Lin Carter (1930–1988)

In the third Green Star installment, Lin Carter seems to have hit his groove. He maintains two parallel plot lines, alternating between them with a series of cliffhangers. The pacing is fast, with short chapters like those of the previous volumes. The end was not quite as much a cliffhanger as the previous book, but it was a big downer, heavy on dramatic irony and inconclusive. I liked Roy Krenkel's illustrations better than the ones by Luis Dominguez in the prior book.

This leg of the story show more really showed its Barsoomian literary genealogy, introducing both chthonic and aerial sub-races of the Green Star world's humanoids. Reading the glossary appendix that recapped the heroes and monsters of the first three books, it occurred to me that the world of the Green Star would make an excellent milieu for a tabletop fantasy role-playing game: distinctive, varied, and easily appreciated as a setting for heroic adventure. show less

Howard's stories about Kull of Atlantis are generally more reflective than his better-known Conan tales, and have an air of melancholy that, personally, I think contrasts well with the more conventional "hack-and-slash" elements.

Although Kull's world is not as fleshed out as Conan's Hyborian Age, this works to the tales' advantage, as it adds to the age-lost mystery and atmosphere of degeneracy of a world in its last throes, about to be washed away by geological upheavals, a slate wiped show more clean ready for a new age.

There's a fair admixture of cosmic horror of the kind H.P. Lovecraft admired in Howard's works, and also a sprinkling of the sardonic humour that fans of Howard's non-fantasy works will recognise, but which may come as a surprise to those who only know him as a Sword-and-Sorcery writer.

Whilst not as commercially successful in their day (in fact, Howard only saw three, I think, published in his lifetime) as the later Conan stories, I think the Kull stories are some of Howard's best. show less

The finale of Lin Carter's Green Star fantasy kept its heroes sequestered from one another in various hardships until the last moment, when they could be brought to a happily-ever-after. The story around Niamh the Fair was a great shout-out to ERB's Master Mind of Mars with peril rooted in medical horror. But the tension was amusingly relieved when it was revealed that the mad scientist was actually bent on decapitating himself! The newer character Zorak of Tharkoon (not to be confused with show more Zarqa the Kalood) had a didactic adventure among the dispassionate and authoritarian giant ants of the Green Star's world.

The narrating protagonist Karn fell into the clutches of a misandrist tribe of girls who abused him at length, catering no doubt to certain readers. This plotline led to a penultimate moment of farce when he was discovered by Niamh as he deigned to give the teenage amazon Varda a kiss after his many prior refusals. Although the rather lascivious treatment of the extreme youth of the characters has been a persistent feature of these books, it really stood out in this one.

The book is furnished with an appendix itemizing and detailing principal "People of the Green Star World," which repeats and extends for this fifth book a similar feature of the third. Besides the fact that it is set at the end of the book with no calls forward to it earlier in the text, the thumbnail descriptions here seem to be of little actual use to readers. It shows some lack of confidence on the part of Carter (or his editor) that the characters have been drawn strongly enough for the reader to keep them distinct.

The illustrations and cover art are by the excellent fantasy artist Michael Whelan, who would go on a short while later to do a series of wonderful paintings for the covers of a new paperback edition of the Barsoom books. The four interior illustrations are in a pointillistic style, and all the art considerably surpasses what Roy Krenkel had supplied in the earlier Green Star volumes. show less

This second of Lin Carter's "Mysteries of Mars" books is dedicated to Leigh Brackett. While I have read that all the novels in this loose series were in homage to her, this one is far more similar to her style and subject matter than the previous book was.

This sort of planetary romance was already rather old-fashioned in 1974 when Carter wrote this one. Its reference to "the old NASA scientists" (95) is practically anachronistic, in that by the time of its composition, multiple Mariner show more missions had cast plenty of shade on the idea that Mars might be habitable by humans and inhabited by its own ancient humanoid race to boot.

There is a powerful "Martian Western" feel to the story, which starts with an earthman prospector rescuing a proud native who detests the interplanetary settlers. There is more than a whiff of C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith about the protagonist M'Cord. He soon joins in a sort of grail quest, where the real nature and powers of the grail are unknown, cloaked in Martian legends.

The book is short, and it read fast. I liked it, and I will read others in the series if I come across them. show less