Forgotten Stories
of
Fantastic Sword-fighters:
Lin Carter’s Lost World Of Time

by Andy Beau

The sword and sorcery novel Lost World Of Time by Lin Carter (1930-1988) was only published once, in 1969. Although the ending appears somewhat resolved and somewhat open-ended for sequels, he never developed the story into a future series--it is one of his few standalone novels. Back in the 60s, Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp introduced me and many others to the world of sword and sorcery with their mass marketing of the Conan series. Since there were only about 19 original Robert E. Howard Conan stories, which would never satisfy my and others’ need for more, they crafted Conan pastiches. Sword and sorcery being so fresh and new to me, I read these pastiches with pleasure. The Conan books--pastiches and all--had a big role in boosting the popularity of sword and sorcery literature, which then grew in the mid-60s and 70s. During the 1970s, Lin Carter also was responsible for bringing forgotten fantasies from the early half of the 20th century to the general public through his Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. For further info, please see Howard Jones’s excellent article about Carter in the editorial in the first edition of the e-zine Flashing Swords.

Even though Carter wrote many pastiches in the style of early 20th century fantasy writers, this particular novel appears to be something unique from him, a sort of heroic purple-prose style that is not really like any other writer’s. (Maybe that’s why the cover of the book is basically purple!) This style is illustrated by phrases like “lion-maned hero,” “mighty thews,” “Hall of Heroes,” “a few hundred gallant warriors,” “great warrior from Barbaria,” “clean, strong manliness of him, and the bold, conquering spirit,” “The earl was a great golden bear of a man…like some titanic, heroic statue wrought in living gold,” “one of the few in which the rich, pure warrior-blood of old ran full and true.” The words “great” and “mighty” are used throughout the book to describe everything from people to citadels to mountains. However, these and similar words are judiciously spread to convey the feeling of a legendary saga of heroic warriors fighting mighty battles against overwhelming armies of Evil.

According to Carter, this tale begins one hundred million years ago on the then tenth planet of our solar system, Zarkandu, located between Mars and Jupiter. Zarkandu was later shattered to become the Asteroid Belt of our current time. It is a planet of black sand beaches (was Carter inspired by Hawaii’s?) being washed by luminous opalescent seas. The sun, being so far away, was only the brightest star in the yellow sky; seven brightly glowing moons provided daylight while other moons shone a lesser glow during the night.

The steeds used by all riders in the story is a horse-like beast with reptile skin, a head with a parrot-like beak, and clawed feet. It’s called a sangan or dragon-horse. With its tough reptilian hide, beak, and claws, it’s a formidable weapon on the battlefield. An even more ferocious beast is the Kandachar, the lion of Zarkandu. It is half again the size of the dragon-horse, with ridged curling horns that sweep back into its short crimson mane that run down its skull, shoulders, and back. It is appropriately called the Terror of the Wild!

The story takes place during what appears to be the end of the thousand year war of the savage northern hordes against the ten thousand year old Sacred Empire, ruled by priest-kings who ensured peace and prosperity throughout the realm. These evil hordes are led by Shadrazar the Warlord, the Son and Avatar of the evil Lord of Chaos, granted eternal youth to overwhelm the last vestiges of the Sacred Empire, which remain in its coastal capital city of Chalsadon located in the Inner Lands. At this point, the ruler of the Empire is old and ineffectual, and the city’s dwellers have been reduced to a few thousand. The nobility is mostly a decadent, depraved, and foppish lot. One of the few in the city to recognize the threat is Alara, the royal princess. However, she is not a weak, pampered child; she takes daily sword lessons from her old sword master and will risk her life to save the Empire. One example of this is when she sails at night to the Isle of Tombs to enter the tomb of a long dead sorcerer:

The mausoleum of the dead magician rose on the farther slope (of the isle)….She had no difficulty in finding the place; the difficulty came in entering it. Soon it lifted above her, a high house of black marble, strange and dire amid the pallid alabaster memorials and sepulchers of snowy stone. Above the bronze portal was engraved the sigil of an enormous, lidless eye. It stared down at the slim girl with a fathomless gaze. Another might have been daunted to stand in such a place under the stony glare of that weird symbol; Alara summoned her courage and shrugged off the fears that whispered to her with soft, small voices.

In the capital city, Alara meets Sargon, a Barbarian mercenary from Barbaria, the Isle of the Barbarians. According to prophecy, someone such as Sargon will be like “the hammer of heaven” against the invaders. This reminds Alara of the thirty pound, two foot long Maul, a war hammer used by a hero of the distant past. She gives it to Sargon and they both travel north to join the few hundred defenders in the Citadel of Arcantyr, the last stronghold at the narrow pass of the mountains called the Wall of the World. This pass is the only way for the hordes to come into the Inner Lands and crush the Empire’s remnants. On the way, Alara is captured by the evil horde and brought to its city of Sham Nar Chan. Chained to the sacrificial altar in the city’s square, she watches as the hordes leave the city to charge through the mountain pass to attack the defenders of the Citadel.

The advance force…trooped through the great square of Sham Nar Chan and around the feet of the colossal idol of the triple-headed Lord Of Chaos, Thamungazoth, the Black God. Gaunt sorcerer-priests in black and scarlet robes blessed them, swaying and chanting weird litanies in the uncouth tongue of the dark worship. Squadron by squadron, company by company, they filed past the towering colossus of dark stone whose three hideous heads leered, howled, or glared like a faceless skull down at the grim warriors.

Meanwhile, the battle rages at the Citadel of Arcantyr, with many individual heroic efforts by the greatly outnumbered defenders against the enemy’s massive armies. One scene of such an effort is:

Then bright bugles blew and to the wonder of all the great brazen gates of Arcantyr swung open. A breathless hush fell over the embattled field as all eyes turned to see what had chanced. There within the gates, mounted on an armored sangan, sat Prince Paramir of Gond Amrahil and his warriors. And Jemadar the Tall was there and brave Felenice, the third of the Three Brothers of Koth Paladon. With a mighty shout and a glare of lifted swords this new host swept on thundering steeds down the slope to crash full against the side of the Jahangir Horde. The shock of that collision was terrific; the earth shook beneath their meeting and the shouts and cries of battling men rang out over the dust-mantled plain.

Meanwhile, Sargon steals into the city of evil to attempt to rescue Alara and escape with her back to the Citadel. He eventually discovers that the only way he could have defeated the Son of Chaos and his evil horde was by using the one weapon that could have accomplished this--his Maul, the Hammer of Heroes.

The story does not have much magic or sorcery in it. One part describes a long-dead wizard’s apparition prophesizing. Another tells of the Son of the Lord of Chaos as the horde leader, whose main function is to weld the different smaller hordes into one enormous Horde and have them battle the Empire without any supernatural intervention on his part. Magic is apparently somewhat restricted on this planet. The evil gods and the noble gods have limited powers, for the most part. This is largely a saga of outnumbered heroes battling to save their empire, and, thus, the world, from the minions of the evil Lord of Chaos.

The book’s cover is very misleading in its depiction of Sargon’s weapon, the Maul. It incorrectly shows Sargon wielding a morning star, a mace with the round spiked metal head attached by a chain to the handle. This was confusing to me because the story actually mentions a maul, which is a war hammer. From deep in the story the weapon is definitely described as a war hammer--the cover was wrong. It wouldn’t be a big deal if Sargon was shone using an axe and if he actually uses a sword in the story. Everyone knows the difference between an ax and a sword. But a maul is a unique name for a war hammer, a rarely used weapon in itself. Most people wouldn’t be sure of the difference between a maul and a morning star after seeing this discrepancy on the cover.

The story itself is only 117 pages long. Compared to the 300+ page, multi-book, sword and fantasy novels published today, this could almost be classified as a long short story or a novelette. However, it packs a lot of punch in such a small package. I would say this is one of Lin Carter’s best in this genre. I highly recommend it for lovers of action-packed sword and sorcery.

Used copies of this book can be obtained for as little as one dollar on Abebooks.com and other used-book web sites.

About the Author

Andy Beau has lived in San Diego, CA since he was 16. There were no computer degrees in the 1960s, so he graduated with a degree in math and worked in the computer programming field from 1969 until 2003, when he retired early at 57. Prior to these articles all of his writing has been technical--the composition of user manuals--and there wasn't much call for analysis of plot and character development in that. Andy's been a fan of sword and sorcery tales since college in 1966. This has lead him to other fantasy adventure genres: lost race, supernatural thrillers, Lovecraftian horror, and more. He shares his long-term love for and knowledge of sword and sorcery with his readers in these columns. SwordAndSorcery.org is proud to have him.