In-Group

1952 science fiction short story by L. Sprague de Camp

"In-Group"

Short story by L. Sprague de Camp

Al Williamson's illustration of the
story in Marvel Science Fiction

Country| United States
Language| English
Genre(s)| Science fiction
Publication
Published in| Marvel Science Fiction
Publisher| Stadium Publishing Corporation
Media type| Print (Magazine)
Publication date| May 1952

"In-Group" is a science fiction short story by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Marvel Science Fiction for May, 1952.[1][2] and later reprinted in the magazine Skyworlds for February 1978.[2] It first appeared in book form in the collection A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales (Doubleday, 1963).[1][2] The story has been translated into Italian and German.[1][2]

## Plot summary

[edit]

Soldier of fortune Ali Moyang, leader of a band of Terran treasure hunters in the jungles of the planet Kterem, rescues archaeologist Charles Bertin, whose helicopter had crashed during an aerial survey. Moyang learns Bertin has located the site of the ancient ruins of Zhovacim, the very place he himself had been seeking to loot it of its historical tablets, made of gold. Moreover, the archaeologist has established good relations with the notoriously touchy Kteremian natives. To Moyang, Bertin represents an unprecedented stroke of luck.

Bertin, distressed at the thought of the tablets' loss to science, attempts to talk Moyang out of his raid. Failing, he agrees under duress to serve as intermediary between the treasure hunters and the native Kteremians of the village closest to Zhovacim. But he has an ace up his sleeve in his knowledge of Kteremian culture and psychology.

The expedition arrives in the village at the time of the annual mating dance, a period in which ethnic identity and pride are at their peak, and strangers or outsiders are regarded as lower creatures. Accordingly, the aliens seize and sacrifice the Terrans, sparing Bertin only because they know him. The archeologist confesses to Moyang just before the latter is butchered that he couldn't be certain he himself would be spared, but deemed it worth risking his own life to preserve the wonders of Zhovacim.

## Reception

[edit]

P. Schuyler Miller, commenting on the stories in the collection A Gun for Dinosaur, characterized most of them, including this piece, as "distinctly late-model de Camp, commenting on the current scene--and especially the suburban, or more properly exurban scene--by projecting it into the future, where its "things of custom" appear in all their incongruity. As the plot grows simpler and simpler, the settings and commentary carry more and more of the load, in the manner of an off-Broadway play. And there will be those who say the author has written himself into most of his rather put-upon heroes-in-spite-of-themselves." Commenting on this story, he notes that it "suggests that on the other side of space archeologists may release some of their inhibitions."[3]

Avram Davidson found the story among most others in A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales "a great disappointment," feeling the author "[t]ime after time ... gets hold of a great idea—and throws it away in playing for laughs of the feeblest conceivable sort."[4]

## Relation to other works

[edit]

The plot feature of future scientists investigating past ecosystems and cultures is a common one in de Camp's writings, some other instances being his short stories "Employment" (1939), "Living Fossil" (1939), the Viagens Interplanetarias tales "The Colorful Character" (1949), The Bones of Zora (1983), The Stones of Nomuru (1988), and The Venom Trees of Sunga (1992), "The Ordeal of Professor Klein" (1952), "The Saxon Pretender" (1952), "Impractical Joke" (1956), the Reginald Rivers time travel tales beginning with "A Gun for Dinosaur" (1956), and The Great Fetish (1978). "Living Fossil" also features the resolving device of a scientist engineering the death of a greedy antagonist in defense of science.

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ a b c Laughlin, Charlotte, and Levack, Daniel J. H. De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco, Underwood/Miller, 1983, page 185,
2. ^ a b c d In-Group title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
3. ^ Miller, P. Schuyler. "The Reference Library." In Analog Science Fact-Science Fiction, v. 71, no. 5, July 1963, page 90.
4. ^ Davidson, Avram. "Books" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, v. 25, no. 4, October 1963, pp.20-21

* v
* t
* e

L. Sprague de Camp

Viagens
Interplanetarias|

| Krishna|

* "Finished" (1949)
* The Queen of Zamba (1949)
* The Hand of Zei (1950)
* "Perpetual Motion" (1950)
* "Calories" (1951)
* The Virgin of Zesh (1953)
* The Tower of Zanid (1958)
* The Hostage of Zir (1977)
* The Prisoner of Zhamanak (1982)
* The Bones of Zora (1983)
* The Swords of Zinjaban (1991)

|

Kukulkan|

* The Stones of Nomuru (1988)
* The Venom Trees of Sunga (1992)

Other|

* "The Animal-Cracker Plot" (1949)
* "The Colorful Character" (1949)
* "Git Along!" (1950)
* "The Inspector's Teeth" (1950)
* "Summer Wear" (1950)
* The Continent Makers (1951)
* "The Galton Whistle" (1951)
* Rogue Queen (1951)

Harold Shea|

* "The Roaring Trumpet" (1940)
* "The Mathematics of Magic" (1940)
* The Castle of Iron (1941/50)
* The Wall of Serpents (1953)
* The Green Magician (1954)
* Sir Harold and the Gnome King (1990)
* Sir Harold of Zodanga (1995)

Pusadian|

* The Tritonian Ring (1951)
* "The Eye of Tandyla" (1951)
* "The Owl and the Ape" (1951)
* "The Hungry Hercynian" (1953)
* "The Stronger Spell" (1953)
* "Ka the Appalling" (1958)
* "The Rug and the Bull" (1974)
* "The Stone of the Witch Queen" (1977)

Novarian|

* The Goblin Tower (1968)
* The Clocks of Iraz (1971)
* "The Emperor's Fan" (1973)
* The Fallible Fiend (1973)
* The Unbeheaded King (1983)
* The Honorable Barbarian (1989)

Neo-Napolitanian|

* The Incorporated Knight (1987)
* The Pixilated Peeress (1991)

Conan|

| Novels|

* Conan and the Spider God (1980)
* Conan of the Isles (1968)
* Conan the Barbarian (1982)
* Conan the Buccaneer (1971)
* Conan the Liberator (1979)
* The Return of Conan (1957)

|

Short stories|

* "Black Sphinx of Nebthu" (1973)
* "The Treasure of Tranicos" (1953)
* "Black Tears" (1968)
* "The Blood-Stained God" (1955)
* "The Castle of Terror" (1969)
* "The City of Skulls" (1967)
* "The Curse of the Monolith" (1968)
* "Drums of Tombalku" (1966)
* The Flame Knife (1955/81)
* "The Frost Giant's Daughter" Conan (1953)
* "The Gem in the Tower" (1978)
* "The God in the Bowl" (1952)
* "The Hall of the Dead" (1967)
* "Hawks Over Shem" (1955)
* "The Ivory Goddess" (1978)
* "The Lair of the Ice Worm" (1969)
* "Legions of the Dead" (1978)
* "Moon of Blood" (1978)
* "The People of the Summit" (1970/78)
* "Red Moon of Zembabwei" (1974)
* "The Road of the Eagles" (1955)
* "Shadows in the Dark" (1978)
* "Shadows in the Skull" (1975)
* "The Snout in the Dark" (1969)
* "The Star of Khorala" (1978)
* "The Thing in the Crypt" (1967)
* "The Witch of the Mists" (1972)
* "Wolves Beyond the Border" (1967)

Other
speculative
fiction|

| Novels|

* The Carnelian Cube (1948)
* Genus Homo (1950)
* The Glory That Was (1960)
* The Great Fetish (1978)
* Land of Unreason (1942)
* Lest Darkness Fall (1941)
* None but Lucifer (1939)
* Solomon's Stone (1942)

|

Short stories|

* "Aristotle and the Gun" (1958)
* "The Blue Giraffe" (1939)
* "The Command" (1938)
* "The Contraband Cow" (1942)
* "Cornzan the Mighty" (1955)
* "Divide and Rule" (1939)
* "The Egg" (1956)
* "Employment" (1939)
* "The Gnarly Man" (1939)
* "The Guided Man" (1952)
* "A Gun for Dinosaur" (1956)
* "The Hardwood Pile" (1940)
* "The Hibited Man" (1949)
* "Hyperpilosity" (1938)
* "In-Group" (1952)
* "Internal Combustion" (1956)
* "The Isolinguals" (1937)
* "Judgment Day" (1955)
* "Let's Have Fun" (1957)
* "Living Fossil" (1939)
* "The Merman" (1938)
* "Nothing in the Rules" (1939)
* "The Reluctant Shaman" (1947)
* "The Saxon Pretender" (1952)
* "The Space Clause" (1952)
* "The Stolen Dormouse" (1941)
* "Throwback" (1949)
* "The Wheels of If" (1940)

Historical fiction|

* The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate (1961)
* The Arrows of Hercules (1965)
* An Elephant for Aristotle (1958)
* The Bronze God of Rhodes (1960)
* The Golden Wind (1969)

Fiction edited|

* The Wolf Leader (1950)
* Swords and Sorcery (1963)
* The Spell of Seven (1965)
* Conan the Warrior (1967)
* The Fantastic Swordsmen (1967)
* Conan the Conqueror (1967)
* Warlocks and Warriors (1970)
* 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1972)
* Tales Beyond Time (1973)

Nonfiction|

| Science and
history|

* Inventions and Their Management (1937)
* The Evolution of Naval Weapons (1947)
* Antarctic Conquest (1949)
* Engines (1959)
* The Heroic Age of American Invention (1961)
* Man and Power (1961)
* Energy and Power (1962)
* The Ancient Engineers (1963)
* Ancient Ruins and Archaeology (1964)
* Elephant (1964)
* Spirits, Stars, and Spells (1966)
* The Story of Science in America (1967)
* The Day of the Dinosaur (1968)
* The Great Monkey Trial (1968)
* Darwin and His Great Discovery (1972)
* Great Cities of the Ancient World (1972)
* The Ragged Edge of Science (1980)
* The Fringe of the Unknown (1983)
* The Ape-Man Within (1995)
* Rubber Dinosaurs and Wooden Elephants (1996)

|

Lit crit and
biography|

* Blond Barbarians and Noble Savages (1975)
* The Conan Reader (1968)
* Dark Valley Destiny (1983)
* Lands Beyond (1952)
* Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976)
* Lost Continents (1954)
* Lovecraft: A Biography (1975)
* The Miscast Barbarian (1975)
* Science-Fiction Handbook (1953/75)
* Time and Chance (1996)

Nonfiction edited|

* The Conan Swordbook (1969)
* The Conan Grimoire (1972)
* To Quebec and the Stars (1976)
* The Blade of Conan (1979)
* The Spell of Conan (1980)

Poetry|

* Demons and Dinosaurs (1970)
* Heroes and Hobgoblins (1981)
* Phantoms and Fancies (1972)

Collections|

* The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (1953)
* The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid (1983)
* The Incomplete Enchanter (1941)
* Wall of Serpents (1960)
* The Compleat Enchanter (1975)
* The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989)
* The Enchanter Reborn (1992)
* The Exotic Enchanter (1995)
* The Mathematics of Magic (2007)
* The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales (1953)
* The Reluctant King (1985)
* Conan (1967)
* The Conan Chronicles (1989)
* The Conan Chronicles 2 (1990)
* Conan of Aquilonia (1977)
* Conan of Cimmeria (1969)
* Conan the Adventurer (1966)
* Conan the Avenger (1968)
* Conan the Freebooter (1968)
* Conan the Swordsman (1978)
* Conan the Usurper (1967)
* Conan the Wanderer (1968)
* Sagas of Conan (2004)
* Tales of Conan (1955)
* The Treasure of Tranicos (1980)
* Aristotle and the Gun (2002)
* The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978)
* Divide and Rule (1948)
* Footprints on Sand (1981)
* A Gun for Dinosaur (1963)
* The Purple Pterodactyls (1980)
* The Reluctant Shaman (1970)
* Rivers of Time (1993)
* Scribblings (1972)
* Sprague de Camp's New Anthology (1953)
* Tales from Gavagan's Bar (1953/78)
* The Undesired Princess (1951)
* The Virgin & the Wheels (1976)
* The Wheels of If (1948)
* Years in the Making (2005)

About de Camp|

* GURPS Planet Krishna (1997)
* The Enchanter Completed (2005)

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