The Carnelian Cube
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Arthur Cleveland Finch was an eminently practical man. Naturally he didn't believe that the carnelian cube was a "dream-stone" with supernatural powers. But, of course, if he were going to wish himself into another world, he would choose one where everything was perfectly rational.
Finch got his wish - with a bang! And he soon discovered that one man's rationality can easily be another man's nightmare. He awoke a poet in a strange place where status meant everything and a man could be tried for umpteen kinds of crimes for reciting a poem in public.
So, being optimistic as well as practical, Finch tried again - and again. And the worlds kept getting wilder, more improbable, and funnier - but more dangerous, too. The question was, could Finch find Utopia¿ before losing his skin?
L. Sprague deCamp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was born in 1907 and died in 2000. During a writing career that spanned seven decades, he wrote over a hundred books in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, non-fiction and biography. Although arguably best known for his continuation of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, de Camp was an important figure in the formative period of modern SF, alongside the likes of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, and was a winner of the Hugo, World Fantasy Life Achievement and SFWA Grand Master awards.
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