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Carter's first Thongor book reads like juvenilia but was marketed as adult fantasy, lending unwelcome credence to the old idea that fantasy has no real literary value. Derivative, superficial, and repetitive. Fight, capture, rescue: the pattern repeats itself over and over as Thongor and friends pursue their quest to save the ancient world of Lemuria from destruction. All sorts of bad guys seek to sacrifice Thongor to their pet deities, but, as the wizard eventually points out, Thongor leads a charmed life. Meaning: the only thing that gets sacrificed here is suspense. This revised edition includes an introduction in which Carter tells us that this, his first published book, was the seventh he had written. Those first six must have been real beauties.
Carter's first Thongor book reads like juvenilia but was marketed as adult fantasy, lending unwelcome credence to the old idea that fantasy has no real literary value. Derivative, superficial, and repetitive. Fight, capture, rescue: the pattern repeats itself over and over as Thongor and friends pursue their quest to save the ancient world of Lemuria from destruction. All sorts of bad guys seek to sacrifice Thongor to their pet deities, but, as the wizard eventually points out, Thongor leads a charmed life. Meaning: the only thing that gets sacrificed here is suspense. This revised edition includes an introduction in which Carter tells us that this, his first published book, was the seventh he had written. Those first six must have been real beauties.
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