Thongor of Lemuria

Infobox Book |
name = Thongor of Lemuria
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover art from "Thongor of Lemuria"
author = Lin Carter
illustrator = Gray Morrow
cover_artist = Gray Morrow
country = United States
language = English
series = "Thongor series"
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Ace Books
release_date = 1966
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 127 p.
isbn = NA
preceded_by = The Wizard of Lemuria
followed_by = Thongor Against the Gods

"Thongor of Lemuria" is a fantasy novel written by
Lin Carter, the second book of his "Thongor series" set onthe fictional ancient lost continent of Lemuria. It was firstpublished in paperback by Ace Books in 1966. The authorafterwards revised and expanded the text, in which form it wasreissued as "Thongor and the Dragon City", first published inpaperback by Berkley Books in 1970. This retitled and revisededition became the standard edition for later reprintings.

Plot and storyline

To rescue Princess Sumia and save her city, barbarian adventurer Thongorof Valkarth challenges Xothun, who has ruled the lost city of Omm asits vampire-king for a thousand years.

[
Berkley Books, 1970.]

etting

The Thongor series is Carter's premier creation in the Sword and Sorcery genre, representing a tribute to both the Conan series of Robert E. Howard and the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He pictures the lost continent of Lemuria as a prehistoric land mass existing in the South Pacific Oceanduring the ice age, on which Mesozoic lifeforms persisted after the catastrophe which wiped them out in the rest of the world. An intelligent reptilian humanoid race descended from dinosaurian forebears formerly reigned supreme as the dominant life form, but was partially supplanted as such by humanity as the continent was colonized by fauna from outside Lemuria. Humans have gradually thrown off the subjection in which they were initially held by the older civilization. Culturally, Lemuria is a mixture of civilization and barbarism, but overall is precociously advanced over the outsideworld, boasting a magic-based technology that even includes flying machines. The Thongor books relate the struggle of the titular hero to unite the humans of Lemuria into a single empire and complete the overthrow of the "dragon kings."

Influence

The Thongor books marked an important milestone in reestablishing the Sword and Sorcery genre in the 1960s. While a number of authors had attempted to imitate the success of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, which initiated the genre in the 1930s, their efforts remained interesting experiments, of which only Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series had really caught on. Aside from Leiber's work, Carter's was the first successful ongoing series, paving the way for an explosion of similar (and mostly lesser) works by other hands. It even inspired such spinoffs as a comic book series and a rock group. After Carter was recruited by L. Sprague de Camp to assist in continuing Howard's original Conan series, however, his interest in Thongor gradually waned. Ultimately the saga remained unfinished, and was already out of print well before the author's death. There has been no revival of interest in it to date.