 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (October 2021) |
| "The Roaring Trumpet" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt | |||
 Cover of Unknown, May 1940, illustrating "The Roaring Trumpet." | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | Fantasy | ||
| Publication | |||
| Publisher | Street & Smith | ||
| Media type | Print (Magazine) | ||
| Publication date | 1940 | ||
| Chronology | |||
| Series | Harold Shea | ||
| |||
"The Roaring Trumpet" is a fantasy novella by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt. The initial story in their Harold Shea series, it was first published in the May 1940 issue of the fantasy pulp magazine Unknown. It first appeared in book form, together with its sequel, "The Mathematics of Magic", in the collection The Incomplete Enchanter, issued in hardcover by Henry Holt and Company in 1941, and in paperback by Pyramid Books in 1960. It has since been reprinted in various collections by numerous other publishers, including The Compleat Enchanter (1975), The Incompleat Enchanter (1979), The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989), and The Mathematics of Magic: The Enchanter Stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (2007). It has been translated into Dutch and Italian. In 2016, the story was shortlisted for the Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella.
The Harold Shea stories are parallel world tales in which universes where magic works coexist with our own, and in which those based on the mythologies, legends, and literary fantasies of our world can be reached by aligning one's mind to them by a system of symbolic logic. In "The Roaring Trumpet", Shea visits his first such world, that of Norse mythology.