 Cover of first edition | |
| Author | Lin Carter |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Walter Velez |
| Language | English |
| Series | Terra Magica |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | DAW Books |
Publication date | 1988 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 252 |
| ISBN | 0-88677-262-1 |
| OCLC | 17528374 |
| 813.54 .C246c | |
| LC Class | PR6039.O32 C34 1988 |
| Preceded by | Mandricardo |
Callipygia: Further Adventures in Terra Magica is afantasy novel by American writerLin Carter, the fourth and last in his series about the fictional "Flat Earth" of Terra Magica. It was first published in paperback byDAW Books in February 1988. A trade paperback edition was published byWildside Press in 2002, with an ebook edition following from Gateway/Orion in January 2020.[1]
The novel's setting of Terra Magica is "the world as imagined byDark Age European geographers andbestiary-writers," envisioned as one that "actually exists as a world parallel to our own. There magic works,hippogryphs andmantichores roam free, the earth is flat, paynims worshipTermagant, and there is noWestern Hemisphere."[2]
Bickering lovers Callipygia theAmazon and Prince Mandricardo ofTartary (descendant of thefamous one) continue their quest through Terra Magica, seeking their way home to their happily ever after amid the perils of the fabled lands they traverse. Finding themselves trapped on aflying island none have ever escaped, they are launched into new adventures into far-distant realms, involving magic, menace, awishing ring and anogre's wrath.
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.
Carter "admits to having got the idea for the [Terra Magica series] from 'Thackeray's delightful treatise,The Rose and the Ring, a splendid spoof of fairy tales,'" with "nods to other fantasy classics as well," includingBaum'sThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz,Cabell'sThe High Place,Beckford'sVathek, andVance'sThe Dying Earth.[2]
Robert M. Price, writes "[a]ll the faults of [Carter's] Gondwane andGreen 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 [readers] will 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 "[t]here are some things, many things, from which [such] does not exempt a writer," including repetitiveness, failure to think things through in advance, poor continuity that "credit[s] exploits from ... previous book[s] 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, "[t]here 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."[3]