The Ragged Edge of Science

The Ragged Edge of Science is a

The book's constituent articles were originally published in a variety of science magazines, science fiction magazines, and other publications from 1950 to 1976.[1]^[6][7]

Contents

• • "Preface"
• Long Ago and Far Away
  • "The Mayan Elephants" (from Astounding Science Fiction, v. 45, no. 4, Jun. 1950)
  • "Faery Lands Forlorn" (from
    Science Fiction Stories
    , v. 6, no. 3, Nov. 1955 and v. 6, no. 5, Mar. 1956)
  • "The Pyramids of Kush" (from Science Digest, v. 63, no. 4, Apr. 1968)
  • "The Falls of Troy" (from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, v. 38, no. 3, Mar. 1970)
  • "The Quarter-Acre Round Table" (from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, v. 39, no. 1, Jul. 1970)
  • "The Tower of Mystery" (from Science Digest, v. 68, no. 4, Oct. 1970)
  • "The Street of the Dead: Teotihuacan" (from Science Digest, v. 68, no. 6, Dec. 1970)
  • "Tula and the Vanished Toltecs" (from Science Digest, v. 71, no. 4, Apr. 1972)
• Round About the Cauldron
  • "The Mystic Trance" (from
    Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories
    , v. 2, no. 4, Nov. 1951)
  • "The Mountain of Light" (from Science Fiction Quarterly, v. 1, no. 6, Aug. 1952)
  • "The Great Charlatans" (from Science Fiction Quarterly, v. 2, no. 2, Feb. 1953)
  • "A Modern Merlin" (from Dynamic Science Fiction, Jun. 1953)
  • "The Mysterious Kabbalah" (from Fate, No. 79, Oct. 1956)
  • "
    Science Fiction Stories
    , v. 7, no. 4, Jan. 1957)
  • "The Great Satanist Plot" (from Exploring the Unknown, no. 20, Jun. 1953)
  • "So You Want to Be a Prophet?" (from the Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin, Feb. 20, 1966)
• Science and Pseudo-Science
  • "Worlds in Collision" (book review) (from Astounding Science Fiction, v. 45, no. 2, Apr. 1950)
  • "The So-called Fourth Dimension" (from
    Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories
    , v. 2, no. 3, Sep. 1951)
  • "How to Talk Futurian" (from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, v. 13, no. 4, Oct. 1957)
  • "The Great Pseudomath" (from Fantastic Universe, v. 8, no. 6, Dec. 1957)
  • "The Decline and Fall of Adam" (from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, v. 45, no. 5, Nov. 1973)
  • "Chariots of the Gods?" (book review) (from Amra, v. 2, no. 65, Apr. 1976)

Synopsis

The essays in the book fall into three general categories, dealing with ancient civilizations and certain unscientific theories regarding them, occult-related subjects, and pseudoscience in general. Anecdotes from history and de Camp's travels to some of the locales he writes about pepper the narrative.

The first eight chapters fall into the first category. Discussions of

Critical reviews of the book were generally positive. Writing in the wake of its release, Tom Easton observed in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact that "[i]f you know L. Sprague de Camp's work at all, you know what to expect ... He's always readable and entertaining, as he sticks his thumbs into gaping holes of fact and logic ... He's full of the straight dope (though he often doesn't go into things as deeply as I would like)." He urged readers to "buy the book."^[6] Michael Schuyler, writing for Library Journal, took a more neutral stance, judging only that "[m]ost of these mysteries have been well documented elsewhere, and De Camp [sic] presents no revelations."^[8] The book was also reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer in Science Fiction Review v. 10, issue 1 (Spring, 1981), p. 22.^[2]

More recently, an exhaustive review from 2007 sums up the book as "a very pleasant and readable collection of essays, an excellent and classical example of skeptical writing and debunkery of various kinds of pseudoscientific and paranormal nonsense." The reviewer notes de Camp's "accessible, down-to-earth style," humor, and story-telling expertise, as well as "somewhat conservative opinions ... which occasionally show in his writing." Its conclusion is "[o]verall I highly recommend this book."^[5]

Notes