Jandar of Callisto
Lin Carter’s “Creating a Fantasy Character” appeared in Savage Tales #7 (November 1974). Carter wrote a number of non-fiction pieces for Marvel back in the 1970s. This text article was a ramble through Carter’s creation of Jandar of Callisto. He outlines how he put the adventuring swordsman together using Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars as a template. Now you can raise an eyebrow and ask “Fantasy Character”? Some still think of John Carter as being more in the Science Fiction genre, though phrases like Science Fantasy and Interplanetary Romance get thrown around now, too. You can argue labels but I think you would miss the point. How does one create such a fantastic (Sword & Planet, anyone?) man of action.
When You Want More
No one is surprised to hear that Carter had ERB in mind when creating Jandar. Like most of his pastiche series, Burroughs is always in the mix somewhere. With Thongor, it was as if Robert E. Howard’s Conan and ERB’s Tarzan had had a baby together (Now there’s some Science Fiction!) Lin was the ultimate fan boy, writing new stories from the sources of what he loved. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea but if you’ve read all the Burroughs books (and there are sixty-nine of them!) and you want more….Lin Carter provides. It was this same impulse that made The Sword of Shannara a mega-bestseller back in 1977. Terry Brooks will do (for some) when you’ve read all the Tolkien there is. I was okay with this when I was fourteen. Now?
Not All Kudos
I was a little surprised to hear Carter criticize ERB for not explaining how the body transfer thing worked in A Princess of Mars. Lin made sure he did better to send his hero to Callisto in a less esoteric way. I can’t say I ever worried about it much. Carter was always such a complete fan-boy about the fiction he loved that I guess I wasn’t expecting anything negative in this piece. I can recall being the same wide-eyed fan back when I was twelve. (Just before I discovered Robert E. Howard and Mr. Carter’s Thongor.) Burroughs was the man who could do no wrong. I’ve written about how agog I was looking at the Gino D’Achille cover for The Mastermind of Mars and wishing I could cry for I would never write something that good. For that one, go here.
Arthan the Bear Man
But you should out grow authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs. (Though you never really do. I go back every ten years or so and find something fun.) I think all his young fans, many who became writers like Ray Bradbury, take away a love of adventure even as they move onto writers with more polish. For me that was Howard, then Silverberg, Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, and later Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick and on and on.Carter’s rambling account struck me as intriguing because I know the kinds of decisions he considered. I have recently created my own hero to appear in a long series of fast-moving paperbacks, Arthan the Bear Man. I did not use ERB as a template or Robert E. Howard’s Conan for that matter (and yet all of them, because these are the works I began with as a young reader). Arthan is a Sword & Sorcery hero. He fights in both human and bear form, taking on terrible foes like the Queen of the Bees in the first novel, and some very Burroughsian dinosaurs in the second. The third is finished (goblins and plant monsters) with the fourth (war with the werewolves) underway….
A Series For Fans
The series is designed with Lin Carter and all the action writers of yesteryear in mind. There is a little of the old Executioner and Doc Savage in there too. I wanted a series of books that the reader would approach with the thrill I used to feel as a kid when picking up a Thongor or a John Carter novel. Fast-paced, but not thud-and-blunder. Arthan is no meat-headed Conan clone. He is a creature of the woods, innocent in intention, but long-lived and well aware of the evils of civilization. My goal is to have you finish these short novels with a gasp of breath. A fun ride but not an empty experience. Hopefully, your end response will be: give me the next one!
Just a Note
NB: These books are not written with AI. I simply have retired from my day job and now can write like I’ve always wanted to. The cover art isn’t Mid-Journey either but the work of my long-time friend, M. D. Jackson. Mike understands Pulp and has promised to make the covers just as fast as I can write the books.
The Bearshirt Series
On sale in ebook here. Army of the Dark Queen The Hidden World The Tears of Y’Lala or the FREE short story “The Lichgate”
Paperback editions soon!
Read the first third of “The Lichgate” thus far, and it’s superb, an ideal example of what constitutes SFFH pulp-era stories, and why they were and are so great! Will be picking up the trilogy when they’re in paperback!
Glad you like it!
Hmm, did Carter actually SAY how he created Jandar? Not that I’m knocking your article, I just expected a little more on that, based on its title…
You are not wrong. Carter mostly sells his book series. I can’t put him down for this, ‘cos….
Congrats on your retirement! I have found it a lot easier to concentrate on writing now myself since I don’t have the niggling thoughts from my job that always seemed to snake their way into my brain. As for Carter, pastiches or not, I’ve always enjoyed his books (after being seduced by the Thongor Against the Gods Frazetta cover) and we owe a lot to him for popularizing fantasy and science-fiction. Looking forward to reading one of your Bearshirt stories!
Indeed! Good point on both your parts. And I always rather liked his series, except the book where he wrote himself in. (Lin Carter is NOT an action figure!)
I love pelucidar, but cna’t sotmach Barsom anymore, Carter is such a conclusion jumper who forgets his palce. And ERB did explain it; he split itnot two solid bodies, secified in the text