Today, June 2, is the birthday of Lester del Rey. Yes, the Del Rey imprint at Ballatine was named after him and his wife, Judy-Lynn, who were editors there for many years. Lester was the primarily the fantasy editor and Judy-Lynn the science fiction editor, if memory serves.

But Lester also wrote science fiction, and quite a bit of it before he took up the editing chores at the imprint named after him. I looked at one of his fantasies here.

For this post, I want to look at what I think is one of his best stories, and certainly one of my favorites. “My Name is Legion” is a time travel story, and while what’s going on is lost on the villain (Hitler, although he isn’t called by that name), the perceptive reader will understand the punishment he gives himself.

“My Name is Legion” was originally published in the June 1942 issue of Astounding. I suspect its length is what kept it out of The Best of Lester del Rey.

The Allied forces, not called that, are moving into a deserted German town. They aren’t called Allied, but this story was written in late 1941 or early 1942.

They find one man who shows them the body of The Leader. Only the man they see isn’t the man they’re looking for. This guy is much older. About 20 years older, to be exact.

The man who shows them the body then begins to tell a very strange story, about a megalomaniac who is blinded by his desire to create an army and reconquer Europe, kind of like Napoleon.

Of course it doesn’t work that way. The Hitler character has doomed himself to a horrible fate, one ending in a very unique murder/suicide.

Lester del Rey was a very good writer, and it’s a shame that there are no inexpensive paper or electronic editions of his best work.  The two Megapacks from Wildside don’t contain the best stories. If you don’t mind paying a bit for a two volume hardcover set, NESFA published a big collection of del Rey’s short fiction about ten years ago. “My Name is Legion” is in the first volume, War and Space.