Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I'll be a bit gentler on Carter, since I knew him back when and he and his wife Noel were friends.
But yes, as a writer, he was at best a competent hack, doing SF by the yard and Conan pastiches, largely for Ace Books. They were "popcorn" books, read in an afternoon and promptly forgotten.
And how great an editor he was can also be questioned. He got a good and largely deserved reputation for putting together the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which gets kudos for at least demonstrating that there was more to fantasy than Tolkien, and returning E. R. Eddison and William Morris to print, among others.
But I recall a conversation with Dave Hartwell (who has a PhD in English, and knows more than a bit himself about the roots of fantasy) where he wished Ballantine had chosen someone more knowledgeable to helm the line. I though the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line was good, and have wondered over the years what it might have been had some (like Dave) been in charge instead.
My three fantasy pet peeves are Terry Brooks, David Eddings, and Piers Anthony.
Brooks' Shannara series is largely watered down Tolkien pastiche. Had I not been a long time Tolkien fan and regular re-reader of LoTR, I might have felt better, but I know what Terry was imitating, and I was already sick to death of such imitations. The Landover series had the virtue of an original premise, then ruined it with writing that reminded me of cotton candy, cloyingly sweet with no nutritional value.
I read Eddings' Belgariad with pleasure. I plowed grimly through the Mallorean. Folks back then were talking about how much they loved the Belgariad, and wished it would go on forever. By the time I finished the Mallorean, I felt like it had. The authorial strings were too evident in the Mallorean, as Eddings very carefully maneuvered his characters through every place on his world. The whole thing would up feel.ing like paint-by-numbers fantasy. On the plus side, Eddings had likable characters and a flair for dialog. On the minus side, he had one cast of characters and one story to tell, and subsequent series were the same series with the names changed and the serial numbers filed off.
Anthony is one of the best in the field at taking an idea and running with it, and there are earlier works I recommend. Unfortunately, he's one of the worst at knowing when to stop, and can run series into, and under the ground. The sterling example is the Xanth series. The first book, _A Spell for Chameleon_, was charming. The next couple were at least readable. Beyond that, the books became excuses for bad puns, long past originality or nything particular to say. AAnthony has discovered he can make a lot of money turning out Xanth retreads. I admire his motive: he's using the money to buy virgin land around him in Florida and keep it virgin and undeveloped, but I can't read the resulting work.
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Dennis
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I was being a little facetious with Lin Carter.
When I was a young pimple, I really enjoyed Carter's
Thongor series. I was hungry for anything to do with "
Swords and Sorcery." (It's a shame we now have these fat, offensive Fantasy novels, and "Swords and Sorcery" is now an almost forgotten sub-genre of Fantasy.)
I was also (back in those days) a big fan of the continuation of the Conan saga, as worked on by
DeCamp,
Bjorn Nyberg,
Carter [and someone else?].
I credit Lin Carter with turning me on to
William Hope Hodgson's work. (I assembled
Night land for MobileRead; it's available as an LRF ebook.)
Lin Carter led an increasingly unhappy life. He was a hack, but I don't consider that a bad word. He deserved to make more money than he did, and often he wrote out of desperation.
Salud to Lin Carter, and to his pioneering work in the field of Fantasy.
Don