HYPERBOREA » Lin Carter

Aaronhd · 3/29/2014 6:58 pm

Among the great books that this man wrote are some gems such as Outworlder a well done quest involving a suvivor of a crashed spaceship who is called (Prophesied) to close a gate on the far side of a fantasy type world. With the aid of other companions also called to the quest, it is a rollicking sword and sorcery adventure. Look for it at better used book stores wherever they may be. On another note although he wrote a lot of sword and sorcery stories his mars stories are my favorites. starting With (The Man Who Loved Mars) there are three or four books set on mars. Check out goodreads to see at least a partial list of his books.... Aaron

Crisippo · 3/30/2014 6:34 am

Thank you for the recomendations Aaron!

I've not read any of Lin Carters stuff, but i picked up one of his Thongor books some years back because the cover intrigued me (and it was dirt cheap).

Seems that he is sort of a divisive author though with some vocal fans, and others not liking his stuff very much. I know he has had a lot of influence as an editor aswell which may be the reason why some people seem to dislike him.

Like i mentioned i've not read him, and i would not want to step on anyone's toes, but i'm always curious about sword&socery writers and the history of the genre.

Santaj · 3/30/2014 7:36 am

Lin Carter's Thongor stories are entertaining. Great literature? No. Fun stories? Yes! I have three or four of the books but I think I am missing a couple. I might have to track those down as I did enjoy the ones I read.

Handy Haversack · 3/31/2014 9:23 am

I may have said this in another thread, but I think that the best thing Lin Carter did was his curating the Ballantine Adult Fantasy imprint. He kept some really good books in print--and commissioned some awesome covers. I haven't read any of his fiction that I like all that much. The Thongor books are fun enough, but I think Lin's real talent was as an editor, not a writer (or biographer!).

Hollis, Queens!

Ghul · 3/31/2014 12:01 pm

Handy Haversack wrote:
I may have said this in another thread, but I think that the best thing Lin Carter did was his curating the Ballantine Adult Fantasy imprint. He kept some really good books in print--and commissioned some awesome covers. I haven't read any of his fiction that I like all that much. The Thongor books are fun enough, but I think Lin's real talent was as an editor, not a writer (or biographer!).

Hollis, Queens!

I can agree with this. I have to admit, a few months ago I started reading Thogor, and I put it down to read Merritt and K. Wagner, instead. Maybe I'll finish the Thongor book if I'm bored some time. It's entertaining enough, and fun, but I wanted something more to get the imagination and creative juices flowing.

Blackadder23 · 3/31/2014 12:34 pm

Carter and de Camp both wrote nasty, hatchet job books "psychoanalyzing" much better writers - men they spent their entire careers ripping off. That's tough for some people to forgive. At least Carter was a decent editor (unlike de Camp, who was a total loss in my opinion).

I like the concept behind the Thogor stories, but as for the execution... well, as a writer, Carter was a pretty good editor. In addition, calling anyone besides Conan "the mightiest sword and sorcery hero of them all" is a pretty brazen falsehood.

Last edited by Blackadder23 (3/31/2014 12:35 pm)

Handy Haversack · 3/31/2014 3:34 pm

They live by their own code in Hollis.

mabon5127 · 3/31/2014 5:41 pm

I must admit I liked the Thongor series as well. I'm sure this will take me out of the running for preisdent or something.

Aaronhd · 4/01/2014 6:29 am

Hi All:

Wow this touched a nerve or two. Okay I agree that he is liked or hated by a great many people, and that much of is work is derivative. But in the early days that is true of many writers, remember imatation is etc. I agree about de Camp, I could never get into him as a writer. The Thongor books I read as a teenager and though I could see that they were not as well done as Howards books, I drank deep of this new writer and all others of this type. Hell when I started reading this stuff it was lumped in as science fiction, and I had to go to the nearest big city and buy it at a pipe shop. So when a new book came in at 99 cents or less we inhaled them. I think that all books are a vast repository for ideas that we can use in our gaming and even the worst ones have had something I could use to trip my players up. So I can see where many of you are coming from. But I still stand by the books I set down in the first post as being worth your time.... Aaron

Last edited by Aaronhd (4/01/2014 6:30 am)

Ghul · 4/01/2014 8:37 am

I could see how it could get lumped in with sci-fi. It's pretty much fantasy, but it has a lot of those "lost alien technology" elements that I enjoy. The Thongor book I have has a cover that features a sort of dragon chasing a spaceship, so it looks sci-fi. Actually, the ship on the cover doesn't look like the ship as described in the book, but it's still a decent concept. I read some of Carter's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" pastiche, and I enjoyed it more than Thongor, who seems to exemplify the big, dumb barbarian stereotype that Conan often gets lumped into, mostly due to Ahhh-nold.

Ironwolf · 1/02/2017 12:14 am

Carter admitted his work was derivative - pretty much pastiche of other authors/series. Of course, he wasn't shy about promoting himself either.

I just recently finished reading The Green Star series of books and enjoyed them for what they were. The wikipedia (shrug) article on Lin Carter notes the Green Star novels as (uniting influences from Clark Ashton Smith and Edgar Rice Burroughs).
Just additional fodder source to pull in to RPG adventures.

I am only missing the last book in the Thongor series and then I'll run through those (I'm pretty much getting all his books in addition to the authors/works he is deriving from).

Bowser · 11/30/2018 11:11 pm

Ghul wrote:
I could see how it could get lumped in with sci-fi. It's pretty much fantasy, but it has a lot of those "lost alien technology" elements that I enjoy. The Thongor book I have has a cover that features a sort of dragon chasing a spaceship, so it looks sci-fi. Actually, the ship on the cover doesn't look like the ship as described in the book, but it's still a decent concept. I read some of Carter's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" pastiche, and I enjoyed imore than Thongor, who seems to exemplify the big, dumb barbarian stereotype that Conan often gets lumped into, mostly due to Ahhh-nold.

You have to realize that at the time the first few Thongor books appeared (late 1960s):
a) Fantasy as a genre hadn't really come into being fully -- it was always lumped in with science fiction, and
b) Because of the absolutely MASSIVE success of Tolkien, every publisher was scrambling to publish anything that could be considered "fantasy".

Thanks to that, we ended up with everything Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard ever wrote, a magnificent Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, a massive amount of Lovecraft and C. A. Smith, a BUNCH of great old stories from the pulps printed in anthologies that otherwise would have been lost, a BUNCH of new writers that we have now enjoyed for years, and two more things:

1. The converting to "the cause" of fantasy ("sword & sorcery", "high fantasy", "sword & planet", whatever) many, many new young fans, and
2. Unwittingly laying the groundwork for the entire Fantasy Role Playing Game genre. No fantasy boom in publishing, no role playing games.

While Lin Carter's fiction is probably below average, it can be enjoyable and be a good source for ideas. I have a lot and have never regretted buying it, reading it (some more than once), and collecting it.(Thongor, The Green Star, Jandar of Callisto, etc.). There certainly was much worse being published at that time.

Give him a chance, just don't take his fiction too seriously. (And, yeah, his efforts on behalf of the Adult Fantasy series was outstanding!)

Bowser

ArjenL · 12/18/2018 1:10 pm

I tried reading Lin Carter's 'Dragonrouge' but couldn't finish it. I left it in a "little free library" but it wasn't for me.

Rhebeqah · 3/23/2020 6:51 am

Never read any of Carter's stories but I'm indebted to him for getting Clarke Ashton Smith into print. I have Ballantine's edition of "Zothique" which I love.

Doctor_Rob · 5/03/2020 7:40 pm

I’m not quite sure why de Camp gets so much flack. I’m not a huge literary person, so may be missing something. I thought The Tritonian Ring was a great romp, with solid characters, and a well-developed milieu. It can’t all be bad, surely?

Ghul · 5/04/2020 9:16 am

Doctor_Rob wrote:
I’m not quite sure why de Camp gets so much flack. I’m not a huge literary person, so may be missing something. I thought The Tritonian Ring was a great romp, with solid characters, and a well-developed milieu. It can’t all be bad, surely?

The flack I believe he gets is for "fixing" and "correcting" the works of REH, and also his armchair psychology of REH. He was also dismissive of REH's work, and when interviewed he gave the impression that he was lowering himself by working on Conan. That being said, it was his Conan project (the ACE paperbacks) that got so many of us into that famous barbarian, but I believe it was those Frazetta covers that inspired many of us to engage the stories, not de Camp's editing, revising, and insertion of pastiche materials. Overall, it may be a case that de Camp is being judged not by the merits of his own works, but by his attitudes and opinions, which should have no bearing on his fiction, like The Tritonian Ring. I think Tom Cruise is an absolute nut, but I still enjoy his movies, if you can appreciate the analogy.

Doctor_Rob · 5/04/2020 6:06 pm

Thanks Ghul, that does clarify things. I’ve been wondering about this for a while...

tomas · 6/22/2020 1:53 pm

While on the subject of Lin Carter, I have three books available for free to a good home. They are:
Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus,
Thongor at the End of Time, and,
Thongor in the City of Magicians.

If ya want 'em shoot me your postal address.