Lin had some of the finest fantasy artists of the time illustrating the many books he either wrote, edited, or appeared in. He also had some of the worst--take a look at the Thongor covers shown below.
During the seventies and eighties Lin Carter had his books translated into many foreign languages including French, German, Dutch, and Polish. Would you like to see some of his non-American book covers.
Here are some scans of his book jackets for your viewing pleasure.
It is my intention to post as many different book covers for Lin's works as I can on this page. I'll divide them up by series, since Lin was a guy who liked to do different series of books.
Although the Callisto books seem most reminescent of Burroughs' Barsoom series, Lin loved the setting and style so much that he did a second series of Mars books.
Carter's books set on the planet Mars show a heavy influence from the writings of Leigh Brackett and C. L. Moore. These books are more poetic, mystical, and melancholy than most of his other novels of adventure.
Edgar Rice Burroughs was a major influence on Lin Carter. He tried his hand at writing books parallel to all of Burroughs' major series except Tarzan. Zanthodon is a take-off on Pellucidar with a bit of Jules Verne and Edison Marshall thrown in. There is a third book in the series: HUROK OF THE STONE AGE that I don't have a scan for.
Thanks to the efforts of Ron Hill, I
now have these fine images of all five of the Green Star Books (which were Lin's
tribute to Burroughs' Venus novels). These books came out at the peak of Carter's popularity
and creative brilliance, and are among the best things he ever did. He
also got some of the best art that he would ever get during his career
as an author.
Here are three covers from this series. There are at least two other books that I don't have scans for. Although it may be a tribute to the Xothique stories of Clark Ashton Smith, the World's End series contains some of Lin's finest and most original writing. Others claim that it is very elaborate take-off on the Oz books, as it features characters without a brain, without a heart, etc. And they're off to see the wizard . . .
One of Lin's major achievements was starting and editing the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. With these gorgeously published paperbacks, he brought back fantasy classics that had been unavailable for decades, and he also introduced some new authors. Some might go so far as to say that editing this series was the best work Lin ever did--certainly it put him on a par with the greatest science fiction and fantasy editors in American history.
Here, for your enjoyment, are many of the book covers from that series. They're in no particular order, but you must admit that Lin got great art for all his Ballantine books.
Many of his Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series books had beautiful wrap-around covers.
Callipygia was one of Lin's very last books, published in 1988 just after his death.
