Search Results for: Ballantine Adult Fantasy

An Original Ballantine Adult Fantasy: The Children of Llyr by Evangeline Walton

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The Children of Llyr (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #33, August 1971). Cover by David Johnston This latest entry in my series of essays about mostly obscure SF and Fantasy from the ’70s and ’80s looks at a novel published in one of the most celebrated publishing series of the early ’70s. This was the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which ran from 1969 to 1974, under the editorship of Betty Ballantine, with the assistance of “Editorial Consultant” Lin Carter. I’ve discussed Carter’s…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Young Magicians edited by Lin Carter

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The Young Magicians Lin Carter, ed. Ballantine Books October 1969, 280p. $0.95 Cover art by Sheryl Slavitt I apologize for having taken so long to get this post done. I’ve been on the road for over half the weekends since the end of April, mostly family trips for graduations or dive meets my son was competing in. I thought I would have a little more time when the second summer session started since I would be teaching, but that hasn’t…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Dragons, Elves, and Heroes edited by Lin Carter

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Dragons, Elves, and Heroes Edited by Lin Carter Ballantine Books (277 pages, October 1969, $0.95) Cover art by Sheryl Slavitt It’s been a while since my last post, and no, I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth, run away to join the circus, or been abducted by aliens. Although there have been times I’ve considered that circus thing. Or maybe gypsies. No, I’m just overloaded this semester (my day job is in academia), which hasn’t left a lot of…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Figures of Earth by James Branch Cabell

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Figures of Earth James Branch Cabell Ballantine Books (290 p, November 1969. $0.95) Cover art by Robert Pepper Okay, this one is probably going to be the last Cabell I read for a while. It turned out to be more of a slog than I expected. I’ll elaborate below. Figures of Earth was the second volume of James Branch Cabell’s Chronicles of Fabled Poictesme, published as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. It is the story of how the…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

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Lud-in-the-Mist Hope Mirrlees Ballantine Books (273 pages, March 1970, $0.95) Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo One of Lin Carter’s greatest achievements as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, in my opinion, was rescuing Lud-in-the-Mist from obscurity. The third and final novel by Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist was her only fantasy. After this book was published, she stopped writing. More on that later. Carter tells the story in his introduction that he had never heard of the book when a friend…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Spawn of Cthulhu edited by Lin Carter

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The Spawn of Cthulhu H. P. Lovecraft and Others Lin Carter, ed. Ballantine Books (274 pages, October 1971, $0.95) Cover by Gervasio Gallardo Lin Carter edited more than one anthology for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. Up until now, I’ve not discussed any of them. One reason is that where I am sequentially, there have only been two. The other reason is it’s easier to discuss a single novel than the contents of an anthology. I’m going to break with…

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Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Doom that Came to Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft

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The Doom that Came to Sarnath H. P. Lovecraft Ballantine Books (280 pages, February 1971, $0.95) Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo The Doom That Came to Sarnath was the second volume of H. P. Lovecraft stories published under the BAF imprint. It served as a bridge between the Dunsanian fantasies of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath and the Cthulhu Mythos related titles that followed. Many of the stories in this volume weren’t published until years after they were written…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Land of Unreason by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp

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Land of Unreason Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp Ballantine Books (240 pages, January 1970, $0.95) Cover art by Donna Violetti Lin Carter ended the inaugural year of the BAF series with a reprint of a novel from the pulp Unknown, Hannes Bok’s The Sorcerer’s Ship. His first selection for the series’ first full calendar year was another tale from Unknown (the October 1941 issue), a collaboration between Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp. Land of Unreason followed…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz

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Deryni Rising Katherine Kurtz August 1970 271 p., $0.95 Cover art by Bob Pepper When Lin Carter started the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, he began by reprinting works that were obscure and/or considered classic in the field at that time, but as he wrote in the introduction to Deryni Rising, he had hoped from the very beginning to be able to publish high quality new works as well. The first original fiction he published was Deryni Rising, the first novel…

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Sorcerer’s Ship by Hannes Bok

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The Sorcerer’s Ship Hannes Bok Ballantine, 205 p., December 1969, $0.95 Cover Art by Ray Cruz First, I’d like to apologize to John and everyone else who reads these posts for taking so long to get this one done. I was on the road quite a bit from the end of May up through the Fourth, but I thought I would be able to get this particular post done quickly. Then things started happening. Car repairs, then house repairs, and…

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