Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 12:45:46 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Samuel Lubell <lubell at cais.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Talking SF, oh my;
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 09:11 AM 3/22/02 -0500, Mike wrote:
>Sam Lubell cut a swath with this:
>
>>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.

I disagree. Tolkien, even in his mass market edition, merely showed what a
genius could do.  And there's always a shortage of geniuses.  Brooks showed
that any idiot could *copy* that genius' world and have a big hit.  That
opened the gates for a flood of Tolkien clones.

>>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.

It was my impression that none of the Ballentine Adult Fantasy books sold
anywhere near as well as as Sword of Shanahara and most of the modern
fantasy genre appears to follow the copy Tolkien mode rather than the
original and lyrical fantasy of the Adult Fantasy series.