magicians was modeled on a famous novel by Rex Stout (whose Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin have counterparts in the novel's universe in the Marquis de London and his Special Investigator, Lord Bontriomphe).
It seems likely that Kurland's Lord Darcy is younger than Garrett's, as Kurland has him graduating from Oxford in 1954, when he would have been 33 years old according to Garrett. Alternatively, the date could be read as an error for 1944, when Darcy would have been a more likely twenty-three.
In 1999, Randall Garrett won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History Special Achievement Award for the Lord Darcy series.
Read more about this topic: Lord Darcy (character)
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, which regenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience enable us to follow Jesus’ example. Long prayers, superstition, and creeds clip the strong pinions of love, and clothe religion in human forms. Whatever materializes worship hinders man’s spiritual growth and keeps him from demonstrating his power over error.”
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
“It’s an old trick now, God knows, but it works every time. At the very moment women start to expand their place in the world, scientific studies deliver compelling reasons for them to stay home.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn’t have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)