The seventeenth Tor Double, includes two stories, L. Sprague de Camp’s Divide and Rule and Leigh Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon, which are both fantasy stories masquerading as science fiction.

Divide and Rule was originally serialized in Unknown in April to May, 1939. Divide and Rule is the first of two de Camp stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series. It includes de Camp’s first of two stories in the series (both of which will be reviewed this month) and Brackett’s second of three.

De Camp sets his story about three centuries after an alien macropod race conquered the Earth. Set in a balkanized New York state, referred to as York, de Camp has created a feudal system in which Sir Howard van Slyck is the second son of the Duke of Poughkeepsie. Knowing his older brother will inherit his father’s lands and title, Sir Howard rides around York state, a latter day knight errant, trying to avoid the attention of the hoppers, as the macropods are called for their resemblance to kangaroos, while looking down on the commoners.

Sir Howard begins to reevaluate the role and intelligence of commoners when he meets up with Lyman Haas, a human from far off Wyoming who is ostensibly traveling in York to see the sights, but makes it clear that his penchant for getting into fights (always provoked) in Wyoming has made his presence in the West problematic.

When the two decide they should rescue a young woman who was kidnapped by a local warlord, they find themselves face-to-face with Sally Mitten, a young woman who turns out to be active in a resistance movement against the hoppers. If Haas made Howard reconsider commoners, Sally makes him completely rethink the entire system in which they live. Sally further introduces them to Elsmith, the local head of the resistance, who sees potential in Howard and slowly works to convince him that resistance to the hoppers is necessary.

Much of Howard’s activity is based on his understanding of his place in society as a protector and a rightful ruler. The education he receives from Elsmith offers a science fictional rationale for the regression of the human race’s social structure, based on the needs and understandings of the hoppers, who remain mostly off-stage, a threatening presence whose aura is slowly worn down, not by any action on the part of de Camp’s characters, but as Howard learns more about the three centuries of occupation from Elsmith.

Sir Howard goes from being a futuristic Don Quixote, who adventures don’t seem to matter as he seeks adventure for its own sake, to being a cog in a much larger movement, which benefits from the way of life he was raised to support. His transformation is aided by his discovery that his older brother, Frank, is not as accepting of the social order as Howard had expected, as well as his infatuation with Sally and the education and trust he receives from Elsmith. As he comes to understand the truth of the hoppers, he slowly begins to see that that there may be a better way to structure society, although he never loses the idea that he is deserving to be at the top of the social hierarchy.

Divide and Rule is not a particularly complex or deep story, but de Camp is able to offer up an entertaining tale of social science fiction that addresses the failures of a class system that doesn’t offer a chance of mobility. It also attacks authoritarian leadership, no matter how distant it may seem.

Because the hoppers are seen only rarely in the story, their species and culture is not particularly well defined, and what definition is provided mostly comes from their enemies, in the guise of Elsmith, although de Camp does give a few isolated examples which seem to reinforce what Elsmith tells Howard about their conquerors. Nevertheless, they rarely seem to offer an imminent threat and Howard and Haas are generally able to avoid them. When they are captured by hoppers, they are easily able to escape their captors in a way that helps lead to the hoppers’ eventual downfall.

The Sword of Rhiannon was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in June, 1949 as Sea-Kings of Mars. The Sword of Rhiannon is the second of three Brackett stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series. In 1953, The Sword of Rhiannon was published as part of Ace Double #D-36, with Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror. Interestingly, although set on Brackett’s Mars, The Sword of Rhiannon could, with only minor changes, easily have taken place in Robert E. Howard’s Hyborea.

In many ways The Sword of Rhiannon follows the same pattern as Nemesis from Terra in Tor Double #8. Matthew Carse is an Earthman, and therefore an outsider, living on a dying Mars. A chance encounter with a thief named Penkawr leads him through the narrow streets of the Old City before he is offered the legendary titular sword and the secret of the lost Tomb of Rhiannon. A double cross by Penkawr leads to Carse falling unconscious into the Tomb and awakening millennia earlier to a time when Mars was covered in seas with a lively society in which there were several native races: humans, swimmers, the sky people, and the children of the serpent.

Armed with the Sword of Rhiannon, Carse hooks up with Boghaz of Valkis, a thief and con man who recognizes the sword and realizes it must mean that Carse knows with the tomb is located. Before he can convince Carse to share that knowledge, the two are taken captive by the Sark and press-ganged to serve as slaves rowing a Sark galley. The sword of Rhiannon is confiscated by one of their slaveholders who doesn’t recognize its significance.

By making Carse a two-time outsider, first as an Earthman on Mars and then as a person who has slipped from his own time, Brackett has created a viewpoint character who doesn’t understand the society in which he finds himself, allowing herself the ability to provide the reader with the necessary information through Carse’s education and experiences. Unfortunately throughout much of the novel Carse is the victim of circumstances without showing ambition, making him a relatively weak character.

Other characters are no-more well-drawn out, but because they aren’t the focus of the story, there is enough mystery about them to make them more interesting than Carse, whether Boghaz, the captain of the ship they are held on, Ywain, who is a princess of the Sark, Emer, the seeress of the Khond who at least partially sees Carse for who he is and wavers between wanting his death or the need to spare him. The biggest question about Carse is whether or not his fall in the tomb of Rhiannon means that the ancient god has successfully possessed Carse or if Carse is pretending to be possessed in order to gain a strategic over his enemies.

Brackett introduces the various races on her ancient Mars, but spends little time with any of them. Collectively referred to halflings, there is the intimation that they are humanoid with the swimmers being an aquatic race, the sky people having wings, and the children of the serpents having vaguely ophidian characteristics. However, even when characters from one of these race takes center stage, whether the swimmers on the slave galley or the leader of the children of the serpent in Caer Dhu, they aren’t well defined or show much difference from humans.

In many ways, The Sword of Rhiannon is the epitome of swords and sorcery, although in this case more swords and planet, fiction. Characterization is nominally included with a focus of tossing out colorful ideas, many of which aren’t fleshed out or followed up, but which leave the reader with the impression of complex and unique cultures. Motivations are flexible depending on the needs of the narrative at any moment, such as Emer vacillating over the need for Carse to be killed or the romantic entanglements in which Carse finds himself, seemingly for no other reason than the main character must wind up with the woman.

The cover for The Sword of Rhiannon was painted by N. Taylor Blanchard. The cover for Divide and Rule was painted by A.C. Farley.

This month, Tor also began publishing a line of doubles for westerns, beginning with Max Brand’s Battle’s End and The Three Crosses. Unlike most of the science fiction line, the Tor Double Action Western line was comprised of two novellas, both by the same author. The western series, which was packaged by Martin H. Greenberg and Bill Pronzini, was cancelled the same month as the SF line. It began with Max Brand’s Battle’s End and The Three Crowns and ended after twenty volumes with Max Brand’s Range Jester and Black Thunder.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.