Young Thongor. Lin Carter

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Young Thongor - Lin  Carter

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      ALSO BY LIN CARTER

      The Man Who Loved Mars

      The City Outside the World

      Tower at the Edge of Time

      The Quest of Kadji

      Beyond the Gates of Dream

      The Black Star

      TERRA MAGICA

      Kesrick

      Dragonrouge

      Mandricardo

      Callipygia

      WORLD’S END

      The Warrior of World’s End

      The Enchantress of World’s End

      The Immortal of World’s End

      The Barbarian of World’s End

      The Pirate of World’s End

      ZARKON, LORD OF THE UNKNOWN

      The Nemesis of Evil

      Invisible Death

      The Volcano Ogre

      THONGOR

      The Wizard of Lemuria (Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria)

      Thongor of Lemuria (Thongor and the Dragon City)

      Thongor Against the Gods

      Thongor at the End of Time

      Thongor in the City of Magicians

      Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus

      YOUNG THONGOR

      LIN CARTER

      WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL BY ROBERT M. PRICE

      EDITED AND WITH A FOREWORD BY ADRIAN COLE

      DEDICATION

      I am indebted to

      Robert Price and Morgan Holmes

       for their invaluable advice and assistance

      in aiding me to compile this collection.

      —Adrian Cole

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2012 by Wildside Press, LLC.

       Published by special arrangement with Robert M. Price,

       John Gregory Betancourt, and Lin Carter Properties.

      For more information, contact wildsidebooks.com

      “Diombar’s Song of the Last Battle” first appeared in Dreams from R’lyeh, 1975 (Arkham House). “Black Hawk of Valkarth” first appeared in Fantastic Stories, September 1974; © Ultimate Publishing Company Inc. “The City in the Jewel” first appeared in Fantastic Stories, December 1975; © Ultimate Publishing Company Inc. “Demon of the Snows” first appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories, Volume 6, 1980, edited by Lin Carter (DAW Books Inc.) “The Creature in the Crypt,” based on a title by Lin Carter, is published in this form for the first time. “Silver Shadows” by Robert M. Price first appeared in Crypt of Cthulhu, no. 99—Lammas 1998. “Mind Lords of Lemuria” by Robert M. Price is an original tale, published here for the first time. “Keeper of the Emerald Flame” first appeared in The Mighty Swordsmen, 1970, edited by Hans Stefan Santesson (Lancer Books Inc.) “Black Moonlight” first appeared in Fantastic Stories, November 1976; © Ultimate Publishing Company Inc. “Thieves of Zangabal” first appeared in The Mighty Barbarians, 1969, edited by Hans Stefan Santesson (Lancer Books Inc.)

      FOREWORD

      It would be difficult to identify the first Barbarian ever to wield a sword and tangle with sorcerers, monsters and other burly ruffians of similar ilk. His fantastic adventures would not necessarily have been recorded anywhere, but would almost certainly have been part of a rich tradition of oral story telling, around campfires, long before cities were conceived and the birth of what we, rather arrogantly, call civilization. The heroic tradition did eventually pass to the written word, creating immortal warriors whose names yet conjure up visions of splendid deeds and valor beyond the call of duty: Gilgamesh, Ulysses, Hercules, Beowulf, Sinbad, Cuchulainn, Viracocha, to name but a few.

      These are Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard’s nonpareil muscle-bound superman of an imaginary history set around 10,000 B.C. and John Carter, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s superlative swordsman of Barsoom, or Mars. They are two entirely different characters, adventuring in very dissimilar worlds, though sharing certain common traits, not least of which is their appetite for action, their fearlessness in the face of impossible odds and the kind of determination to succeed that once built spectacular, world-spanning empires. Lin Carter drew heavily and unashamedly on these two robust fictional heavyweights when he put his own Barbarian together. The result is an unusual fusion, an affectionate tribute to two of the lasting champions of fantastic fiction.

      This prediluvian continent, while evidently prehistoric and pulsing with appropriate monsters, conjures up regular comparisons with Barsoom, which seems to be even more its blueprint than the Hyborian world of Conan. It is a compliment to Carter’s energy and enthusiasm for his creation that the confusion of two such worlds and potential for anachronism and resulting dissonant clashes never actually materialize. In a bizarre kind of way, Thongor’s saga works and works well.

      And what of Lost Lemuria itself? In some ways it has been the poor relative of Atlantis, down through the ages. Initially it appears to have been a quasi-scientific explanation for there being lemurs in Africa and India, in the form of a geological bridge that spanned

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