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Wild Ape
Stablehand
      
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 41
| Posted 12/18/2005 3:14 PM (GMT -4) |   | I finished reading Flashing Swords number 4 and I was hooked. There is such up and coming talent out there that it is a matter of time before sword and sorcery has a resurgeance. I had to go back and read the first issue. That is the reason for this post.
I read Howard's (Howard Jones) editorial on Lin Carter. I would like to thank you for your editorial.
Lin Carter has always been a favorite author of mine. I think he has done what no one else has done. More often than not authors who write in this genre in the borrowed worlds fall short of the original. There are a few exceptions. Lin Carter could do them all. He could right stories like Howard (REH), Burroughs, Dunsany, and even Lovecraft. I enjoyed his Conan stories as much as I did Howard's originals.
Okay here is the point of my post where Robert Jordan fans pull out the flintlocks and get ready to fire. Before you do let me finish. There are some great writers who fall flat writing in other authors worlds. I think Robert Jordan is a good example. His Burrough-Mars stories and even his Conan were mediocre. Robert Jordan showed his brilliance in his own stuff like the Eye of the World. I think even Turtledove who is one of my favorites didn't quite capture Conan. August Derleth gave a good Cthulu like Lovecraft as did Carter but August Derleth couldn't pull off much else. Okay now blast away.
I loved Lin Carter's novels. The Callisto series some would say were a tribute to Burroughs and others would say were cheap knock offs. But Carter was great. I loved Thongor, Zanthodon, The Black Star, The Wizard of Zao, and the Green Star series.
Carter did alot of firsts. I was stunned at the finish of the first novel of the Green Star series. Carter broke the rules! I can't think of any author who has done that. I also liked the Callisto series when Carter himself was a character in his own novel. Now that was great! Carter made you want to believe.
We owe alot to Lin Carter in this genre, as Howard points out in his editorial. Carter brought alot of obscure and little known diamonds of stories to a genre that was virtually unknown. I think he was the first to identify Sword and Sorcery. Without Carter editing the anthologies the progress of this genre would not see the advancement that it has today.
I would like to extend my appreciation to Mr. Jones in his editorial. Here was the first edition of Flashing Swords and he had the pick of any topic and any author. Of all the choices he made he chose to pay tribute to the most overlooked author and editor in the genre. To this Lin Carter fan it was a powerful confirmation, and a ray of sunshine. A heartfelt thank you for your editorial Mr.Jones.
Respectfully,
Wild Ape--(Don) | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4503
| Posted 12/18/2005 4:33 PM (GMT -4) | | Don,
I too loved Lin Carter's novels, especially when I first read them as a lad. Thongor was a particular favorite. If the writing didn't hold up to mature reading, and it generally didn't, so what? I don't think Lin Carter was writing for a mature man, a writer no less, of middle years. He was writing to that young man I was at twelve and thirteen when I discovered and read him and to that young man there was no better writer.
Often we bemoan the supposid fact that young people don't read much any more, that todays adolescent, given the infinitly repetitive opportunities offered by Sony and Sega, Nintendo and Microsoft, no longer chooses to spend his idle hours engrossed in the printed page. I've said it before, here and elsewhere, that's horse-hockey! We no longer offer todays adolescent an appealing venue to enjoy and develope the habit of reading. Paperbacks are a daunting task these days, none are slim enough to fit, as I carried them when twelve, in the back pocket of a boys trousers. Instead they are such weighty tomes, requiring such a commitment of time and effort to master, that I doubt that an active youngster, such as I was, would have much interest in them to begin with. Then we've stripped out all the good parts of the story, the action, the break-necked pacing, the sheer wonderment, that kept me returning to books as a youngster. Science Fiction and Fantasy in particular have turned their collective backs on the type of tales that held me spellbound on many a rainy afternoon in my youth. We have no Lin Carters, no Dick Ayers, no John Normans on the shelves these days. Even the fine writers we do have, the equivalent of the DeCamps and Andersons and Nortons and Heinliens I enjoyed as well, do not produce the enticingly slim little volumes that lead me to my life long love of genre fiction.
What we need today is a hundred and sixty page, four dollar paperback adventure story line of books. The kind of place Lin Carter's work would have fit right in.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises | | Back to Top | | |
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jonesha
Adept
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 12/19/2005 6:47 AM (GMT -4) | | Don, thanks for your post. Lin Carter means a lot to me, as you can tell from my essay.
Michael rightly points out that Lin wrote entry level fantasy. Today it is popular to insult him for having done so--I seem to recall a review of Flashing Swords that wondered why that name had been chosen for the zine title, as Flashing Swords had been Lin Carter's anthology and wasn't he a lousy writer and that drivel. Lin wrote what he liked to read. It seems clear that he enjoyed the writing, too, because if you view it generously, its fun to read. He never claimed to be one of the greats--he was out to capture some of the excitement he'd experienced when he'd first read Burroughs and Howard and others back in his youth.
He also edited some enjoyable anthologies, Flashing Swords among them, that published some skilled writers who might otherwise not have had any market for publishing sword and sorcery.
I treasure his Ballantine introductions and his writings about fantasy, and I respect the way he repeatedly championed ALL sorts of fantasy, not just sword and sorcery, when it was in no way popular to do so. Fantasy snobs should keep that in mind as they're looking down their noses at him. His editorial work on the Ballantine fantasy line helped keep the door open after Tolkien.
I didn't like everything he wrote, and I find that his characters are pretty stock and surfacey--on the other hand, he didn't write to give characters depth, he wrote to tell light, fun stories, and he succeeded with regularity. He accomplished exactly what he set out to do, pleased a lot of people doing so, and championed the field of fantasy fiction for the entirety of his publishing career. That rates two thumbs way up in my book.
One of these days I hope to put all of that into more coherent form and touch on my favorite Carter works and why in an article for SwordAndSorcery.org--but I need time for my own fiction for a while first, so it may be several months yet.
Swords Together!
Howard
Editor-in-Chief
www.swordandsorcery.org
Flashing Swords E-Zine | | Back to Top | | |
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2324
| Posted 12/19/2005 11:27 AM (GMT -4) | | Lin Carter was what he was.
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote of himself that "..he was possesed of all talents, save that of best using his talents."
Carter was clearly not Jane Austen--- but he did use the gifts that he had to change the face of an entire genre. He was an evangelist of S&S--- many of us here were either introduced to S&S or re-enfroced in our love for it by one of his stories or collections and anthologies.
Though I honestly can't see myself re-reading much that he wrote, at age 12 his writing was exciting, fast-paced, and aimed right at my forehead. I haven't read Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria for nearly 40 years, yet I can clearly remember a tavern brawl near the beginning, involving an effete noble and a thrown glass of sour wine, and another scene of the Wizard replacing crumpled plates of the lighter-than-air metal of Thongor's airship.
That I can remember this much after so many years means that Carter painted so bright a picture in my 10 year-old mind that it hasn't faded in 40 years.
Good on you, Lin!
"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October
"It's a Living" Byzarium---Now Appearing!
"Voice of the Spoiler" and "An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October
"Oathbreaker" Mythica Vault
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/ | | Back to Top | | |
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AndyBow
Acolyte
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 267
| Posted 12/19/2005 8:34 PM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by erazmus
Don,
I too loved Lin Carter's novels, especially when I first read them as a lad. Thongor was a particular favorite. If the writing didn't hold up to mature reading, and it generally didn't, so what? I don't think Lin Carter was writing for a mature man, a writer no less, of middle years. He was writing to that young man I was at twelve and thirteen when I discovered and read him and to that young man there was no better writer.
Often we bemoan the supposid fact that young people don't read much any more, that todays adolescent, given the infinitly repetitive opportunities offered by Sony and Sega, Nintendo and Microsoft, no longer chooses to spend his idle hours engrossed in the printed page. I've said it before, here and elsewhere, that's horse-hockey! We no longer offer todays adolescent an appealing venue to enjoy and develope the habit of reading. Paperbacks are a daunting task these days, none are slim enough to fit, as I carried them when twelve, in the back pocket of a boys trousers. Instead they are such weighty tomes, requiring such a commitment of time and effort to master, that I doubt that an active youngster, such as I was, would have much interest in them to begin with. Then we've stripped out all the good parts of the story, the action, the break-necked pacing, the sheer wonderment, that kept me returning to books as a youngster. Science Fiction and Fantasy in particular have turned their collective backs on the type of tales that held me spellbound on many a rainy afternoon in my youth. We have no Lin Carters, no Dick Ayers, no John Normans on the shelves these days. Even the fine writers we do have, the equivalent of the DeCamps and Andersons and Nortons and Heinliens I enjoyed as well, do not produce the enticingly slim little volumes that lead me to my life long love of genre fiction.
What we need today is a hundred and sixty page, four dollar paperback adventure story line of books. The kind of place Lin Carter's work would have fit right in.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises
Mike, I was in college in the mid-1960s when this Golden Age of Fantasy began. Even at that age I was overwhelmed with joy at the Conan and other sword-and-sorcery stories startng to be published then. Into the 1970s when I was in my 20s and mid-30s, I gobbled up every book I could find in this and other fantasy-adventure genres. And you're absolutely right, Mike, the books were around 200 or less pages, but full of action. Even the Howard-de Camp-Carter Conan books were actually only collections of related short stories, which presented the action at even a faster pace.
One of the reasons for my Forgotten Stories column at SwordAndSorcery.org ( http://www.swordandsorcery.org/forgotten.asp ) is to introduce some of the less well-known short, action-packed sword-and-sorcery and related types of books from the 1960s to the early 1980s to fans who may not otherwise know of them.
Andy Beau,
Associate Editor and
Columnist of Forgotten Stories of Fantastic Sword-fighters
@ www.swordandsorcery.org | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4503
| Posted 12/20/2005 10:09 AM (GMT -4) | | Andy,
Yet today's publishers would rather sit and bemoan the ever diminishing readership--of which I'm not entirely convinced of, by the way, than get off their postieriors and do something about.
Mostly, and I exclude from my statment my friends Baen Books, who are trying, with first time authors, low priced editions, sensibly obtainable e-books, royalty paying e-zine and a generally action oriented line-up.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9 Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises | | Back to Top | | |
|
Wild Ape
Stablehand
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 41
| Posted 12/20/2005 11:29 AM (GMT -4) | | | I agree Michael that Baen has at least tried. I believe Ringo and Weber came out with fantasy novels. These are their scifi heavyweights and I think they recognize the potential for the market. | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4503
| Posted 12/20/2005 12:27 PM (GMT -4) | | Yet there's only so much one imprint can do. Baen's stuff by its newer authors seldom gets much notice or mention in places like Locus. I remember getting an issue and finding only three mentions of any books out by Baen, that being their placement on the best sellers list. #1hard cover, #1 paperback, #3 hardcover, none had been reviewed in the magazine, nor had anything else Baen had published that year, except the last Bujold.
It frustrates me, personally, because Baen made a huge leap with the last Chick''s anthology and brought it out in hardback-the first four were paperback only, hardcovers only came out through SFBC, and the anthology didn't get mentioned, let alone reviewed. Not in Locus, not in The Years best Fantasy and Horror or Years best fantasy, not anywhere, except Booklist and Publisher's Weekly. It was the only mass market fantasy anthology to come out in hardback that year, 2004. They made mention of the "Fantastic" series from Del Rey, disparagingly but they got mentioned. None for Esther's anthology.
(Of course that was the one I was in!)
There is a lot of resistance to any change not just from the publishers and their corporate bean-counters but from established fandom, who likes things they way they are thank you very much. Why shouldn't they? They are the ones being catered to, even as they die off.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9 Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises | | Back to Top | | |
|
Wild Ape
Stablehand
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 41
| Posted 12/21/2005 8:24 AM (GMT -4) | | | I suspect that some magazines and bookstores play favorites with their publishers. I know that CBS, Simon and Shulster, and some bookstores do so with the political books. | | Back to Top | | |
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