Linwood Carter American science fiction writer Date of Birth: 09.06.1930 Country: USA

Biography of Lin Carter

Lin Carter was an American science fiction writer, literary critic, and editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. He was a member of the Episcopal Church and occasionally sympathized with atheism. In the 1950s, he attended a school for cartoonists in Florida. Carter's first marriage was short-lived, and he rarely mentioned his first wife thereafter. He limped after returning from military service in the Korean War, and references to the war can be found in his novels about Callisto, such as "Jandar of Callisto" (1973).

Although he did not graduate from Columbia University, Carter paid for private lessons from renowned professors, such as Moses Haddas. He unsuccessfully attempted to promote the vodka brand "Wolfschmidt" in the U.S. alcohol market. Carter was an enthusiast of reviving Robert E. Howard's Conan series, which was conceptualized and realized by his co-author, Sprague de Camp. He was also a theorist of the science fiction genre, and his monograph "Imaginary Worlds" (1973) is considered a staple book for fans of the genre. Carter was known for creating richly imagined worlds with unique flora and fauna, such as the "Glagocite" insect described in his novella "Strange Customs of Turjan Seraad."

Carter's novels reached Russian readers in the late 1990s thanks to the efforts of publisher V. Nazarov and editor G. Belov. On November 19, 1962, Carter met his future wife Noel at her workplace in Prentice Hall, located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Noel, who had just graduated from college, worked in the advertising department. Despite a ten-year age difference, Carter and Noel got married on August 17, 1963. The couple pooled their financial resources to purchase a house in Hollis, Long Island. The Carter family's New York apartments were known for their exotic, otherworldly atmosphere, as they collected ancient papyrus, Japanese rice paper, Eastern screens, and miniature statues brought by friends from archaeological excavations. They also had eight dogs. Carter was an inveterate smoker and coffee lover, which caused conflicts with his wife. According to Noel, their marriage ended due to Carter's alcoholism.

In the 21st century, Noel Carter worked as an editor in an educational publishing house and wrote five books, all of which incorporated elements of fantasy. After her husband's death, she published her own plays and stories, which did not receive much recognition. In the play "Death Said the Jade Princess," some Russian intellectuals recognized similarities between the portrayal and behavior of the main character and the character Sarkina Sumiya from Lin Carter's Lemurian cycle novels. One possible explanation is that Noel was the prototype for Sumiya, and the descriptions of the Lemurian continent were an enlarged reproduction of the Carter family's New York apartments in the late 1960s.

Carter was a prolific novelist, often writing series of novels with a common theme or character. He acknowledged being influenced by the poetic style of Gustave Flaubert's novel "Salammbô." His most successful and creatively fruitful years as a novelist were devoted to the creation of the Lemurian epic, which preceded Atlantis. For six years (1965-1970), Carter wrote a saga about the adventures of the barbarian King Thongor. The afterwords to the Lemurian cycle novels often mentioned Helena Blavatsky. The romantic pathos of the Thongor novels conveyed the dissatisfaction and disillusionment experienced by intellectuals after the revolutionary upheavals of the 1960s. Throughout the Thongor cycle, Carter argued that the ancient Lemurians used antigravity boats.

Betty and Ian Ballantine invited him to become the in-house editor for Ballantine Books and created a new trademark, the white unicorn, for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. Carter's revamped series became one of Ballantine Books' most successful projects. As part of his editorial duties, he read at least 22,000 volumes of fiction and reference literature.