American fantasy writer, editor, poet and critic
Linwood Vrooman Carter
(June 9, 1930 – February 7, 1988) was an American author of
science fiction
and
fantasy
, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as
Lin Carter
; known pseudonyms include
H. P. Lowcraft
(for an
H. P. Lovecraft
parody
) and
Grail Undwin
. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the
Ballantine Adult Fantasy
series,
[1]
which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre.
Life
[
edit
]
Carter was born in
St. Petersburg
, Florida. He was an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy in his youth, and became broadly knowledgeable in both fields. He was also active in fandom.
Carter served in the United States Army (infantry,
Korea
, 1951?53), and then attended
Columbia University
and took part in
Leonie Adams
's Poetry Workshop (1953?54).
[2]
He was an advertising and publishers' copywriter from 1957 until 1969, when he took up writing full-time. He was also an editorial consultant. During much of his writing career he lived in
Hollis
, New York.
Carter was married twice, first to Judith Ellen Hershkovitz (married 1959, divorced 1960) and second to Noel Vreeland (married 1963, when they were both working for the publisher Prentice-Hall; divorced 1975).
Carter was a member of the
Trap Door Spiders
, an all-male literary banqueting club
[3]
which served as the basis of
Isaac Asimov
's fictional group of mystery-solvers, the
Black Widowers
.
[4]
Carter was the model for Asimov's character Mario Gonzalo.
[4]
Carter was also a member of the
Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America
(SAGA), a loose-knit group of
Heroic fantasy
authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose work he anthologized in the
Flashing Swords!
series.
In the 1970s Carter published one issue of his own fantasy
fanzine
Kadath
, named after
H. P. Lovecraft
's fictional setting (see
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
). About 3,000 copies were printed; however the printer was in a dispute with the binder, who held the copies. While Carter paid the printer, the printer decamped into California. When Carter went to see the binder, he was told that the copies had been kept for a while, but then most had been thrown out. Carter believed that only about 30 copies of the issue survived, thus the magazine was scarcely circulated.
[5]
It contained Carter's
Cthulhu Mythos
story "The City of Pillars" (pp. 22?25).
Carter resided in
East Orange
, New Jersey, in his later years, and drank and smoked heavily. It was probably smoking that gave him oral cancer in 1985. Only his status as a Korean War veteran enabled him to receive extensive surgery. However, it failed to cure the cancer and left him disfigured. Carter held gatherings of writers under the aegis of 'the New Kalem Club' (in tribute to the original
Kalem Club
) - meetings which were attended by Frank Belknap Long, Robert M. Price and others.
In the last year before his death, he had begun to reappear in print with a new book in his Terra Magica series, a long-promised Prince Zarkon pulp hero pastiche,
Horror Wears Blue
, and a regular column for the magazine
Crypt of Cthulhu
.
[6]
Despite these successes, Carter increased his alcohol intake, becoming an alcoholic. His cancer resurfaced, spreading to his throat and leading to his death in
Montclair
, New Jersey, in 1988.
Robert M. Price
, the editor of
Crypt of Cthulhu
, who had published a Lin Carter special issue (Vol. 5, No 2, whole number 36, Yuletide 1985), was preparing a second all-Carter issue when Carter died. It was turned into a memorial issue (Vol. 7, No 4, whole number 54, Eastertide 1988). Two further issues of the magazine were devoted to Carter alone (see References below). Price was also appointed Carter's literary executor.
Writing career
[
edit
]
A longtime science-fiction and fantasy fan, Carter first appeared in print with entertaining letters to
Startling Stories
and other
pulp magazines
in 1943 and again in the late 1940s.
[7]
He issued two volumes of fantasy verse,
Sandalwood and Jade
(1951), technically his first book, and
Galleon of Dream
(1955) (see Poetry in Bibliography below) His first professional publication
[
citation needed
]
was the short story "Masters of the Metropolis", co-written with
Randall Garrett
, and published by
Anthony Boucher
in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, April 1957.
[7]
Another early collaborative story, "The Slitherer from the Slime" (
Inside SF
, September 1958), by Carter, as "H. P. Lowcraft", with Dave Foley, is a parody of
H. P. Lovecraft
. The story "Uncollected Works" (
Fantasy and SF
, March 1965) was a finalist for the annual
Nebula Award for Best Short Story
, from the SF and fantasy writers, the only time Carter was a runner-up for a major award.
[8]
Early in his efforts to establish himself as a writer, Carter gained a mentor in
L. Sprague de Camp
, who critiqued his novel
The Wizard of Lemuria
in manuscript. The seventh novel Carter wrote, it was the first to find a publisher, appearing from Ace Books in March 1965.
[9]
Due in large part to their later collaborations, mutual promotion of each other in print, joint membership in both the Trap Door Spiders and SAGA, and complementary scholarly efforts to document the history of fantasy, de Camp is the person with whom Carter is most closely associated as a writer. A falling-out in the last decade of Carter's life did not become generally known until after his death.
Carter was a prolific writer, producing an average of six books a year from 1965 to 1969.
[a]
He also wrote a nearly monthly column, "Our Man in Fandom", in
If
, edited by
Frederik Pohl
,
[7]
and was a major writer on ABC's original
Spider-Man
animated TV show
during its fantasy-oriented second season in 1968?69.
Carter frequently cited his own writings in his non-fiction and almost always included at least one of his own pieces in each of the anthologies he edited. The most extreme instance of his penchant for self-promotion is in the sixth novel in his Callisto sequence,
Lankar of Callisto
, which features Carter himself as the protagonist.
Carter was not reluctant to attack organized religion in his books, notably in his unfinished epic
World's End
, in "Amalric the Man-God" (also unfinished), and in
The Wizard of Zao
. He portrayed religions as cruel and repressive, and had his heroes escape from their inquisitions.
In most of his fiction, Carter was consciously imitative of the themes, subjects and styles of authors he admired. He usually identified his models in the introductions or afterwords of his novels, as well as in the introductory notes to self-anthologized or collected short stories. His best-known works are his
sword and planet
and
sword and sorcery
novels in the tradition of
Edgar Rice Burroughs
,
Robert E. Howard
, and
James Branch Cabell
. His first published book,
The Wizard of Lemuria
(1965), first of the "Thongor the Barbarian" series, combines both influences. Although he wrote only six Thongor novels, the character appeared in
Marvel Comics
's
Creatures on the Loose
for an eight-issue run in 1973?74 and was often optioned for films, although none has been produced. His other major series, the "
Callisto
" and "Zanthodon" books, are direct tributes to Burroughs'
Barsoom
series and
Pellucidar
novels, respectively.
In other works Carter paid homage to the styles of contemporary
pulp magazine
authors or their precursors. Some of these, together with Carter's models, include his "Simrana" stories (influenced by
Lord Dunsany
), his horror stories (set in the "
Cthulhu Mythos
" of
H. P. Lovecraft
), his "
Green Star
" novels (uniting influences from
Clark Ashton Smith
and Edgar Rice Burroughs), his "Mysteries of Mars" series (patterned on the works of
Leigh Brackett
),
[10]
and his "Prince Zarkon" books (based on the "
Doc Savage
" series of
Kenneth Robeson
). Later in his career Carter assimilated influences from
mythology
and
fairy tales
, and even branched out briefly into
pornographic
fantasy.
Posthumous collaborations with Howard and Smith
[
edit
]
Some of Carter's most prominent works were what he referred to as "posthumous collaborations" with deceased authors, notably
Robert E. Howard
and
Clark Ashton Smith
. He completed a number of Howard's unfinished tales of
Kull
(see
Kull (collection)
[11]
and
Conan the Barbarian
, the latter often in collaboration with
L. Sprague de Camp
. He also collaborated with de Camp on a number of
pastiche
novels
and
short stories
featuring Conan.
The "posthumous collaborations" with Smith were of a different order, usually completely new stories built around title ideas or short fragments found among Smith's notes and jottings. A number of these tales feature Smith's invented book of forbidden lore, the
Book of Eibon
(
Cthulhu Mythos arcane literature
). Some of them also overlap as pastiches of H.P. Lovecraft's work by utilising elements of Lovecraft's
Cthulhu Mythos
. These stories are uncollected. For further information see Steve Behrends, "The Carter-Smith Collaborations" in
Robert M. Price
(ed).
The Horror of it All: Encrusted Gems from the Crypt of Cthulhu
. See also Lin Carter deities.
Pastiches of H. P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany
[
edit
]
Few had escaped the holocaust of inconceivable cold that blew ravening down the boreal Pole...
Carter wrote numerous stories in the
Cthulhu Mythos
of
H. P. Lovecraft
. Many have been collected in
The Xothic Legend Cycle: The Complete Mythos Fiction of Lin Carter
, edited by Robert M. Price. Despite the title, there are many uncollected Mythos stories by Carter. See also
Xothic legend cycle
. For further info see Robert M. Price "The Statement of Lin Carter",
Crypt of Cthulhu
1, No 2 (Yuletide 1981), 11?19.
Carter wrote two cycles of stories set in "dreamlands," paying tribute to the fantasy of
Lord Dunsany
, Ikranos, from his fan days, and Simrana, after he became a professional writer.
Carter also wrote the introduction to the book,
Over the Hills and Far Away
.
Unfinished projects
[
edit
]
Carter left a number of projects unfinished. He regularly announced plans for future works that never came to fruition, even including some among lists of other works printed in the fronts of his books. His 1976 anthologies
Kingdoms of Sorcery
and
Realms of Wizardry
both included such phantom books among his other listed works, titled
Robert E. Howard and the Rise of Sword & Sorcery
,
The Stones of Mnar
and
Jungle Maid of Callisto
. The first of these, presumably a non-fiction study along the lines of his
Tolkien: A Look Behind "The Lord of the Rings"
(1969), never saw print; the second seems to be related to
The Terror Out of Time
, a collection of Cthulhu Mythos tales he had pitched unsuccessfully to Arkham House (the existing material for which was eventually gathered into his
The Xothic Legend Cycle
(1997)); the third was apparently a working title for
Ylana of Callisto
(1977), published the year after the anthologies.
[12]
Several of his series were abandoned due to lack of publisher or reader interest or to his deteriorating health. Among these are his "
Thongor
" series, to which he intended to add two books dealing with the hero's youth; only a scattering of short stories intended for the volumes appeared. His "Gondwane" epic, which he began with the final book and afterwards added several more covering the beginning of the saga, lacks its middle volumes, his publisher having canceled the series before he managed to fill the gap between. Similarly, his projected
Atlantis
trilogy was canceled after the first book (
The Black Star
), and his five-volume "Chronicles of Kylix" ended with three volumes published and parts of another (
Amalric
).
Another unfinished project was Carter's self-proclaimed
magnum opus
, an epic literary fantasy entitled
Khymyrium
, or, to give it its full title,
Khymyrium: The City of the Hundred Kings, from the Coming of Aviathar the Lion to the Passing of Spheridion the Doomed
. It was intended to take the genre in a new direction by resurrecting the fantastic medieval chronicle history of the sort exemplified by
Geoffrey of Monmouth
's
Historia Regum Britanniae
and
Saxo Grammaticus
's
Gesta Danorum
. It was also to present a new invented system of magic called "Enstarrment", which from Carter's description somewhat resembles the system of magical
luck investment
later devised by
Emma Bull
and
Will Shetterly
for their "
Liavek
" series of shared world anthologies. Carter claimed to have begun the work about 1959, and published three excerpts from it as separate short stories during his lifetime ? "Azlon" in
The Young Magicians
(1969), "The Mantichore" in
Beyond the Gates of Dream
(also 1969) and "The Sword of Power" in
New Worlds for Old
(1971). A fourth episode was published posthumously in
Fungi
#17, a 1998 fanzine. His most comprehensive account of the project appeared in
Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy
in 1973. While he continued to make claims for its excellence throughout his lifetime, the complete novel never appeared. Part of the problem was that Carter was forcing himself to write the novel in a formal style more like that of William Morris and quite unlike his own.
Carter also spoke about publishing a magazine titled
Yoh-Vombis,
which he intended to consist of stories he would have published in his paperback
Weird Tales
series had he been permitted to continue editing it. As well as new fantastic stories, he intended to publish stories and verse by
Robert E. Howard
and
Clark Ashton Smith
; unpublished letters from Smith,
H. P. Lovecraft
; and art by Smith,
Roy Krenkel
,
Mahlon Blaine
, etc.
[13]
However, this mooted magazine never eventuated.
Career as editor and critic
[
edit
]
Carter was influential as a critic of contemporary fantasy and a pioneering historian of the genre. His book reviews and surveys of the year's best fantasy fiction appeared regularly in
Castle of Frankenstein
, continuing after that magazine's 1975 demise in
The Year's Best Fantasy Stories
. His early studies of the works of
J. R. R. Tolkien
(
Tolkien: A Look Behind "The Lord of the Rings"
) and
H. P. Lovecraft
(
Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
) were followed up by the wide-ranging
Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy
, a study tracing the emergence and development of modern fantasy from the late nineteenth century novels of
William Morris
through the 1970s.
Peter Beagle
faulted Carter's scholarship, saying "He gets so many facts embarrassingly wrong, so many attributions misquoted, that the entire commentary is essentially worthless."
[14]
His greatest influence in the field may have been as an editor for
Ballantine Books
from 1969 to 1974, when Carter brought several then obscure yet important books of fantasy back into print under the
"Adult Fantasy"
line.
[1]
Authors whose works he revived included
Dunsany
,
Morris
,
Smith
,
James Branch Cabell
,
Hope Mirrlees
, and
Evangeline Walton
.
David G. Hartwell
praised the series, saying it brought "into mass editions nearly all the adult fantasy stories and novels worth reading."
[15]
He also helped new authors break into the field, such as
Katherine Kurtz
,
Joy Chant
, and
Sanders Anne Laubenthal
.
Carter was a fantasy anthologist of note, editing a number of new anthologies of classic and contemporary fantasy for Ballantine and other publishers. He also edited several anthology series, including the
Flashing Swords!
series from 1973 to 1981, the first six volumes of
The Year's Best Fantasy Stories
for
DAW Books
from 1975 to 1980, and an
anthology format revival
of the classic fantasy magazine
Weird Tales
from 1981 to 1983.
Together with SAGA he sponsored the
Gandalf Award
, an early fantasy equivalent to science fiction's
Hugo Award
, for the recognition of outstanding merit in authors and works of fantasy. It was given annually by the
World Science Fiction Society
from 1974 to 1981, but went into abeyance with the collapse of Carter's health in the 1980s. Its primary purpose continues to be fulfilled by the initially rival
World Fantasy Awards
, first presented in 1975.
Posthumous revival
[
edit
]
Wildside Press
began an extensive program returning much of Carter's fiction to print in 1999. All remain in print, and one original book was issued in 2012, collecting the short stories about Thongor. See the bibliography for Wildside reissues.
Awards
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
For 1965 to 1969 inclusive, ISFDB catalogs at least five Thongor novels and nine others, three anthologies, four Howard books (
posthumous collaboration with Howard
, three by Carter and de Camp), and the Tolkien study.
[7]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Publication Series
Ballantine Adult Fantasy
? Bibliography"
. ISFDB. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^
Contributor note on Lin Carter in August Derleth, ed.
Fire, Sleet and Candlelight: New Poems of the Macabre
. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1961, p. 228
- ^
Asimov, Isaac
.
I. Asimov: A Memoir
, New York, Doubleday, 1994, page 377.
ISBN
978-0-385-41701-3
.
- ^
a
b
Asimov (1994), p.373.
- ^
"An Interview with Lin Carter."
Crypt of Cthulhu
Vol 5, No 2 (Yuletide 1985), p.p. 36?37
- ^
Price, Robert (2008).
Crypt of Cthulhu
. Kevin L. O'Brien. Archived from
the original
on 2015-09-14.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Lin Carter
at the
Internet Speculative Fiction Database
. (ISFDB). Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^
"Carter, Lin"
Archived
2012-10-16 at the
Wayback Machine
.
The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index to Literary Nominees
.
Locus Publications
. Retrieved 2013-04-06.
- ^
Lin Carter, "A Word from the Author",
Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria
(revised version of
The Wizard of Lemuria
), NY: Berkley Medallion Books, 1969, p. (6).
- ^
"Authors : Carter, Lin : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia"
.
www.sf-encyclopedia.com
. Retrieved
3 April
2018
.
- ^
"Lin Carter on Kull".
Savage Sword of Conan
No 3 (Dec 1974). Online at:
[1]
- ^
"Rutledge, Charles R. "Lost Kingdoms," April 11, 2008"
. Archived from
the original
on June 10, 2015.
- ^
"An Interview with Lin Carter."
Crypt of Cthulhu,
, Vol 5, No 2 (Yuletide 1985)p. 37.
- ^
"Introduction",
The Secret History of Fantasy
, Peter S. Beagle (ed),
Tachyon Publications
2010.
- ^
"The Making of the American Fantasy Genre", in
The Secret History of Fantasy
, Peter S. Beagle (ed), Tachyon Publications 2010.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Carter, Lin (1973).
Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy
.
Ballantine Books
.
- Servello, Stephen J. (2005).
Apostle of Letters: The Life and Works of Lin Carter
. Wild Cat Books.
- Crypt of Cthulhu
magazine. No less than five issues of this Lovecraftian fanzine edited by
Robert M. Price
, all published in Upper Montclair, N.J., were devoted to Lin Carter as special issues:
- No. 36 (v. 5, no. 2), Yuletide 1985
- No. 54 (v. 7, no. 4), Eastertide 1988 [Lin Carter memorial issue, titled
The Fishers from Outside
; Carter died on Feb. 7, 1988, just as this issue had been typeset and laid out. The back cover carries an unsigned obituary]
- No. 69 (v. 9, no. 2), Yuletide 1989
- No. 70 (v. 9, no. 3), Candlemas 1990 [titled
The Necronomicon: Book One: The Episodes
]
- No 95 (v.16, no 2) Eastertide 1997. Contains "Cthulhu and Co" (essay on Lovecraft) and "The Light in the East" (essay on the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
) both by Carter.
Further reading
[
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]
External links
[
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]
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Callisto
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Green Star
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Mars
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Zarkon
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Zanthodon
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Thongor
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Conan
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Short
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Collections
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Kull
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Gondwane
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Terra Magica
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Kylix
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Anthologies
edited
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Nonfiction
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Poetry
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Poetry
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Fiction
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Posthumous
fiction
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Academic
works
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Posthumous
academic
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Scholars
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Related
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