The other series that I recently completed serendipitously was the Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron. It's another fairly obscure fantasy series from the 1980s. I think these must have had a short print run, both the original singly published trilogies and the subsequent omnibuses, because Gandalara II is the only one I've ever noticed in years of browsing bookstores, and only rarely at that. The married authors outlined the overall story arc together, but apparently Randall Garrett died before the stories were written.

I read Gandalara II back in the 1980s and kept the book for many years--it has a very memorable cover. I recall enjoying the story but I never came across Gandalara I, and eventually I let the book go. So when I saw both books together in the thrift store last year, I pointed them out to my querido as an interesting curiosity, nothing more. And somehow through miscommunication and not paying attention, ended up going home with them along with a few other books that I never intended to buy.

So this time I read them in order. Gandalara I consists of The Steel of Raithskar, The Glass of Dyskornis, and The Bronze of Eddarta, while The Well of Darkness, The Search for Kä, and Return to Eddarta comprise Gandalara II. And then The River Wall completes the saga. Imagine my surprise getting to the end of Gandalara II this time around and realizing that in some ways it ends on a cliff-hanger. Yes, there's a partial resolution, but the final climax lies ahead. I can't believe that I read that as a teenager and didn't have some lingering sense of incompleteness or need to hunt down the seventh book. So to fully appreciate the Gandalara stories you need to read all of them.

The authors employed a plot device that I think was very popular in the 1980s--a person from our society is transported mysteriously to a complete different world. Examples include Barbara Hambly's The Darwath trilogy, Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold! by Terry Brooks, Her Majesty's Wizard by Christopher Stasheff, and several by Andre Norton, including the original Witch World, Dread Companion, Here Abide Monsters, and Quag Keep--the last involving gamers transported into their characters. The rest involve people keeping their own bodies in the new, alien world filled with pretty similar people (and magic!). I'm told this is also the plot device behind the innumerable hideous Gor novels, but I've never bothered with those.
A rarer example of people getting completely new bodies for environments that are intrinsically incompatible with human life is the science fiction story Spaceling by Doris Piserchia (her best version of this concept, in my opinion).
The alternative approach is

This is a fantasy series, but has a very scientific feel to it. It's written in third person from the point of view of the male protagonist. There's no obvious magic, civilization is at about the Bronze Age, and the hero (with his perspective as a well-educated, experienced, middle-aged man of the twentieth century) brings objective analysis and concepts from the sciences and humanities with him.

Ricardo Carillo is enjoying a ship cruise when a giant, flaming meteor appears out of nowhere headed straight for him. He wakes up in a desert next to a corpse, a scary-looking nonhuman corpse. The first living being he encounters is a giant cat. Adventures commence from there.

Our hero spends the whole series trying to understand what happened to him, why, and how. And ultimately there's a rational explanation for every aspect of the story, including the final plot twists. It's a bit of a wish-fulfillment story along the lines of youth being wasted on the young. Ricardo Carillo was retired and dying but is reborn as a young, muscular swordsman.

In general, I liked the story, and I think I'll keep these books. The plot is fairly straightforward and largely (but not completely) predictable. There are few characters, mostly simple, but there's some growth and lots of dialogue. There's the obligatory romance, and a lot of the character interactions involve the couple processing their feelings toward each other and various important secondary characters. Yes, there's plenty of action and lots of travel back and forth across the world, but lots of talking and processing during and afterward. And the most important relationship isn't the romance, it's the telepathic bond with the giant cat--remember the cat?

I think the main reason I'll keep these is the world-building apparent in the book. In fact, the plot appears to be a vehicle to expound on various elements of ecology, evolution, language, psychology, sociology, geology, etc. This is a desert world where it NEVER rains, which means that salt can be used as a construction material. And organisms are water-conserving, so while people may sob to express grief, they cannot cry. And bronze is the level of technology because the only iron ever found obviously came from meteors. There are no large trees or mammals either (besides the cats), so no timber or draft animals.

Now my quibbles: the authors raise a few problems and issues that just appear to vanish rather than being addressed. It's mighty convenient and not convincing for the most part. Romantic rivals suddenly become staunch allies. That whole entrenched slavery thing? Easily solved, or at least sidestepped. The city that's been lost for centuries? Not so hard to find, people just haven't bothered looking for it. I am not sure that this series would pass the Bechdel test, since there just aren't that many female characters. The prose and dialogue are serviceable but don't stand out. And there's lots of internal exposition to bring out the world-building. And it's all quite convenient, Ricardo is already marked for death, so he isn't really losing anything, and gaining a new, even better life. This is another story that wraps up neatly with a giant bow on top, which I tend to consider a flaw, even as I admire the symmetry of it all. But if that's the worst I can say, then this is generally a pretty good story, if not stellar. ( )

Good. I hadn't realized this series was Vicki Heydron writing from Randall Garrett's outline. Hmmm - Steel, the book he actually wrote, comes more or less to an end; the others are pretty much a multi-volume novel (lots of near-cliffhanger endings). There's not even much of a break between the first and second three (the separation between the omnibuses). I wonder if it would have been different if Randall wrote them.
Still, rich stories, and remembering (vaguely) what happens didn't impede my enjoyment of them at all. Not buying them, though - I can borrow them if I want to re-read in a few years. ( )