What do you think?
Rate this book
The Year's Best Fantasy Stories #2
The Year's Best Fantasy Stories 2
Contents:
* "The Year in Fantasy" (Lin Carter)
* "The Demoness" (Tanith Lee)
* "The Night of the Unicorn" (Thomas Burnett Swann)
* "Cry Wolf" (Pat McIntosh)
* "Under the Thumbs of the Gods" (Fritz Leiber)
* "The Guardian of the Vault" (Paul Spencer)
* "The Lamp from Atlantis" (L. Sprague de Camp)
* "Xiurhn" (Gary Myers)
* "The City in the Jewel" (Lin Carter)
* "In 'Ygiroth" (Walter C. DeBill, Jr.)
* "The Scroll of Morloc" (Clark Ashton Smith and Lin Carter)
* "Payment in Kind" (Caradoc A. Cador)
* "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard" (Avram Davidson)
* "The Year's Best Fantasy Books" (Lin Carter)
* "The Year in Fantasy" (Lin Carter)
* "The Demoness" (Tanith Lee)
* "The Night of the Unicorn" (Thomas Burnett Swann)
* "Cry Wolf" (Pat McIntosh)
* "Under the Thumbs of the Gods" (Fritz Leiber)
* "The Guardian of the Vault" (Paul Spencer)
* "The Lamp from Atlantis" (L. Sprague de Camp)
* "Xiurhn" (Gary Myers)
* "The City in the Jewel" (Lin Carter)
* "In 'Ygiroth" (Walter C. DeBill, Jr.)
* "The Scroll of Morloc" (Clark Ashton Smith and Lin Carter)
* "Payment in Kind" (Caradoc A. Cador)
* "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard" (Avram Davidson)
* "The Year's Best Fantasy Books" (Lin Carter)
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 17, 1976
66 people want to read
About the author
Lin Carter
487 books165 followersLinwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H.P. Lowcraft (for an H.P. Lovecraft parody) and Grail Undwin.
Carter had a marked tendency toward self-promotion in his work, frequently citing his own writings in his nonfiction to illustrate points and almost always including at least one of his own pieces in the anthologies he edited. The most extreme instance is his novel Lankar of Callisto, which features Carter himself as the protagonist.
As an author, he was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers. Carter himself was the model for the Mario Gonzalo character. He 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. Carter is most closely associated with fellow author L. Sprague de Camp, who served as a mentor and collaborator and was a fellow member of both the Trap Door Spiders and SAGA.
Carter served in Korea, after which he attended Columbia University. He was a copywriter for some years before writing full-time. Carter resided in East Orange, New Jersey, in his later years, and drank and smoked heavily. It may have been his 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.
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. Despite these successes, Carter increased his alcohol intake, becoming a borderline alcoholic and further weakening his body. His cancer resurfaced, spreading to his throat and leading to his death in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1988.
Carter had a marked tendency toward self-promotion in his work, frequently citing his own writings in his nonfiction to illustrate points and almost always including at least one of his own pieces in the anthologies he edited. The most extreme instance is his novel Lankar of Callisto, which features Carter himself as the protagonist.
As an author, he was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers. Carter himself was the model for the Mario Gonzalo character. He 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. Carter is most closely associated with fellow author L. Sprague de Camp, who served as a mentor and collaborator and was a fellow member of both the Trap Door Spiders and SAGA.
Carter served in Korea, after which he attended Columbia University. He was a copywriter for some years before writing full-time. Carter resided in East Orange, New Jersey, in his later years, and drank and smoked heavily. It may have been his 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.
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. Despite these successes, Carter increased his alcohol intake, becoming a borderline alcoholic and further weakening his body. His cancer resurfaced, spreading to his throat and leading to his death in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1988.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 30, 2017
Yes, using "best of" in the title is misleading. Some of these stories were first published here, and a few--particularly those which Lin Carter's name is attached--can't claim to be the "best of" anything. The selection is more specifically sword and sorcery, with only Tanith Lee, L Sprague de Camp, and Avram Davidson really stepping out of that well-grooved road. And even then, "The Demoness" and "Cry Wolf" are more innovative from voice and perspective than story, and L Sprague de Camp is merely traveling a _different_ well-grooved road.
"The Demoness" is a textured rendering of a succubus/vampire figure from her perspective, lushly written.
"Cry Wolf" was a fascinating little story where not much happens, but what happens is enthralling and layered. The events are part of a larger tapestry just off-scene, with hints of an interesting larger world, and the characters' backgrounds inform and shape the events here. It's a shame that Thula's story was not continued beyond the three stories McIntosh wrote in the seventies.
"Under the Thumbs of the Gods" is Fafhrd and Mouser and therefore eminently readable. The events are thematically relevant and shattering for the Twain, but is a bit of a 'clips show' and as close as I've seen to Leiber phoning it in.
"In 'Ygiroth" strips most of the excessive language from Lovecraft's Dreamlands, but sticks with themes of abandoned cities and forbidden ancient knowledge and dread cosmic beings.
"Payment in Kind" was excellent, with the Clark Ashton Smith dark wit and inventiveness that Carter utterly failed to capture with "The Scroll of Morloc". It's tragic both that C A Cador had very limited output and that none appears collected elsewhere.
"Milord Sir Smiht" [sic] put Davidson's Doctor Eszterhazy stories on my list. His wittiness and interplay between characters is enchanting and delicately done, as well as the idea that many things are going on and much of it rather silly. I'm intrigued by the proto-Steampunk / Graustarkian setting with an entirely Victorian mechanical occultism. But the light satire may wear thin in large doses, as it usually does.
And "The City In The Jewel". I like the idea of a mad being with godlike powers in his enclosed world, and the poor oppressed people suffering his every whim--the possibilities are enormous--but Carter has so ponderously overwritten it, so flabbily edited it, and so stuffed it with needless sentence structure effects to substitute for style and craft. Semicolons, lists, questions asked in narration, interrupted thoughts and em-dashes, and so, _so_ many exclamation marks.
It starts with a description of the altar and so forth, then when Thongor takes refuge there, does it again for the protagonist's benefit. The decision to stay in the protective stone circle until moonrise takes five paragraphs. The author keeps rephrasing ideas from one paragraph into the next one, as though unwilling to rework the original until it was precisely what he _meant_.
A moment of brilliance that Lin Carter keeps walking up to, shaking hands with, then forgetting: the implied cosmic fantasy. There's a glimpse of an Insect Philosopher who dwells in the moon's cold core, and other alien intelligences that the evil wizard converses with occasionally. Carter did this all the time in various stories, but never felt the need to actually flesh out the concept.
"The Demoness" is a textured rendering of a succubus/vampire figure from her perspective, lushly written.
"Cry Wolf" was a fascinating little story where not much happens, but what happens is enthralling and layered. The events are part of a larger tapestry just off-scene, with hints of an interesting larger world, and the characters' backgrounds inform and shape the events here. It's a shame that Thula's story was not continued beyond the three stories McIntosh wrote in the seventies.
"Under the Thumbs of the Gods" is Fafhrd and Mouser and therefore eminently readable. The events are thematically relevant and shattering for the Twain, but is a bit of a 'clips show' and as close as I've seen to Leiber phoning it in.
"In 'Ygiroth" strips most of the excessive language from Lovecraft's Dreamlands, but sticks with themes of abandoned cities and forbidden ancient knowledge and dread cosmic beings.
"Payment in Kind" was excellent, with the Clark Ashton Smith dark wit and inventiveness that Carter utterly failed to capture with "The Scroll of Morloc". It's tragic both that C A Cador had very limited output and that none appears collected elsewhere.
"Milord Sir Smiht" [sic] put Davidson's Doctor Eszterhazy stories on my list. His wittiness and interplay between characters is enchanting and delicately done, as well as the idea that many things are going on and much of it rather silly. I'm intrigued by the proto-Steampunk / Graustarkian setting with an entirely Victorian mechanical occultism. But the light satire may wear thin in large doses, as it usually does.
And "The City In The Jewel". I like the idea of a mad being with godlike powers in his enclosed world, and the poor oppressed people suffering his every whim--the possibilities are enormous--but Carter has so ponderously overwritten it, so flabbily edited it, and so stuffed it with needless sentence structure effects to substitute for style and craft. Semicolons, lists, questions asked in narration, interrupted thoughts and em-dashes, and so, _so_ many exclamation marks.
It starts with a description of the altar and so forth, then when Thongor takes refuge there, does it again for the protagonist's benefit. The decision to stay in the protective stone circle until moonrise takes five paragraphs. The author keeps rephrasing ideas from one paragraph into the next one, as though unwilling to rework the original until it was precisely what he _meant_.
A moment of brilliance that Lin Carter keeps walking up to, shaking hands with, then forgetting: the implied cosmic fantasy. There's a glimpse of an Insect Philosopher who dwells in the moon's cold core, and other alien intelligences that the evil wizard converses with occasionally. Carter did this all the time in various stories, but never felt the need to actually flesh out the concept.
July 17, 2012
The highlights of this anthology are a dreamy high fantasy piece by Tanith Lee and a darkly amusing Fafhrd and Mouser story from Fritz Leiber, in which our intrepid heroes are essentially told to go piss up a rope by every woman they have ever loved, lusted after, or crossed. Avram Davidson's "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard" is perhaps a touch less narratively satisfying, but it is also marvelously weird and technically accomplished, presenting a baroque flavor unlike anything else in the collection.
Lin Carter, bless his heart and his ever-bubbling enthusiasm, is involved in virtually everything about this antho that is less successful. His "The City in the Jewel," starring bare-assed Conan pastiche Thongor, declines into jumpy incoherence unworthy of even Carter's low narrative ambitions. It's also a perfect example of his facile comprehension of the stuff he desperately loved and wanted to emulate... Robert E. Howard's dark passion is here transmuted to purple strutting buffoonery. Carter had energy and vocabulary to spare, but he seemingly never developed artistic judgment to match.
When I first examined the table of contents, I wondered where Clark Ashton Smith's "The Scroll of Morloc" had come from, since to the best of my knowledge Smith had been dead for many years when this anthology was published. The unwelcome answer was that it wasn't really Smith's work at all but Lin Carter's "posthumous collaboration." In other words, a Carter pastiche based on Smith's notes. Again the poor guy expends all of his energy on emulating surface trifles and ever-weirder made-up nouns, capturing none of the haunting or atmospheric qualities that marked the best of the emulated writer's fiction.
"Posthumous collaboration" with the assorted original writers of the Lovecraft/Mythos circle is, incidentally, one of those literary trends I am not unhappy to see more or less buried in the past.
Carter commits one final annoyance in his list of "The Year's Best Fantasy Books" by throwing one of his own books in without a hint of apparent shame. I admire audacity in a writer and have no use for false humility, but even so, this strikes me as a bit much. Were works not written by Lin Carter really so thin on the ground that year?
A few of the other tales provide slight amusement, but a depressing number are simple variations on the so-old-it-creaks formula of "someone enters a cave/tomb, offends a dark power, and suffers the consequences." Even in 1976 this trope was thoroughly moth-eaten and none of the vaguely Lovecraftian oogedy-boogedies have any interesting new ways of haunting their forbidden fanes or eating people. Just think of the incredible advances in every human science between the 1920s and the 1970s; surely we had some right to expect a qualitative enhancement in the field of carnivorous horrors, too.
Lin Carter, bless his heart and his ever-bubbling enthusiasm, is involved in virtually everything about this antho that is less successful. His "The City in the Jewel," starring bare-assed Conan pastiche Thongor, declines into jumpy incoherence unworthy of even Carter's low narrative ambitions. It's also a perfect example of his facile comprehension of the stuff he desperately loved and wanted to emulate... Robert E. Howard's dark passion is here transmuted to purple strutting buffoonery. Carter had energy and vocabulary to spare, but he seemingly never developed artistic judgment to match.
When I first examined the table of contents, I wondered where Clark Ashton Smith's "The Scroll of Morloc" had come from, since to the best of my knowledge Smith had been dead for many years when this anthology was published. The unwelcome answer was that it wasn't really Smith's work at all but Lin Carter's "posthumous collaboration." In other words, a Carter pastiche based on Smith's notes. Again the poor guy expends all of his energy on emulating surface trifles and ever-weirder made-up nouns, capturing none of the haunting or atmospheric qualities that marked the best of the emulated writer's fiction.
"Posthumous collaboration" with the assorted original writers of the Lovecraft/Mythos circle is, incidentally, one of those literary trends I am not unhappy to see more or less buried in the past.
Carter commits one final annoyance in his list of "The Year's Best Fantasy Books" by throwing one of his own books in without a hint of apparent shame. I admire audacity in a writer and have no use for false humility, but even so, this strikes me as a bit much. Were works not written by Lin Carter really so thin on the ground that year?
A few of the other tales provide slight amusement, but a depressing number are simple variations on the so-old-it-creaks formula of "someone enters a cave/tomb, offends a dark power, and suffers the consequences." Even in 1976 this trope was thoroughly moth-eaten and none of the vaguely Lovecraftian oogedy-boogedies have any interesting new ways of haunting their forbidden fanes or eating people. Just think of the incredible advances in every human science between the 1920s and the 1970s; surely we had some right to expect a qualitative enhancement in the field of carnivorous horrors, too.
February 23, 2018
Lin Carter obviously loved certain kinds of fantasy, especially the kind referred to as "sword and sorcery." Eight of the twelve stories in this "best of the year" anthology of fantasy stories that were originally published in 1975 fall into the category of sword and sorcery. This is not one of my favorite kinds of fiction, so I am probably not the best possible person to review this book. On the whole, I found it disappointing, especially for a "best" volume.
A correction: actually two of the stories were from 1976 and appeared for the first time in this collection. Clearly those stories don't belong in this book.
However, one of those two is one of the best stories in the book, Tanith Lee's "The Demoness." Even at this early part of her career, Lee wrote lovely prose, not usually found in a sword and sorcery horror story.
Other stories here that I like include "Cry Wolf" by Pat McIntosh, "Payment in Kind" by C. A. Cador, and "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard" by Avram Davidson.
Some of the stories here are parts of series. "Cry Wolf" is one of Pat McIntosh's three "Thula" stories. "The Lamp from Atlantis," the only modern-day tale of the twelve, is an entry in L. Sprague de Camp's series about banker Wilson Newbury, a man who encounters the supernatural as often as Hercule Poirot comes across murders. Editor Lin Carter's own story "The City in the Jewel" is a tale about "Thongor." "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard," is one of Avram Davidson's fine series about Doctor Engelbert Eszterhazy (and yes, "Smiht" is supposed to be spelled that way). Fritz Leiber's "Under the Thumbs of the Gods" is one of his "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories (but, unfortunately, one of the poorer entries in that generally excellent series).
Three of the other stories are sort of parts of series as well. "Xiurhn" by Gary Myers is said in Carter's introduction to the story to be a mix of H. P. Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" stories and Lord Dunsany's "Edge of the World" stories. Carter says that "In 'Y giroth" by Walter C. DeBill, Jr. is also intended to be an addition to Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" sequence. Carter further says that the story "The Scroll of Morloc," written by Carter from notes by Clark Ashton Smith, is intended to be part of Smith's "Hyperborean" cycle.
The stories I have not yet mentioned are "The Night of the Unicorn" by Thomas Burnett Swann and "The Guardian of the Vault" (the other story original to this book) by Paul Spencer.
There is an introduction, "The Year in Fantasy," and an appendix, "The Year's Best Fantasy Books," both by Lin Carter. The surprisingly poor cover is by the usually fine artist, George Barr.
A correction: actually two of the stories were from 1976 and appeared for the first time in this collection. Clearly those stories don't belong in this book.
However, one of those two is one of the best stories in the book, Tanith Lee's "The Demoness." Even at this early part of her career, Lee wrote lovely prose, not usually found in a sword and sorcery horror story.
Other stories here that I like include "Cry Wolf" by Pat McIntosh, "Payment in Kind" by C. A. Cador, and "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard" by Avram Davidson.
Some of the stories here are parts of series. "Cry Wolf" is one of Pat McIntosh's three "Thula" stories. "The Lamp from Atlantis," the only modern-day tale of the twelve, is an entry in L. Sprague de Camp's series about banker Wilson Newbury, a man who encounters the supernatural as often as Hercule Poirot comes across murders. Editor Lin Carter's own story "The City in the Jewel" is a tale about "Thongor." "Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard," is one of Avram Davidson's fine series about Doctor Engelbert Eszterhazy (and yes, "Smiht" is supposed to be spelled that way). Fritz Leiber's "Under the Thumbs of the Gods" is one of his "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories (but, unfortunately, one of the poorer entries in that generally excellent series).
Three of the other stories are sort of parts of series as well. "Xiurhn" by Gary Myers is said in Carter's introduction to the story to be a mix of H. P. Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" stories and Lord Dunsany's "Edge of the World" stories. Carter says that "In 'Y giroth" by Walter C. DeBill, Jr. is also intended to be an addition to Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" sequence. Carter further says that the story "The Scroll of Morloc," written by Carter from notes by Clark Ashton Smith, is intended to be part of Smith's "Hyperborean" cycle.
The stories I have not yet mentioned are "The Night of the Unicorn" by Thomas Burnett Swann and "The Guardian of the Vault" (the other story original to this book) by Paul Spencer.
There is an introduction, "The Year in Fantasy," and an appendix, "The Year's Best Fantasy Books," both by Lin Carter. The surprisingly poor cover is by the usually fine artist, George Barr.
February 17, 2024
The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 2: 1976, cover George Barr. Contains The Year in Fantasy, by Carter, The Demoness by Tanith Lee, beautifully written and probably my favorite story in the collection, The Night of the Unicorn by Thomas Burnett Swann, very short and something of a magical realism story. It was quite good. The collection also has Cry Wolf by Pat McIntosh, a werewolf tale, Under the Thumbs of the Gods by Fritz Leiber, a good Fafhrd/Gray Mouser tale, The Guardian of the Vault, by Paul Spencer, a very good story with a twist ending, The Lamp from Atlantis, by L. Sprague de Camp, which was interesting but far longer than needed, Xiurhn, by Gary Myers, a Lovecraftian tale, The City in the Jewel by Lin Carter, a long and quite good Thongor story, In 'Ygiroth by Walter C. DeBill, Jr., a decent piece, The Scroll of Morloc by Clark Ashton Smith & Lin Carter, which wasn’t terribly well done, Payment in Kind by Caradoc A. Cador, which was well written and intriguing but with an ending I didn’t get, an Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard by Avram Davidson, which was glacially slow and left me scanning it.
August 11, 2024
Loved 1/2 the stories, some I could barely get through.
December 12, 2014
Twelve short fantasy stories and some commentary from 1975. I feel sorry for 1975 if this is accurately titled, and it's too bad they committed to an annual publication. Most weren't bad, just dull. Perhaps I would have liked the Fritz Leiber (whose writing I've liked in the past (here)) story if I knew these characters, but I thought his story might have been the worst of the bunch.
Lin Carter wrote a little blurb introducing each story in gushing terms about how much he loved each piece and how good of friends he is with these and other authors (gag!). Also I don't really like Lin Carter's writing (yet anyway... see my review of City Outside World)... so these elements didn't do anything for me.
A number of the stories tried to be Lovecraftian. I like that idea, but I don't think they all lived up to it. I liked the antique Atlantean lamp story by L. Sprague de Camp, and probably another one. Not going to continue with this series, thankfully I don't own any others.
Lin Carter wrote a little blurb introducing each story in gushing terms about how much he loved each piece and how good of friends he is with these and other authors (gag!). Also I don't really like Lin Carter's writing (yet anyway... see my review of City Outside World)... so these elements didn't do anything for me.
A number of the stories tried to be Lovecraftian. I like that idea, but I don't think they all lived up to it. I liked the antique Atlantean lamp story by L. Sprague de Camp, and probably another one. Not going to continue with this series, thankfully I don't own any others.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews