 First edition cover | |
| Author | Sarban |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Peter Davies Ltd |
Publication date | 1952 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback) |
| Pages | 154 pp |
The Sound of His Horn is a 1952 dystopian time travel/alternative history novel by the senior British diplomat John William Wall, written under the pseudonym Sarban. [1] The novel has been included in several lists of the greatest fantasy novels of all time.
Royal Navy Lieutenant Alan Querdillon becomes a German prisoner during the Battle of Crete during World War II. After escaping and travelling through a forest, he runs into a barrier of 'Bohlen Rays', is knocked unconscious, and awakens in a Nazi-controlled world at least a hundred years after World War II on the estate of the Reich Master Forester, Count Hans von Hackelnberg.
Querdillon is treated by a doctor and, at night, hears the sounds of a hunting horn, which a nurse tells him is the Count hunting. After witnessing a hunt and discovering that the prey are women dressed as birds, Querdillon asks to meet the Count. The doctor says that is too dangerous, but takes Querdillon to observe the Count feasting.
Querdillon manages to escape the doctor and join the Count's entourage to witness genetically modified leopard-women attacking deer. On the way back from the sport, the Count spots Querdillon and orders him released into the forest to be hunted. Querdillon plans to escape by tunnelling under the barrier that surrounds the estate. He also meets one of the bird-women, Kit, who helps him.
Eventually, Querdillon and Kit are hunted down by the Count, but Kit sacrifices herself to draw the leopard-woman pack onto the barrier, killing them. When the barrier is turned off to retrieve the bodies, Querdillon slips across and returns to 1943. [2]
The book's title is from an 18th-century song about the "gentleman farmer" John Peel, a famous fox hunter in his time. In the novel, the title is given a sinister meaning that does not appear in the original, with the victorious Nazis hunting humans as if they were foxes. In his introduction to the 1960 edition of the novel by Ballantine Books, Kingsley Amis wrote, "I shall always feel a slight twinge whenever I am reminded of the innocent English hunting song from which the title is taken".
The novel received mixed reviews upon its release. Writing for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , author Damon Knight commented that the book was "a minor thing, crude in places, but persuasive." [3] However, the novel has since gained a reputation as a classic of the genre. Literary critic Peter Nicholls has described it as "a fine story, well-told in a clear, evocative, almost formal prose." [1] Thomas M. Disch ranked The Sound of His Horn at number twelve in his list of the all-time greatest fantasy stories. [4] The book was also included by David Pringle in his book Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels and by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman in their Horror: 100 Best Books. [5]
Michael John Moorcock is an English–American writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction writer and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book —previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" —in 1999. He had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a Rhysling Award, and two Seiun Awards, among others.
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Camp Concentration is a 1968 science fiction novel by American author Thomas M. Disch. After being serialized in New Worlds in 1967, it was published by Hart-Davis in the UK in 1968 and by Doubleday in the US in 1969. Translations have been published in Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Serbian and Polish.
ODESSA is an American codename coined in 1946 to cover Nazi underground escape-plans made at the end of World War II by a group of SS officers with the aim of facilitating secret escape routes, and any directly ensuing arrangements. The concept of the existence of an actual ODESSA organisation has circulated widely in fictional spy novels and movies, including Frederick Forsyth's best-selling 1972 thriller The Odessa File. The escape-routes have become known as "ratlines". Known goals of elements within the SS included allowing SS members to escape to Argentina or to the Middle East under false passports.
Patricia Anne McKillip was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She wrote predominantly standalone fantasy novels and has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre". Her work won many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008.
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknown's first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.
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John William Wall, pen name Sarban, was a British writer and diplomat. Wall's diplomatic career lasted more than thirty years, but his writing career as Sarban was brief and not prolific, ending during the early 1950s. Sarban is described in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy as "a subtle, literate teller of tales, conscious of the darker and less acceptable implications that underlie much popular literature". Wall cited the supernatural fiction of Arthur Machen and Walter de la Mare as influences on his work.
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