L. Sprague de Camp, the Col. Parker of S&S?

I just read an amazing 15-part article over at rehupa.com, starting July 2008, on the influence of L. Sprague de Camp on the development of Conan in the late 1960s and later (I was referrered to it by its author Morgan Holmes.)

It is worth a look. I very well remember the 3 vols of Conan stories Karl Edward Wagner edited (remember the ones with the little pull-out posters? Amazing cover art!) And I knew since then, from reading here and there, that apparently L. Sprague de Camp, who had co-written, edited and pastiched numberous Conan works posthumous and otherwise with Lin Carter, working from fragments of Howard material and even changing Howard non-Conan stories into stories featuring the brawny Cimmerian, I had *no idea* of the extent of de Camp's influence on the Conan "cottage industry," much of it negative. Which included causing the termination of the KEW project after 3 volumes instead of six.

In fact, it reminded me of nothing so much as the stories of Col. Parker simultaneously promoting, vampirizing, and screwing up the career of Elvis Presley. Like Tom Parker, de Camp savagely fought to "corner the market" on the material (and as Morgan Holmes shows in explicit detail, the de Camp/Carter material was almost always quite inferior to the Howard source material), but in later years he actively worked to promote a poorer product, insisting on the "dumbing down" of the pastiche novels written by others after he and Carter finished their series of "canon" books.

I had operated for years under the assumption that if not for de Camp, Conan wouldn't have been re-discovered, and there might well not have been a sword & sorcery boom in the 1960s/1970s. Boy was I wrong. In fact, de Camp had as much as anybody to do with ending it...

Subjective Taste

I hadn't read much sword and sorcery for a long time before starting this blog, except for a few old favorites now and again. No real reason why; I was a teenager 1975-1982, peak years during the last big S&S boom, and read everything I could lay hands on at that time. After that I got into other things.

But reading tastes change, and in the intervening decades my own reading (and writing) have changed a lot. So when I came back to pick up where I left off, I was interested in seeing how much if any of what I loved before could endure my now-jaded tastes.

I'm happy to report so far that none of my old favorites have fallen by the wayside. I opened this blog with a defense of Lin Carter, whom I've always loved, and it's true he was not on the same level with some other writers, but on the other hand he kept me in good books to read for years. What I was afraid of was that I would now find him unreadable (as I do with a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs, sorry to say.) Happily such was not the case.

Still, it's not the same. I found myself annoyed by excessive exclamation marks in the Karl Edward Wagner story I was just reading. Kane! doesn't! need! excessive! punctuation! to! be! exciting! And when I re-reading the first few Elric stories a month or two ago, I was mildly surprised not to be more blown away by the prose, which had made quite an impression on me at age 15. I mean, it's *fine* -- Moorcock is a favorite -- but memory is a tricky beast, and I remembered it differently than it was.

And although I have recently purchased the new-ish 3-vol. Conan stories, as well as the Solomone Kane collection, Howard's stuff is in a stack by my chair, yet-unread. I'm kinda afraid to. What if he sucks? What if *I*, therefore, suck?

I'll have to get back to you on that.

My favorite stylist at the moment is James Enge of BLOOD OF AMBROSE and THIS CROOKED WAY, which I began over the weekend. Now that guy can turn a phrase!

"Just now it was early spring; patches of snow lay, like chewed crusts, beneath the hungry-looking trees. The leaves, crooked blue veins showing along the withered gray surfaces, were like the hands of dying men. They rustled irritably in the chill persistent breeze, as if impatient to meet and merge with the earth."

See what I mean?

I have been buying (used) these big thick 3-in-1 Warhammer fantasy anthologies. So far, I am not totally crushed, although they are kinda what I thought: the writers hearts are in it, but sometimes the writing is a little weak.

So how important is it for there to be "great writing" if you're just looking for an exciting/fun read? Do you need a literature degree to have a good time? (No, and you don't need an ideology to knock over a liquor store, to quote Hal Hartley in "Simple Men.")

If the writing gets in the way of the enjoyment, that's a problem. If not, not. I also enjoy pickled eggs and anchovies and other disgusting things. De gustibus non disputandem est.

Why I Like Lin Carter

Linwood Vrooman Carter (1930-1988) was one of the heroes of my youth. In the decades since his death his reputation has wallowed in the aftermath of the Last Great Sword & Sorcery Boom. (He helped start it, with the Conan books he and L. Sprague de Camp brought back into print, edited, and in many cases wrote), as with the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series of works he edited and thus brought back into print. (Not adult fantasy as in sex, but adult fantasy as in great classic works that weren't kid stuff). Books by Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith and James Branch Cabell; title I never would've read in a million years otherwise, but books which shaped the tastes of many another fantasy enthusiast, myself among them.

Despite the vast number of books written in the sword & sorcery genre in the past 80 years, when I found myself again turning an eye toward them, one of the first people I sought out was Carter. I distinctly remember the day, age 13, when I bought his ENCHANTRESS OF WORLD'S END off the spin rack at the Wal-Mart in Harrison, Ark. The bare-bosomed, bright red beauty on the cover caught my eye, as did the unpronounceable names (Northern YamaYamaLand, Dzimdazoul's Deep – not to mention the Ethical Triumvirs of Chx!), and of course the cast: Ganelon Silvermane, muscle-clad hero with the mind of a child, his master the Illusionist of Nerelon, face always hidden behind veil of purple mist, and the delightful, freckled, long-legged and sexy Xarda, Knightrix of Jemmerdy.

Had I known this work, like much of Carter's oeuvre, was derivative – in this case of Jack Vance's Dying Earth books, among others – I might have gone on to read them then, though my access and resources were limited, but I would not have held the imitation against Carter. Did I not do the same myself, every day, scribbling longhand in notebooks as fast as I could write?

He has been critiqued many times before for hewing too closely to his sources, but he was quite open in so doing and in his admiration of them.

I am glad his books remain worth a read, as I have just found out, and while yes there is but one Robert E. Howard, one Edgar Rice Burroughs, one Clark Ashton Smith, there was but one Lin Carter as well, and I am forever grateful that he lived, and wrote.