''Mandricardo : New Adventures in Terra Magica'' is a

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

novel by American writer

Lin Carter Linwood Vrooman Carter (June 9, 1930 – February 7, 1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft (for an H. P. Lov ...

, the third in his series about the fictional "

Flat Earth Flat Earth is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of the Figure of the Earth, Earth's shape as a Plane (geometry), plane or Disk (mathematics), disk. Many ancient cultures, notably in the cosmology in the ancient Near East, anci ...

" of Terra Magica. It was first published in paperback by

DAW Books DAW Books is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher, founded by Donald A. Wollheim, with his wife, Elsie B. Wollheim, following his departure from Ace Books in 1971. The company claims to be "the first publishing company ever devoted ...

in January 1987. A trade paperback edition was published by

Wildside Press Wildside Press is an independent publishing company in Cabin John, Maryland. It was founded in 1989 by John Betancourt and Kim Betancourt. While the press was originally conceived as a publisher of speculative fiction in both trade and limite ...

in 2001, with an ebook edition following from Gateway/Orion in March 2020.

Plot summary

The novel's setting of Terra Magica is "the world as imagined by

Dark Age The ''Dark Ages'' is a term for the Early Middle Ages (–10th centuries), or occasionally the entire Middle Ages (–15th centuries), in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterises it as marked by economic, int ...

European geographers and

bestiary A bestiary () is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beas ...

-writers," envisioned as one that "actually exists as a world parallel to our own. There magic works, hippogryphs and mantichores roam free, the earth is flat, paynims worship

Termagant Text from a manuscript of the ''Chanson de Guillaume'': ''Tresque il vendreit de aurer Tervagant'' In the Middle Ages, Termagant or Tervagant was the name of a god that some European Christians believed Muslims worshipped. It originates in the el ...

, and there is no

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...

."Price, Robert M. ''Lin Carter: A Look Behind His Imaginary Worlds''. Mercer Island, WA, Starmont House, 1991, page 86. The story features two characters introduced in previous volumes, Mandricardo of

Tartary Tartary (Latin: ''Tartaria''; ; ; ) or Tatary () was a blanket term used in Western European literature and cartography for a vast part of Asia bounded by the Caspian Sea, the Ural Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, and the northern borders of China, ...

, namesake of his purported

ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...

from Carolingian legend, and his lady love, the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

Callipygia. The bickering duo resumes their quest through Terra Magica in adventures involving a

magic carpet A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its user(s) to their destination. In literature On ...

, a

troll A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...

's ring, a salamandre and undina, the wicked enchanter Gorgonzola and his assistant Limburger, and such other worthies as Akhdar the Green, Ithuriel, and various princesses, nabobs and demons. Again, chapter notes at the end of the book reference the sources in earlier fantasy literature of various creatures and character and place names used by the author.

Sources

Carter "admits to having got the idea for the erra Magica seriesfrom ' Thackeray's delightful treatise, ''

The Rose and the Ring ''The Rose and The Ring'' is a satirical work of fantasy fiction written by William Makepeace Thackeray, originally published on Christmas in 1854, though the first edition is dated 1855. It criticises, to some extent, the attitudes of the monar ...

'', a splendid spoof of fairy tales,'" with "nods to other fantasy classics as well," including Baum's ''

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a 1900 children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the ma ...

'', Cabell's ''

The High Place ''The High Place'' (subtitled ''A Comedy of Disenchantment'') is a 1923 fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell, first published in hardcover by Robert M. McBride in an edition illustrated by Frank C. Pape. It is the eighth volume in the Storisende ...

'', Beckford's ''

Vathek ''Vathek'' (alternatively titled ''Vathek, an Arabian Tale'' or ''The History of the Caliph Vathek'') is a Gothic novel written by William Beckford. It was composed in French beginning in 1782, and then translated into English by Reverend Sa ...

'', and Vance's ''

The Dying Earth ''The Dying Earth'' is a collection of science fantasy/fantasy short fiction by American writer Jack Vance, published by Hillman in 1950. Vance returned to the setting in 1965 and thereafter, making it the first book in the ''Dying Earth'' ser ...

''.

Reception

Robert M. Price Robert McNair Price (born July 7, 1954) is an American New Testament scholar who argues in favor of the Christ myth theorythe claim that a historical Jesus did not exist. Price is the author of a number of books on biblical studies and the hi ...

, writes " l the faults of arter's Gondwane and Green Star books are collected here. The humor is broader and more ham-handed than ever. ... Or at least it's supposed to be. ... I suspect that most eaderswill find it growing a bit thin before arriving at the end of several volumes of it." While conceding the series is intended as a parody or spoof, he notes " ere are some things, many things, from which

uch Uch (; ), frequently referred to as Uch Sharīf (; ; ''"Noble Uch"''), is a historic city in the Pakistan's Punjab province. Uch may have been founded as Alexandria on the Indus, a town founded by Alexander the Great during his invasion of t ...

does not exempt a writer," including repetitiveness, failure to think things through in advance, poor continuity that "credit exploits from ... previous book to the wrong character," and an "intrusively and self-consciously cute" authorial voice. Price also observes that the protagonists, supposedly warriors, "scarcely ever lift a sword;" indeed, " ere is almost no fighting, only a series of perils and escapes, an endless chain of rescues by magicians, fairy godmothers, flying carpets, wishing rings, etc."Price, Robert M. ''Lin Carter: A Look Behind His Imaginary Worlds''. Mercer Island, WA, Starmont House, 1991, pages 86-87. Lynn F. Williams in ''Fantasy Review'', characterizing the book (and series) as "burlesque sword and sorcery adventure," notes its appearance with the observation that "Carter has now produced a third volume ... ''Why'', the Lord only knows." While conceding there is nothing "inherently wrong with

a lighthearted adventure tale," she scores the author for his "archly cute style" ("unbearably heavy-handed and un-funny"), and addiction to words like "tummy" and character names like Gorgonzola and Limburger. "However, Carter's worst crime is that he makes Mandricardo talk in a dreadful 'tally-ho, you blighter' style and then has the nerve to blame it on the influence of

T. H. White Terence Hanbury "Tim" White (29 May 1906 – 17 January 1964) was an English writer. He is best known for his Arthurian novels, which were published together in 1958 as '' The Once and Future King''. One of his best known is the first of the s ...

." She concludes that " is book should have been marketed as a juvenile. I doubt that anyone past the third grade will be able to stand it."Williams, Lynn F. Review in ''Fantasy Review'', March 1987.

References

{{Lin Carter (books) 1987 American novels 1987 fantasy novels Novels by Lin Carter DAW Books books