Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 19:57:13 -0500
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Talking SF, oh my;
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Michael Walsh wrote:

> Sam Lubell cut a swath with this:
>
> >At 10:43 AM 3/21/02 -0500, Lee wrote:
> >>      The book itself is innocent.  The author is guilty of arborcide.
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: Michael Walsh [mailto:MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu]
> >>
> >>Sword of Shanara is not an innocent book.
> >>
> >>mjw
> >
> >Actually Sword of Shanara is responsible for the birth of the modern
> >fantasy genre.
> I would suggest two different names: Donald Wollheim and Lin Carter
>
> DAW for taking advantage of the strangeness of US Copyright law which cast =
> the LOTR into the public domain (this was changed with a court ruling I =
> believe), thereby forcing the hand of JRRTs US & UK publishers to finally =
> authorize a lowly mass market edition of the books.
>
> Lin Carter for his Adult Fantasy series which showed that there was a =
> market for good solid fantasy, a lot of classics, plus some new writers.  =
> In general a set of carter's Adult Fantasy novels is a fine selection of =
> fantasy.  Carter himself could barely write himself out of a wet paperbag, =
> and it's bizarre to know that posthumous sequels to the Thongor books are =
> being planned.

I completely agree with you right up to your last sentence -- where I stop.  Lin
was in fact a skilled writer who for the most part did not avail himself of that
skill -- part of the Essential Contradiction of the man.  His Thongor stories
were often silly -- I think in one I published in FANTASTIC Thongor used three
hands to accomplish his purpose at one point -- but I was happy to publish his
Conan collaborations with Sprague.  They usually jacked the sales of an issue up
by at least 10,000.

I got to know Lin circa 1961, '62, and we became pretty good friends.  In those
days he wrote direct-mail letters for Prentice-Hall (and coined the word/name
"Psychocybernetics" for the book of that name, which he heavily rewrote).  For a
time he hosted the Fanoclasts in the early '60s.  We drifted apart over the
years, but remained friendly.  I recall seeing him at a Unicon (U of MD) one
year where he was, by all reports, acting MCPiggishly -- and his last years and
death were ugly and horrible.  I think of him as a wasted talent, but he did
leave behind some good stuff, and the Adult Fantasy series is one.  (Another is
his unpublished Oz book.)

--Ted White