Christopher Stasheff: King Kobold Revived

This isn’t a new book.

But it isn’t an old book, either.

Let me tell you how it happened…

Back in 1970, when King Kobold was first published, I waited with bated breath to see what the critics thought of it—and was rather disheartened to find they weren’t exactly overwhelmingly enthusiastic. That’s when I decided I shouldn’t pay too much attention to the critics.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t ignore Lester del Rey. I had always admired his perspicacity and penetrating insight (i.e., he always agreed with my opinion about new books. Please understand that, at the time, I had never met him.). When del Rey said, “It isn’t a bad book, if you don’t expect too much of the evening spent with it,” I knew I was in trouble. Worse, letters began arriving—and they agreed with del Rey! And though del Rey had been gentle and charitable, the fans felt no such need for restraint.

So, when the good people at Ace indicated an interest in reissuing King Kobold , I said, “Not until I rewrite it!”

Please remember, I’d had twelve years to mull over the flaws of the original, and figure out how to fix them. There were some changes that I knew I definitely wanted to make, and quite a few others that I was thinking about.

So the book you hold in your hand is not the product of a publisher who tried to jazz things up to hype sales; it’s the result of a mulish writer who refused to go through having fans call him nasty names again. If you bought the original King Kobold fourteen years ago and misplaced your copy-sorry, this ain’t quite the same book you read back then. And, if you never did read King Kobold (an offense I will overlook only if you were too young to read), this ain’t the plot you’ve been hearing about. Better, I hope, but not the same. If your favorite scenes are missing—well, sorry. Or, worse yet, your favorite character—well, I’m even sorrier; but I just don’t think he really worked (not “she”—she was a total nonentity, and I don’t see how anybody could miss her—except maybe “him”). All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with this revised version; it’s still essentially the same story, but I think it’s much more solid, and a much better read (all right, so I haven’t cut out all the lousy jokes). Besides, if you really liked it better the other way—well, there’s always the original edition. You’ll have to search a little to find a copy, but if you’d rather read it, you can.

Thank you all, for pestering your bookstores for King Kobold , and bringing it out of hiding again. Here it is, the same story—what happened to Rod and Gwen when they’d only been married a few years, and only had one baby warlock to contend with. I hope you enjoy it. I did.

—Christopher Stasheff

Montclair State College

October 4,1983

“Sorrowful it was, and great cause for Mourning, that so young a King should die, and that in his Bed; yet Death doth come to all, yea, the High and the lowly alike, and ‘tis not by our choosing, but by God’s. Thus is was that King Richard was taken from us in the fourteenth year of his Reign, though he had not yet seen forty-five summers; and great lamentation passed through the land. Yet must Life endure, and the motion of it never doth cease, so that we laid him to rest with his ancestors, and turned our faces toward our new Sovereign, his daughter Catharine, first Queen of that name to Reign, though it had been scarcely twenty years since her birth.

“Then the Lords of this land of Gramarye sat them down in Council, and rose up to advise the young Queen of her actions, and at their head stood the Duke Loguire, time-honored and revered, foremost of the Lords of this Land, and Uncle to the Queen. Yet she would not hearken to him, nor to any of her Lords, but set her face toward the doing of things as she saw them, and would not heed Council. And what she wished done, she set in the hands of the Dwarf Brom O’Berin, who had come to the Court as her father’s Jester, but King Richard had raised him to Chancellor; and Queen Catharine ennobled him. This did affront all the Peers of the Land, that she should set a Dwarf in their midst, and he baseborn, for she would trust none among them.

“Then did Loguire send his younger son Tuan, who long had courted Catharine ere her Father died, to beg of her that she plight him her Troth, and come with him to the Altar to become his Wife. And she called this foul treason, that he should seek the Crown under guise of her Hand, and banished him from the land, and set him adrift in a coracle, that the East wind might take him to the Wild Lands, to dwell among Monsters and Beastmen, though all of his crime was the love of her. Then was his father full wroth, and all the Lords with him; but Loguire held his hand, and so, perforce, must they all; but Tuan his son swam back to the shore, and stole within the Land again, by night, and would not be exiled.

“Then did Catharine the Queen meet with her great Lords all, in her great Hall in Runnymede, and did say unto them, ‘Lo, it seemeth thou dost take boys from the plow, who know neither Letters nor Holiness, and doth set them above thy people as priests, that they may more certainly do thy bidding; and know that such practice doth offend the Lord God, and affronteth thy Queen; wherefore, henceforth, I shall appoint thee full measure of Priests, and send them unto thee; and I will not brook nay-saying.’ Then were the Lords wroth indeed, but Loguire held up his hand, and they checked. And it came to pass as the Queen had said, that the souls of her people were governed by monks that she sent out from Runnymede, though they did oftimes confirm the priests the Lords had set over their Parishes; yet some among them had grown slack and, aye, even sinful; and these the Queen’s monks removed, and set others of their number up in their steads.

“Then did the Queen summon all her Lords unto her again, and did say unto them, ‘Lo, I have seen the Justice that is done on thine estates, both by thyselves and by the Judges thou dost appoint; and I have seen that the manner of Justice thou dost deliver is not all of one piece; for Hapsburg in the East will hew off a man’s hand for the theft of a loaf of bread, while Loguire in the South will only outlaw a man for a Murder; and I have seen that my people grow restive therefore, and are like to forsake the ways of Law in their confusion. Therefore wilt thou no longer deliver thyselves of Justice, nor set others to judge thy folk for thee; but all shall be judged by men that I shall send among thee, from my Court in Runnymede.’ Then all the Lords waxed wroth indeed, and would have haled her down from her Throne; but the Duke Loguire withheld them, and turned his face away from the Queen, and withdrew to his Estates, and so did they all; but some among them began to plot Treason, and Loguire’s eldest son Anselm made one of them.

“Then, of a night, thunder did roll and fill all the World, though the skies were clear, and the Moon bright and full, and folk looked up and wondered, and did see a star fall from the Heavens, and they turned away marveling, and praying that it might prove an Omen, heralding the healing of their Land of Gramarye, as indeed it did; for the Star fell to land, and from it stepped the High Warlock, Rod Gallowglass, tall among the sons of men, high of brow, noble of mien, with a heart of golden courage and thews of steel, merciful to all, but stern in justice, with a mind like sunlight caught in crystal, that clearly understood all the actions of all men, and his face was comely above all others.