Tag: Willy Newbury series

Algy by L. Sprague de Camp

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Algy by L. Sprague de Camp (Fantastic, August 1976) is a ‘Willy Newbury’ story,1 and one which sees Willy and his new wife Denise arriving at his aunt’s vacation camp at Lake Algonquin to rumours of a sea monster. An old friend who works there fills them in:

Mike scratched his crisp gray curls. “They do be saying that, on dark nights, something comes up in the lake and shticks its head out to look around. But nobody’s after getting a good look at it. There’s newspaper fellies, and a whole gang of Scotchmen are watching for it, out on Indian Point.”
“You mean we have a home-grown version of the Loch Ness monster?”
“I do that.”
“How come the Scots came over here? I thought they had their own lake monster. Casing the competition, maybe?”
“It could be that, Mr, Newbury. They’re members of some society that tracks down the shtories of sea serpents and all them things.”  p. 72

The rest of the story revolves around the aunt’s daughter Linda and two men who are keen on her: one is George Vreeland, an unreliable local character, and the other is Ian Selkirk, one of the Scots who is there to investigate the sightings. Matters develop at a ball where Selkirk cuts in on Vreeland and Linda—to the displeasure of the former—and then, when Selkirk and Linda are later canoodling in a canoe, matters come to a climax when the monster surfaces besides them. Selkirk jumps out of the canoe and swims to shore, not because he is fleeing the monster but because he has spotted that it is a fake and that Vreeland has been operating it from the pump house on the edge of the lake. It later materialises that Vreeland’s boss (another camp site owner) hired him to set up the hoax to attract tourists to the area. Vreeland was only supposed to surface the fake monster at night but, jealous of Selkirk, he used it to try and scare him away.
Finally (spoiler), when Willy and Lord Kintyre (Selkirk’s boss) go out on the lake to examine the fake, something drags it under the water and rips it to shreds.
I suppose this is well enough executed, but the story mostly involves cardboard characters going through the motions of a mainstream plot—with a brief supernatural twist tacked on the end.
* (Mediocre). 4,750 words. Story link.

1. The ‘Willy Newbury’ series at ISFDB.

Tiki by L. Sprague de Camp

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Tiki by L. Sprague de Camp (F&SF, February 1977) is the sixth1 of his ‘W. Wilson Newbury’ series of stories, all of which concern the eponymous middle level banker and his various supernatural escapades. This one opens at a party to celebrate the opening of a new wing at the local museum (the “Drexel Hall of Crustaceans”), funded by Newbury’s rich boss, and which we find is now home to a large Polynesian idol of the goddess Tiki of Atea.
The rest of the story has Newbury turn up a few weeks later at his boss’s invitation for a personal tour round the new wing. Accompanying Newbury are his son, and the latter’s ne’er-do-well friend, both of who run off ahead and graffiti the idol with a moustache. When Newbury and Drexel get to the idol they hear a muttered threat (“You shall rue your insolence, mortal!”)
Later on, when Newbury and the kids are alone in the museum, the goddess animates the dead giant crabs and they are chased about for a bit until (spoiler) Newbury eventually stops them with a fire extinguisher. No explanation is given for why this would be anyone’s weapon of choice in combating zombie crustaceans.
Nearly all of the Newbury stories had this simple setup/denouement structure, and little in the way of complication or plot. Consequently they weren’t much good, and I always wondered why (a) de Camp bothered writing them, and (b) any editor bought them.
* (Mediocre). 3200 words.

1. Or seventh story. Another of de Camp’s Newbury stories, The Figurine, was published at the same time in the February 1977 Fantastic. The ISFDB page for the series is here.