X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Sir Harold and the Gnome King


Sir Harold and the Gnome King

Another issue addressed was a long-standing plot complication introduced by L. Ron Hubbard's "borrowing" of Shea for use in his novella The Case of the Friendly Corpse (1941), previously ignored by de Camp and Pratt.

For instance, Harold and Belphebe are able to learn the gender of their unborn child through a test unknown in the 1940s; Harold also displays knowledge of the 1986 death of L. Ron Hubbard and Hubbard's authorial connection with the world of The Friendly Corpse — even though the Hubbard story was published in the 1940s and takes place after Harold's visit to that world in the present tale!

In Sir Harold and the Gnome King, Shea visits two such worlds, first (briefly) that of L. Ron Hubbard's setting from The Case of the Friendly Corpse (actually invented by John D. Clark and Mark Baldwin) and second L. Frank Baum's land of Oz.



see also