The Carnelian Cube

by L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt

The carnelian cube of the title is a small red "dream stone" confiscated by archaeologist Arthur Cleveland Finch from one of the workers on the dig he is supervising. Sleeping with it beneath his pillow he finds himself cast into a parallel world as "Finch Arthur Poet" -- who is, indeed, a poet. Finding his life endangered, he discovers he can use the stone to escape into yet another parallel world, and the novel follows his adventures through a succession of such worlds.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Dungeons and Dragons

230 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction literature. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, both novels and works of non-fiction, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.

Reviews

[Craig]

This isn't the best of either Pratt or de Camp (nor even the best of their collaborative work), but I've always counted it as a favorite for some reason. The ending is a bit abrupt, but it's highly imaginative, with frequent clever plot twists and witty exchanges. De Camp always excelled with archaeological themes, and both authors obviously indulged their love of wordplay here. Dated, but still lots of fun.

[Michael Pryor]

Plodding, laboured, heavy-handed.

[Jerry]

This book really ought to have been better than it was. The basic idea is this: the carnelian cube, a sort of philosopher’s stone for dreams, allows people to dream themselves into “better” worlds. The problem is that they have to think up that better world, resulting inevitably in getting what the wished for, good and hard. Each begins interestingly and slowly becomes more horrific as Arthur Finch learns more about the worlds he’s dreams up. For the first two dreams—a world of order, followed by a world of individualism—this is mostly humorous.

It’s a search for a perfect world, written in 1948, just after World War II. (In fact, it reads as if it were meant to be serialized; possibly the reason it it wasn’t was due to wartime paper rationing.)

For his final attempt, he tries for a scientific world, and there is no humor there. This is a world where everything is handled on a purely scientific basis, from astrology to history. And if the latter sounds like it might be better than what we have now, consider what the scientific method would look like applied to history. Presumably, the other humanities have the same issue, but since Finch is a historian (sort of—he acts like a historian once he starts dreaming, but we first see him on an archaeological dig), we see how history is investigated.

The drawbacks of the cube from the standpoint of the reader is that none of the three (or four if you count the frame) stories in this book are ever concluded. The Finch whose viewpoint we see escapes before the Finch whose world he inhabits has to face the consequences of what the protagonist has done to him. We never do learn if the worlds Finch dreams himself into are real worlds that exist independent of him, real worlds that were created by him, or “merely” dreams that he can’t escape. So we don’t know if the Finch he leaves behind ends up having to face the consequences of the dreaming Finch’s stubbornness.

One of the interesting things about Finch’s first, ordered world is that it predicts Alvin Toffler’s recommendation in Future Shock that technological advancement be heavily restricted so as to slow it down and avoid the psychological cost of progress:

“What’s so terrible about innovation?”
Terry shook his head. “You know’s well I do. They figure they got everything the way they want it, and trying to change it gets people disturbed or th’own out of their jobs. I did hear tell some of the engineers got plans for a machine that’ll sure enough fly, but the authorities won’t let ’em build it. Say hit’ll be time enough in maybe a hundred years, when the effects of them automobiles all git absorbed.”

Both the “change… gets people disturbed” and “when the effects of… automobiles [get] absorbed” are pure Toffler, over two decades before Future Shock came out.

He turned and took a double armful of dresses off the hooks, disposing them to make as neat a bed as possible. Removing his own coat gave both freedom and a pillow. He stuffed the carnelian cube into the latter and lay down, obsessed with a sense of pattern for which there was no justification—a sense that there was somewhere a central threat running through this series of dream-experiences, the clue of which he could not find.

[Nathan Dehoff]

These two authors collaborated on the Harold Shea stories. I've enjoyed other stuff by Sprague de Camp, while the two I read by Pratt solo, The Blue Star and The Well of the Unicorn, didn't grab me. Oh, well. In this book, the archaeologist Arthur Finch finds a magical cube that can transfer someone between worlds based on their desires. He first wants a more rational world, and finds one where he has a job as a poet, but everyone is defined only by their occupations, and there are some strange rules about names and language. The next one is supposed to be a world of individualism, and is led by violent Southern bullies, including a colonel who claims to be able to read minds. He does have a certain amount of success in repurposing elements of existing poems into new forms, but finds the place too dangerous. In order to track down the cube again, Arthur seeks the help of a medium who summons a delirium tremens hallucination to help him, one of the more amusing parts of this story. Then, wanting to return to his old career as an archaeologist, he enters a world where scholars literally recreate the past in reenactments that include killing the participants. They also take astrology incredibly seriously, and one of his colleagues espouses Nazi beliefs. The book ends with Arthur determined to keep using the cube until he finds the right place, with the implication being that he never will. It's a strange story, perhaps better in its ideas than its execution, but generally entertaining.

[Justin Alferman]

This book was hard to put down in the beginning. Absolutely fantastic science fiction fantasy, that slowly became dull.

2/3 worlds that Finch travels to are very interesting. The third was drawn out, boring, and a little difficult to comprehend. The abrupt ending of the book I interpret to mean that the authors had planned for a sequel that was never completed.

Overall, close to a 4 star, I'd say 3.75.

[Philip Watson]

It started out very well. An archaeologist finds a cube that can transport you to different worlds by sleeping with it under your pillow. The worlds, though, are boring and stereotypical dystopias and the dialog tries to be intellectual and witty but falls flat. There was no proper ending either. It's just like the author sort gave up. I wish I'd given up earlier as well on this book.

[Sean]

I dunno. No particular feeling about it. I enjoyed the vocabulary. The final world (where scientists recreate historical moments by reprogramming the brains of actors to think they are historical characters) was interesting.

[Stuart]

Very inventive and occasionally hilarious, but the writers either ran out of steam or wrote themselves into a corner or something about 30 pages from the end. Which is sad, because the rush through the final "segment" of the narrative mars an otherwise impressive book.

[Kathleen]

Not bad, a bit pulpy and certainly outdated, but typical of the genre at the time. The ending left me unsatisfied, at it sort of stops between worlds without reaching an end, like "Quantum Leap."

[Gort]

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