While people disagree on the quality of Lin Carter’s writing, most people agree he was a fine editor and tireless supporter of the fantasy field. Volumes edited by Carter brought quite a few new authors to my attention, as well as feeding me a steady diet of works by writers I already loved.

From 1975 to 1988, DAW books presented a yearly anthology called The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories. Lin Carter edited the first six and I own and have read all but #3, which I ordered recently but was sent the wrong book.

Arthur W. Saha took over as editor after that. I only have one of his volumes. I don’t know why the editorial switch, but Carter may have been suffering from ill health around that time. He died in 1988. I first read the three with Robert E. Howard content, but later read a couple of others. Here are my thoughts.

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 1, edited by Lin Carter (DAW, October 1975). Cover by George Barr

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 1

Contains “The Temple of Abomination” by Robert E. Howard, a Cormac Mac Art story, and pieces by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Lloyd Alexander, Clark Ashton Smith (fragment completed by Carter), Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd/Gray Mouser), Lin Carter (Thongor), Hannes Bok, L. Sprague de Camp, Pat McIntosh, Charles R. Saunders (Imaro, & apparently the first story Saunders ever wrote), and Jack Vance (Dying Earth).

Most of these are decent stories. The Saunders tale shows a lot of power and promise but also feels like a very early effort. The de Camp tale is told in his often used tongue-in-cheek style, which I have to admit doesn’t do much for me.

It’s generally considered a faux pax these days to include your own story in such an anthology, particularly in something called “Best,” but Carter often did and the publisher didn’t seem to have a problem. He was probably a decent sales draw.

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 2, edited by Lin Carter (DAW, August 1976). Cover by George Barr

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 2

Contains:

The Year in Fantasy, by Carter
“The Demoness” by Tanith Lee, beautifully written and probably my favorite story in the collection
“The Night of the Unicorn” by Thomas Burnett Swann, very short and something of a magical realism story; it was quite good
“Cry Wolf by Pat McIntosh, a werewolf tale
“Under the Thumbs of the God”s by Fritz Leiber, a good Fafhrd/Gray Mouser tale
“The Guardian of the Vault,” by Paul Spencer, a very good story with a twist ending
“The Lamp from Atlantis,” by L. Sprague de Camp, which was interesting but far longer than needed
“Xiurhn,” by Gary Myers, a Lovecraftian tale
“The City in the Jewel” by Lin Carter, a long and quite good Thongor story
“In ‘Ygiroth” by Walter C. DeBill, Jr., a decent piece
“The Scroll of Morloc” by Clark Ashton Smith & Lin Carter, which wasn’t terribly well done
“Payment in Kind” by Caradoc A. Cador, which was well written and intriguing but with an ending I didn’t get
“Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard” by Avram Davidson, which was glacially slow and left me scanning it

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 3, edited by Lin Carter (DAW, November 1977). Cover by Josh Kirby

The Year’s Best Fantasy 3

I haven’t read this but thought I’d include the TOC for those who are interested. Contains:

The Year in Fantasy essay by Carter
“Eudoric’s Unicorn” by de Camp
“Shadow of a Demon”  by Gardner F. Fox (Niall of the Far Travels)
“Ring of Black Stone,” by Pat McIntosh
“The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr” by George R. R. Martin
“Two Suns Setting” by Karl Edward Wagner (Kane story)
“The Stairs in the Crypt” by Clark Ashton Smith and Lin Carter
“The Goblin Blade by Raul Garcia Capella
“The Dark King,” by C. J. Cherryh
“Black Moonligh” by Lin Carter
“The Snout in the Alcove” by Gary Myers
“The Pool of the Moon” by Charles Saunders
and the usual essay by Carter on the year’s best fantasy books.

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 4, edited by Lin Carter (DAW, December 1978). Cover by Esteban Maroto

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 4

Contains “Nekht Semerkeht” by Robert E. Howard, which was a partial story completed very well by Andrew Offutt. It also has stories by Poul Anderson, Grail Undwin, Clark Ashton Smith, Lin Carter, Avram Davidson, Phyllis Eisenstein, Tanith Lee, Ramsey Campbell, Pat McIntosh, and Philip Coakley.

Other than “Nekht Semerkeht,” the two best tales were Campbell’s (which appeared in Swords Against Darkness), and Anderson’s story, “The Tale of Hauk.” Avram Davidson’s story was “Hark! Was that the Squeal of an Angry Thoat?,” which was a play on Edgar Rice Burrough’s work. I found it pretty goofy. Smith’s story was “Lok the Depressor,” good but not outstanding.

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 5, edited by Lin Carter (DAW, January 1980). Cover by Penalva

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 5

It contains “Lord of the Dead” by Howard, which is primarily a crime story with fantastic elements. It also contains a Conan pastiche by de Camp and Carter, and stories by T. H. White, Tanith Lee, Pat McIntosh, Craig Shaw Gardner, Adrian Cole, Janet Fox, David Malory, Grail Undwin, Marvin Kaye, and Evangeline Walton.

“Astral Stray” by Adrian Cole was the best thing here outside of Howard. I’ve always liked Cole’s work a lot.

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 6, edited by Lin Carter (DAW, November 1980). Cover by Josh Kirby

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 6

This is a pretty good collection, even if it doesn’t contain a Robert E. Howard tale. We have:

The Year in Fantasy by Carter
“Garden of Blood” by Roger Zelazny (Dilvish)
“The Character Assassin” by Paul H. Cook
“The Things That Are Gods” by John Brunner
“Zurvan’s Saint” by Grail Undwin
“Perfidious Amber” by Tanith Lee
“The Mer She” by Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd/Gray Mouser)
“Demon of the Snows” by Carter (Thongor)
“The Pavilion Where All Times Meet” by Jayge Carr
“Cryptically Yours” by Brian Lumley
“Red as Blood” by Tanith Lee
“Sandmagic” by Orson Scott Card
The Year’s Best Fantasy Books by Carter

“Sandmagic” is worth the price by itself.

Now for a surprise about The Year’s Best Fantasy series. You may notice that Grail Undwin appeared in a bunch of these Carter edited collections, although I remember nothing about the stories. Well, this fact actually calls into question Carter’s suitability as an editor for this kind of “Best of” collection, because — it appears — Grail Undwin was a secret pseudonym of Carter.

I first heard this from G. W. Thomas but it certainly has the ring and scent of truth. If it is, Carter managed not only to get one of his stories under his own name into each of these anthologies, but he got a secret one in as well (and no doubt got paid for it).

The The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 9, edited by Arthur W. Saha (DAW, October 1983). Cover by Sanjulian

The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 9

Edited by Art Saha. Cover by Sanjulian.

Contains stories by John Kessel. R. A. Lafferty, Michael Shea, Harlan Ellison, Richard Christian Matheson, Parke Godwin, Jor Jennings, Jane Yolen, Suzette Haden Elgin, and Tanith Lee.

Saha took a much wider view of fantasy than Lin Carter and some people probably liked that. I didn’t. I wanted adventure and this presented very little of that, and most of the stories were set in much more modern milieus and tended toward the humorous.

In retrospect, I’m sure these were perfectly good stories but they just weren’t what I was looking for and were a drastic change from the stuff Carter had chosen. I haven’t picked up any more of the Saha edited volumes.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a a review of Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle by Chuck Dixon and Carlos Meglia. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.