Customer Reviews

Tara of the Twilight

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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 way, Tara's band picks up Zorak, a teenager with whom Evalla can play "boy-and-girl games of their own." These adventures end with the bad guys and girls dead (usually) and Tara, in the course of having multiple orgasms, still maintaining her "virginity."

Though there's blood and pain in this narrative, in general this is all good-natured fun, with a heroine who's noble and true, despicable villains and some very hot sex scenes. Tara of the Twilight is both a good porn novel and a compelling sword and sorcery tale, and as such, a better book than most that are simply one or the other. This could have been the first entry in a truly memorable series.

However though it would be another nine years between the 1979 publication of Tara and the 1988 death of Carter, a chronic chainsmoker, from cancer, he never wrote another novel about Tara. The hell of it is that he left himself set up SO nicely for a sequel. Thus we are left with one of the most promise-laden, stand alone first novels to an unfinished series in adventure fiction. Where did Tara come from? Who are her parents? What is her destiny? What further violent and amatory adventures awaited her and her small band of friends? Would she and Thund ever get it on? For that matter, would young Zorak ever get a shot at the older and more experienced, drop dead gorgeous Tara?

We'll never know. Tara of the Twilight will always, for us, be caught, like a fly in amber, travelling in the magical air-gondola Boabdil, just beyond the River of Smoke, on her way, along with Thund, Evalla, Zorak and Khaldur, over the Trembling Lands, on past the Mantichore Mountains, on her way to City Gondomar in the country of Karge, and whatever unknown and untold conflicts await her there.

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.

I'm a fan on Lin Carter's work, espically the Mars novels, so this book took me by surprize. I did not expect explict sex discriptions. I guess I wouldn't recommend this book unless you're NOT offended by sex and are interested in a different Lin Carter. The heroin is Tara, a warioress and her pet "lion". The books ends with you expecting a sequel, which has never happened. Books I really like, I reread, I only read this once.