Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Moondragon by Noël Vreeland Carter Noel Vreeland Carter. Sharp-tongued Charlotte Hungerford had a talent for taking the puff out of a man's pride. a talent that seemed sure to doom her to spinsterhood at twenty-six. Hadn't she hurled the crockery at Princess Sophia's tea party -- straight a. Moondragon. MOONDRAGON -- WHERE THE MARRIAGE OF EAST AND WEST GAVE BIRTH TO UNEARTHLY BEAUTY AND UNHOLY TERROR From the moment lovely, dark-haired Deirdre Fennora came to the manor of Moondragon on the wild coast of Ireland, she found herself in a bizarre and. The Lazarus Curse. Her Sacred Duty Melted Away In The Hellfire Of A Forbidden Love Young and lovely Norah Percivale came to the old and lonely mansion of Round House charged with a strange duty. Not only was she to be governess to little Gillian Lazarus, she was als. ISBN 13: 9780802757449. Carter's mystery debut (she previously wrote? paperback romances) is not for those with queasy stomachs. Biographer Miranda Fay gets a sickening jolt when her dog noses out a horribly deformed fetusaren't all fetuses deformed, or unformed? yes, unformed, but not deformed --a "mooncalf"--hidden in a grocery bag. Miranda has just separated from her husband, and is searching for diversion. Writing a series of investigative articles for the local paper gives her a wonderful excuse to pry into the sordid life and grisly death of Valda, the mooncalf's mother, a junkie who expired during an illegal abortion. Valda and Miranda are distantly related and so, it turns out, are several other women who have been impregnated by the father of Valda's misbegotton babe, a shadowy monster who rapes and sodomizes his victims. Carter trowels on gruesome plot twists with lip-smacking relish and whips the book to a truly demonic ending. But affected dialogue and characters cribbed from an English novel--a jewel of a landlady, a wealthy, eccentric uncle and his neighbor, a courtly Gallic romantic--undermine her efforts. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal : Biographer/narrator Miranda Fay stumbles across the body of a horribly deformed five-month fetus strangled with its own umbilical cord. An investigative journalist, Miranda plans to capitalize on the event. She runs into more than she could hope for, unfortunately: the aborted baby's dead mother (a hooker paid to carry the baby); two cases of rape/sodomy; mansions with secret passageways; and increasingly Gothic insinuations of family depravity. Refined prose and a spicy blend of New York characters move this strictly directed and mostly credible tale right along. A first mystery with sequels planned. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. WHY LIN CARTER'S NAME KEEPS COMING UP. When the subject of contemporaries of Edgar Rice Burroughs come up Lin Carter's name is often mentioned. Most fans of Ed Burroughs have read Carter's homages Jandar of Callisto, the Green Star series, or Thongor of Lemuria. Many have also read his collaborations with L. Sprague De Camp on the Conan books of Robert E. Howard. A much smaller set of ERB fans is aware that Carter was an editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and wrote a number of science ficiton titles for Ace during the 1960s. Beyond that, however, few know much about the life of Lin Carter, me included. When asked "What do you know about Lin Carter's life?" I've had answers such as "war hero," "drug user," "hack," "bum," "sf fan club speaker," "failure." I never knew Lin Carter personally, so I thought I'd find out a little about this author who keeps turning up in discussions at erblist.com. Here's the short version: As a young boy Lin Carter grew up reading kid fantasy such as Baum's Oz, and later grew into pulp fantasy and science fiction. He attended a cartoonist's school. Carter spent 1951 to 1953 in the Army during the Korean War�as a clerical typist in the back area. He was slightly injured in an accident which resulted in a Purple Heart. Upon his return Carter used his G I Bill funds to attend Columbia University in the 1950s, apparently with no intention of ever graduating; however his money ran out and he took work as an advertising writer. During the next two decades Carter turned out a few titles of his own, but is more known as his time as an editor for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series which was responsible for reviving and reprinting nearly forgotten works by James Branch Cabel, Lord Dunsay, and others. He was later an editor for DAW and Dell, also in fantasy/sf fields. Carter's efforts as an editor included a number of brilliant essays and analyses of what is Fantasy and how to write it. Burroughs fans will want to obtain a copy of his Imaginary Worlds (Ballantine) which contains a chapter on the works of ERB. Carter was instrumental in organizing sci-fi fandom in and about the New Jersey area. In later years he was often a guest speaker at these gatherings. Between 1967 and 1982 Carter worked with L. Sprague de Camp in extending the Conan series by Robert E. Howard. Thongor of Lemuria was Carter's homage to Howard�a traveling barbarian adventurer. As a fictional hero Thongor is nothing new, but the stories are competently written and have a charm of their own. The Callisto and Green Star series were inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars and Venus tales. Carter also produced many short stories based on fantasy worlds by Lovecraft, Smith (Clark Ashton), etc. When asked why he chose to write in the vein of earlier authors rather than in his own voice, Lin Carter is known to have responded he wrote what he liked and that writing novels of his own would be tedious. In his own words: William Morris (1834-1896) Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) E. R. Eddison (1882-1945) A. Merritt (1884-1943) H. P. Lovecraft (1893-1937) J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956) C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) L. Sprague de Camp (1907- ) Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) C. L. Moore (1911- ) Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) Henry Kuttner (1914-1958) Hannes Bok (1914-1964) This obvious enjoyment of earlier writers fueled much of Carter's output as author and editor and for a good many years provided him and his second wife Noel Vreeland Carter with a very comfortable living. She remembers Lin this way: Lin smoked at least two packs of cigarettes and about 9 cups of abominably strong coffee a day. I used to beg him to cut down on both, but he never did, and I am certain that both habits contributed to his early demise. He never used drugs since he considered his mind his great strength, and wanted to keep it sane and unabused. He evidently started drinking in his late years, but while we were married it was wine with dinner, and drinks out with friends, but never to excess, and always in company. Lin was a successful advertising man, but when his group was fired for an unsuccessful Wolfschmidt's Vodka ad campaign, I suggested he do what he had always wanted -- just come home and write full time. It was out of that rather risky time that he wrote and sold Tolkien, a Look Behind the Lord of the Rings, and began editing the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series for Betty & Ian Ballantine. Actually, as far as money is concerned, we lived very well in a nine-room house crammed with books, antiques, art, and animals. We gave several large parties a year as well as several smaller ones, traveled to various cons -- World Cons and Philcon, Balticon, etc every year for a decade or more, and gave a party in our hotel room or suite at each con. We lived rather high on the hog, to use a cliche, and while money could be tight at times after he quit advertising to write full time, we lived very well indeed. How Lin lived after I left may be a different story. But from 1963 to 1974, with some financial ups and downs, we lived a rather extravagant life. Carter never wrote the great American novel�never had any intention of doing so, but he was a prolific and intelligent author and editor, particularly in the field of Fantasy literature. Toward the end of his life Lin Carter's emphysema advanced. A series of set backs in his private life resulted in losing the majority of his possessions and eventually his home. Lin Carter died from throat cancer and was cremated. Perhaps these words by Carter which appeared in one of the many introductions he wrote for book collections sums up his life: Some writers are born before their time and produce stories of great charm, beauty, and power for which the world is not quite ready or which a readership has not yet evolved. The fate of such writers is most unfortunate. They live in obscurity and die in neglect, and their stories vanish into the limbo of lost books. ROCKLAND COUNTY AUTHORS. Who are some of the best? And what will they come up with next? BY DR. LOUIS ALPERT. This second article in our series features Mrs. Elizabeth P. Vallone, a writer of historical fiction, who has lived in Rockland County for 40 years. Mrs. Vallone’s last two historical novels include “Barbarossa’s Princess” (book cover pictured), Idea Publications, and “Heaven, Hell and Hoboken,” Idea Press.