Tara of the Twilight

By Lin Carter

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0890835160
• ISBN13: 9780890835166
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Zebra Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Author!

I have read most of Lin Carters books, If you like non-stop Adventure stories, this is the author for you! And he has the amazing ability to write in the style of many authors which he mentions in his introductions. In the Jandar of Callisto books he even wrote himself into the book and that was one of the best Jandar books. Although I have 2 copies of Tara of the Twilight, I still haven't gotten to it, but I am sure it is just as good as the rest of his books. Unfortunately for us fans he died young from smoking too much while typing away like crazy on one of his novels which he also mentions in an intro. I would have loved to have met him!

Sword and Sorcery Porn

Linwood Vrooman "Lin" Carter is remembered today for two things: (a) he was one hell of a science fiction/fantasy editor, critic and historian; (b) he was a mediocre novelist whose output consisted almost entirely of lukewarm pastiches of more famous - and better - writers he admired, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Kenneth Robeson, and Clark Ashton Smith. If I had to pick one novel in which Carter broke from his imitative mold and created something uniquely Carterian, it would be Tara of the Twilight. Tara of the Twilight is a blend of two genres: the sword and sorcery tale and the porn novel. This was a major departure for Carter. As he says in Tara's introduction, "I have never written a heroic fantasy novel from the viewpoint of a woman. Nor have I ever written anything that was particularly erotic, if not downright pornographic. But I am nearly as interested in erotic literature as I am in the literature of the fantastic." Most porn novels are poorly constructed trash. By contrast Tara is well-written; the plot meanders somewhat but the events occurring on-page are always interesting; in characterization Tara comes across as perhaps a bit immature and stuck on herself but still a courageous and innately decent human being. Tara of the Twilight is written in stylized, almost quaint verbiage that works very well as a contrast to the bawdiness and violence of the events being described. Tara is raised and trained by kindly Chanthu the sorcerer to be a War Maid, an order of virgin swordswomen, and when she's 16 is sent into the Twilight, a dim and dangerous realm full of violence and magic, to discover the mystery of her origins. Even Chanthu does not know where Tara came from, who are her parents, what is her destiny. Her only companion as the quest begins is her childhood friend Khaldur, "a great golden cat with a crimson mane and lambent emerald eyes" possessed of near-human intelligence. Khaldur is Tara's steadfast protector though the two are frequently separated - the better for Tara to be chained and abused through many erotic adventures, natch. And my God, it seems like this girl just can't keep her clothes on. First she's captured and used as a pleasure slave in the perverse, decadent city of Paltossa. Escaping that, she's then captured by the Northern Barbarians and their brutal, rapacious king. During the course of that adventure she meets, and henceforth travels with, both bisexual nymphette and, ahem, play partner Evalla and studly male Thund the Lion Warrior, for whom Tara feels an immense and reciprocated lech. Thund is thereafter the #1 contender to put paid to that whole "virgin swordswoman" thing. (Apparently, having sex with women doesn't count as no-longer-a-virgin in Tara's mind.) Then there are encounters with the lesbian sorceresses of Witch Wood, and Sarkon the Sorcerer and his trio of magically created Womanthings. (The Sisters Weird, indeed.) Along the

Awesome. Excellent writing by a great author.

This book has lots of explicit descritption yet it also has deepth and feeling. There is such insight that I was shocked it was written by a man. I read it twice and would love to read it again. I'm sorry he never wrote a sequel. Great charcter developement. I would recommend this book to any mature reader.