The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 4, edited by Lin Carter
208 pages
Published 1978
Read from December 14 to December 17
Rating: ★½ out of 5
There's been a gradual but definite sense of improvement since the first YBFS -- better-written, less ham-fisted stories have been stealing space from the grognard Elder Horrors and Swollen Thews entries, likely reflecting a reluctant shift in Lin Carter's editorial policies rather than any observable shift in the genre. I'm hoping this trend continues -- though I'm trying not to get my heart set on it. This is Lin Carter, after all.
Same bookkeeping note from the last YBFS: at least three of the eleven stories here are previously unpublished, appearing in print for the first time in these pages. Those stories are noted in my review with the 1978 publication date; the rest, published elsewhere, are from 1977.
"The Tale of Hauk" by Poul Anderson (1977). Read and reviewed in Modern Classics of Fantasy, where I called it an "Unremarkable, non-essential bit of
supernatural Nordic fluffery." Unsurprising to find it here.
"A Farmer on the Clyde" by Grail Undwin (1978). Lin Carter goes into raptures describing this new author: "Miss Undwin I may modestly claim as my own discovery," he says here, while in YBFS:5 (I peeked ahead), he adds, "I am enormously fond of Grail Undwin, because I discovered her all by myself.... [F]rom the first page of [her] first story I was hooked. Nobody ever wrote fairy tales like these before: they break all the rules and get away with the trick superbly." The kicker, naturally, is that "Grail Undwin" is Lin Carter. Back in the day, when I ran a minor SF zine, I was guilty of occasionally padding out issues with stories I wrote under assumed names, but not once did I praise my alter-egos as rule-breaking, genre-shaking titans. And I only edited an online amateur market. Carter is curating the only (so far as I know) "year's best fantasy" series of its time, and choosing to put his own previously unpublished manuscripts in them under assumed names while fulsomely praising himself for originality, rule-breaking, and mastery of the form. So yeah, Lin Carter was a complete tool, Gorm rest his soul. That prejudices me against this story -- I've been waiting to rip into it for the past two weeks, in fact, after reading Lin Carter's wiki page. After all that buildup, however, I find I can muster no strong feelings one way or the other about this story. It's a whole lot of scene-setting about the monarchical ambitions of a particular elf-lord, and then a single page detailing the elf-lord catching sight of an aged, long-defeated, but ultimately joyful Bonnie Prince Charlie, and deciding that, if a mortal can be content without a crown, he can be content as well. It is by far the least unpleasant of Lin Carter's works (that I've read so far), but it's just kind of... there.
"Prince Alcouz and the Magician" by Clark Ashton Smith (1977). Apparently an early, unpublished manuscript, untampered-with by Carter or any other carrion bird. Not a Hyperborean tale, or any other morbid Cosmicist stuff; this is a straightforward Orientalist fable about a dissipated prince and the wandering Hindustani magician who tells his fortune. Forgettable.
"Nekht Semerkeht" by Robert E. Howard and Andrew J. Offutt (1977). Howard's final story, left unfinished when he suicided, this is a conquistador western reminiscent of the early works of Scott O'Dell, only pulpier and more intrinsically racist and misogynistic (and with more ancient Egyptian necromancers). This story belabors the conquistador's cynicism and low opinion for human nature, his every-man-is-out-for-himself worldview -- a pulpy, man's man philosophy that could be the subject of an interesting sociological thesis or two (how, for instance, might pulp ideas of manhood relate to today's culture of toxic masculinity?). As far as racist, misogynistic old hyper-masculine pulp adventure goes, this was at least adequately entertaining -- up until the denouement, in which our bold hero, now ruler of the city of gold, gives his new queen a split lip to keep her in her place.
"The Pillars of Hell" by Lin Carter (1978). Examining the copyright page, I have concluded that this is a second previously unpublished story of Lin Carter's that he found necessary to include in the year's best fantasy stories. What a self-regarding tool. Our mighty narrator takes the time to acquaint us with his "swelling thews and rippling muscles, the square cut of my jaw and the fearless glint of my blue eyes," as well as the "oily" and "hunched and flabby and ill-favored" cliche that is his rival. Standard Aryan manhood fantasy. Nothing interesting.
"Lok the Depressor" by Philip Coakley (1978). Google reveals nothing whatsoever about this "new author" beyond this single story -- seriously, not a single word. I'm tempted to assume that, once again, Lin Carter wrote a pastiche of someone else's style (claiming, in his introduction to this story, that this so-called Coakley "comes as close to writing like Jack Vance as anyone I have ever read") and shoved it, previously unpublished, into the year's best fantasy stories, under another assumed name. In fact, that's exactly what this reads like -- even admitting my personal bias, I insist that this reads nothing at all like Vance and wholly like Carter. There's the fixation on the young tomb raider's physiognomy, the cartoonish menace of the demons of the Wastes, the turgid dialogue, the abuse of exclamation marks: all signs of Carter's hand. Wikipedia doesn't list Philip Coakley as one of Carter's "known" aliases, but if my hunch is correct -- god, what a tool. Also, this story sucks a lot and is worse by far than even a mediocre Dying Earth tale.
"Hark! Was That the Squeal of an Angry Throat?" by Avram Davidson (1977). I've never been disappointed by an Avram Davidson story -- but can he salvage this hundred-page slide into ignominy and self-regarding twaddle? I dunno. This entry certainly is some kind of thing. I couldn't even begin to categorize it, so I'll (reluctantly) accede to Carter's charge that this is "a mere anecdote, and second cousin to a shaggy dog story." It has an antique New York City pulp feel to it (reminiscent of certain 1960s sci-fi shorts I've read), mixed with a sort of Jewish comic yarn, swerving without warning among the narrator's neighbors in a picturesque tenement district, populated by no end of mid-century caricatures and types, all flung together in a breathless rush. It's entertaining, yes; and then John Carter of Mars shows up, and it's all po-mo and I'm lost but enjoying it. A little baffling, but good.
"The Cloak of Dreams" by Pat McIntosh (1978). The copyright page lists this as "The Girl in the Leather Cloak"; I sense some Lin Carter-y meddling afoot. This is only so-so for a Thula tale -- though even a so-so Thula tale is bounds and bounds better than everything else featured so far in this collection, with the exception of the Davidson yarn. The story hinges on a magical mystery -- where is the missing boyfriend? -- though so much is left unsaid that the denouement, though its outline was obvious almost from the start, doesn't seem to follow any traceable line of reasoning from the clues we're given. McIntosh's light touch ordinarily enhances her stories, but here I think I would have preferred just a shade more exposition for once. (Maybe the problem is I'm running low on sleep lately.)
"The Land of Sorrow" by Phyllis Eisenstein (1977). This story showed me that I've long held an unconscious desire to see high fantasy written for the esthetic and standards of F&SF. This is an understated, thoughtful piece that takes its time establishing a place and a mood, elevating an otherwise unremarkable pseudomedieval setting, developing a gothic mystery in a hidden valley that held my interest until, sadly, it turned out to be a fairly generic magical sadist ruler. Even that disappointment doesn't linger, as Alaric the minstrel's escape from the Red Lord is complicated in an unexpectedly moving fashion. I can say, without reservations, that I would read many more stories of this cautious and sensitive adventurer.
"Odds Against the Gods" by Tanith Lee (1977). Picaresque silliness mingling early hints of 1980s fantasy (our first coy instance of lesbianism! BDSM "brides" for a god of pain!) with the stale leftovers of the '70s (technicolored landscape, easily hoodwinked stooges, a dying sun), all played for broad comedy. I chuckled once, it must be admitted, but this story is overlong for the minimal effect it produces.
"The Changer of Names" by Ramsey Campbell (1977). Lin Carter calls this one a "very unorthodox" sword 'n' sorcery tale; I call it moderately original. The central conceit, that a hero's name and deeds are a form of magic built up during adventures and liable to injury by defamation or theft by sorcery, is rather amusing; it wouldn't be out of place in the taverns and streets of Ankh-Morpork, nor would the huge crowd of hooded thieves that suddenly materializes at the end. Yet Campbell plays the story completely straight, making for an odd tonal dissonance between delightfully satirical premise and serious execution. It's an entertaining story on its own terms -- hardly a forgotten classic, but certainly passable.
Well, it seems I overestimated the trajectory of these collections. This was a definite step down after the last two YBFS editions, not least because Lin Carter took at least two (and most likely three) of eleven slots to foist his tiresome and self-indulgent claptrap on us. Even leaving his leavings aside, this collection just wasn't that good, with a mediocre Thula installment and nothing whatsoever on par with "The Dark King," "The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr," or "The Lamp." I mean, everything from the Avram Davidson story all the way to the end -- the second half, almost, if you go by page count -- was at least tolerable. But without standouts, it's hard to muster enthusiasm for the contents of this volume.
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