Lewis's Short Fiction

Last night I read the fragment After 10 Years by C.S. Lewis. There is a lot I don't knew about the Trojan war. The idea of two Helens, a copy, a golem, an eidolon, opens a lot of alternative possibilities for the direction of the plot. It is fun to wonder what outcome Lewis would have written if he had continued. The same could be wondered about The Dark tower, another fragment in Lewis's book of the same name. There the imagery is skin-crawling, spine-tingling; its closest equivalent is That Hideous Strength, only creepier. A gripping tale of a parallel world with a demonic Stingyman who is translated into this world while poor Scudamour is transformed in the "Othertime." Eughhh! The whole thing reeks of Charles Williams.

For some strange reason, Lewis's short fiction collected in The Dark Tower and Other Stories doesn't seem that great to me. Oh, it is thought provoking and well written just as to be expected but it does not set the forests dancing and the animals talking, and the stars alighting on Earth like Narnia.