Thongor still reigns as king upon the throne of Patanga, but while he is off on a personal mission, his 16-year-old son, Thar, rules in his absence. When Thar learns that the ally kingdom of Kathool is attacked by mysterious enemies riding upon dragons, he takes it upon himself to investigate and eventually finds that the attack came from inhabitants of a mysterious dark world deep within the Earth, with shadowy forces in power over them that are bent on the total subjugation of Lemuria….
Thongor Conquers the Underground World was taken from the notes of a bare skeleton of a novel intended as Vol. 7 of Carter’s Thongor Saga and left behind after Lin Carter died and found by the manager of his estate and sword and sorcery scholar Robert M. Price. The physical copy of the novel is more of a novella and clocks in at just a little over 100 pages, and I thought the asking price was a little steep at $18 for so little pages, so I decided to buy it for my Kindle instead for $6.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a helluva lot because of my experience with a lot of the disappointing content I read in Robert M. Price’s Thongor short story collection, The Sword of Thongor. And I didn’t really get a lot either. I suppose the novella did have its moments at times with its action sequences and certain revelations, and some of the characters, plus a couple of surprises. But Thongor wasn’t at the center of the story; it was his son, Thar, who, at least to me, isn’t as compelling a character. Yes, he comes in later in the story, but….well, he just doesn’t seem quite like Carter’s Thongor. This, I suppose, is the downside of pastiches, but this wasn’t supposed to be a total pastiche, but more a resurrection of an abandoned novel. It wasn’t totally horrible, even though the ending was rushed and underwhelming. In summation, my opinion of the entire Thongor Series, works by Price included, is that it was on the whole mediocre. It had its moments like the first book and the fourth book in the saga, and also the short stories written by Carter, but nothing about it completely wowed and impressed me and left me thinking about it for days afterward, like other sword and sorcery sagas, such as Robert E. Howard’s Conan, Michael Moorcock’s Elric and Hawkmoon, Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane, Richard L. Tierney’s Simon of Gitta, and Charles R. Saunders’ Imaro.
I give Thongor Conquers the Underground World by Lin Carter & Robert M. Price a 3 out of 5.
jwwrightauthor 