had chosen other paths in life. In The Wooden Sea
(2001), Carroll’s best novel, a police officer is con-
fronted by a dead dog that refuses to remain buried,
a mysterious figure who gives him the ability to
travel in time, and the unexpected appearance of a
younger version of himself. Ultimately, he learns
the purpose of human existence. A man is brought
back from the dead in White Apples(2002) in order
to play a pivotal role in the safety of his unborn son,
who has extraordinary powers.
Carroll’s fantasy novels, which often contain
elements normally associated with horror fiction,
are so original and unconventional that they defy
comparison. His prose is fluid and intelligent, and
his insights into human personalities are insightful
and revealing. His short fiction appears infre-
quently but is of the same high quality as his nov-
els, particularly “FRIEND’S BEST MAN” (1987),
which received the World Fantasy Award, “Mr.
Fiddlehead” (1989), and “The Life of My Crime”
(1992). Most of his stories have been collected in
The Panic Hand (1995), recipient of the Bram
Stoker Award. Carroll should not be confused with
another writer of the same name, who writes
young adult fiction.
Carroll, Lewis(1832–1898)
Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematician whose fan-
tasies for young children include ALICE IN WON-
DERLAND (1865) and THROUGH THE LOOKING
GLASS(1871), which are probably the most widely
known children’s fantasies ever written. Both
books are episodic adventures of young Alice, a
girl from our world who stumbles into alternate re-
alities, in one case by following a rabbit into his
hole, in the other by stepping through a mirror.
Unlike most children’s literature published previ-
ously, they glorified nonsense and were not de-
signed to teach a moral lesson or illustrate any
particular point, but just to provide a zany form of
entertainment. Carroll’s inspired nonsense is time-
less and speaks just as clearly to the present gener-
ation as it did to children, and many adults, when
it first appeared.
Although the first of Alice’s adventures is the
more popular, it is actually the sequel that is a
more consistent, integrated novel and is arguably
the better of the two at least in a literary sense.
Both contain nonsense verses that contain phrases
familiar even to those who have never read the
books. A section of the second novel that was cut
from the original published edition later appeared
as a chapbook under the title “The Wasp in a
Wig.” There have been many sequels and imita-
tions, but none measured up to the original. Car-
roll also wrote another mild fantasy novel, Sylvie
and Bruno (1889), which has been almost com-
pletely forgotten. Readers interested in more detail
about the Alice books should try The Annotated
Alice(1960).Carter, Lin(1930–1988)
Lin Carter started his career as a novelist with The
Wizard of Lemuria(1965), the first in a series of
barbarian adventure novels in the style of Robert
E. HOWARD. Although the stories contain all the
elements of sword and sorcery, he rationalized the
magic as “super science,” and the series is techni-
cally science fiction. The majority of his later nov-
els also fall into that genre, many of them written
in imitation of the styles of Edgar Rice Burroughs,
Leigh Brackett, and other writers who he admired.
His other early fantasies were pedestrian, including
the quest story The Flame of Iridar(1967), Lost
World of Time(1969), which pits a barbarian hero
against the inevitable evil sorcerer, Quest of Kadji
(1971), the story of a young man determined to
drive the usurper from his throne, and its sequel,
The Wizard of Zao(1978). The Black Star(1973)
was the best of his early heroic fantasies, and Tara
of the Twilight(1979), which featured a female pro-
tagonist and some atypical, self-conscious sexual
encounters, was probably his most ambitious effort.
The Zarkon series, which consists of Nemesis
of Evil(1975), Invisible Death(1975), The Volcano
Ogre(1976), and the later additions The Earth-
Shaker(1982) and Horror Wears Blue(1987), were
written as imitations of Doc Savage, a brawny and
brainy hero of a series of sometimes fantastic ad-
venture novels originally published in the pulp
magazines. Zarkon and his friends defeat a variety
of villains, usually equipped with plans for world
domination or an empire of crime, but unlike the48 Carroll, Lewis