When I learned of this anthology series, I was eager to discover more about the fantasy fiction of the 1970s. The '80s I felt I knew fairly well, at least in outline -- experiments in subject and tone that, while hopelessly dated and dorky now, were innovative and exciting at the time, and necessary for the current renaissance of the genre. And everyone who reads fantasy knows the work of early fantasists like Lovecraft, Howard, and Tolkien, at least by reputation. The decades in between were a blank space in my personal history of the genre, and this series seemed like the perfect place to begin filling it in.
I've now read five of Lin Carter's Year's Best Fantasy Stories volumes, and sadly, it would seem Lin Carter was not the ideal guide to the fantasy of the period.
Wikipedia references Carter's "particular enthusiasms" for certain types of stories, which is a polite way of putting it. Carter has a serious thing for testosterone-addled grognard fantasy on the Howard and Leiber model (with the expected concomitant of Orientalist fetishism and other strains of racism), and an even stronger predilection for printing up rediscovered manuscripts from fantasy's 1930s vanguard -- manuscripts sometimes "finished" by Lin Carter himself, or others.
Subsequent volumes of this series have as many as three stories written by Carter under various pen names, but this initial volume features only one story penned by Carter, unless you count the Clark Ashton Smith story, which was a partial draft finished by Carter. Carter is, in my opinion, easily one of the worst authors in these collections, his prose painfully overwrought and his stories decidedly uninteresting; his subsequent habit of padding these books out with his own pseudonymous productions (under the names Grail Undwin, David Mallory, Philip Coakley, and possibly others) is not yet a problem in this book, though his story "The City in the Jewel," a self-indulgent epic that takes up more pages than any other tale in this book, is utterly inessential.
Notwithstanding Carter's written contributions, volume 2 is a slight improvement upon the first Year's Best Fantasy Stories volume, featuring good stories from Avram Davidson, L. Sprague de Camp, and Thomas Burnett Swann. The Thula story from Pat McIntosh is a disappointment after the excellent "Falcon's Mate" in the first YBFS, a mere travelogue chapter introducing characters that will later be important to the serial narrative without telling a noteworthy story of its own. The competently written C.A. Cador story is interesting as an insight into the underground zine scene of the late '70s, but otherwise unremarkable. An inferior Fritz Leiber piece, an adequate Tanith Lee story, and rote, stale stuff like Paul Spencer's "The Guardian of the Vault" fill out the rest of the volume.
Contents:
"The Demoness" by Tanith Lee
"The Night of the Unicorn" by Thomas Burnett Swann
"Cry Wolf" by Pat McIntosh
"Under the Thumbs of the Gods" by Fritz Leiber
"The Guardian of the Vault" by Paul Spencer
"The Lamp from Atlantis" by L. Sprague de Camp (originally published as "The Lamp")
"Xiurhn" by Gary Myers
"The City in the Jewel" by Lin Carter
"In 'Ygiroth" by Walter C. DeBill, Jr.
"The Scroll of Morloc" by Clark Ashton Smith (posthumously "completed" by Lin Carter)
"Payment in Kind" by C. A. Cador
"Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard" by Avram Davidson
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
|
About the author
Top reviews from other countries
- Rick H.Reviewed in the United States on 18 February 2015
A slight improvement over the first YBFS, but still dragged down by Lin Carter's editorial sensibilities.
